Back Issue #4

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

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MARVEL MILESTONES: BYRNE! CLAREMONT! SIMONSON! WEIN! ZECK!

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WALT ON & SIMONS JOE CASEY

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ALL CHARACTERS TM & ©2004 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

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Face front, true believer! It’s our The Ultimate Comics Experience!

Volume 1, Number 4 June 2004 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, and Today!

EDITOR Michael Eury

Milestones issue!

EDITORIAL: REMEMBERING JULIUS SCHWARTZ ..............................................................2 The Marvel Universe owes a debt of gratitude to this late, great DC editor

PUBLISHER John Morrow

PRO2PRO: CHRIS CLAREMONT AND JOHN BYRNE.......................................................3 The legendary X-Men creative team discusses Wolverine

DESIGNER Robert Clark PROOFREADER Eric Nolen-Weathington SCANNING AND IMAGE MANIPULATION Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST John Byrne COVER COLORIST Tom Ziuko CONTRIBUTORS Jack Abel Arthur Adams Ross Andru Terry Austin Bob Budiansky John Buscema John Byrne Joe Casey Paul Chadwick Chris Claremont Dave Cockrum Gene Colan Gerry Conway Mike Esposito Michael Eury David Hamilton Russ Heath Adam Hughes Dan Johnson Gil Kane Jack Kirby

“Marvel”

Erik Larsen Jim Lee Rob Liefeld Todd McFarlane Frank Miller Brian K. Morris George Pérez John Romita Sr. Joe Rubinstein Peter Sanderson Marc Silvestri Walter Simonson Roy Thomas Tim Townsend Herb Trimpe Len Wein Bob Wiacek Al Williamson Barry WindsorSmith Mike Zeck

THE GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: I WAS A TEENAGE WOLVERINE! ...................................................................................................26 Creator Len Wein spills the beans on teen Wolverine HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WOLVERINE! ART GALLERY .............................................................32 Art by Arthur Adams, Colan and Williamson, Hughes and Townsend, Miller and Rubinstein, Pérez and Austin ROUGH STUFF: WOLVERINE SPOTLIGHT .............................................................................36 Wolverine pencil art by J. Buscema, Byrne, Chadwick, Cockrum, Hughes, Kane, Larsen, Lee, Liefeld, Silvestri, and Simonson!

SECRET WARS 20TH ANNIVERSARY QUIZ...........................................................................47 Test your knowledge of Marvel’s first crossover. With unpublished Mike Zeck art!

BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: THE PUNISHER......................................................................50 How Marvel’s vigilante went from antagonist to anti-hero PRO2PRO: WALTER SIMONSON AND JOE CASEY........................................................62 Relive the days of Simonson’s Thor, with never-before-published artwork BACK IN PRINT: THE CHRONICLES OF CONAN .............................................................83 Dark Horse’s reprints of Marvel’s classics, plus a “New in Print” glimpse at the new Conan and Iron Fist series BACK TALK.........................................................................................................................................................86 Reader feedback on issue #2

SPECIAL THANKS Spencer Beck Jerry Boyd Glen Cadigan Comic Book Database Ken Danker Nick Ford Jedimaster Garay Grand Comics Database Scott Green

Heritage Comics Sean Kleefeld Richard Kolkman Ted Latner Wayne Osborne Brent Peterson John Petty Rose Rummel-Eury Kevin VanHorn Jim Warden

BACK ISSUE™ is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. BACK ISSUE Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 5060A Foothills Dr., Lake Oswego, OR 97034. Email: euryman@msn.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $30 Standard US, $48 First Class US, $60 Canada, $66 Surface International, $90 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Wolverine, X-Men, Alpha Flight, Iron Fist, the Incredible Hulk, Wendigo, Spider-Man, Punisher, Marvel Super-Heroes: Secret Wars, Magneto, Captain America, Thor, Beta Ray Bill, and all other related characters TM & © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. Superman, Batman, and the Doom Patrol TM & © 2004 DC Comics. Conan TM & © 2004 Conan Properties International, LLC. All editorial matter © 2004 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

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Remembering Julie Schwartz Julius Schwartz, comics’ most legendary editor,

series, the return of the original Captain Marvel in

died on February 8, 2004, at age 88.

Shazam!, and an unprecedented 16-year editorial

Julie is best known as the father of comics’ Silver Age. His 1957 revival of DC’s scarlet speedster, the

I first met Julie Schwartz on June 22, 1985, at the

Flash, ignited a wildfire of character resurrections that

Charlotte, NC, Heroes Convention, when I interviewed

recharged the super-hero genre. That you know.

him (and Swan and Anderson) for a Superman panel.

What you may not know is that the “Marvel Age

and editorial staffs

But I first “met” him in print when I was an elemen-

of Comics” of the 1960s owes its start not to Stan Lee

tary-school student in the late 1960s, in the days before

or Jack Kirby, but to DC’s Julie Schwartz.

DC credited its creative teams. I recall reading “Julius

Legend has it that during an early 1960s golf game,

DC Comics’ production

run on the Superman titles.

Schwartz, editor” in the indicias of my favorite DC

DC’s publisher Jack Liebowitz enjoyed some bragging

titles and thinking, That must be a cool job! By the

rights over the phenomenal sales of his new title

time I finally got that cool job and landed at DC in

starring a team of super-heroes, Justice League of America

1989, Julie had officially retired but remained a con-

surprised Julius Schwartz

—a concept brainstormed by its editor, Julius Schwartz—

sultant, stopping by the offices each Wednesday for

by bumping the

to Marvel Comics’ publisher Martin Goodman. Goodman

visits I grew to cherish. He also represented the com-

planned contents of

marched back into the Marvel office and mandated

pany on the convention trail for many more years.

1985’s Superman #411

his editor/writer, Stan Lee, to create a group of super-

and substituting this

heroes for his company’s line. The result was Fantastic

Julius Schwartz’s footsteps as the editor of DC’s cheeky

special 70th birthday

Four #1, cover dated November 1961, the comic that

character Ambush Bug. In Ambush Bug Nothing Special

tribute story featuring

launched the entire Marvel Universe. So without Julie,

(1992), the unemployed Bug covets Julie’s “cushy job”

there might have been no Marvel Milestones to com-

as DC’s goodwill ambassador, but upon finding out

memorate this issue.

that Julie has the post for life, decides to travel into the

Julie himself (along with cameos from many other DCers). © 1985 DC Comics.

In the early 1990s, I had the honor of following in

Julius Schwartz’s myriad accomplishments as an

future to a time when Julie’s no longer around. No

agent for science-fiction authors and as the driving

matter how far into the future the Bug goes, Julie

force for so many of the Silver Age’s super-heroes is

Schwartz is always there!

well documented. I’d like to instead acknowledge some

Plotter/penciler Keith Giffen, writer Bob Fleming,

of his achievements that took place during the era of

and I shared a gaggle of guffaws at good-natured Julie’s

BACK ISSUE’s focus, the Bronze Age of the 1970s and

expense in the Nothing Special. But we really believed

the (early) Modern Age of the 1980s. Julie nurtured a

our joke that Julie was immortal. And you

wealth of new writing talent, from Len Wein to Elliot

know what? We were right.

S! Maggin. He united Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson

Julius Schwartz may no longer be

as “Swanderson,” one of the finest artistic teams to

among us in body, but each time one

ever draw Superman, and routinely paired another

of us reads a Superman or Batman comic

creative team supreme, penciler Neal Adams and

book, or when one of our children tunes

inker Dick Giordano.

in to the latest episode of Justice League,

Additionally, Julie was the editor of Batman’s detour

we keep his spirit alive.

to his “creature of the night” roots, the 1970 “There’s a new kind of Superman coming!” revamp of the Man of Steel, the groundbreaking Green Lantern/Green Arrow

Future-Schwartz, eternal editor.

From Ambush Bug Nothing Special. © 1992 DC Comics.

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Michael Eury, editor

Claremont and Byrne: Interview s condu

by Pete cted and transcri

son

interview

r Sander

bed

No writer-artist team at Marvel has come close to equaling the creative brilliance of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, with the possible exception of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. But the team of Chris Claremont and John Byrne came closer than anyone else. From Uncanny X-Men #108 through #143, they revolutionized the super-hero team book, created storylines that still resonate nearly a quarter century later, and memorably shaped the personalities of characters old and new.

Byrne and Claremont did not create Wolverine, but it was through their partnership that the character truly caught fire. Building on the considerable contributions of his co-creator Len Wein and artist Dave Cockrum, Claremont and Byrne developed Wolverine from a feisty, somewhat comical supporting character into not only a star, but a new kind of super-hero: more violent, more psychologically unstable, and yet with a genuine nobility.

Byrne and Claremont had, and have, very different creative visions, and so it was inevitable that they parted as a team, each to go on to an extraordinarily successful career. In fact, readers may be surprised to see in these “Pro2Pro” interviews just how widely different Claremont and Byrne’s concepts of Wolverine are from each other.

Currently, Byrne and Claremont have again teamed up for a project, JLA #94–99. But in this case, Claremont is simply providing dialogue for Byrne’s plot; it is not the close collaboration that they had on X-Men, in which they jointly brainstormed the stories. That kind of creative partnership will not happen again; both men have changed and moved on.

But for that short time that they worked together on X-Men, a little over three years, those disparate creative visions merged into a

Byrne’s First X-Men This mid-1970s illo (right) was John Byrne’s first rendition of Marvel’s mutants. Note the influence of thenX-Men artist Dave Cockrum in Byrne’s version of Storm.

Courtesy of Wayne Osbourne.

coherent artistic whole. Wolverine, as we know him today, is one of the results of that brief, groundbreaking collaboration between two of the most important comics creators of their generation.

Ideally, a “Pro2Pro” interview would be conducted with all the participants in the same place at the same time. In this case, though, I ended up doing separate phone interviews with Chris and John. I’ve edited the transcripts so that one person’s response to a question will segue into the other’s comments on the same subject. It’s the next best thing to being there. —Peter Sanderson

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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PETER SANDERSON: Let’s go all

the artist who focused more in on Wolverine as a character.

the way back to the beginning.

It was under John’s pen that he blossomed.

How did your conception of

SANDERSON: How so? Did John want to use him more, or

Wolverine way back in the ’70s dif-

did he draw him differently?

fer from Len [Wein]’s?

CLAREMONT: The interesting thing is actually that Dave is

CHRIS CLAREMONT: Well, Len

the one who came up with the look, the hairline.

thought he was 19 years old [see

SANDERSON: Dave came up with what he looked like

this issue’s “Greatest Stories Never

unmasked and with the hair, and I assume he’s the one who

Told” for the full story]. Len’s original idea was the claws were in the gloves.

SANDERSON: Is this something he told you when you took over the book, or did you find out later?

CLAREMONT: Well, we found out later. Dave [Cockrum] and I talked about it. Dave said Len thought the claws were in the gloves and he and I both agreed, why? If they’re in the gloves, then anybody could wear the gloves.

SANDERSON: It raises the question of what made Wolverine a mutant in the original stories, since the healing factor was-

Bad to the Adamantium Bone

n’t established back then.

CLAREMONT: Well, the healing factor was always part of it.

Dave and I figured it would be much more fun if the claws

Wolverine, by

were integral.

John Byrne.

SANDERSON: I don’t know if the healing factor was always

Date unknown.

part of it, unless it’s something that Dave and Len talked

came up with the Western look of dressing.

CLAREMONT: Pretty much. ’Cause that was consistent with western Canada, the idea that he came out of the mountains of Alberta, so he should look like a Westerner. John just liked him more. Dave’s signature character was Nightcrawler; John’s turned out to be Wolverine. You glom onto a certain guy.

SANDERSON: John, why did you pick Wolverine as your character when you started on X-Men? JOHN BYRNE: Because he was a Canadian. [Byrne was born in England, spent much of his life in Canada, and now lives in the United States.] Chris and Dave [Cockrum] had said quite openly they could never figure out what to do with him. Dave’s favorite character clearly was Nightcrawler.

When I started, Chris was still conferring with Dave on the plot, and I was really just the art robot for the first two or three issues, until finally I just protested and said, Excuse me [laughs], it’s not Dave any more. And Chris told me at one point, “We’re going to write Wolverine out because we don’t know what to do with him.”

SANDERSON: Really!

about that wasn’t actually written into the stories. I don’t

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

believe it’s mentioned in Len’s stories [the initial Wolverine appearances in Incredible Hulk and Giant-Size X-Men #1].

CLAREMONT: In terms of his fighting the Hulk, otherwise what would make him a mutant?

SANDERSON: Yeah.

CLAREMONT: We needed something that made him a mutant, something that made him unique. The claws were obviously artificial, and if the claws were part of the glove, what made him a mutant? The reductium of the equation was

what

makes

him

a

mutant

is

the

healing

factor. But if he has a healing factor, what about the claws?

Well, let us make the claws part of him. The healing factor enables him to survive with the claws. Dave and I thought, this is cool, we’ll run with it.

SANDERSON: Did Dave and you differ in any way on what Wolverine should be like? Some people think Dave treated Wolverine more as a comedic character, who’d be the butt of jokes.

CLAREMONT: Dave’s focus was more on different characters. Certainly in the first run of [X-Men] books [that Cockrum drew], his first tenure on the series, we were busy e s t a b l i s h i n g e v e r y b o d y. H i s i n t e r e s t w a s m o r e i n Nightcrawler, say, and Phoenix and Storm. John [Byrne] was

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Ready to Rumble A 1976 Wolverine sketch by Byrne. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

BYRNE: Yep. And I stamped my little foot and said there is no way you’re writing out the only Canadian character. And so I made him mine. Whenever I do a group book I make one character mine and sort of focus on that character so I have a focus for the book. And I made him mine, and I guess I can now say a big mea culpa, right? [laughs] SANDERSON: Do you think it’s true that when Dave was on the book, Wolverine was more like a comedy character?

BYRNE: He was. He was like comedy relief. He was getting punched into orbit. Actually, that happened in my first issue, but it was a leftover Dave idea.

SANDERSON: Wolverine’s unmasked face is much more distinctive than most super-heroes’.

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BYRNE: Yeah, that was Dave’s.

SANDERSON: Was that hard to get a handle on drawing?

: Cyberspacedially Chris”

BYRNE: It was hard to get the hair to work. In my entire run I was never

or Co-hosts “C ms, iX-Fan Foru forum at Com com/xfan/ n. fa www.comix forums

satisfied with how I drew his hair when he had his mask off. It was something about the way the flat part on the front had to kind of blend into the plumes on the side. Of course, it was much slicker in my day; it wasn’t as wild as it is now. It’s probably much easier to draw now, drawing it as scruffy as it is.

SANDERSON: Would you say that as you got more interested in Wolverine’s character that Chris started to follow along in your wake?

BYRNE: To some extent. Chris did express a concern to [editor in chief Jim] Shooter that he was losing control of the characters at one point, ’cause more and more of it was mine. Especially when [Roger] Stern and I were un-indicted co-conspirators when Roger was editing the book.

SANDERSON: Since you adopted Wolverine, how did you get the idea to start doing Wolverine as this tough, military kind of guy?

BYRNE: That’s who he seemed to be. When he was first introduced in Hulk and when he was enlisted by Xavier in Giant-Size [X-Men] #1 he was a military agent. He’d probably be a Mountie. Much of the stuff that’s done by the CIA and the Secret Service and whatnot in the United States is handled by the Mounted Police in Canada.

SANDERSON: Wolverine in a Mountie uniform is something we’ve never seen and I immediately want to see this.

BYRNE: This would be scary, wouldn’t it? He’s probably too short and he’d scare the horses. [laughs] It just seemed a natural progression from what we’d seen of the character that his background was covert military.

SANDERSON: Who was it who came up with the name “Logan”?

BYRNE: Chris. Or at least it predates me. It might have been Dave’s; I don’t know. Chris did not know this, but I did point out that Mount Logan is the tallest mountain in Canada. It’s not a very Canadian-sounding name. I would think of a cowboy when I think of somebody named Logan. He sort of is a cowboy.

Beginnings :

First compl ete story ar t: Wheelie the Chopper and Bunch #2 (1 975)

Milestones :

Doomsday +1 / Rog 20 00 / Iron Fist Up / Uncan / Marvel Te ny X-Men / amCaptain Am Four /Alpha erica / Fant Flight / Incr astic edible Hulk Superman / Man of Ste / Sensation el / al She-Hul Sub-Mariner k / Namor / Wolverine the / John Byrne Wonder W oman / Jack ’s Next Men / Kirby’s Four Men: The H th World / X idden Year s / Superman Generations and Batman / Fearbook : and Whipp ing Boy nove Works in P ls ro g re ss: JLA / The D oom Patrol / DC Comic s Presents (Julius Sch wartz tribut e book) / True Brit

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John Byrne Forum: www.netw ork54.com/ Hide/Forum /248951; writes “IM O” column www.ugo.c om/channel s/ comics/feat ures/johnby rne/ imo/html

SANDERSON: Chris, where did Logan’s name come from?

CLAREMONT: Mount Logan, a mountain in Canada.

SANDERSON: Was that your idea or John’s?

CLAREMONT: I think it was John’s. I don’t know, might have been mine. Or Dave’s. I’d have to go back and look. But the idea was the tallest mountain being the name of the shortest character.

SANDERSON: And that leads to another question. Why is it important that Wolverine is short?

CLAREMONT: Why does every character have to be 6’ 3”?

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SANDERSON: Well, you could well ask the makers of the X-

with a guy who was 6’ 4” if we wrote it right. But it

Men movies this.

certainly gives him an extra layer. There’s not too many

Taking a Slice Out of Chrome

CLAREMONT: Well, ’cause Hugh Jackman is 6’ 3” and a real

super-heroes who are running around who are 5’ 1”

hunk. To me the image I used to have of Wolverine when I

or whatever he’s supposed to be.

The cover to

was writing the book years ago was Bob Hoskins. Not fero-

It’s not absolutely vital that he be 5’ 1”. But I figure as

ciously tall, but incredibly, dynamically frightening when he

long as that’s the way he’s been portrayed, that’s the way

X-Men #115

gets his anger up. The point with Logan is that people

he should be portrayed. It’s one of my little bugaboos when

(1978), signed

always have underestimated him because of his size,

they do adaptations. It’s like if this character is a

by the artists.

because of his manner. Then he explodes into action and

6’ 2” redheaded Amazon, she shouldn’t be played by

Courtesy of

there’s nothing left standing. With Colossus you expect it;

Whoopi Goldberg. It’s not like adapting a novel. We know

with Wolverine you don’t, or shouldn’t.

what these characters look like. I thought X-Men, with the

SANDERSON: John, why is it important that Wolverine is

exception of Halle Berry, who looked exactly like the Storm

Terry Austin. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

short? Why is it that Hugh Jackman is too tall to play him?

that I drew, except for her hair, was horribly cast.

BYRNE: It’s not important. It’s just the way it is.

SANDERSON: I don’t know. I don’t mind Patrick Stewart.

SANDERSON: Does it add something to the character?

BYRNE: He wasn’t the Professor Xavier who lives inside my

BYRNE: It probably has a lot to do with who he is and his

head. He got the job because he’s the bald guy. And if we

general mentality. I’m sure we could get to the same place

made this movie twenty years ago, he would have been Telly Savalas, and if we’d made it forty years ago, he would’ve been Yul Brynner. That’s the way Hollywood works.

SANDERSON: Apart from the height, what do you think of Wolverine in the movies?

CLAREMONT: I think it’s fine. Hugh Jackman did a spectacular performance. It was everything I wanted out of it. You could always wish for more screen time and fight choreography, and I wish the kiss with Jean had gone on to something more important, but I thought he was totally kickass. I have no problem with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. I think if they ever do a Wolverine movie, he’d be the guy.

WOLVERINE’S AGE SANDERSON: Chris, how did you decide to make Wolverine older than 19?

CLAREMONT: It’s the way Dave drew him: he looked older.

As I wrote him more and more, he felt older. We didn’t know about [him being] 19; that was something that Len mentioned years and years later.

SANDERSON: And as time went on you decided that Wolverine was in fact older than he looked.

CLAREMONT: If he has a healing factor, why not?

SANDERSON: When did you decide that in fact Wolverine could possibly be over a century old?

CLAREMONT: The over a century old was something that [was decided] later on. But it was always something we played at, again, as it evolved. Through John’s tenure on the book, through Frank’s [the Claremont/Frank Miller Wolverine] miniseries. Again, it’s like everything else: The more you get to know the character, the more you answer the questions who, what, where, when, why, how, the more you try to differentiate him from the characters around him.

One answer leads you to the next question, the next question leads you to a new answer, and you gradually build the structure of the character.

SANDERSON: John, how did the idea that Wolverine was

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over 100 years old come about?

out just how [laughs] to influ-

BYRNE: It just seemed in my mind to fit the character, the

ence, how to work Chris.

notion that he’s been around a long time. This was a guy

[laughs]

who looked like he’d been around the block a lot of times.

SANDERSON: But obviously

The notion of the healing factor wasn’t as clearly defined

when Hudson came back with

then. We sort of had that general idea, obviously, from him

Alpha Flight [X-Men #120-

surviving being punched into orbit and things like that. But

121], that was your creation.

I got to thinking he looks pretty rough and tumble for a guy

BYRNE: Mostly. Alpha Flight all

who has a healing factor. Maybe he’s been around a long

predated my turning pro.

time. Maybe there’s been a lot of healing that’s had to be

SANDERSON: The Wendigo

done. And that was my objection to the unfortunately

two-parter [X-Men #139-140]

named Hugh Jackman, who I just thought was too pretty for

is where Heather Hudson first

the part, who didn’t look like he’d been around the block

shows up, and James Hudson

enough times.

isn’t just Wolverine’s enemy; it

SANDERSON: I wonder if Wolverine should have had the

seems to me that’s where you

white temples in “Days of Future Past” [X-Men #141 and

started to think about what

142], because it wasn’t that far in the future for someone

exactly Wolverine’s relationship

who ages so slowly.

was with these two.

BYRNE: It wasn’t that far in the future. The main reason for that was shorthand to distinguish him from the present day [version]. It was one of the little things I threw in just so we would have an instant visual click: this is now, this is then.

THE DEER AND THE HUDSONS SANDERSON: I’m going to ask you about some significant

BYRNE: Yeah, again, that’s all the backstory. I knew in great detail how they had stumbled upon him on a camping trip, and he was out in the woods living feral, and they had kind of tamed him and brought him back and given him humanity and all that stuff.

Wolverine bits from your collaboration with John. For exam-

SANDERSON: That’s interest-

ple, there’s the sequence in which Wolverine stalks a deer,

ing, because you didn’t get to tell all that backstory in the

not to kill it but just to touch it, and this surprises Storm. [X-

comics, but [writer] Bill Mantlo did, pretty much doing what

Men #109] How did this come about?

you just said.

CLAREMONT: We wanted to do something that played

BYRNE: Uh-huh.

“Days of Future Past” A pre-paste up

against type. We wanted to use him to illustrate that the

SANDERSON: Did he talk to you about it, or did he just

version of the

readers weren’t the only ones who had misconceptions

stumble upon it on his own?

powerful X-Men

about the character, that there were levels to him, that he

BYRNE: I don’t recall talking directly, but I do like to think

#141 (1981) cover.

was not just this one-dimensional killing machine.

that I in Alpha Flight had [put in] so many of the details so

Otherwise, how could the whole impossible romance with

subtly that if you were paying attention you’d get it. It had

him and Mariko have even begun, much less progressed? If

just never been said in so many words. Which is the ideal

we hadn’t laid the foundation in those issues, Frank and I

way to do it, in my opinion.

Courtesy of Terry Austin. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

would have had nothing to build off of in the [Wolverine] miniseries.

SANDERSON: What about the stalking the deer sequence from the Weapon Alpha issue [#109], where Wolverine is stalking the deer but only wants to touch it?

BYRNE: That was Chris, because that was early enough so

THE FIRST KILLING SANDERSON: Then there’s the “Savage Land” sequence with Wolverine’s off-panel killing of that guard [X-Men #116, the first time Wolverine kills someone in a comic book]. What was the rationale behind that, Chris, and was

that I had not yet started to contribute.

that your idea, John’s, or both?

SANDERSON: I’m surprised by that, because that is the

CLAREMONT: Yes, it was mine or John’s or both. Again, the

issue in which James Hudson first shows up.

idea was he’s not like the others. He is, when necessity aris-

BYRNE: Yeah. The James Hudson stuff in that issue is all

es, a stone killer. Nightcrawler is not. Storm is not: She has

mine, because he was somebody I’d come up with when I

killed, and it’s haunted her ever since. Wolverine, if the need

was still a fan. Everything that has to do directly with him,

requires it, will go out and kill somebody. End of story.

that vanishing by stopping himself relative to the turning of

Won’t think twice about it.

the Earth, that kind of stuff, that’s all mine. But at that point

This was a bone of contention with [Marvel editor in

I was still sort of feeling my way along and trying to figure

chief] Jim [Shooter]. His feeling was, X-Men don’t kill, and

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get from Point A to Point B, and there’s somebody who he considers the enemy in the way, he’s just going to do it the fastest way he knows how. This guy was Canadian military, after all: he’s not trained to do things subtly; he’s trained to solve problems quickly and cleanly. So he just walked up and went—dead!

SANDERSON: Did you two realize when you did this that this was a major turning point in super-hero comics?

BYRNE: Not so much, no. For me, and I assume for Chris, it just fit the character. Before Shooter started messing with it, it was just exactly who the character was. It was the same thing when he sneaks into the Hellfire Club and he’s killing people left, right and center [Uncanny X-Men #133]. That’s because that is what he did.

SANDERSON: But I suspect a factor in this was that you two thought of Wolverine as part of a team and not as someone who would have his own book.

BYRNE: Yeah, well, that was it. The whole notion of Wolverine in my head was that the only reason he was in the X-Men was so he could be controlled. Xavier had brought him in more or less to keep an eye on him.

SANDERSON: Are you surprised by the fact that Wolverine became so popular and got his own series and kills right and left so much that nobody even blinks at it any more?

BYRNE: [laughs] I’m not surprised he became so popular because he is a really cool guy. I wish he hadn’t gotten his own series. I think he’s kind of like a lot of Marvel characters—I always think of the Vision, who’s another really cool character, but who’s mostly cool because he’s in a group of people who aren’t like him. And Wolverine is the same: he’s in a group of people who aren’t like him, and therefore he’s really cool. But if you take him out of that environment, then there’s no checks, no balances, nothing for him to bounce off, then you just have a homicidal maniac running around killing people. It’s kind of hard to root for him,

Canuck Amuck From X-Men #121

though the fans, people who think Superman is a big,

Savage Land guys were still alive somewhere. They were

dumb Boy Scout love Wolverine.

banged up really bad, but he hadn’t killed them. Whereas I

SANDERSON: After the Chris and Frank [Miller Wolverine]

(1979), an encounter

think both John and I felt that it was very important to

series, Wolverine wasn’t being treated as a homicidal mani-

with Alpha Flight.

establish that Wolverine had this inner lethality about him

ac any more; he was under control, but he was still killing

that marked him as different from the rest of the X-Men.

people right and left.

Courtesy of Brent Peterson. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

8

he wanted us to establish that all the Hellfire guards and the

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SANDERSON: It seems to me that this was a big change for

BYRNE: Yeah, well, the Shooter influence was really starting

the super-hero genre at the time, that Wolverine being a

to kick in at that point. Shooter was the one who insisted

killer set the mold for a lot of super-hero characterizations

that everyone that Wolverine had ever killed should turn up

that followed. Were you aware at the time it would have this

alive, possibly with bionic parts.

kind of influence?

SANDERSON: And that Xavier was paying their medical

CLAREMONT: No, because we weren’t aware that X-Men

bills.

was going to have that kind of influence. We were just

BYRNE: Yep.

telling good stories.

SANDERSON: Why was Shooter so upset about this? Just a

SANDERSON: John, how did the famous Wolverine “Savage

feeling that super-heroes should never kill?

Land” sequence come about?

BYRNE: [in Shooter voice] “Heroes shouldn’t kill.” I said,

BYRNE: That was something that Chris and I came up with

well, Wolverine isn’t really a super-hero, is he? Not in the

together. We said this is a totally ruthless guy. If he has to

classic sense, anyway. That was sort of the whole point.

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I have no problem with a character like Wolverine who kills because he shouldn’t be the representation of the whole genre, as it were.

MARIKO SANDERSON: How about Mariko?

BYRNE: Mariko was mine. I had just read Shogun, which Chris had not read at that point. I just absolutely wanted to steal that character, just shamelessly steal the character. And

“To Save the Savage Land”

as you probably know, she was created to die

The X-Men vs. Sauron, from Claremont

CLAREMONT: We kicked around the idea that we’d get into

and Byrne’s X-Men #116 (1978).

a wedding, they’d say I do, Sabretooth would jump out and kill Mariko on the altar and leave, and that would be that.

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

SANDERSON: Now when you say “we,” does this go back to the Byrne days?

CLAREMONT: Yeah. We were always fairly set on that.

SANDERSON: Chris says that you two planned to have Sabretooth kill her.

BYRNE: No, he’s forgotten again, obviously. Sabretooth was going to attack her, but she wasn’t going to die at his hands. She was going to end up basically brain dead and in a hospital and Wolverine just doesn’t believe that she’s gone, and Jean links their minds, and he sees that there’s nobody there and he pulls the plug on her.

SANDERSON: Wow. BYRNE: That was the scene we were going to do.

SANDERSON: Oddly enough, the way that Mariko finally did die was similar: she was poisoned by an enemy, and Wolverine killed her to put her out of her misery [Wolverine #57]. How did the introduction of Mariko come about [XMen #118]?

CLAREMONT: Same thing: we wanted to play against type.

Everyone has a vision of Wolverine. What kind of girlfriend would he have? You run down a list of possibilities, and with Mariko we basically wanted to trump all those preconceptions and just say, “Ha ha! This is the girl he chooses to fall in love with: the absolutely, impossibly unattainable vision of purity.”

SANDERSON: Because that’s what he’s not and he strives for.

CLAREMONT: Right. Absolutely. It’s doomed from the start.

SANDERSON: Do you recall if it was decided first to go to Japan, and then to give Wolverine an interest in Japanese culture and a Japanese girlfriend. Or did you decide to give Wolverine these things and then come up with a story to take him and the X-Men to Japan?

CLAREMONT: I think it was all a matter of ongoing synergy. We were talking at length about all the characters, what we wanted to do with them. My interest in Japanese culture goes back that far, partly because of all the research I had to do when I was doing Iron Fist and the articles and stories I wrote for Deadly Hands of Kung Fu. John was already well hooked on Japanese cinema, Japanese culture, samurai. And

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to me it always seemed the

at the end of both movies they [Edwards and Earp] both

most logical linkage, especially

leave; Earp doesn’t have a place in this safer town.

given the Japanese fascination

CLAREMONT: I think that’s the point: he’s there to facilitate

with Western culture. You could

the creation of civilization, but you always have the sense

take the most North American,

he’s an outsider. That’s sort of a quintessential element in

if you will, of the X-Men and

both [John] Ford’s films and Howard Hawks’: that the hero is

most unrestrained and chaotic,

the outsider. The hero establishes the group, brings the conflict

have him try to embrace the

to a resolution, and then leaves the group, because the very

most structured and ritualistic

nature of his heroism mandates against him ever settling

modern society on Earth. And then, again, give him the unattainable prize: this sweet, innocent princess. And that’s essentially Beauty and the Beast.

SANDERSON: What did you see as the basis of the MarikoWolverine relationship? What created the attraction?

BYRNE: It was a typical yinyang, rough and soft thing.

She was so exactly not right for him [laughs] that it had to be. And I know she got quite a bit tougher after I left. But she was supposed to be the del-

Colossus Splash

icate flower, the porcelain doll that he just instantly falls

violence.

CLAREMONT: The nature of heroism is you have to be able to confront evil on its own terms. That’s what Eastwood’s been doing in his later films. You cannot walk away from some of the things you do without being tainted by it. And with a lot of what the X-Men, certainly members of the X-Men—in my perception Charley [Xavier] being one of them, Logan being another—had to do with a lot of karmic baggage, Jean being a third. If I ever get my hands on Jean again, there’s a lot I would like to do with her in terms of character structure to have her come to terms with all that’s happened in her life.

SANDERSON: John, was Clint Eastwood an influence on

Page one of X-Men

totally in love with because she’s everything that he’s not.

your version of Wolverine?

#140 (1980), by

SANDERSON: Yes, that’s what Chris was saying, and also

BYRNE: No, not mine, no. I know Frank [Miller] based his

Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and

that it was a Beauty and the Beast riff.

Wolverine heavily on Eastwood. My Wolverine is an actor

BYRNE: Yeah, to some extent.

whose name I don’t even know, who’s on camera for all of

WOLVERINE AND THE MOVIES

Shot, and he plays a captain and goalie of an opposing

five minutes in a Paul Newman hockey movie called Slap

Terry Austin.

team. He and Paul Newman have a very X-rated [profanity]

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

SANDERSON: Whose idea was the Dirty Harry sequence [#133], where Wolverine’s talking about his claws and the Hellfire Club guy’s shaking and shivering?

BYRNE: That was Chris, I think.

SANDERSON: Chris, are there any concepts from film that influenced Wolverine’s personality? You mentioned [composer Ennio] Morricone earlier and there’s that Dirty Harry parody sequence in the Hellfire Club storyline [X-Men #133]. So that would suggest a Clint Eastwood connection.

CLAREMONT: Eastwood connection. Also, I found myself liking him as a cross between Henry Fonda’s Wyatt Earp in

. l Characters, Inc © 2004 Marve

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down. It would be rewarded in a classic sense for his sacrifice.

SANDERSON: The nature of his heroism being the use of

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exchange, and it’s just Wolverine. In fact, my ex and I, Andy and I, watched that movie several years after we got married, and as soon as that guy came on-camera she said, “Oh, that’s your Wolverine.” [laughs] SANDERSON: Was he short?

BYRNE: Didn’t appear to be terribly short, but he just had the look. He had the crazy eyes. And that’s what Wolverine needs to have.

SANDERSON: Since we’ve already discussed [Clint] Eastwood, are there any of Toshiro Mifune’s characters in Wolverine?

My Darling Clementine and John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards in

CLAREMONT: I would say there’s sort of a cross between

The Searchers, if I was looking for a classic Western analogy.

Sanjuro and Yojimbo, on the [director Akira] Kuroswa side

[Both are films directed by John Ford.]

of things. [Actually, Mifune plays the same character in both

SANDERSON: For the benefit of those who haven’t seen

films.]

the movies, that would be the difference between a nearly

SANDERSON: Of course, that’s an Eastwood connection,

out-of-control vigilante [Edwards in The Searchers, on an

too. [Yojimbo was the inspiration for A Fistful of Dollars,

obsessive quest for blood vengeance] and a lawman who

in which Eastwood played a role modeled on Mifune’s.]

helps build a civilization.

CLAREMONT: I know. But also a measure of Zatoichi. And

CLAREMONT: I don’t know that I see Fonda’s Earp as a

also, if you want to stretch it, Lone Wolf and Cub. It’s an

builder of civilization.

amalgam of influences. I don’t think that there’s any one

SANDERSON: Well, Earp is seeking vengeance, but he

direct linkage between Kurosawa or samurai cinema and

ensures peace while the townspeople build a civilization. But

Logan. It’s just a giant gestalt.

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© 2004 Marvel Characte rs, Inc.

THE TRIANGLE SANDERSON: Chris, how would you describe Wolverine’s relationship with Jean [Grey, aka Marvel Girl and Phoenix], which is something hinted at during the Byrne years, but which you developed more later?

CLAREMONT: I think we actually came out and said it, because he’s got the photograph of her and Scott, which he tears in half.

SANDERSON: I think in the Byrne years it came across more as a subtext explaining Wolverine’s rivalry with Scott.

CLAREMONT: The thing with Jean is it’s just pure chemistry, they walk into a room together and sparks fly and they have no idea where this is coming from. It’s like they turn around and “Oh, my God!?” It’s pure chemistry. He sees Jean, Jean sees him, hormones kick in, the rational brain checks into the Happy Hour hotel, and everyone else runs for cover.

SANDERSON: Does this mean that Jean and Scott shouldn’t be together?

CLAREMONT: Based on what, his current behavior? [Recently

because Jean was out of the picture, completely. Then she

Scott and Jean separated, and Scott started a relationship

came back and things got complicated again. Right now

with the White Queen, of all people.]

Iron Fist vs.

the fascinating thing is that Scott and Emma [Frost, the

SANDERSON: No, based on his behavior when you were

White Queen] have formed a very serious relationship, so if

the X-Men

writing him.

Jean were to be resurrected, I would hope that would be

An early Chris Claremont/

CLAREMONT: I think it would have been nice to call the

cycled into the mix.

John Byrne collaboration:

whole discussion into question. I think it would have been

SANDERSON: What do you think about Wolverine’s rivalry

nice to set up a rivalry. I think it would have been fun to add

Iron Fist #15 (1977).

with Cyclops, which seems to get big play in the movies?

some romantic suspense to this book.

BYRNE: Yeah. I was never crazy about that. The notion that

SANDERSON: Did you intend to do this in the Byrne days,

he would fall instantly in love with Jean works fine, because

(www.monsterscollectibles.

or is it something you are more interested in doing now?

I fell instantly in love with Jean when I read X-Men #1. You

com).

CLAREMONT: I think it was something that evolved in con-

fall in love with Jean; that’s what you do.

cert with Dark Phoenix. So a lot of possible romantic conse-

SANDERSON: It seems to me that when you were on

quences of what we set up ended up dying with Jean. End

the book the Cyclops-Wolverine rivalry was more about

of

story,

move

on.

And

we

did.

That’s

when

authority, and that Chris didn’t emphasize their rivalry over

the Mariko stuff [was] really blowing into the forefront,

Jean until he started doing new material for Classic X-Men.

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© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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BYRNE: Yeah. He had the hots for Jean, he felt Cyclops was

were six. The Sabretooth thing for me would be sort of know-

a total wuss. It was more about Wolverine’s training, and

ing glances. I was never entirely sure whether Wolverine

how he was taught to deal with things, and Cyclops was

would ever learn for himself that Sabretooth was his father.

a much more straitlaced kind of guy. We should all remem-

I thought that perhaps Sabretooth would know, but that

ber, of course, that when X-Men #1 first appeared, it was

Wolverine himself might not ever know.

Cyclops who was the instant breakout star, ’cause he was the

SANDERSON: Chris, what was the intention in originally

cool guy. Tells us how far we’ve come, I guess.

creating Sabretooth? Was he meant in your and John’s

SANDERSON: John, when I asked Chris if, despite Wolverine’s

minds to be Wolverine’s dad?

attraction to Jean, she and Scott are still meant for each

CLAREMONT: Yes.

other, Chris said if he were still writing Jean, he’d play with

SANDERSON: Would this underline the theory that what’s

this. I suspect you have a different opinion.

wrong with Wolverine is genetic, because dad’s got it, too?

BYRNE: Yes. [laughs] Jean and Scott should be together;

CLAREMONT: Well, no. It depends on how you look at it.

that’s just a given. But hey, Peter Parker should still be in

Wolverine is the more human, the more evolved, the next

high school.

step on the road. But Sabretooth doesn’t see it that way. In his eyes Wolverine is sloppy seconds. To him Wolverine is

WOLVERINE AND SABRETOOTH SANDERSON: John, how about Sabretooth? Was he indeed created to be Wolverine’s dad?

BYRNE: Not created to be, because he first appeared in Iron Fist [#14]. But when I did that story, I had done a design for what I thought Wolverine looked like without his mask on, which I sent to Chris. And Dave had already done one, which I didn’t know about. And I ended up using that design for Sabretooth.

And that sort of planted little things in my head, and then I got to thinking about that storyline, that typically Chris throwaway line in that Sentinels story [X-Men #98 –100] in which the machine said he [Wolverine] was a

the capacity for rational thought; the rational thought is devoted to serving his appetites, which are huge and insatiable. But extraordinarily varied nonetheless.

SANDERSON: Is it wrong to say that Wolverine and Sabretooth both have this genetic predisposition towards uncontrollable violence, but Wolverine, because he’s a step evolved further, has learned to cope with it better?

was his father and that Sabretooth was the mutant and that

have the desire.

the mutation had bred true. So Wolverine was actually the

You could argue, “Does Wolverine have a soul? Does

first of a new species, and that’s why it confused the

Sabretooth have a soul?” The argument that I would toss

Sentinel. Then we got to playing about how Wolverine is 50

back and forth is that the difference between Wolverine and

years old and Sabretooth is 100 years old.

Sabretooth is that Wolverine has a touch of the divine,

on the book, it was just piling stuff into Wolverine, because I had seized upon him as my guy.

SANDERSON: Do you think Sabretooth should have been

•

Sabreteeth—doesn’t really. The difference is that he has

capacity to say no. Sabretooth has the capacity; he doesn’t

was on the book, the three years or whatever it was I was

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phrase Richard Dreyfuss, he walks, he eats, he makes baby

mutant and the Sentinel said he wasn’t, or vice versa. And I

BYRNE: Yeah. Because my whole thrust the whole time I

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Sabretooth is exactly what his name implies: he is a big, unstoppable engine of desire and destruction. To para-

got to thinking about that, and I suggested that Sabretooth

while you were on the book.

•

defines him. Makes him a wuss. Makes him lesser in his eyes.

CLAREMONT: Wolverine has in him the desire and the

SANDERSON: So that sort of thing was beginning to evolve

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lessened by all the moral scruples, by the moral center that

that spark that allows him to embrace a moral concept, whereas Sabretooth doesn’t. He may embrace something that resembles a moral concept out of whim, but it means nothing to him. He is a true sociopath.

CLAREMONT AND MILLER SANDERSON: The Wolverine miniseries with Frank

revealed as Wolverine’s father or is that something that

[Miller]. That was intended by you to be the next step in

should only have been hinted at?

Wolverine’s development as a character, where you think

BYRNE: For me that was backstory. Everything I came up

Wolverine’s character really came together.

with was backstory that we would never reveal. I love to do

CLAREMONT: Yeah. For me if there was ever an origin story

that when I’m writing. I love to know every detail about a

or a story that defines Wolverine in all the ways that matter,

character even if it’s never going to be revealed, because it

that’s it.

allows me to do little throwaway lines and little references,

SANDERSON: Did you go into this project knowing that this

the way people talk. You’ll make a reference to something

is what you wanted to do, or is this something that evolved

that happened to you when you were six that means

once you started talking with Frank? How much input did

nothing to anybody else, and it doesn’t require that you

Frank have?

then do a story about what happened to you when you

CLAREMONT: Oh, it’s a collaboration, top to bottom.

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’Nuff Said Who needs word balloons?

This page from X-Men #141 reveals Byrne’s phenomenal storytelling.

Courtesy of inker Terry Austin. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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CLAREMONT: Kitty and Wolverine is about Wolverine taking what he has learned—that’s the mentor story. This is the story where he takes the knowledge he has learned and passes it on.

SANDERSON: I’m thinking of the final issue in which Wolverine has to go into the berserker rage to defeat Ogun.

CLAREMONT: That’s story mechanics. We had to do something big and splashy. To me the key to it is issue #4, the whole sort of training sequence where she has to understand what it is he is. She had to embrace who he is to become who she is.

LOGAN THE FATHER FIGURE SANDERSON: John, Chris did a lot of this after you left, but you can see it starting in the Hellfire Club storyline [#131], and that’s this chemistry between Wolverine and Kitty. Over the decades, Wolverine has been cast again and again in the role of this sort of father figure. Did you think that Kitty and Wolverine had any particular kind of chemistry back then?

BYRNE: No, not really.

SANDERSON: Over the years, Chris, Wolverine has surprisingly acted like a father figure to various girls: there’s Kitty, Jubilee, and his adopted daughter, whose name, depending on which book I’m reading, is either Akiko or Amiko. Why do you think this works so well, having him as mentor to these girls?

CLAREMONT: Actually, the only officially mentoring role he’s had is with Kitty. The Kitty role is part of a larger, panoramic tapestry that had “True Friends” [story in which Kitty travels back in time and encounters Logan in 1930s England] come out when it was supposed to, in the late ’80s or the very early ’90s, would have put all this into a lot more of a context. The whole relationship between Kitty and Logan is more complicated and far-reaching than had

“Everybody Dies!”

I said it before; I said it in the intro, I think. The whole genesis of the story—this is one of those rare happy

Future Logan gets

occasions when a story grew out of discussions about

fried in this powerful

character rather than mechanics of plot. We basically came

X-Men #142 (1981)

to an understanding, a rapprochement, a mutual synergy,

cover. Courtesy of

synchronicity, a shared vision of who Wolverine is, what

Terry Austin.

made him tick, what to do to him, where we want him to go at the end, and from there we chose the sequence of events to bring him there. But the character defined the story.

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

SANDERSON: If you had to sum up Wolverine’s arc in that story, what would you say?

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been suspected up until that point.

SANDERSON: Why is it that Kitty’s relationship with Wolverine is different from his relationship with Jubilee or even with his adopted daughter?

CLAREMONT: Akiko was—it’s sort of like the kid at school writing letters to the far away uncle. Their interaction was ideally supposed to be rare. But he’s the uncle across the sea, more a product of her imagination than of reality.

Jubilee was—my original intent, again: reverse the prism.

Kitty was someone that Logan took under his wing.

SANDERSON: Why? CLAREMONT: Because he knows things about her that she

CLAREMONT: Man to beast to man.

doesn’t know. Even then I was playing with the idea that

SANDERSON: How might you contrast this with the arc

there is a linkage between them that goes back well before

in the Kitty [Pryde] and Wolverine series? It seems to me

she was born. If you accept as part of the canon that the

that the Miller series is about Wolverine learning to surmount

timeline structured out by “True Friends,” Logan’s thought

the beast, whereas Kitty and Wolverine has Wolverine in

about Kitty since the 1930s. Then you have to ask yourself

circumstances where he has to let the beast back out again.

is the fact that the X-Men went to Deerfield in #128 an

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accident. Whose idea was it to go seek her out? Was it

CLAREMONT: Modesty Blaise. . . [The co-owner of Wolverine’s

Charley, using Cerebro, or did Wolverine whisper some-

bar in Madripoor was named O’Donnell after Peter O’Donnell,

thing in his ear? If she’s part of the team because she set it

the creator of Modesty Blaise.]

up, what’s going on? Where is this going to lead?

SANDERSON: Even Secret Agent Corrigan. [One of

Then if you factor in the whole “Days of Future Past”

Wolverine’s Madripoor friends, Archie Corrigan, was named

myth, all sorts of interesting implications come popping up.

after the adventure comic strip Secret Agent Corrigan and

Again, that’s me doing my grand design with a specific

Archie Goodwin, who wrote it in its later years.]

character.

The idea behind Jubilee was to flip the image again. The

Furry Father Figure Kitty Pryde’s waxing

CLAREMONT: Yeah. Pastiche-ing five ways from Sunday,

of Wolverine’s body

but the idea was it wasn’t supposed to be a humongously

hair gets an unexpected

whole point is not that Wolverine takes Jubilee under his

brainy series. It was just supposed to be a lot of fun.

wing, it’s she takes him under her wing, because without

SANDERSON: But this also suggests something about your

her, he’s dead and he knows it. He actually does a very cold-

concept of Wolverine—that he was in the mode of a Caniff

interruption. From X-Men #131 (1980).

Courtesy of Terry Austin.

blooded thing with her. He hooks her on the line because

hero or Bogart.

he needs her to survive. And it’s like her attitude towards

CLAREMONT: Well, that’s true. Actually, a Howard

him, from my perspective, has always been, “He’s hopeless

Hawksian hero, but that’s pretty much the same thing.

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

without me.” And the joke would have always been that at any point when they’re interacting together, she’s right. The idea was she would end up saving his ass a lot more than he end up saving hers. But again, the characters moved off in different directions, they got acquired by different writers and different books, and the things that I had intended got shuffled away in the mist.

SANDERSON: Do you agree with my original point that Wolverine seems to work well as a character when he’s paired with these different girls? It’s not a sexual relationship, but they seem to work well as a team, the chemistry.

CLAREMONT: Well, to me it’s always because we didn’t have that many younger boys lying around. And Batman and Green Arrow sort of co-opted the younger boy sidekick side of the street.

MADRIPOOR SANDERSON: Chris, how did the idea of Madripoor as a setting for Wolverine come about? Obviously there’s a lot of tributes to old movies and comics there.

CLAREMONT: We had a Wolverine series; how do we differentiate it from everyone else? And I thought, what would be fun? I wanted to do old-time rock and roll. Not super-heroes, not ostensibly mutants. Just do kick-ass Indiana Jones-type adventure stories in this wild and wooly setting where anything goes.

SANDERSON: With lots of specific influences. You can see a [Milton] Caniff influence there.

CLAREMONT: Yeah.

SANDERSON: Tyger Tiger is in the Dragon Lady mode.

CLAREMONT: I told John Buscema this from the start: Basically, I want to do a Milton Caniff-classic Terry and the Pirates-Warner Brothers 1930s’ back lot with big-time movie budget.

SANDERSON: The bar and Logan’s white dinner jacket evokes Casablanca. . .

CLAREMONT: Yeah.

SANDERSON: [Peter] O’Donnell. . . .

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gets together with this small group of old friends and new allies.

CLAREMONT: Right. To resolve a specific problem.

SANDERSON: Which parallels Wolverine being a loner with Wolverine also being a team member.

CLAREMONT: [agreeing] Mm-hmm. I never saw a dichotomy with that. Every so often he has to go out on walkabout, to live his own life and do his own thing. And what I wanted to do in Madripoor was create an environment where I could do jungle temples and science fiction and espionage and the Hand and God knows what else, in a part of the world that nobody else was hanging out in. And just have some fun.

Super-heroes without costumes.

SANDERSON: What influence do you think Wolverine has had on comics that came after his creation?

CLAREMONT: God only knows. You’ll have to ask people who came after me. If I ever take the rap for The X-Men totally defining and corrupting modern comics as we know it, if Wolverine gets added to the mix, it’s another cross I have to bear.

SANDERSON: Ah well, it’s just like people who blame George Lucas for ruining movies.

CLAREMONT: There you go.

SANDERSON: It’s good company to be in.

CLAREMONT: Yeah.

SANDERSON: John, [after leaving X-Men] you didn’t work with Wolverine for the most part for many, many years until you did Wolverine’s monthly comic with Archie [Goodwin].

What was that like?

BYRNE: That was a joy. I did that solely to work with Archie.

I said I’d never go near those characters again, and then they said, “Archie’s going to write six issues of Wolverine, would you like to draw it?” And I said, “Wow, yeah! Work with Archie Goodwin? You bet.”

SANDERSON: And for those newcomers who don’t know who

Logan’s Last Hurrah From X-Men #142’s

SANDERSON: Well, how would you define a Hawksian hero?

Archie Goodwin was, why was it such a joy to work with him?

Bogart worked for [the film director Howard] Hawks, too. But

BYRNE: Because Archie was probably the best writer ever.

“Hawksian hero” usually conjures up the idea of the total

When he was still alive, he was the reflex answer. Somebody

professional.

“Days of Future Past”

CLAREMONT: Total professional, self-reliant loner, who is

conclusion, future

the best there is at what he does, but respects the ladies

Wolverine’s shocking

nonetheless, because the gals he knows are the kind of gals who can beat him at his own game.

demise. Courtesy of Terry Austin. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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would say, “Who’s the best writer in comics?” And you’d say, “Archie Goodwin.” I remember getting his first plot and everything was there. There was no waste; there was no fat.

Some of the writers I’ve worked with will write plots that are just them sort of masturbating on the page: This is me being a “writer” kind of thing. Archie didn’t do that: He gave me

SANDERSON: Exactly. Hawks’ men tend to be attracted

everything I needed and gave me the room to do whatever

to very independent women. I don’t know if they’re entirely

I could do artistically, and it was just a joy. And I remember

loners. They may be loners part of the time, but Hawks’

about six months after our first issue came out—we had

heroes are often part of a community that comes together.

both left the book by then—we got our royalty check

CLAREMONT: It’s a community, but it’s a very specialized,

[laughs] and we both said, “Why did we leave this book?

unique community. Only Angels Have Wings, the cattle drive

Why did we only do six issues?”

in Red River—you’re talking about guys who have a shared

SANDERSON: Back in the days when there were big royalties.

reality, a shared vision.

BYRNE: Yes!

SANDERSON: I was thinking of Rio Bravo. My impression

SANDERSON: Did you feel Wolverine had changed any,

there is that John Wayne doesn’t spend all his time

coming back to him after all those years?

hanging out with people, but for this particular situation he

BYRNE: Yeah, he was substantially a different character. We

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had that whole whatever that sort of Hong Kong place was.

you could probably get arguments from right, left and center

SANDERSON: Madripoor.

from other creators, writers or artists, about the validity of

BYRNE: Yes, it was all very different.

those decisions. A lot of people didn’t like and don’t like

SANDERSON: Did you like any of the difference?

what I did with Magneto from the perspective that they felt

BYRNE: Well, I enjoyed what Archie did with it. And of

it emasculated what they thought was a great villain. By the

course to this day I do not know how much of it was what

same token a lot of people had a lot more fun writing the

Archie was doing with it and how much was standard,

berserker Wolverine than trying to put some sort of sense

every issue kind of stuff. So it was interesting.

out of it.

Byrne’s Back!

SANDERSON: Chris talks very much about Wolverine being

The flip side of the coin is that Frank [Miller] had no interest

a solitary loner, more at home in nature than with other

in drawing the berserker Wolverine because to him it was

people.

just another psycho super-hero. From his point of view,

artistic stint on Logan’s

“Been there, done that.” Yet when we came up with a

own magazine, the

structure [for the Claremont-Miller Wolverine limited series],

cover to Wolverine #17

BYRNE: Yeah, that’s very much the way I used to think of him.

SANDERSON: Though Chris also says that the basic theme of The X-Men is a quest for family, so here’s this sort of loner, I guess Wolverine would be the black sheep of the family.

BYRNE: [agreeing] Mmm-hmm. My ex [Andrea], when we saw Greystoke, and there’s that scene where [Tarzan’s] charging around on a carriage in front of the house, and it’s raining, and he’s just whipping the horses and shouting,

From John Byrne’s

with a character map for him that explained who he is and

(1989). Courtesy of

why he is and what he was trying to do, if we put it in

Jim Warden.

heroic and Homeric terms, Frank found a character that he could empathize with, that he could embrace, and as far as

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

the miniseries goes, we were off to the races. So that’s the bat you can swing either way.

“Family!” and Andy said, “That’s a Wolverine scene, isn’t it?” And I said, “Yeah, very much.”

WOLVERINE THE BERSERKER SANDERSON: Chris, what kind of direction did John want to push Wolverine in?

CLAREMONT: He was much more empathetic with the berserker side of things. He sort of suggested it in his last issue [#143], in the demon issue, with Wolverine: He can be totally calm one second, and you look at him sideways, the claws come out and you’re lying in five pieces on the floor.

The idea is that he’s so hair-trigger, so quick, so fast, so deadly that impulse could have tragic consequences. So everyone around him had to be on their best behavior and on their toes because you never know when you might end up with Dark Wolverine.

SANDERSON: The berserker rage wasn’t explicit in Len’s stories. Obviously, Len portrayed him as hot-tempered, but it wasn’t until you were writing the book that there was actually a discussion of berserker rages and Wolverine’s difficulty in controlling them.

CLAREMONT: We wanted to give him an obstacle. With Scott you’ve got the fact that he can’t turn his eyebeams off. All of the best heroes have handicaps. And that seemed to be a logical extrapolation of tendencies we’d already seen in other books, i.e. in his origin arc in Hulk.

SANDERSON: In the DVD commentary [for a DVD of the X-Men animated series] you said you had to move beyond the hair-trigger berserker idea that John liked to do because you felt after 50 or so issues that would get tired, and people would wonder why Wolverine hadn’t killed everybody by that point.

CLAREMONT: Yeah. That’s also the same process of character evolution that led to the changes in Magneto. And

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SANDERSON: What would you say your basic disagreements with Chris over the character were?

BYRNE: You know, I don’t remember that we had a lot of disagreements over Wolverine except that he wanted to get rid of him.

SANDERSON: So when Chris said he thought the berserker thing was getting old, that probably happened after your run.

BYRNE: That probably happened after, because the whole thing about him being a ninja and a samurai and that stuff was just starting to come in when I was on my last gasp, as it were. A lot of the stuff that Chris did later came from that trip to Japan the X-Men took [X-Men #118–119], when we find out that he could speak Japanese and things like that.

SANDERSON: Which was Chris’s idea?

BYRNE: Yeah, it was Chris’s idea.

SANDERSON: If you were doing Wolverine now, would you want him to go back to the unpredictable hair-trigger temper again?

BYRNE: Yeah! I probably couldn’t do Wolverine today, because as you know, I try to play by the rules, and if characters have changed too much from who I think they are or who I think they should be, I just tend to avoid doing them. So since Wolverine—all of the X-Men, really are so far from the characters that I know, I probably wouldn’t go there even if it was an option.

WOLVERINE AS HOMERIC HERO SANDERSON: Chris, one thing that impressed me with your commentaries on an X-Men animated series DVD was when you referred to Wolverine as the heart and conscience of the SANDERSON: John, Chris suggested that Wolverine had

Big, Bad Wolverine Byrne and Austin deliver another killer cover: X-Men #17

berserker rages because of something in his genetic makeup,

CLAREMONT: In the traditional paradigm, the X-Men was

and that Sabretooth had it, too.

represented by the triangle of Xavier, Scott, and Jean. And

BYRNE: I always thought he was just crazy. Remember, we

my thought was in the second generation of X-Men, the

start with a homicidal maniac, Berserker rage was introduced to get around [editor in chief Jim] Shooter not liking

(January 1980).

the fact that Wolverine was a homicidal maniac and would © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

kill people. So it was something that was put in to sort of say, well, he occasionally has these berserker rages, not at any moment. I’ve said many times in many interviews the perfect Wolverine, the definitive Wolverine sequence is he’s sitting at the breakfast table, eating a bowl of cereal, and Kitty comes in and says, “HI!” in exactly the wrong tone of voice, and Cyclops comes in, and there’s Wolverine eating his breakfast cereal, and Kitty lying on the floor disemboweled. That’s the definitive Wolverine scene.

SANDERSON: Is the bit in your last issue [#143] where Wolverine nearly takes Nightcrawler’s head off yours?

BYRNE: I don’t remember. It might have been.

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X-Men. What do you mean by that?

roles of Scott and Jean were being replaced in a sense by Logan and Storm. And the idea with Logan is that he’s the character that most embodies the redemptive vision of Xavier’s dream, the idea that the brighter angels of our nature can transcend the killer angels. And with struggle, with commitment, there can be a happy ending.

SANDERSON: Calling Wolverine the conscience suggests that he is the conscience for other characters in the book, that he holds them to some sort of standards.

CLAREMONT: Well, the idea as I sort of explicated in the Hellfire [Club]-Rachel [Summers] story arc that led into Excalibur back around [X-Men] #212 [is] because he has in his life done so much that is awful and endured and seen so much that is awful on a level that might be close to Magneto’s in terms of endurance, in a sense he’s best equipped to see the dangers of the dark side more clearly,

SANDERSON: It reads to me like something you put in.

more completely, more comprehensively than the others.

BYRNE: Yeah. Mostly what I usually say is, if it stands on its

He knows how he can stray; he knows the consequences of

own visually, it’s mine. [laughs]

straying. In Rachel’s case he took it upon himself to act so

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draconically by killing her [he tried but did not succeed]

redemption, no mercy, no nothing. It is a total amorality,

because having seen what happened to Jean [in the “Dark

almost animal amorality. He’s driven by appetites and

Phoenix Saga”] he knows the ultimate consequences of her

desire. If the desire is to be merciful, he’s merciful, but

[Rachel] having the potential to be Phoenix and committing

there’s no predicting one way or the other. With Logan you

murder. [In this story arc, Rachel tried to kill the Hellfire

have a measure of constancy: His acts derive from a foun-

Club’s Selene, but Wolverine stopped her by nearly killing

dation, a core. The core is ultimately moral. The tragic aspect

Rachel.]

of him is occasionally that core can be chipped, broken,

The idea is the first one is the hardest, and once you’ve

rolled over, what have you, by genetics, by flaws in his fun-

done that, you can move on to the next far more easily. And

damental makeup over which he still has no control. The

Logan on the Links

when you have the power, potentially, of the Phoenix, that

heroic aspect of him is that no matter how many times this

A penciled splash

is not a road down which you want to travel. From his point

tragic flaw upends him, he picks himself up, dusts himself off, and tries all over again. So he’s constantly striving to

from Wolverine #17.

of view, better that he just her sign off completely at this point in time than risk another Dark Phoenix that might not

achieve an ideal that he knows may well be impossible, yet

have Jean’s moral strength to deny it.

he keeps striving nonetheless, because for him the struggle

SANDERSON: You also say in the DVD commentary that

is the essence of the victory.

Courtesy of David Hamilton. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

you think of Wolverine as being the member of the X-Men who is a hero in the most classical sense. How so?

CLAREMONT: Well, because he is the hero who must continually overcome adversity in order to be a hero. The idea is, within him is the capability to be everything Sabretooth is, if not more so. And yet he makes a conscious decision, on a regular and continuous basis, to turn his back on it, to deny it, to walk away from it. To paraphrase Captain Kirk, to say, “I will not kill today.” The idea that he is what he is and does what he does by a conscious choice.

I think my perception of Wolverine diverges from a lot of other people’s in that to me, the vision I take of him is very much defined by classical Japanese samurai cinema.

SANDERSON: So that’s what you meant by “classical.”

I had thought you meant “classical” in terms of Western civilization.

CLAREMONT: Well, it’s a bit of both. The conception of hero being a flawed, tragic figure overcoming the flaws to achieve a desirable end is Shakespearean and Homeric.

But when I say classically “Japanese,” in the sense that— if you want to put it in Western terms, Paladin in Have Gun, Will Travel [the 1950s TV Western series]. Because his force of character should be so extreme, intense, formidable, the claws should be the last thing that come out, and when they come out, they should be this Ennio Morricone [famed composer of scores for Italian Westerns] riff in the background that makes everybody run for cover because that’s when you know utterly lethal mayhem is about to erupt.

Drawing of the samurai sword: It is not a casual thing.

There should be an air of gravitas about him, in the sense that he walks into a bar and he can quiet the place, clear it out, with just a look. Not because he’s doing anything horrible or mean or bullying anyone. It’s just that if you’re standing in a bar, and a sabretooth tiger walks into the room, you run for it.

The difference between him and Sabretooth is that Logan is governed by a moral center and Sabretooth is not.

Sabretooth is a creature solely and completely of appetite: he wants something, he takes it. There’s no regret, no

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SANDERSON: What do you think is the source of the flaw?

I remember a letter I got for the second issue of Man of

You mentioned genetics, but it seemed in the past it was the

Steel, in which it was mentioned that Lois Lane was an army

trauma he was put through during the [Barry Windsor-

brat. And I got a letter from somebody complaining that

Smith] “Weapon X” storyline.

this was not mentioned in the first issue, and how are we

CLAREMONT: I have my own thoughts on it, but quite

supposed to know this stuff if you don’t tell us? And my

frankly, given the twists and turns in his history that have

thought was, I just did, didn’t I? [laughs] I realized that an

been grafted [onto it. . . .].

awful lot of fans don’t like not knowing. It really bugs them

SANDERSON: Both by the Weapon X story and Origin. . . .

if they don’t know stuff. So as the audience has shrunk,

CLAREMONT: And Origin. I’m not sure where or how my

those fans have increased in percentage. And, of course, a

own feelings on the matter are appropriate any more.

lot of those fans have become pros. So you do get a lot of

SANDERSON: Do you want to talk about what those

the stories being told that should never have been told.

This is why I argued against the quantification factor in

feelings were?

CLAREMONT: For me what’s wrong with him needs to be integral. It needs to be something that is out of his control.

So I would say that it has to be genetic more than environmental because that implies something that might be fixed.

I prefer to think in the most Aristotelian sense: The gifts from the gods come with a terrible price.

The idea that if you look on super-heroes as modern myth, as the modern equivalent of Homeric protagonists,

The [Official] Handbook of the Marvel Universe. I said if you say Spider-Man can lift 50 tons or whatever, then a whole bunch of stories go away. He can’t push that water tower back on top of the building. He can’t lift the giant machine off himself.

There are certain stories not meant to be told, and the origin of Wolverine is one of them.

SANDERSON: I’m willing to bet you didn’t actually look at Origin.

then is it so far-fetched to also assume that along with these

BYRNE: I glanced, because of the artwork, but I did my best

great powers come equally great and ultimately tragic and

not to read.

ultimately devastating flaws? With Magneto, he has the

SANDERSON: I’ve heard they’ve tried to tie Origin in to

power to turn the world on end, yet the very nature and

present-day stories, but I suppose Origin could be yet more of

degree of the forces he manipulates have quite probably, in

Wolverine’s implanted false memories.

my structure of the character, driven him mad, and will

BYRNE: Yeah. Well, that’s one of the fortunate things about

continue to do so. By the same token, Peter Parker has the

Wolverine. It’s like the Doctor Doom robots that I set up so

power of Spider-Man, yet as a consequence every aspect of

any stupid Doctor Doom story immediately becomes

his life has been twisted.

[about] a robot. Any stupid Wolverine flashback immediately becomes an implanted memory.

ORIGIN AND MYSTERY SANDERSON: John, I know you’ve talked about Wolverine hundreds of times— BYRNE: [chuckles] SANDERSON: —but I’ve tried to come up with some things maybe you’ve talked about only 25 times.

BYRNE: Okay, so we’re going to talk about Jim Howlett. . . . [James Howlett is Wolverine’s original name, according to Bill Jemas and Paul Jenkins’ Wolverine: Origin series.] [laughs] SANDERSON: Well, what do you think of that? Do you think it’s important that Wolverine’s origin be a secret?

BYRNE: My response to that is “yes.” I think © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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SANDERSON: Chris, do you think it’s a mistake to demystify Wolverine’s origin? You always tried to keep it secret.

CLAREMONT: It’s not a choice I would have made. But it’s not my character.

SANDERSON: On the DVD you talk a lot about the power of the mystery.

CLAREMONT: Yes. SANDERSON: What do you think makes the mystery so powerful?

CLAREMONT: There are certain characters who should be larger than life, who should carry with them an essential mystery.

SANDERSON: You still haven’t given Rogue a real name as far as I know.

CLAREMONT: Of course I have. Whether it’s decided that’s the official name she stays with, again, that’s not up to me.

that’s perhaps the most important thing

SANDERSON: What’s her name?

about the character, that we know nothing

CLAREMONT: Anna Raven.

about him.

SANDERSON: When was that? I obviously missed it.

SANDERSON: And why is that?

CLAREMONT: Last September in X-Treme X-Men.

BYRNE: It just makes him more interesting.

SANDERSON: One of the things you said on the DVD was

I’m not sure how well that works in the

that if there’s a mystery about the character, the reader can

instant gratification society we live in, where

imagine things about it. That might be stronger than

everybody has to know everything up front.

actually pinning something down.

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Powerful Pencils

CLAREMONT: There was an old villain called the Orb many

the choices you make as a writer to tell the story. To

years ago, who wore a helmet that was a giant eyeball.

reduce it to human dimensions takes it away from the

SANDERSON: In Ghost Rider.

epic Homeric quality. No longer is it a case of Zeus coming

CLAREMONT: Yes. And the description was that he was a

down and romancing a maiden and bringing about the

art from Wolverine #17.

biker who’d gone off his bike at 150 miles per hour and

birth of a demigod hero like Hercules. Suddenly it’s just an

Courtesy of

landed on his face and got turned into street pizza. But so

ordinary story. And no matter how powerful the story might

David Hamilton.

long as you never saw his face—so long as you never saw

be on its own terms, in the context that we’ve already seen,

the Alien except for a bit here and a piece there—you were

there’s a holdup. That’s not to say it can’t be done; it’s not

unable to grasp the totality of the creature. You were unable

to say it shouldn’t be tried, it’s just that it’s not a choice in

to put it into a frame of reference other than your own

this specific instance that I would have tried. As I said

personal imagination.

before, it’s not my character, it’s not my company, it’s not

SANDERSON: Hence Doctor Doom’s face as well.

my decision.

CLAREMONT: It is always far more personal and potentially impactful [sic] an experience. The minute that the Orb took off his helmet and you saw whatever Syd Shores or George Tuska or whoever was drawing the book at that

SANDERSON: Chris, is there anyone else’s version of Wolverine that you like?

malformed features, the minute the Alien stepped into view

CLAREMONT: Larry [Hama]’s take on it. It wasn’t what

full figure, and you could take that definable step back and

I would have done, but I liked reading it a lot. Larry Hama

say, “God, that is so lame!” or “It’s a guy in a monster suit,”

and Marc Silvestri [in the Wolverine comic].

emotional power.

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

WOLVERINE BY OTHER CREATORS

time came up with for that visualization of a guy’s twisted,

“It’s a model,” or “It’s CGI,” it loses that essential frisson of

Uninked Byrne pencil

The problem I have with Logan is I don’t see very much that’s new. I see a lot of people running over the track over

The flip side of what I’m talking about [is] for me there

and over again. I don’t see much of an evolution of the

are certain characters for whom the mystery is essential,

character. I don’t see much that tells me something new in

for whom you may give a piece here and a piece there, a

terms of insights or perceptions or what have you that we

tantalizing element, but the minute you nail down the story,

didn’t have years ago. That would be my hope if I ever got

the minute you take this character, or any character of

to write him on a consistent basis again would be to try and

this nature, and give them an origin, you can’t help but

play with the shadings and gradations of the character to

diminish the mythic quality of the character. Simply by

see if I could come up with some insights, some percep-

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tions, some revelations which are

CLAREMONT: Mike [Carlin] and [DC vice president] Dan

small but integral, which change

DiDio called up last spring, actually, back in I think April or

how you look at him.

May of last year and kicked around the idea of me working

SANDERSON: John, is there any-

with John on a project. I said fine. Mike said he’d get back

body else’s version of Wolverine—

to me. He did. I’ve always been amenable to working with

artist or writer—that you’ve liked?

John on anything. We just never had a circumstance where

BYRNE: To be honest, I haven’t

the stars came into alignment. And evidently this is it.

paid that much attention to it.

SANDERSON: And you’re working off John’s plot.

When I leave a book, I 99 percent

CLAREMONT: It’s John’s story; it’s John’s art. I’m doing the

walk away, so I try not to pay a

script; Jerry Ordway’s doing the inks; Tom Orzechowski’s

whole lot of attention to what

doing the lettering.

other people are doing with it.

SANDERSON: Was there any thought to trying to reunite

Because it tends to fall into two

the entire old X-Men team and get [inker] Terry [Austin] and

categories. I either find myself

[colorist] Glynis [Oliver]?

going, “Oh, why did they do

CLAREMONT: I don’t know about Glynis. I know there was

that?” or I find myself going,

talk about Terry inking it, but that’s a Mike Carlin question,

. l Characters, Inc © 2004 Marve

“Oh, why didn’t I do that?”

I’m afraid.

[laughs]

SANDERSON: John, the JLA story is inked by Jerry Ordway.

SANDERSON: Since you’ve seen

BYRNE: Yes. Jerry and I haven’t worked together in a long

the first X-Men movie (but not

time. Again, it’s much like Chris and me: We’re in different

the second), what is it you like or

places. The inks are a lot more overpowering than they were

dislike about Wolverine there?

when he was inking me on Fantastic Four.

BYRNE: Just way too pretty.

SANDERSON: I haven’t seen the inked JLA pages, but I’ve

Hugh Jackman, who I think is a very good actor—I’ve seen him in other stuff, now: I thought he was wonderful in Kate & Leopold; I thought he was very good in Swordfish—I just think because he’s so pretty in a Hollywood kind of way, he doesn’t come across as a tough, grizzled Clint Eastwood kind of guy; he just comes across as a pretty boy with an attitude. And that’s not Wolverine. Some of the stuff, little bits and pieces,

heard that Jerry does a lot of redrawing.

BYRNE: It seems that way, yeah.

SANDERSON: But this doesn’t bother you.

BYRNE: Well, we’ll see. Ultimately I don’t get bothered until I find out whether the fans are bothered. [laughs] SANDERSON: I suppose there was some thought of asking Terry to do this.

mostly in the trailers... that scene—is it from the second

BYRNE: No. I forget why Terry wasn’t on the list. I think it

movie trailer?—where the cops say, “Drop the knives,” and

was mostly due to timing, or maybe it’s just because

he says, “I can’t.” And, of course, the bit with the cat is

Ordway is a buddy of Carlin’s. I don’t remember. It was

priceless. But for the most part I just sort of cringe.

Chris and me and then they started assembling others like [Tom] Orzechowski. [Orzechowski lettered the Claremont-

JLA: TOGETHER AGAIN SANDERSON: So tell us about the Justice League storyline [JLA # 94–99], John. How did this happen?

BYRNE: This happened because Mike Carlin called me up and said, “I’m the new editor of the Justice League. Do you want to do a six-parter?” And I said, “Does it have to be six parts? What if I don’t have a six-part story?” And he said, “Well, we’d like six parts so it’ll make a good trade paperback.” And I said, “Okay, I will do this if I can come up with a story that’s actually worth six issues.” And I did; I hope I

© 2004 DC Comics

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Byrne X-Men.] But I mean, Glynis isn’t coloring it, either. [laughs] [Glynis Oliver Wein, the principal colorist on the Claremont-Byrne X-Men.] SANDERSON: Chris seemed to think Terry was asked, but something happened and he didn’t know what.

BYRNE: Maybe that’s what it was. I just know he wasn’t really in the mix at any point.

BYRNE AND CLAREMONT: THEN AND NOW

did, anyway. Then I plotted it and I penciled it, and origi-

SANDERSON: John, what’s the difference between working

nally I was going to script it. And then we got to kick dif-

with Chris on X-Men and working with Chris now?

ferent things around, and as every editor invariably does

BYRNE: Well, again, it’s not a “with.” I plot it [JLA], I pencil,

sooner or later, the C-word was lofted. And I said, if you

I hand it off. I got all six issues done before Chris even saw

want to get Chris to script this after I’ve plotted and pen-

the first one.

ciled it, I guess that could work if Chris is amenable. He was.

SANDERSON: So it’s not a co-plotting effort in any way.

SANDERSON: Chris, how did the JLA stories come about,

BYRNE: No, no, this is entirely my story. This is kind of like

with you and John working together again?

the first issue of “Days of Future Past” [X-Men #141] [laughs],

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the one issue I plotted entirely.

BYRNE: [laughs] Well, I’m talking comics, obvious-

SANDERSON: I thought you plotted entirely the two-parter

ly. It’s a fixation. And the further and further we

with Wolverine in Canada with Wendigo [X-Men #139

got from The X-Men, the more I resisted it, because

–140].

I said, I’m not that guy any more. He’s not that

BYRNE: I think I plotted most of that, but not enough to

guy anymore. We’re not going to produce—

demand a full plotting credit, which I did on “Days of

I hope the JLA isn’t going to read like warmed-

Future Past,” as I recall.

over X-Men. I certainly made a major effort to

SANDERSON: Did you type out a full plot or do Kirby-style border notes?

BYRNE: Each issue had a three- or four-page plot, and then I put in copious margin notes: specific dialogue. Especially for the Doom Patrol characters [see sidebar], I put in specific dialogue. And now it just becomes Carlin’s job to make sure SANDERSON: What did you think when you got John’s pencils, Chris?

CLAREMONT: They were lovely, as always. John is now what he has always been: one of the superlative storytellers, character designers, character presenters in the industry.

Whatever you think of his individual style, his ability to stage scenes and move you quickly and powerfully through a story is among the top rank in the industry. I’d say better than a lot of people who are considered fan faves today.

This is vintage John.

SANDERSON: How would you describe the difference between the art he’s doing now and the art he did when you two were working together?

CLAREMONT: Two fundamental differences were that, one, he was learning his craft at the time, so you had a tremendous growth curve, the excitement of every issue being better than the one before, simply because John was learning how to do more things and then learning how to do them better, from issue to issue. And secondly, because it was all new. It wasn’t simply the fact that John was a new artist; it was the fact that John was a new artist and the [new] X-Men was a new concept, and we had the opportunity to grow simultaneously, starting with our work on Iron Fist and then on [Marvel] Team-Up. X-Men in a sense was the culmination of a process that

SANDERSON: So you fear is that people will think it’s going to be like the X-Men stories but not as good?

BYRNE: Yeah. I mean we’re already seeing that with these bozos online. Some comment I was reading the other day: a guy rattled off, “This

© 2004 Marve l Characters, Inc .

everything comes together—magically.

make sure the story wasn’t warmed-over X-Men.

is what it’s going to be, because this is typical Claremont and Byrne.” And the funny thing was the things that he listed were not in any way typical of what Chris and I used to do, and since we haven’t worked together in 20 years, there is no current “typical.”

SANDERSON: And each of you has gone in a different direction and changed.

BYRNE: Yeah.

SANDERSON: I’m currently writing a review of the second Dark Knight series, and one of the points people have missed is that it’s 15 years later; of course he’s not going to do the same thing.

BYRNE: Of course. Well, I made an observation talking to Frank [Miller] about the second Dark Knight, because he commented that what he wanted to do with the second Dark Knight was old-fashioned comics. And I said, “That’s really interesting: you do old-fashioned comics, and we get Dark Knight, I do old-fashioned comics and we get [Superman and Batman:] Generations.” Which, of course, are two very different projects.

SANDERSON: Chris, were there any challenges in writing the Justice League characters?

CLAREMONT: There’s always a challenge in writing Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman, the Justice League as a whole. There’s a challenge in writing characters

had begun three years earlier. And I think that the excite-

I’m not altogether familiar with, even though I’ve done the

ment that came between us was we were doing stuff we’d

“Scary Monsters” arc. There’s the intimidation factor of now

never done before, and the audience was seeing stuff they

that John and I have done the unthinkable, worked together

had never seen before, certainly not on such a regular and

again, will people embrace it, will people look at it and say,

consistent and elevated level.

“Oh, my God, the two old farts are at it again?!” There’s

SANDERSON: John, how many times has there been an

that anxiety.

attempt to put the two of you together before [since X-Men

SANDERSON: Then there’s the anxiety caused by people

#143, the end of their collaboration]?

who expect you to live up the best work the two of you have

BYRNE: Count every editor I have ever worked with. Every

done in the past.

editor I have ever worked with has sooner or later said,

CLAREMONT: That’s something I face every time I do an

“How ’bout if you do something with Chris?” Literally, every

issue of X-Men or an issue of anything, from that perspective.

editor I’ve ever worked with.

It’s the disadvantage of having a track record. Just have to

SANDERSON: This was probably especially depressing from

take it as it comes. From my perspective, it seemed John

the editors of your novels.

certainly put everything he had into it, and I tried to write

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© 2004 DC Comics.

THE DOOM PATROL RETURNS

the book on that level. I’ve also seen com-

John Spinning out of JLA is mics project, Byrne’s newest DC Co nthly series The Doom Patrol, a mo rne describes premiering in June. By again for the team as “together ing “the the first time,” introduc es”— world’s strangest hero Negative the Chief, Robotman, ng with Man, and Elasti-Girl, alo wcomers JLA recruit Faith and ne unt—and Nudge, Vortex, and Gr continuity. sidestepping previous rne, inks Story and pencils by By

by Doug Hazlewood.

thing, and with Cleese it was a full script, so I was pretty

forums where they are scathing in their

much just the art robot.

commentary.

SANDERSON: Actually, I was hoping for a funny remark.

SANDERSON: Without having seen any-

BYRNE: [laughs] Sorry! I could do my John Cleese impression

thing yet.

for you, but it wouldn’t work in print.

CLAREMONT: Having seen like two or

SANDERSON: Oh, that’s sad. We could do it anyway.

three advance pages. It’s the usual cri-

BYRNE: When I finally got to talk to him, it was great,

tiques I’ve heard about my writing, many

’cause—this was on the phone—he said [in a Cleese voice],

of the same critiques I’ve heard from John

“Oh! Yes! Well! People who can draw! It’s marvelous, just

about his art, though a lot of people seem

marvelous!” And I thought, “God, he actually is John

to knock the inks. But I’m afraid, I suspect

Cleese.”

there’s a certain vested interest, a certain

SANDERSON: It’s true. And you’d think after working with

segment of the online community that has

Terry Gilliam all these years, he wouldn’t be quite so startled

a vested interest in just despising the old

by this.

stuff, whether it’s a legitimate criticism or not.

SANDERSON: I hope you’ve seen positive comments as well.

CLAREMONT: Not at the particular forums I’ve looked at, because they seem more interested in venting than in discussing.

For my part I find the easiest way to deal with online is since nobody uses their real name, nobody’s willing to sign their name to their comment, then the comment isn’t worth listening to.

SANDERSON: I’ll have to point that out to

NEW CLAREMONT X-MEN PROJECTS

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel’s revitalized Ex calibur, written by Chris Clarem ont and illustrated by Aaro n Lopresti, has just premiered. “If you look at the mythological str ucture of the X-Men itself, ha ving Charley [Xavier, aka Pr ofessor X] headline a book name d Excalibur is perfectly consistent,” Claremont says. Also on sale in May: Uncanny XMen #444, by Claremont and Alan Davis.

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we were collaborating a great deal on virtually every single

ments online where people in various

BYRNE: [laughs] I guess they were impressed with the little things I did, too, to tweak True Brit into an actual comic book.

SANDERSON: So tell us about True Brit. When is it coming out? And how did it happen?

BYRNE: Well, it started several years ago, I guess, with [Mike] Carlin meeting Cleese, and Cleese originally wanted to write a serious Superman story, and Carlin talked him into doing something a little more Pythonesque. And then it became a case of finding the right artist. I was the fourth choice. I would have been my own fourth choice. [laughs] I won’t say who the others were, but I think most people can figure them out. [Hint to readers: they are all British.] And so basically

the people at Publishers Weekly now that

Carlin called me up one day and said, “I have two questions.

I’m doing unsigned reviews for them.

Are you willing to do this? And were you actually born in

CLAREMONT: [laughs] Well, except at PW

England?”

you can generally find out who the reviewers are. I think there’s a difference between an unsigned review in Publishers Weekly and unsigned comments, ad hominem attacks online. Or I just choose to assume there is. But for my own peace of mind it’s easier just to say if the person who’s saying this hasn’t got the gumption to sign their name to a commentary, when they’re saying some pretty scathing, and in some cases personal things about a work or creator, then I can choose to ignore what they’re saying, because when I comment I do sign my name.

TRUE BRIT

SANDERSON: Was that a requirement?

BYRNE: I guess they wanted it to be all Brit, all the time. We got Mark Farmer inking it. My understanding is it was the last book to go through DC that was actually lettered on the boards.

SANDERSON: Oh, no.

BYRNE: Because it’s all computer lettering now. I specifically asked for it to be lettered on the boards. The script was done long before any artist was attached, so there was no particular consideration of what Artist A might be able to do that Artist B couldn’t. Carlin handed it to me and said, “Basically think of it as a super-detailed plot. If you feel that things need to be moved around or if you feel that things need to be shifted in order for emphasis.” Because this is not a criticism, this is a simple statement of fact, the scripts made all the mistakes that people who have never written comic books make.

SANDERSON: John, what’s the difference

It had actual motion in it, it had emotional arcs in a single

between working with Chris Claremont

panel. So I had to find ways to give them what they want-

and working with John Cleese?

ed—I say “they” because Cleese wrote this in collaboration

BYRNE: Well, the main difference was that

with Kim “Howard” Johnson, his writing partner.

with Chris I was working from plots and

SANDERSON: Otherwise known as the person who is to

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would come out for last Christmas. I think Christmas is the

BYRNE: It’s that insane thing, and you hear it more and more and more, and it bugs me every time I hear it, where Hollywood’s standard response is, you have to make changes. To which my response is, well, maybe if you’re making a novel into a movie, yes. But a comic book pretty much is a movie. And you can pretty much film what’s there. The first Spider-Man movie could have been Amazing Fantasy #15 with, if you like, Doctor Octopus or somebody thrown in—not the Green Goblin, not straight out of the box. Whenever they say you have to make changes, my reaction is, how do you know that?

You’ve never done one that didn’t. What if we make a movie that doesn’t make any changes and see if that works?

perfect time to release it. And, of course, what I ask is that

SANDERSON: In the case of comic books, many of these

Python what I was to Marvel and DC [a chronicler of their history].

BYRNE: Yes, pretty much. So I would call Carlin when I wanted to make any sort of major change, and then the whole thing was handed back to Cleese and Howard to sort of re-script.

Kind of an elaborate version of the Marvel method of plotpencils-script.

SANDERSON: So in your own phone contact with Cleese he seemed quite affable.

BYRNE: Yes, it was quite fun to speak to him. It was quite brief. I hope to meet him out of this when the book finally comes out, which probably won’t be till next Christmas. My part of it was done months and months ago. I was hoping it

every Monty Python fan in the world buys one copy.

characters have been working for 30 or 40 years.

SANDERSON: Can you say anything about what the story’s

BYRNE: Yeah. And you really don’t need the director’s vision

like, or is it a deep secret?

as opposed to the original creators’ vision.

BYRNE: It’s not a deep secret. People know, I think, that I

SANDERSON: Well, I don’t think it’s really that different

don’t like super-hero parodies, so they might be surprised to

from the way in comics that people think a character is

find out that I’m doing this. And the main reason that I’m

merely the names and maybe the powers and everything else

doing it is it’s not really a parody of super-heroes.

is up for grabs.

The premise is that the rocket lands in England so it’s sort

BYRNE: Oh, sure. Well, Spider-Man hasn’t been Spider-Man

of the effect of being raised English in that Pythonesque car-

for 25 years, so. . . . It’s all kind of moot, really. When you say

icature of being English, the effect that that has on young

that Spider-Man is the nerdy everyman who becomes the

Colin Clark, as his name is in this, and how he becomes

super-hero and escapes from the drudgery of his daily life,

Superman with an English bent. So most of the humor is

and in his daily life he’s a successful photojournalist married

Our Cover Unplugged Another look at

derived from what’s going on around him.

to a supermodel. Huh! [laughs]

this issue’s Wolverine

SANDERSON: So I would expect that Colin Clark/Clark Kent

SANDERSON: Well, the movie didn’t do that.

cover, without the

is even more mild-mannered and reserved.

BYRNE: No, but I think the key word there is “yet.”

cover elements. John

BYRNE: Oh, yes. Very much. And it’s got stuff like his boss at

Byrne illustrated this

the paper is Perry White-Badger, and the girl is Lois Lane-

commissioned piece

Badger, and there’s Jimmy Olsen-Badger, and none of them

a few years back for

is related. It’s that kind of Pythonesque humor.

Scott Green, who

PHOENIX ON FILM

drove a three-hour

SANDERSON: John, the third X-Men movie looks like it’s

round trip to art

going to be based on stories by you and Chris, uncredited.

dealer Jim Warden’s

BYRNE: Yes. Somebody asked me about that online. They

home to loan it for

said what did I think about their doing “Dark Phoenix” for the third movie? Well, all I ask is that they don’t do what they

scanning for BACK

did with Spider-Man, which is take a story that took two years

ISSUE. Thanks, Scott!

to tell, shrink it down to two hours and give it a happy end© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

ing. I just wonder what the Spider-Man movie would have been like if people walked out of the theater going, “God, the girlfriend died!” And her name was Gwen Stacy, ’cause that’s who she’s playing! She [Kirsten Dunst] would have been perfect, absolutely perfect casting for Gwen.

SANDERSON: I recently read an interview with someone [Darwyn Cooke] who said that people should respect the intentions of the original creators, and I thought, “Wow! Why isn’t this maxim stapled to every writer’s head?”

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Funny, He Doesn’t Look 120 A youthful Wolverine, from John Romita Sr.’s original 1974 character designs. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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I Was a

Teenage Wolverine!

by

Michael E

ury

It was an editor’s desire to appease Canadian readers and his appreciation of a writer’s flair for dialects that led to the creation of the most popular comic-book character to emerge during the past 30 years.

In early 1974, Len Wein was the writer of his favorite Marvel title, The Incredible Hulk, and was winding down a stint scripting the “Brother Voodoo” feature appearing in Strange Tales. “I have a very good ear for accents,” Wein reveals to BACK ISSUE. “I used to love writing accents in books, trying to make you hear the voice with the accent.”

Wein’s Hulk editor was Roy Thomas. “Whatever his strengths as a writer were, which were considerable,” Len reminisces, “Roy had no ear for accents and loved the fact that I was doing Jamaican and Haitian accents in “Brother Voodoo.” So he came to me one day and said, ‘I want you to do a Canadian accent. I want you to do a Canadian character.

I’ve got a name: Wolverine. Go!’” Thomas concurs, explaining his reasoning behind his mandate: “I knew that we had lots of Canadian readers,” Roy says, “and I thought having a Canadian hero (even if he started out as a quasi-villain, like so many Marvel heroes) would be a good idea. I considered either Badger or Wolverine as names, decided on the latter, and told Len over lunch that I’d like a Canadian hero with that name. . . that he should be short of

Cantankerous Canuck

stature and short of temper like his namesake. That was pretty much my

The Hulk (and readers) forgot about

contribution to the character, although I do consider it a co-creation in

the Wendigo once Wolverine clawed

a sense. Len and Herb Trimpe [artist of Incredible Hulk #180–182, where

his way into this 1974 issue.

Wolverine premiered] are the major creators and did the heavy lifting.” © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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WOLVERINE’S DEVELOPMENT Thomas’ directive inspired Wein to hit the books. “I researched wolverines,” he recalls, discovering that “wolverines are short, nasty animals with razor-sharp claws that will attack creatures ten times their size,” the perfect sound-bite definition of this pint-sized Canuck who fearlessly challenged the towering Hulk.

At this developmental stage of Wolverine’s history, Wein’s embellishments upon Thomas’ proposed hero began to take shape. “I don’t think either being a mutant or having adamantium claws was part of my concept,” offers Thomas, “even though I made up and named adamantium.” Wein’s recollection is that he created Wolverine as a mutant, gifted with “tenacity and heightened senses, like an animal.”

Wolverine’s claws, in Len’s mind, were vastly different from what we now

Wolverine Prototype?

Reader Richard Kolkman writes, “I think I’ve discovered an overlooked cross-company

recognize. “They were retractable, but into the gloves,” Len notes. “I guess it was Dave’s [Cockrum] and Chris’ [Claremont] idea to make them part of his body.

My feeling was, the claws were made of adamantium. Adamantium is an indestructible metal.” Wein envisioned that the gloves were made of fabric-covered adamantium—“a logical way to approach this.”

!

T K I SN ‘prototype’ inspiration for Wolverine (right down to

the SNIKT sound effect).”

From The Forever People #5

(November 1971). © 2004 DC Comics.

Thomas’ and Wein’s memories diverge at this juncture. States Roy, “[Wolverine]

was intended to have some sort of regular presence in the Marvel books, if he

proved popular. . . but at that time there wasn’t any X-Men book yet. At least, I

don’t think I had any part in suggesting that the Canadian character necessarily be part of the ‘international X-Men’ I envisaged in around the summer of ’74.”

[For detailed coverage of the development of the “new” X-Men, inspired by the

global ethnic composition of the Golden Age war heroes the Blackhawks, see Thomas’ own magazine, Alter Ego #24, published by TwoMorrows] Wein confesses that from his perspective, the invitation to make Wolverine an X-Man was there from the beginning. “I was the one who decided he was a mutant,” Len says. “But I never expected to be writing Giant-Size X-Men [the 1975 launching point for the new mutant team]. I always thought somebody else was going to get that assignment. I created Wolverine to be a Canadian mutant, knowing that the [X-Men] concept was going to be an international group of characters. I figured, ‘Okay, whoever gets the book, if you want a Canadian guy, you’ve got one.’ It was really a case of me being a good soldier, and preparing something for the company’s future.”

WEIN’S TEEN WOLVERINE Longtime readers are aware that the original X-Men, who premiered in 1963, were five teenagers—Cyclops, Marvel Girl, the Beast, Iceman, and Angel—banding together under the tutelage of an older mentor, Professor X. Wein assumed that the new X-Men—banding together once again under Professor X’s wing— would follow this tradition and be youths. And from that assumption he considered Wolverine to be in his late teens, although for the character’s first appearance, he © 2004 Marve l Characters, Inc .

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gave his age little thought. “In the original story in Hulk, I never bothered with

an age [for Wolverine],” explains Len. “It wasn’t important to that story. But if you look at that story, he is kind of ‘youngish’ with that face, and the shorter mask.” Nor was Wolverine’s age of much concern at the time to Hulk editor Thomas: “I probably thought of him as early 20s, to the extent it crossed my mind. I don’t think there was any such discussion [about his age].”

An examination of Wolverine’s original costume design by legendary artist John Romita Sr. (working with Wein) speaks to the contrary. Romita’s full facial

Ready to Rumble

shots of the character unmistakably depict Wolverine as much younger than the figure we now know. Hulk penciler Herb Trimpe worked closely from Romita’s

John Romita Sr.’s original designs for

model sheets, even mimicking one of Romita’s poses in Wolverine’s walk-on at

Wolverine. Romita laments to BACK ISSUE

the end of issue #180.

that years ago, he sold these roughs for

After his Incredible Hulk outing, Wolverine lay dormant until the summer

a mere $50. The inset depicts Wolverine’s

1975 release of Giant-Size X-Men #1, written by Wein and penciled by Dave

first appearance, drawn by Herb Trimpe and Jack Abel, from the last page of

Cockrum. Through Cockrum’s renderings and through Wein’s characterizations,

The Incredible Hulk #180.

each of the new X-Men was clearly a teen or in his or her early twenties. The fountain of youth even affected the Irish mutant Banshee, portrayed earlier

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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(beginning with his January 1967 debut in X-Men #28) to be at least in his thirties. “I know it’s hedging, but in Giant-Size X-Men #1 we ‘younged’ Banshee up, to his late twenties,” Len divulges. “I thought that to make Professor X an effective mentor, you wanted that mentor to be older than everybody else. I wanted a guy who was a father figure. When you have other characters who are as old as that character, you undercut that aspect of the mentor. So there had to be a considerable age difference between [Professor X] and the rest of the X-Men.” Wolverine’s costume was altered from his Hulk look at the desire of the artist.

“The biggest change we made between Hulk #181 and Giant-Size X-Men #1 was changing the mask,” Wein explains. “Dave [Cockrum] hated the original mask and designed what has now become the more traditionally known Wolverine mask.” Cockrum shaved the mask’s “whiskers” and took the cowl’s points, which were originally designed to look like a wolverine’s ears, and elongated them into sweeping “wings.” Wein still prefers the original: “The mask designed by John Romita Sr. and myself looks more like a wolverine.” Cockrum also mirrored the new look of Wolverine’s mask with the mutant’s hairstyle itself (he had earlier established a similar coiffure for DC’s Timber Wolf during his stint as the artist of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes).

Wolverine’s New Look A commissioned sketch by Dave Cockrum.

Courtesy of Nick Ford.

The new X-Men—and particularly their roguish Canadian member—were an instant hit, and a follow-up quickly fell into place. But during this continuation Wein came to a discovery: “I plotted both X-Men #94 and #95, which were going to be Giant-Size #2,” Len says. “At the time I was editor in chief of the company

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

and I was writing a couple of books a month, and I quickly realized that I could not [write] more than a book a month without quickly losing what was left of my sanity. The Hulk was the other book I was writing, and the Hulk was my favorite character. So I said, ‘Well, here’s this new book, which requires more work than I can conceivably put into it, and here’s my favorite book. Chris Claremont, who had been my assistant, was outside of my office, lobbying, ‘If you ever give up X-Men, I’d love to write it!’ So I went, ‘Here. Here’s your shot. Go, my son.’”

When asked if he, in retrospect, regrets that decision, Wein chuckles, “Pretty much daily. Not over anything Chris did—he did a considerable job, over a great amount of time,

“Fang”

[laughs] but it would’ve been nice to

(Right) Another Cockrum

get the royalties of my own charac-

Wolverine costume design.

ters. I actually never had a problem

Courtesy of Glen Cadigan.

with it until the day Chris bought an

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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airplane with his royalty money.”

WHAT IF WOLVERINE HAD STAYED A TEEN? Imagine, if you will, that Len Wein had not vacated the scripting chores of XMen. How would things have differed?

“I would have made Wolverine a little less bloodthirsty,” Wein attests. “I know part of what has made him so popular is that he’d just as soon disembowel you as look at you. I always thought what made him a hero was that his natural instinct was to disembowel you, to be the animal, but his humanity told him, ‘No, you can’t do that. The second you start disemboweling people, you are the animal.’ There would have been this constant struggle between his natural instinct to be the beast and the human being going, ‘You’re not allowed to kill.’

“I may have been a little more stick-in-the-mud-ish about ages,” he adds.

“When it was decided that Wolverine was older than a teenager, I’m not sure I would’ve gone along with that.” The producers behind the animated series XMen: Evolution (2000–present) apparently agree with Wein: While toon Wolverine is not teen Wolverine, he’s definitely in his twenties on the show.

The irony behind Wein’s original, and mostly unrealized, concept of a youthful Wolverine is that in the Marvel Comics miniseries Wolverine: The Origin (2001), the character was revealed to be have been born in the late 19th century, making him over 120 years old today, his extraordinary longevity the result of his mutant healing factor. Conceived as one of the youngest X-Men, Wolverine is now the group’s oldest member.

Myriad departures from his original vision have not soured Wolverine co-creator Len Wein, however. He’s quite the proud papa, beaming, “So much has been done with Wolverine over the years, so much of a range of history, and different kinds of characters—the samurai aspect, all of these things make him much more of a rounded character.

You can do a thousand different kinds of stories with Wolverine.”

Perhaps that versatility would still have emerged had Wein been Wolverine’s long-time architect, but the possibilities of the life of a teenage Wolverine remain a greatest story never told.

Payback!

The green goliath takes a fall in What If? V.1 #31 (February 1982), “What If Wolverine Had Killed the Hulk?”

This killer page, penciled by Bob Budiansky and inked by Mike Esposito, appears courtesy of Ken Danker (www.monsterscollectibles.com). © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Happy Birthday,

Wolverine!

Art Gallery

special feature

by

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Wolverine int Makes a Po

made DC’s Just before he te, ns a fan favori New Teen Tita ’s penciled 1979 George Pérez #3, with inks X-Men Annual in. Courtesy

by Terry Aust omics of Heritage C ecomics.com). (www.heritag .

Characters, Inc © 2004 Marvel

Happy birthday to you...

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l Eury

Wolverine Goes Solo

m enal pages fro Two phenom written sue Wolverine, 1982’s four-is d by mont, pencile

by Chris Clare e d inked by Jo Frank Miller, an Danker ourtesy of Ken C . n ei st in b u R m). scollectibles.co (www.monster Characters, © 2004 Marvel

Inc.

Happy birthday to you...

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They’re At It Again!

Todd McFarla ne illustrated 1988’s Wolver ine/Hulk rem atch in Incredible Hulk #340. Cover in ks by Bob Wiacek. C ourtesy of Ken Danker (www.monster scollectibles.co m). © 2004 Marvel

Characters, Inc .

“Gentleman Gene” Gets Mean olan took a Artist Gene C to Marvel rare detour in ory with this mutant territ le ightcrawler ta Wolverine/N ts Comics Presen from Marvel and inker Al #106 (1992), ience ade the exper Williamson m is r. Also shown even sweete d ver, illustrate the issue’s co .

by Sam Kieth Inc. l Characters, © 2004 Marve

H a p p y b i r t h d a y d e a r w o l vi e . . .

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Party Animal the type It may not be e used to of chest you’r , Hughes draw seeing Adam back Logan is but AH!’s laid y eyes. Courtes a feast for the wnsend. of inker Tim To Characters, © 2004 Marvel

Inc.

Holy Heada che, Batman!

Ouch! Here’s Arthur Adam s’ interpretation of a heady cross-compan y crossover.

Batman © 20 04 DC Comics.

Wolverine © 20 04 Marvel Ch aracters, Inc.

Happy Birrr...

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by

“Big” John N. Buscema was 61 years of age when he began his stint on Marvel’s first Wolverine series (issue #1, cover date: November 1988)—61 years old! And yet, as it is fully revealed here (minus the inks of titan Al Williamson), Mr. Buscema’s dynamic pencils pop off the page—a feat not easily accomplished by artists less than half his age! This seventh page carries the added distinction of being the only full-pager used in the first three-and-a-half issues of the series.

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© 2004 Marve l Characters, Inc .

David Hamilton

WOLVERINE • J O H N B U S C E M A

feature

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

WOLVERINE • J O H N B Y R N E John Byrne’s return to Wolverine—a few years back—is perfectly showcased here (Wolverine #17, page 22)! An action-packed page of graphite, folks!!!

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pages for (Stan Lee’s) Dazzler series. Here is a super-rare glimpse at Paul’s original pencil rough (aka layout) for a cover featuring Wolverine—one of many for the same cover.

To be perfectly honest, folks, I’ve never actually held a copy of any issue of Dazzler—yet, I’ve got every issue’s pencils and roughs that Mr. Chadwick produced. (It’s a strange story as to how and why Paul sent me these— including many of the actual originals of the layout pages—about a hundred months ago. A story for a future issue of a TwoMorrows’ publication.) Heck, I sorta wish I’d picked up this series now—with Paul on board.

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DAZZLER • PA U L C H A D W I C K

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Before Paul Chadwick created his (Kirby-inspired) bulk, Concrete, he provided many cover and story

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

W O L V E R I N E • W A LT S I M O N S O N

Walt Simonson’s undated sketch of Wolverine really lights up this page, doesn’t it, folks? Enjoy!

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friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Talk about solid pencil work, wow!

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MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS • E R I K L A R S E N

rs, Inc. © 2004 Marvel Characte

Erik Larsen’s front cover (of a wraparound) for Marvel Comics Presents, featuring Wolverine and our

rs, Inc. © 2004 Marvel Characte

PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL • J I M L E E

Some of Jim Lee’s early (pre-Image Comics) work for Marvel’s Punisher spinoff series, Punisher War Journal (issue #6, page 4), guest-starring Wolverine. These pencils might seem a bit loose (almost layout-like)—nevertheless, all the information is there. From a panel layout standpoint, this page reveals Jim’s maturity as a storyteller— even back then.

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King Conan and Uncanny X-Men: tight, exuberant, and dramatic. This guy’s stuff has always seemed totally professional—ever since he began in the business (odd, in the world of comics).

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W O L V E R I N E S A G A • M A R C S I LV E S T R I

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marc Silvestri’s cover pencils for Wolverine Saga (late 1986)—not unlike the quality work he produced for

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

WOLVERINE • R O B L I E F E L D

A view of Wolverine by yet another co-creator of Image Comics, Rob Liefeld. This full-pager found a home as a back cover for Wolverine’s series. Logan doesn’t look too happy here—probably didn’t yet know of his future film daze to come.

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What better artist to draw this most popular of new X-Men—considering his character and story contributions to those early issues!!! Oddly enough, Cockrum did not supply the cover for the first new X-Men series (Giant-Size X-Men)—Gil “Sugar” Kane did—but Dave did ink it.

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W O L V E R I N E • D AV E C O C K R U M

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

We’d like to thank Ted Latner for supplying this commissioned piece to us—by Dave Cockrum.

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

X-MEN COMPANION • G I L K A N E

Gil Kane’s roughs for Fantagraphics Books’ The X-Men Companion II (circa ’85), featuring Wolverine and his fellow mutants versus the Sentinels. You’ll note that Gil’s original pencil rough was much more graphic than the felt-tip revision.

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© 2004 Marvel Characte rs, Inc.

Yes, folks—our cover-featured illustrator from BACK ISSUE #2 (still in stock, so order now!) was actually doing interior pencils that far back! This beautiful example of Adam’s super-hero storytelling serves to prove just how fully formed his style and energy was—even years ago! These “Children of the Adam” (HUH!?!)— the title of this Annual—never had it so good. Now, join me in a shout out to Adam: “Come back to the inside, my boy!”

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X-MEN ANNUAL • A D A M H U G H E S

Here’s an extremely rare glimpse of Adam Hughes’ take on Wolverine (X-Men Annual #2, 1992).

Secret Wars th th

special feature

20 Anniversary

QUIZ d{

This issue’s celebration of Marvel Milestones

Michae

l Eury

would not be complete without a salute to Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, which debuted in May 1984. Featuring “the combined might of Earth’s most powerful super heroes” against “the ultimate menace,” Secret Wars was the result of a merchandising agreement to create a comic-book tie-in to a line of action figures based on Marvel Comics heroes and villains. The 12-issue maxiseries’ self-contained epic story “crossed over” into a variety of Marvel titles, birthing the crossover concept that has since become an industry staple. Secret Wars reportedly sold in the vicinity of 750,000 copies per issue, numbers unheard of since the 1940s.

So how’s your memory, 20 years later?

Test your Secret Wars IQ by taking this pop quiz:

Your Secret IQ 1. Secret Wars was Marvel’s first multi-title crossover, but it wasn’t the company’s first limited series to combine its characters.

Behold. . . Magneto!

That title was 1982’s:

Plastic Man Captain America was part of the first of two

a. Contest of Champions

Mike Zeck’s energetic

b. Combat of Champions

cover pencils for Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #2

c. Marvel Super Heroes Contest of Champions

(June 1984). Courtesy of

d. Marvel Super Heroes Breakfast of Champions

series of Secret Wars action figures. © 1984 Mattel, Inc. Captain America © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

David “Hambone” Hamilton.

2. The toy company behind the Secret Wars

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

action-figure line was (don’t peek at the photo!): a. Mattel

c. Playmates

b. Hasbro

d. Ideal

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Your

Secret IQ continued

3. The “ultimate menace” that assembled Marvel’s heroes and villains for conflicts on a battle planet was named: a. The Monitor

c. Galactus

b. The Beyonder

d. Lactose the Intolerant

4. Penciler Mike Zeck and inker John Beatty illustrated 10 of the 12 Secret Wars issues,

Secret Wars Birthday Bonus!

with issues #5 and #6 penciled by: a. Al Milgrom

c. John Byrne

b. Jim Starlin

d. Bob Layton

Here are two unpublished Secret Wars penciled pages (for an unspecified issue)

5. Which of the following Marvel heroes did not

by Mike Zeck. The artist

participate in Secret Wars? a. Iron Man

c. Captain Marvel

b. Sub-Mariner

d. Mr. Fantastic

remarks to BACK ISSUE: “Changes were commonplace throughout that series. In most cases,

6. Secret Wars #8 featured the following ground-

changing a panel or

breaking event:

two would suffice. In the

a. The death of Kraven the Hunter

case of the two pages

b. The death of Thor’s alter ego Don Blake

in question, I’m thinking

c. The debut of Spider-Man’s new costume

those were times when

d. Marty McFly travels back to the future

the changes were enough to warrant a complete

7. At the end of Secret Wars, the Thing

redrawing of the page.”

replaced in the FF by: a. She-Hulk

c. Power Man

b. Crystal

d. Herbie the Robot

8. The second Spider-Woman premiered in Secret Wars #6 and #7. Her real name was: a. Jessica Drew

c. Julia Carpenter

b. May Parker

d. Richard Carpenter

9. Which of the following was not a Secret Wars action figure?

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a. Iceman

c. Hobgoblin

b. Green Goblin

d. Electro

Answers: 1–C; 2–A; 3–B; 4–D; 5–B; 6–C; 7–A; 8–C; 9–B.

temporarily left the Fantastic Four and was

Art courtesy of Jim Warden. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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A Very Graphic Graphic Novel Mike Zeck’s pen-and-ink drawing for the 1987 Punisher graphic novel, Return to Big Nothing, upon which the cover painting was based.

Courtesy of Jim Warden (www.doasales.com). © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Number One with a Bullet: 30 Years of the

Punisher

hnson

by Dan Jo

The early 1970s saw some major changes come to the comic-book industry in the way comics characters reflected the world around them.

At the forefront of these changes was Marvel’s most popular title,

The Amazing Spider-Man (ASM). In one landmark storyline written by Stan Lee, Spider-Man confronted the issue of drug abuse (ASM #96–98, May–July 1971). These books went up against the Comics Code Authority [industry “standards” board], and Marvel actually published three issues without the Code’s seal on the cover. This unprecedented move helped the industry to consider a revision of the Code, rethinking which restrictions should and should not be placed on comics. In another landmark story, “The Night Gwen Stacy Died” and the follow-up issue where the Green Goblin was killed (ASM #121–122, July–August 1973), a new level of tragedy and maturity was brought to the character of Spider-Man. Whereas the drugabuse story had earlier established new freedom to address real-world issues, the Goblin story cost Spider-Man his innocence and his naiveté in ways still felt by the character. Amazing Spider-Man was the mainstream Marvel book at the time to watch to see the changes that were in the air at the publisher

First Blood The Punisher’s

and for the industry as a whole.

Both storylines were intended to hit readers hard and to drive home the point that Marvel was the place to be for innovation in the 1970s, much as it

inaugural appearance

had been in the 1960s. In Amazing Spider-Man #129 (February 1974), though,

in Amazing Spider-Man

a character was introduced that would alter the landscape of Marvel Comics,

#129 (1974). Cover

and indeed comics as a whole forever. The character was a disillusioned war

art by Gil Kane and

hero—Frank Castle—who lost his family to mob violence and swore to do

John Romita Sr. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

everything in his power to make criminals everywhere pay for their sins. Unlike Spider-Man, who had lost his Uncle Ben because of a criminal, this character wasn’t just going to bring lawbreakers to justice—he was determined to put the guilty in their graves. He was a man who had no problem blowing away a bad guy (but who couldn’t do it too often in his first few appearances because of the Code). This was a man for whom blood cried out for blood, and he was determined to paint the underworld red with it. In many ways, he helped pave the way for Batman to become the Dark Knight he is today, and he prepared the comics world for the likes of Judge Dredd and Watchmen’s Rorschach. This was the Punisher, and on the surface, he brought graphic violence back to comics,

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the likes of which had not been seen since the days before the Comics Code was first introduced. But in the process, he also brought something much more important.

His ASSIGNMeNT: KILL SPIDER-MAN! To mark the occasion of the Punisher’s 30th anniversary, BACK ISSUE sat down with the men who first brought Frank Castle to life and who started him on his one-man war on crime. “At the time I was writing The Amazing Spider-Man, my goal was to do a continued storyline that would involve two or three interacting villains,” Gerry Conway, creator of the Punisher and currently the supervising producer of the highly successful television series

Law & Order: Criminal Intent, explains. “I had this main villain called the Jackal who was going to turn out to have a fairly important influence on SpiderMan’s life, and I wanted to keep him, for the first couple of issues, as a puppeteer behind the scenes, [as] somebody who was involved, but not necessarily [fighting] one-on-one with Spider-Man in those stories. I needed to have some secondary villains who would be coming in, either partnering with the Jackal, as hirelings of the Jackal, or being misdirected

by the Jackal. The character of the Punisher was really an answer to that need.”

It soon became apparent to Conway that the Punisher was much more than a throwaway villain for Spider-Man. “As I was writing [that first story], I found myself becoming more interested in the character, and not necessarily in the story. That’s a sign that either it’s a good character or a weak story,” Conway says. “As I was writing [the Punisher], I found myself admiring his sense of honor. Even at the end of the [first] story, when he realizes

Man in Black

he’s being manipulated, even though he doesn’t

John Romita Sr.’s original

consider Spider-Man to be a friend, he doesn’t see

costume design for the Punisher.

him as an enemy and he backs away [from killing

Note the names originally

him]. The response in-house [at Marvel] and among

considered for the character.

readers was so strong, we decided we had to keep

Courtesy of the artist.

bringing him back. Occasionally you come across characters that take on a life of their own beyond

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

your initial intentions. That was certainly true of the Punisher.”

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Drawing Aim John Romita’s original cover art to The Amazing Spider-Man #135 (August 1974), with the published version in the inset.

Courtesy of Jerry Boyd. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

FIREARMS AND FASHION The basic look of the Punisher hasn’t changed that much in the 30 years since he was first introduced, a testimony to the brilliance of former Amazing

Spider-Man artist, John Romita Sr., who designed the character’s familiar uniform with its distinctive skull design. “I had drawn up a rough sketch of what I thought [the Punisher] should look like and

costumes,” Romita adds. “I was in the office and I was an available art director. I did [the design for the Punisher] even though I wasn’t penciling

Spider-Man anymore. I inked Gil Kane’s cover where the Punisher appeared the first time. The first thing that came to mind was, if the Punisher is a killer, is to use a skull. I remembered the Black Terror from the 1940s, all in black, with a small skull and crossbones on his chest. When I sat down to draw the Punisher, I didn’t want to make the

I brought it to John to ‘fix it’ and make it look

small skull and crossbones on his chest, so I devised

good,” Conway tells BACK ISSUE as he outlines how

it where the skull became almost his entire torso

the look of the character took shape in Romita’s

and the nose hole of the skull and the eyes coor-

hands. “I had drawn a basic black costume with a

dinated with his musculature. The eyes fit where

small skull on the chest of the character. John took

the pecs were and the nose fit right at the base of

that and brilliantly expanded the skull head to

his sternum. I ended up putting the teeth of the

encompass [his] entire chest and made the teeth

skull as a buckle and to look like a cartridge belt.”

into the bullet bandoleer around the waist. His

Romita mentions something very interesting

design influence on it was pretty dramatic.”

about the character’s design, a small joke he

“Most times when they were going to do a

played that actually made the Punisher even more

Spider-Man villain, if it was Stan [Lee] or Gerry

of a threat. “I did [the Punisher] without a mask.

Conway or anybody, I would be asked to do

In my mind, I was thinking somebody will be

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coming in and saying, ‘we can’t

brought to crime-fighting that got them asking

have him without a mask, he’s

for more. Roy Thomas, then the editor of The

a vigilante.’ Believe it or not,

Amazing Spider-Man, reflects on his thoughts

[no one] ever questioned it. I

on expanding the Punisher’s role in the Marvel

left him without a mask because

Universe at that time: “I, like Gerry himself and

I was tired of designing masks

soon Stan, saw the possibilities of the Punisher

and not being able to see the

as a hero as well as villain. [We also] knew of the

expressions on a villain’s face.

then-popular Executioner and Destroyer paperbacks,

I left him without a mask

so no problem.” Thomas brings up a good point:

expecting [someone] to come back and say, ‘put some kind of a mask on him.’ I always chuckle under my breath every time I see the Punisher. I think I got away with one.” When Romita let me in on the joke, I told him how I always

Magazine Mayhem

thought the idea of him not

Marvel’s black-and-white magazine

taking steps to conceal his

format of the mid-1970s afforded

identity made the Punisher

the Punisher’s writers and artists

even more dangerous. It was

great latitude. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

The Punisher tapped into the violent trend of the popular culture of the early 1970s, a fad also reflected in films like Dirty Harry and Death Wish.

When posed with the same question, Conway says, “The initial intention was for the Punisher to be a villain. The reality was, we respond to our readers. Our readers loved the character. He appeared a few more times as an antagonist for Spider-Man, and then we were doing these black-and-white, non-Code books that were designed for an older audience (Marvel Preview #2 and Marvel Super Action

almost as if the character was

#1). We thought this would be a good character for

certain that any thug who

those magazines.”

crossed paths with the business end of his guns wouldn’t live

THE CODE ERODES

long enough to tell anyone what he looked like.

So the general consensus was that Marvel had

Romita’s joke added an aspect to the Punisher that

a potential winner on its hands. But it was also

indicated he wasn’t playing games, but rather he

a character that could run afoul of the Comics

was playing for keeps.

Code. Indeed, the two magazine appearances that Conway mentioned (the first of which was

CODE NAME: ASSASSIN

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written by him and the second one by Archie Goodwin) showed the darker side of the Punisher

Conway mentions that he had originally come up

that wouldn’t be fully explored in the regular

with the name the Assassin for his new creation.

color comics until the late 1980s. In his earliest

Other potential names, as seen in Romita’s original

comic-book appearances, the criminals that ran

sketch, were the Grim Reaper and the Executioner.

into the Punisher were done in by their own hand,

In the end, though, it was one of the founding

were killed by the Punisher only to prevent

fathers of the Mighty Marvel Age of Comics who

someone else from dying, or were taken out

dubbed Frank Castle the Punisher. “At the design

by the Punisher’s “mercy bullets,” which merely

stage, when I had done a sketch of the character, in

stunned the people he shot. Thankfully, Spider-Man

coming up for a name for the character,” Conway

was also there to prevent any real mayhem from

tells BACK ISSUE, “we spoke to Stan Lee and he made

occurring and to keep the character Code-friendly.

the suggestion to call the character the Punisher.”

As someone who had been in the industry

The striking uniform of the Punisher was just

before the Code even existed, as well as someone

the tip of the iceberg. If the now-familiar costume

who was very familiar with the day-to-day opera-

of the scourge of the underworld caught the eye

tions at Marvel Comics, John Romita Sr. offers the

of Spider-Man’s readers, it was the attitude he

greatest insight into how the Code played a part

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Blasting into His Own Mag Mike Zeck’s pen-and-ink version of the cover to Punisher Magazine #1. The printed version featured a Mark Texiera painting lightboxed from this illo. Courtesy of Jim Warden. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Zeck’s Choice Jim Warden also supplied this first plate from The Punisher Portfolio, noting that it’s artist Mike Zeck’s favorite illo of the character. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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in keeping the Punisher from taking off into his

I think the ’80s were very stylistic; it was

own book much sooner. “The Code [at that time]

certainly the beginning of that period at Marvel

either had to bend or break,” Romita explains.

when art came to dominate over story in a big

“The problem was the Code was no longer valid

way. This was the period when the Image

because so much had been going on in the out-

[Comics] guys became big, so the visual impact

side world in television and movies that the Code

of Mike Zeck’s work was the most important

was almost eliminated by default. It didn’t make

aspect at that time.”

any sense for it to be that tight on the industry

The success and popularity of the Punisher

anymore. We used to constantly struggle with

proved greater and greater and eventually, in the

the Code. They were sometimes overly zealous.

early 1990s, it seemed like the character was in

I’m sure there were squawks about [the Punisher],

every Marvel comic that wasn’t already dominated

the thought that people were dying. The [cre-

by an X-Men character. For the longest time, the

ation of] the Punisher coincided with the time

Punisher proved to be one of Marvel’s best-selling

that the Code had to let up.”

PUNISHER GOES SOLO As Marvel tested the waters with the Punisher in guest-star and one-shot appearances, and as Gerry Conway moved off the Marvel books, the character fell into other creators’ hands. In 1986, the Punisher starred in his own miniseries, where he found an eager audience thrilled by his nononsense style of justice. Writer Steven Grant and artist Mike Zeck breathed life into the character as never seen before. “The main person who revived the Punisher was Mike Zeck,” Conway confirms.

“Certainly, Frank Miller brought the character back to public awareness [in Daredevil and Amazing

Spider-Man Annual appearances in the early 1980s].

Lim and Larsen Take on the Punisher Late-1980s’ commissioned drawings by Ron Lim and Erik Larsen.

Courtesy of Kevin VanHorn (www.highqualitycomics.com). © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

D C

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heroes, and writers

within the comic-book community, and a sequel

and artists were eager

is already being prepared. The talk is that The

to tackle his adventures.

Punisher has “film franchise” written all over it.

“This is a character that

The men who first brought the character to

is contextual,” Conway

life, Gerry Conway and John Romita Sr., com-

points out. “Whatever

ment on the new big-screen adventure of the

context he is in socially

Punisher: “I’m glad to see it and I hope it’s

he’ll have a different

good,” Conway tells BACK ISSUE. “If it does well,

look, a different take.

I am the guy who created the Punisher, so hope-

None of them is the

fully that will rebound pleasantly on me. I wish

definitive version,

them the best of luck, as I would like to see it

because there is no

well done.” “I have high hopes for it,” Romita

definitive version. The

says. “The atmosphere for violence now is ‘any-

subsequent takes are all

thing goes.’ I’m not looking forward to the high

valid within the time

level of violence [in the film].”

Fighting the Mob Just for the Halibut

they are done. You’re in a period today where

timent. The violent nature of the Punisher is not

BACK ISSUE’s own Michael Eury

writing is more impor-

the be-all and end-all of the character. If the

wrote this Punisher parody, the

I must say that I am with Romita on that sen-

tant again, and some-

Punisher were only about violence, then he

Punfisher, for the “Peter Porker,

one like Garth Ennis’

would really be no different than numerous imi-

the Spectacular Spider-Ham” feature

intense writing style

tators that followed after him. The Punisher is a

in Marvel Tales #211 and 213 (1988).

comes along and it has

character for whom violence is a way of life, but

a take that brings the

violence rules his life for a reason. When the

character to another

character is at his best in the comics, it is not

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

level. Garth Ennis does

when he is letting the bullets fly—rather, it is

a terrific job. He gives the Punisher a new twist.”

when the creators take the time to explore his

Following Conway’s sound logic, the number

motivations for his war on crime: the loss of his

of Punisher stories would seem to be unlimited.

family and the struggle for him to not lose what

The Punisher is a character that future writers

is left of his soul in the pursuit of vengeance. My

and artists at Marvel will have the chance to

one hope for the new Punisher film is that

explore and re-define over and over again. But it

Hollywood sees the same thing in the character’s

is not just comic-book artists who are looking to

backstory. Action films are often devoid of any

examine the damaged soul of Frank Castle. Back

humanity, and the Punisher is a character that is

in 1989, director Mark Goldblatt’s The Punisher

all too human.

with Dolph Lundgren became the first greenlighted project that could have led Marvel to the

world came with him and he altered the Marvel

big screen (for more on that movie and an inter-

Universe forever. After him, it could no longer be

view with Goldblatt, join us for next issue’s

a universe where lives could only be altered by

“Comics in Hollywood” theme). As it was, a

mishaps of science, or where the pursuit of justice

series of events transpired to keep the film from

was no longer just a noble cause. Instead, the

making it to the movie houses, although it did

Punisher showed that in the Marvel Universe,

finally reach the home-video market. By the time

much like in the real world, a life can be altered

this magazine hits the comic-book shops, director

the most by a bullet from a gun, and the pursuit of

Jonathan Hensleigh’s The Punisher will be in the-

justice isn’t so much a calling to some heroes as it

aters, with Thomas Jane in the title role. It is a

is a curse.

film that has been met with much excitement

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Current Punisher Comics

Comics great Russ Heath was one of many artists to illustrate Marvel’s mob buster during the character’s early-1990s’ heyday.

From The Punisher #91 (1994). Courtesy of Heritage Comics (www.heritagecomics.com). © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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. l Characters, Inc © 2004 Marve

Miami Vice

meanwhile

Writer Garth Ennis and artist Lewis Larosa are the new creative team behind Marvel’s popular anti-hero, with covers by Tim Bradstreet (like The Punisher #5’s cover seen here, now on sale).

Also available: The Punisher: The End #1, by Ennis and the legendary Richard Corben!

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The Essential Punisher A Review by Dan Johnson Marvel Comics, 2003 568 pages, black and white • $14.99

Calling Card This 1987 rendering of the Punisher by Mike Zeck was specifically produced for use as a business card for art dealer

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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review

Jim Warden, who shared it with BI.

The Essential Punisher, Volume 1 is a great crash course in finding out who the Punisher is and how he came to be. It collects every outing Marvel gave the character before granting him his own miniseries: The Amazing Spider-Man #129, ASM #134–135, Giant-Size SpiderMan #4, Marvel Preview #2, Marvel Super Action #1, ASM #161–162 and 174–175, Captain America #241, ASM #201–202, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15, Daredevil #182–184, and Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man # 81–83.

Many of the books reprinted in Essential Punisher are hard-to-find collectors’ items not priced for the casual reader. That is especially true for the character’s earliest appearances in Amazing Spider-Man, and his two black-and-white magazine one-shots, Marvel Preview #2 and Marvel Super Action #1, the latter of which allowed Marvel to get around the restrictions of the Comics Code. Marvel’s black-andwhite Essential format is priced at a mere $14.99, just slightly more than you would have paid for each comic individually if you had bought them when they first came out.

There are some drawbacks to the collection that I feel I must make my fellow comic-book fans aware of, though. Some of the early Spider-Man stories had numerous running subplots, and if you are not

© 2004 Marvel Characte rs, Inc.

Unsung rtist Spider-Man A

er-Man #129, Amazing Spid e Th of 31 Page inked by ss Andru and penciled by Ro t. Courtesy and Dave Hun Frank Giacoia er-art.com. of www.punish . l Characters, Inc © 2004 Marve

familiar with Amazing Spider-Man from the early to late 1970s, you are going to be left wondering whatever became of the Jackal, what happened to Harry Osborn (did he really take up his father’s mantle as the Green Goblin?), and what was it that sent J. Jonah Jameson over the edge and caused him to “flip out” for a while. Also, in an apparent effort to save space in the book, only an eightpage segment featuring the Punisher is reprinted from Daredevil #182 (although the other two issues in that story arc are reprinted in their entirety). But still, if it is the Punisher you are interested in, then this is the collection you have been waiting for. Also, if you are like me, someone who got into comics as a kid in the 1970s, this book will also prove to be a real blast from the past. It features some wonderfully nostalgic work by writers and artists who helped to shape the comics scene in

the 1970s and the early 1980s, such as Gerry Conway (the creator of the Punisher), Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Mike W. Barr, Keith Pollard, Tony DeZuniga, Denny O’Neil, Frank Miller, and the late Archie Goodwin, and it might just introduce the late Ross Andru—the man who penciled the first Punisher story (and who was one of the most underrated of all of Spidey’s artists—to a new generation of readers. Getting the chance to see any of Andru’s SpiderMan work reprinted is worth my $14.99 any day of the week.

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The cover to Amazing Spid er-Man #202, illustrat ed by Keith Po llard and Joe Rubins tein. Courtesy of www.punisher -art.com. © 2004 Marve l Characters, Inc .

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The Mighty Thor A 1994 commissioned drawing by Walter Simonson. Courtesy of Jim Warden (www.doasales.com). © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Simonson and Casey:

gue

dialo Pro” cr2ea00to4r, and transcribed A “Pro2 , 7 2 ry a

conducted

on Janu K. Morris.

by Brian

Just a little over 20 years ago, Thor #337 hit the stands like a thunder crack (no pun intended).

It was writer/artist Walt Simonson’s inaugural issue of a three-year-plus run, and the impact that it made on me personally cannot be measured.

It’s one of my favorite super-hero single issues ever. It’s also my first memory of a “hot” comic book in the marketplace, back when that really meant something.

Re-reading Walt’s run in preparation for this interview gave me as much joy and inspiration as an adult as it did when I first read Thor as a kid, a testament to Walt’s enduring talent as a storyteller. And talking to him about this seminal work was an even greater thrill. Besides being a consummate professional, Walt is well known as one of the nicest guys in the business, taking time out from his current art gig (a brand new, Michael Moorcock-written Elric prestige format miniseries for DC Comics) to talk about what was, for me, an amazing—although not so distant—era in mainstream comics. —Joe Casey

Thor, First Strike An early example of pre-pro Simonson’s Thor from his illustrated college thesis, circa 1969–70. Courtesy of David Hamilton. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Beginnings:

particular title. But I think I was captivated not only

First published art: Magnu s Robot Fighter #10 (“guard-rob” fan drawing) / First pro story: “Cyrano’s Army” in Weird War Tales #10 (1973)

by Thor but by the comics of that time in general.

CASEY: What can you say about your first stint as

Milestones:

the artist on Thor, a few years previous to scoring the

Manhunter in Detective Com ics / Alien movie adaptation for Heavy Metal / Thor / Fantastic Four / X-Men/New Teen Titans / Star Slammers / Meltdown: Havoc and Wo lverine / Michael Moorcock’s Multiverse / Orion

writer/artist gig? I know that Len Wein wrote it, and I remember reading an interview with you where you expressed how much you enjoyed it. . . but you also said you’d felt like you’d burned through the more

Work in Progress:

Elric: The Making of a Sor cerer, written by Michael Moorcock (DC)

“Kirby” aspects of the concept so that when you came to it as a writer/artist, you came to it fresh. . .

Cyberspace:

SIMONSON: Len and I had a lot of fun doing Thor for a year in 1977–78. I was drawing layouts rather Photo courtesy of www .FFplaza.com.

I don’t have a website myself (too old and crabby to go to the bother), but I hang out a fair amount at www.comicboards. com/ newgods/.

than full pencils during that run; Tony DeZuniga was doing the actual finishes. But I was definitely drawing Thor in a “Kirby” style. The work gave me a chance to exercise all my Kirby chops with big figures and bold strokes of design in my best Kirby manner. While I wasn’t attempting to be Jack’s clone, I was drawing heavily on his influence.

JOE CASEY: So the first thing I need to do is give you the disclaimer: There’ll be moments when I’m totally waxing your car. I admit that freely. [Walt laughs] But it’s completely genuine, which I hope makes all the difference.

WALT SIMONSON: I’ll just think you’re talking about somebody else. It’ll be all right. [laughs] CASEY: It’s well documented that Thor was your favorite super-hero series. I’ll be as delicate as I can here. . . Was there anything specific that you felt you could add to Thor that [creators] Stan [Lee] and Jack [Kirby], in particular, hadn’t? Some unexplored areas?

Were you thinking of those things even before you went pro?

SIMONSON: I think I took inspiration from the work Stan and Jack did with Thor rather than regarding their work as somehow needing an extra boost. [laughs] My own interest in Norse mythology preceded my discovering the Thor comic book and, no doubt, that interest contributed greatly to my enjoyment in that

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Thor, Second Strike Simonson drew layouts for Thor #260 (June 1977), below left, through #271 (May 1978), left. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

So I began adding my own visual contributions to the world of Thor.

CASEY: Okay, I’m curious about this question.

I never had the opportunity to work with [the late] Mark Gruenwald, but it’s obvious that he was one of the better editors working at Marvel at the time. In an old interview you gave for Comics Interview, you said that, when Mark offered you Thor, he gave you some suggestions that were way more radical than what you ended up doing in the actual book. Can you remember any of those specific suggestions. . . ?

SIMONSON: Mark gave me a typed list of possibilities.

I believe there were about ten options. The only idea I remember is the suggestion that Thor could be killed and somebody else would become the new Thor By the time I took over the title as writer/artist, a lot of artists had drawn Thor over the years. But Jack’s was the defining work for me. Not only had he drawn the character originally, but much of the “world” Thor inhabited was clearly based on Jack’s visual conceptualizations.

By spending a year hanging out in Jack’s world in the ’70s, I found that when I came back to it in 1983, I was able to be inspired by Jack and yet strike out in my own direction as my own thoughts took me. I hadn’t planned it that way deliberately, but that’s how it worked out.

The visualization of Asgard’s architecture is a

Beginnings:

7)

Past #2 (199 Wolverine: Days of Future

Milestones:

m miniseries / X-Men: Children of the Ato Automatic Kafka / / Adventures of Superman 3.0 sion WildC.A.T.s Ver

Works in Progress:

rk Horse) / The Milkman Murders (Da / Earth’s Mightiest ) orm ldst (Wi The Intimates Heroes (Marvel)

Cyberspace:

www.manofaction.tv

good example. In my earlier work, I drew Asgard as Jack had drawn it with big heroically scaled statues, gleaming metal building, gracefully arcing ramps— y.

Photo courtesy of Joe Case

a rather sci-fi-looking city. When I began drawing Asgard a second time, I kept the “island in space” look. But I took off in a rather different direction with the city, using early Scandinavian architecture as my model. I took the old surviving stave churches of Norway as the basis for my Asgardian architecture.

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Thor x 2 A Simonson-drawn 2003 commissioned illo of Beta Ray Bill and Thor. Courtesy of Jim Warden. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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through the agency of the hammer. I don’t think that

but I wanted to introduce some fresh faces into the title.

that influenced the Beta Ray Bill saga; I do remember

With reference back to your earlier question about

thinking that the idea of Thor dying and creating a

my first run on Thor, I felt that I had done a lot of the

new Thor was more radical a direction than I wanted

classic Stan/Jack stuff with Len already and I wanted

Walter Simonson

to go back then.

to introduce some new directions and characters into

recycled some

But Mark made it quite clear to me he wasn’t

the title. I wasn’t against using existing supporting

imagery from his

asking me to go in any of the specific directions on

characters and I did use many, including the Enchantress

college thesis as

the list. He simply wanted to show me that essentially,

and the Executioner. Something old, something new,

layouts for his

all possibilities were open and that I should do what I

something borrowed, something blue, maybe. [laughs]

celebrated stint on

wanted to do with the title. Mark gave me something

I’ve always liked bad girls in comics, but I felt that

Thor. Courtesy of

I don’t think I’ve had on any other title I’ve ever worked

the Enchantress had simply been around too long to

David Hamilton.

on, and that was carte blanche. The idea of the list was

seem fresh as a seductress for Thor. So I did the next

The “Thor Annual” That Never Was

© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

to demonstrate that he wasn’t putting any limitations on my work.

CASEY: That’s a mind-blower, for back then, especially.

SIMONSON: It was. But I loved the character of Thor and even the history of Don Blake was pretty rich. I wasn’t ready to ditch Thor and use the same name and go somewhere else. I thought there were still stories that could be told with the same character, though maybe heading off in different directions. Hence, the invention of Beta Ray Bill to pick up the hammer.

CASEY: At its best, Thor is a great amalgamation of super-hero, mythological, and science-fiction conceits, all rolled up into one series. But part of the concept that never worked for me was the romance angle.

Whether it was Jane Foster or Lady Sif or whoever else, it just never felt right. But you both fulfilled the romance angle and simultaneously side-stepped it by having, in essence, a femme fatale in the character of Lorelei. Had you had similar thoughts when you came up with that plotline. . . ?

SIMONSON: By the time I was working on Thor, Jane Foster seemed to me to be old news, even though she’d appeared in the issues immediately preceding my own.

But I felt she should have been let go back when Stan and Jack wrote her out of the book in the ’60s. And I had no intention of going back there.

I knew that I was getting rid of the Donald Blake identity, something I also thought should have been done back when Stan and Jack explained his origin.

I did intend to use a lot of Marvel’s Thor “mythos,”

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best thing—I invented the Enchantress’ younger, cuter sister, and was off and running. I did storylines that would have fit the Enchantress well enough, but they felt newer coming from a new character.

CASEY: So right off the bat you got rid of the Don Blake secret I.D. Looking back, it was revolutionary because, to my knowledge, this seemed like the first time that one of Stan and Jack’s original concepts had been altered.

SIMONSON: I don’t know that you always see that sort of significance at the time things are happening.

When I was doing Thor, Marvel was a really good place to work. There was a lot of creative freedom.

But you don’t always stop and think, “Oh, wow.

This has never happened before.” Having [Beta Ray] Bill pick up the hammer was a choice for a lead story that I made quite deliberately, because I was trying to find some things that had not happened in the book before. And at the time, it only had about 20 years of history instead of 40.

My feeling about Don Blake was that as a character in the book, he’d outlived his usefulness back when Stan and Jack gave him an origin, which I think is around Thor #158/159 or so. They went back and explained that Odin had created the Don Blake persona because he had been p.o.’d at Thor because

you do it over years, you find every book has its own

he’d lacked humility and wanted to teach him a

thematic material, and that kind of stuff comes around the

lesson. I loved the book, loved Stan’s writing, loved

guitar again, every so often, as Arlo Guthrie once said.

Jack’s drawing. But when I saw Odin slamming Thor

Odin was often knocking Thor to teach him humility

for not being humble enough, I kept thinking, “Gee,

back then. But once it had been explained that Blake

the wrong character’s getting slapped around for not

was just a magical construct of Odin’s, that there was

being humble enough here.” [Joe laughs] I thought

no real Don Blake, I thought that the character was no

maybe Odin could use a couple of lessons.

longer particularly useful. I think at the beginning,

When you’re doing serial fiction like comics and

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when Stan and Jack started their stories, Donald Blake

Before and After. . . . . . from thesis to Thor.

Courtesy of David Hamilton. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

a Thor and he’s got a father and a whole other life; and you’ve got this ordinary mortal and he seems to have a medical practice [Joe laughs]. . . how do these guys relate to each other?” Stan and Jack did a decent job of solving that conundrum. But I thought once it was solved, it left Don Blake as a dead limb on a tree that needed some pruning, so I decided to prune him.

CASEY: So it was always your plan to get rid of Don Blake. . .

SIMONSON: I liked the idea that Thor had a relationship to Earth. In the actual myths, Thor was much more of a god of the common man than, say, Odin was. And I thought that was a nice affinity, I thought it was an affinity worth continuing in the comic book.

Once Don Blake was out of the way, I felt it would be fun to give Thor a secret identity [Sigurd Jarlson] which would get used occasionally, but it was nothing that I planned to spend a whole lot of time on. I was trying to make the book just as much fun as it had been when I was reading it, especially, say, from around Thor #115 through about #139, without simply doing the same stories over again. And that’s why I jumped off in the direction I did. By getting rid of Don Blake, whether Thor had kept the Sigurd Jarlson identity for very long or not, it created a situation you hadn’t seen was just an ordinary guy. This is all speculation on my part.

before. And you couldn’t really predict where it’s going.

CASEY: Yeah, but I do think you’re right about that.

That was probably my main interest at the time, to

SIMONSON: I don’t think they had the idea that Blake

do stories where you weren’t quite sure what was going

was going to be a magical guy. He was just some ordi-

to happen next. It was that simple, really.

nary mortal and he gets this magic stick, and he goes

CASEY: Let’s backtrack a bit. In college, you did a fan

“Whap!” and he becomes a magical being. And it wasn’t

version of a Thor annual which was quite obviously

until they layered in all the Asgardian stuff, which really

an early take of the Surtur saga.

crept into the book very gradually, that the questions

SIMONSON: I drew—in a very rudimentary way—bits

began to arise, “Well, how does this work out? There’s

and pieces of stories I either invented or amended from

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existing material for Dr. Strange, Iron Man, and Enemy Ace. Each time I tried my hand at a little comics work, I stayed with the effort a little longer until, with my Thor annual, I did something on the order of 30 or so pages before deciding to set it aside until I got better.

However, I had roughed out with some care a longer Thor story [of which the annual was merely the climax] and that story became the basis for my first series of story arcs once I began writing and drawing Thor for real at Marvel. And that story was a combination of Lee/Kirby mythology, genuine Norse mythology, and Simonson invention.

CASEY: Michael Eury provided me with a few pages of that annual. And literally, it was a side-by-side comparison. And the amazing thing to me was how certain sequences—and even storytelling moments— matched up.

SIMONSON: That was deliberate. When I got to that part of the story in my Marvel Comics version, I went back and I used as many of the layouts as I could use from that original comic, sort of a tip of the hat to the fan/artist that I had been when I was in school and had come up with the idea. And the layouts weren’t bad, so I was able to use many of them.

CASEY: It’s amazing that they’re so close in certain instances.

SIMONSON: Where I thought they really still worked, I just copped them cold.

CASEY: I first saw some of those pages when they were reprinted in a fanzine called Comic Collector, back in ’83, maybe. That fan version, for a lot of guys that were my age, was really an inspiration to us

wasn’t bad. It was full of Jack Kirby-isms. But if you look at the sword Odin’s actually wearing, it’s based on an actual Danish sword from back in the Viking era. So it’s

because everybody who wants to be in comics—when they’re kids—they do their own comics. That’s a given.

a lot more rococo than the rest of his armor. [laughs] CASEY: That’s true. It’s all Kirby, and then the sword

SIMONSON: Sure.

CASEY: The pages that got reprinted at that time,

suddenly becomes a National Geographic piece.

like that splash of Odin, there was nothing amateurish

SIMONSON: Yeah, that’s right. [laughs] But I was

about that, as far as I was concerned.

beginning to understand that using reference wasn’t

SIMONSON: Well, I thought my inking got better, but it

a bad idea.

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The Wrath of Odin A powerful splash page from Simonson’s thesis (left), and its “reimagining” in print (right). Courtesy of David Hamilton. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Odin

early ’80s were maturing as creators in comics at about the same time. Even though we’re probably spread over about a ten-year age difference, we were all from roughly the same generation of comics readers and had gotten into comics professionally in the early to mid-’70s.

We’d mostly caught the ’60s’ Marvel wave of comics, so we had similar influences and were developing as creators in comics in a roughly parallel fashion.

Marvel also had a rather free-and-easy approach to the comics themselves. The company was still young enough that their fictional universe hadn’t yet begun to fracture into sub-lines or separate imprints. There was a structure within the Marvel Universe that all of us, editors and freelancers, understood pretty clearly.

It was possible to build within that comprehensively understood structure, contributing to both the history of the individual characters we were working on and to the history of the Marvel Universe in general. It still felt like it hung together, so you had the encouragement of working on your own book and working in tandem CASEY: In the early ’80s at Marvel, there seemed

with other creators doing cool stuff. When you’re part

to be a mini-rash of writer/artists working on the

of that kind of a cooperative environment, it’s fun and

’60s characters. [Frank] Miller on Daredevil. [John]

it encourages you to reach further. And it doesn’t

Byrne on Fantastic Four. And, of course, you on Thor.

happen often.

Aside from X-Men, those seemed to be the hot books

CASEY: Okay, I want to get into a couple of craft-

at the time. Why do you think the shift to writer/artists

related questions, and maybe your philosophies when

occurred, and why did they produce such great results

you were doing Thor. For instance, the humor that you’d

on these—at the time—20-year-old super-hero series?

inject into the stories—one of my favorite moments was

SIMONSON: I think that partly, several of us who

in Thor #353, the last stand against Surtur. It’s Thor,

began writing and drawing our titles for Marvel in the

Odin, and Loki, and you’ve got these three battle cries.

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"Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of. . . THOR."

Thor Frog You’ve got “For Asgard!”, “For Midgard!”, and then Loki’s “For Myself!”, which is this classic moment of injecting a dose of humor into the most cataclysmic, dramatic moment. How does humor, in general, play into your telling action/adventure stories?

SIMONSON: I’m really not much of a gritty, dark kind of a guy in most of my work, although probably the Orion stuff I did for DC recently is as dark and gritty as anything I’ve done. And as funny as that line is—and a lot of readers really liked that sequence— it’s also very true to Loki’s character.

I think the best humor really derives from the situations and the characters, rather than being something you layer in arbitrarily. In that case, all three of them seemed to have the right motivations

Thor's hammer inscription, part 1

because Thor was a guardian of Earth; Odin’s consid-

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eration was not only Asgard, but the universe at large; and Loki was self-centered, self-directed. [Joe laughs] I felt those three battle cries covered the waterfront

From the Rainbow Lily Pads of Asgard

for all three of those characters. I like when it seems

Simonson’s Thunder Frog hopped through

derived from within the characters. I’m really not much of a doom-and-gloom writer. I do want stuff

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the February–April 1986 issues of Thor. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

to be scary, but I want everything. I want stories to

story. A writer/artist is probably intuitively more adept

be scary, I want there to be pathos, I want there to

at it, or you simply worked at it. Was it difficult to find

be some humor. I want laughter, tears, all that stuff.

the narrative voice that you would use?

CASEY: I was prompted by one of my good friends

SIMONSON: Y’know, it’s been so long. I’m not sure

to ask about the now classic “Thunder Frog” storyline

how difficult or easy it was, except that I certainly

in issues #364–366, where Thor turns into a frog.

worked at it. A perfect example for me of somebody

Love the story, but why a frog. . . ?

who did that really well—I’m a big fan of the Peter

SIMONSON: Because the first guy doing comics

O’Donnell Modesty Blaise comic strip. I’m particularly

whose work I ever loved was [Walt Disney cartoonist]

a fan of the first 18 episodes, those drawn by Jim

Carl Barks, and I wanted to tip my hat in his direction.

Holdaway. That’s some of my all-time favorite work in

I originally thought about doing Thor’s transformation

the comics medium. And one of the things I like about

as a duck, but in the end decided that frogs were

it is that O’Donnell is able to blend in captions with

more traditional, at least when it came to fairy tales.

his dialogue. Of course, he’s working in an incredibly

CASEY: Let’s discuss the poetry of writing Thor—not

short form because he’s doing only three panels a day,

only the Asgardian dialects, but I found your captions

trying to recap what’s going on, advance the plot, and

to read so effortlessly and fit so seamlessly into the

end on a cliffhanger He used captions in a way that

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somehow seemed to amplify the narrative. His words made the story bigger than just the picture. And I thought when Holdaway in particular was drawing Modesty, the visual storytelling was just magnificent.

And so I think I try to emulate that model with my captions. Captions can also help set the mood in a way. Pictures do as well, but you get a mood out of the words that you couldn’t always achieve just with drawing. So I tried to use the captions as a means of

O’Donnell aside, Archie was a major

enhancing the mood or meaning of a particular scene.

influence. Just the way in which he made the stuff so

And I did work at that a lot. I did write the words—

smooth when he wrote over so many different artists.

and I still do—so that I think they will read well out

I admired that tremendously. I worked hard to emulate

loud. At least, there is that element in my thinking

that ability because I just thought it was so wonderful

about the words. But that’s really where that’s coming

that he could do that. And yet, he put so much into the

from. It’s the idea that somehow, you could speak these

stories as well. It was like he really packed the story, yet

words and they will have a rhythm and a cadence, as

you never really felt like you were being overwhelmed.

well as a meaning, and that was certainly a deliberate

Somehow, it all worked out rhythmically. And I saw Archie

effort on my part. The voice of the storyteller.

writing stuff by the seat of his pants. He was a guy

CASEY: Well, the work that you put into it definitely

who worked brilliantly under pressure and frequently

showed. Here’s another car waxing moment [Walt

needed the pressure to get the stuff really nailed down,

laughs], but I really think that because people are such

yet he was so good at it that I certainly took him as

fans of your art that a lot of times, they under-appreciate

one of my major career models as a writer. Ideally,

just how good a writer you are.

you’d like someone to read the comic and not be aware

SIMONSON: Well, thank you very much. [laughs]

of all the tricks you’re using to try to make it work. You

CASEY: I guess, in a way, it should be someone who writes

want that to be invisible as much as possible. You read

and draws their work, where it’s a seamless melding of all

the story, take it in and you’re unaware of the craft that’s

those disciplines, all rolled up into one. But I’m speaking

making it work like that.

just as a writer, that even now, when I re-read this run

CASEY: Well, in spite of that, we’re still going to talk

before this interview, it’s just really fantastic writing.

about craft here. [laughs]

SIMONSON: Thanks, I appreciate that. I will say that

SIMONSON: Oh, my God. I thought I was done. [laughs]

another model for me, very much what you’re talking

CASEY: Well, another thing that you were great at

about, was Archie Goodwin. One of the things I thought

was these long subplots that would carry through,

Archie was able to do, and he was able to do it over a

especially in the first year. You were a master at the

wide variety of artists—which I think was one of his

one-page cutaways.

amazing gifts as a writer—was that he did write seam-

SIMONSON: [laughs] I think I over-mastered that

lessly. He was able to layer in exposition, description,

sometimes.

and characterization in a way that you were almost never

CASEY: It’s kind of a lost art to have these one-page

out of the story. You read it, and it just flowed smoothly.

cutaways that propel a particular subplot where it needs

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to go. These days, sequences like that, creators spend four or five pages on them.

that was a really interesting way to tell stories. And in a

SIMONSON: You know, I probably got as much of that

book like Thor, where you had a major character, you

from Stan and Jack as from anybody. In the early Thor

still had some really interesting supporting characters. I

stories, I do wonder now if Stan and Jack always had a

felt short cutaways gave me the elbow room to do lots

fully realized idea of where they were going. It almost

of subplots, and to use some of those neat characters,

seems like they threw stuff in sometimes, in the hopes

tell stories about them, and then eventually weave

that after a while, it would all pay off. I have no idea.

them into the main thread.

CASEY: I think that’s probably the case, more often

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But I like that, the overlapping story idea. I thought

And I think I probably took my cue, to some degree,

than not. [laughs]

from Kirby, from his Fourth World material at DC. Today,

SIMONSON: Kind of free form, but I think comics were

nobody reads those books the way they came out

freer and easier back then.

because now, you get a volume of New Gods and you

CASEY: Yeah, gloriously so.

read that single title, or you read the Forever People

SIMONSON: And for all the additional craft that we all

TPB, or the Mister Miracle TPB. I was dying to see what

claim now, I’m not sure they weren’t better when they

Jack was going to do for DC at the time. And originally,

were freer and easier. [laughs]

when I was reading the books as they were coming

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Simonson’s Return to Thor The penciled version of a double-page spread from 1987’s Thor #380, an all-splash-page issue. Courtesy of David Hamilton. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

SIMONSON: That’s right. out, I was blown away by them. I thought Jack did something I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anybody else do in mainstream comics. He did four bimonthly comics, that were read as a rolling cycle—I forget the exact order now, but, say, Jimmy Olsen, then maybe Forever People, and then New Gods and Mister Miracle, then Jimmy Olsen, then Forever People, and so on. And the result was that the reader gradually built up a mosaic picture of this great cosmic war among the gods. You got a series of braided storylines and you gradually learned how they fit together. I thought that was a beautiful, structural creation that was really beyond the reach of what anybody had done in comics up to that point, at least that I know of.

Inspired by that example, I actually kept a chart on Thor, with maybe eight or nine issues laid out on a grid I had the issue numbers across the top and then all the supporting cast and Thor down the side.

I would drop into each box where that character was going to be in his storyline for that issue. That’s how I kept control of where everybody was, and what they were doing, and tried to advance everybody’s plots slightly as I went along, issue by issue.

CASEY: So when you get to the point where you’re doing it as a professional, you come to it with all the assurance that you invested in it as a reader.

SIMONSON: Yeah, quite. And it’s also like standing on the shoulders of giants. You see how it was done earlier and then you can do it yourself, but you bring your own thing to it. And honestly, I’m not sure I could have been as free and easy as Jack and Stan had been and still make any sense out of it. [laughs] I think I had to chart that stuff out or I wouldn’t have had a clue what was going on. [Joe laughs] I had too many characters floating around, so I had to make sense out of it, just for my own sanity, I think.

CASEY: Right. So the secret is the chart. [laughs] SIMONSON: It was for that book. I mean originally, I had intended to bring the Surtur saga to a climax with issue #350 because it was a nice, round number.

And really, I couldn’t. I had too much stuff happening.

As I got closer and closer, I could see that I just wasn’t going to make it. And I remember debating with myself for a while—I may have talked to Mark about it, I don’t remember now—about trying to shoehorn the story into a shorter run to make #350 come out right.

CASEY: Well, I was going to say, I do agree that some

Eventually, I decided, well, screw the round numbers.

of the Stan and Jack stuff was, as you described, “If we

I had a lot of story material I felt was worth keeping.

can string this along for just one more month, we’ll

So rather than trying to collapse the storylines to

figure out how to pay it off.”

make them fit, I went ahead and let them run to

SIMONSON: [laughs] I had that feeling, sometimes.

wherever they came out naturally.

CASEY: But when you did it, it seemed more assured.

CASEY: Another thing that I really like about your

When you read something as a kid, you’re inspired only

Thor, specifically, is your sense of editing. And I don’t

by what’s on the page and how it affects you, not

mean editing in the Mark Gruenwald sense of the

necessarily the things behind the scenes that you don’t

word, but you’d do this thing that I’d call “extreme

even know.

cliffhanger editing”—

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More Thor Rough Stuff Another penciled page from Thor #380.

Courtesy of David Hamilton. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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in his arms and he’s thinking, “I’ve got to get to my hammer!” All hell’s breaking loose, and you pick that moment to cut to one of the famous “DOOM!” pages.

One page later, we’re right back inside the collapsing SIMONSON: Uh-oh.

building. I really love that stuff. You couldn’t really do

CASEY: I know. Impressive term, isn’t it? [Walt laughs]

that in a movie.

But you would deliberately cut away at the most kinetic

SIMONSON: One thing about a comic—you have

point of a particular scene. It was something that you

the option of going back and re-reading in a way that

did quite often, this really cool technique that kept the

wasn’t available in movies, at least not back then. One

pace of every individual issue up.

of the things that I found I liked about cutting away

SIMONSON: Right.

is that you could layer in extra time.

CASEY: And again, I look at that kind of cross-cutting

CASEY: Absolutely. Okay, here’s a design question.

as a lost art. It’s very non-cinematic. You were doing

This is something I’ve always wanted to ask you. .

this great, frenetic story editing. Was that a conscious

the design of Beta Ray Bill’s costume. To me, it’s the

approach or was that just the natural way you wanted

coolest Thor costume. I actually think it’s sharper than

to tell those stories?

the original. When you were designing it, what was

SIMONSON: Well, I think both. I’m not very

your thought process? To me, it’s very much a sci-fi

influenced by filmmaking in my comics. People do

version of Thor’s outfit.

a lot of comparison between film and comics, and I

SIMONSON: I think that, to me, a sci-fi version is

understand that. But I don’t draw a lot of parallels

exactly what it was. In this case, the idea wasn’t so much

between movies and comics, other than they’re both

that Odin’s magic enchantment on the hammer also

storytelling media. To me, their differences seem more

included a new set of threads. Like, wow, it includes

interesting than their similarities. I think again, the idea

tailoring, as well. [Joe laughs] But the idea was that the

of cutting away at those intense moments was probably

enchantment on the hammer was that whosoever holds

influenced by Marvel Comics in the mid-’60s where

the hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power

they often had cliffhangers at the end of issues. In some

of Thor.

ways, it does probably owe a lot to, going back to film

CASEY: Right.

for a moment, to the Saturday-afternoon matinee stuff,

SIMONSON: And the idea was that a Thor-like costume

the old serials, where it would always end on cliffhangers.

was the reader’s visual cue of what happened to Bill

CASEY: Sure, yeah.

when he struck the cane and it turned into a hammer.

SIMONSON: The idea of cutting away so that you

By seeing a variation of that costume, I wanted to show

have to come back and see what happened afterwards,

that while he wasn’t Thor, he possessed the power of

whether in the same comic or in the following issue,

Thor without wasting space explaining it.

I think that’s the nature of the serial form. And I felt

Bill’s science-fiction background was, again,

that scenes you cut away from and came back to often

something I derived from the Stan and Jack issues

seemed bigger somehow than if you just played out the

that I liked a lot. For all the mythological background

whole thing in one go. It lets the reader’s imagination

of Thor, they did stories like the Ego the Living Planet,

expand the scene.

the High Evolutionary, or the Colonizers of Rigel. They

CASEY: Well, you’re also playing with time.

added a science-fiction element to it, which I thought

One example that springs to mind is in Thor #341,

was a cool mix with the mythological. Their stories looked

when Fafnir the Dragon attacks Thor in his new

forwards and backwards at the same time. In Bill’s case,

secret I.D. at a construction site. Fafnir collapses

he had a pulp science-fiction background and I wanted

the building with Thor inside of it, he’s got Lorelei

the costume to reflect that.

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"Warning! This hammer is heavy. Odin and the other Norse gods cannot be held liable should any injury be incurred during an attempt to lift this hammer. Caution: Choking hazard for baby frost giants under 300 years of age."

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Beta Ray Bill It All Started Here The groundbreaking Thor #337. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

interesting stuff with breakdowns and xerography, and between Howard and his letterer, Ken Bruzenak, Flagg was flashing some fabulous graphics. It was great to be there and watch it all being done.

CASEY: I’m curious, just as a fellow professional— when you finally got to write and draw Thor, something you had aspirations to do as a fan—did the experience actually live up to whatever expectations you had? Because after all, when you’re a fan, you don’t take into account deadlines, editors, company politics, all that nonsense.

SIMONSON: Oh, sure.

CASEY: But in the face of all that, was it still a “dream gig” to work on?

CASEY: In the early ’80s, you shared a studio with Jim Starlin, Frank Miller, and Howard Chaykin. This would’ve been the nexus of the writer/artist universe! Did they have any comments or feedback on the work you were doing on Thor. . . and did they ever have an influence, either consciously or subconsciously?

SIMONSON: It was. It’s funny, I didn’t get into comics to be a writer at all. I wrote dialogue on very few early pages. The fan work I’d done, like that college Thor story, I didn’t put in word balloons. I didn’t feel that I was competent to do that at the time.

By the time I started Thor, I had only begun writing,

SIMONSON: I remember looking at everybody’s stuff

maybe two or three years earlier, I guess. I hadn’t written

and oooohing and ahhhhing over it. But then, it was

that much stuff. But, yeah, it was a real treat to write

worth oooohing and ahhhhing over!

and draw the book. It was certainly never a disappoint-

We were all pretty encouraging about our work and

ment. And Mark, and then Ralph [Macchio], who was my

it was fun to be working in an studio and an atmosphere

editor after Mark, really gave me a free hand and were

that was producing American Flagg, Daredevil, and Thor

very encouraging, and I had a great time doing it.

at the same time. There was, I think, a certain amount

CASEY: Right now, I’m writing an Avengers miniseries

of competition between us, goading us all to try to do

for Marvel. And Avengers was my big book as a kid.

better and better work. And we certainly talked about

It’s the book that I loved, it’s the book that really, for

our stories to each other. We shared a lot of studio time

whatever reason, I connected to. So to write it now,

and a lot of lunches at Wendy’s, so we chatted about

I get that full circle, “fan-to-pro” feeling.

everything in the industry. You’d probably have to check

SIMONSON: Sure.

with them to see what they remember. But I saw so

CASEY: I know already, when I finish writing the last

much! Among other things, Frank was doing some

issue, some weird depression’s going to set in. [laughs]

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Common Thread “Pro2Pro” chatters Walt Simonson and Joe Casey have both contributed to the Superman canon. Superman Special pencils courtesy of David Hamilton. © 2004 DC Comics

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All in a Day’s Work Thor surveys his hammer handiwork in this commissioned sketch by Walt. Courtesy of Jim Warden. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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When you got to the end of your run on Thor, when

it, although I don’t see pages in my mind’s eye before

you finally decided to just let it go, what was going

I draw them. I have to quarry them out of the paper.

through your mind? How do you come to that

CASEY: Sure.

decision when it’s something that had meant so

SIMONSON: But somehow, often, they don’t quite

much to you?

live up to whatever I thought I had in mind to begin

SIMONSON: Well, there are a lot of reasons when

with. But then I found that when I go back and look

you decide to get off a project you’re working on,

at the work a year or two later, maybe I’ve kind of for-

and they vary. As I was writing the final Thors, Marvel

gotten what I had in mind. I think, “Y’know, this stuff

was entering an odd editorial phase. The creative

wasn’t so bad.” [laughs] That’s where I end up on it.

atmosphere, in some ways, was not what it had been

And I think that was true with Thor. I really enjoyed

a few years earlier. In my own case, I wasn’t being

doing it, I certainly got a lot of good feedback from other

pressured one way or the other, but I did feel that

professionals, it did well, sales-wise, which was nice.

more of my energy was spent dealing with stuff in

And I really did love this character so I was delighted to

the office than with the series itself. I think I just felt

be working on it and having a chance to write as well

at the time, I wasn’t able to put as much as I wanted

as draw the book. But beyond that, it was hard to tell—

to into the book. That being the case, I’d done it for

I mean, I thought it was pretty good work. And I didn’t

three and a half years at that point, I thought it was

have any expectations for how it was going to be received

maybe time to step away from it.

when it came out.

CASEY: Now, this is my other dopey fan question here.

I’ve said elsewhere that the model for my first issue of

SIMONSON: Okay.

Thor—in terms of effect, not of actual story—was Jack’s

CASEY: Thor #337 holds a real special place for guys

first issue of Jimmy Olsen I was reading a lot of comics

my age. It’s one of those perfect comics for us, where

back then when it came out and was awaiting Jack’s

everything works, everything fits, everything is balanced.

first DC comic book with a great deal of anticipation.

There’s drama, humor, and a great cliffhanger ending

I was blown away by it. And I loved the disjunction

that demanded you come back for more. Comics that feel

between it and the issues that had gone before. He

like that are what we all aspire to when we write and

didn’t waste any time or space justifying what he was

draw our own books. And I guess I was curious, when

doing in terms of the older stories; he just put the pedal

you were doing that first issue, did you feel like you

to the metal and floored it. It was great. I didn’t think

had taken a leap in your own work? It just seemed like

I’d be able to make that big a leap between the previous

such a perfect match between a creator, a character,

issues of Thor and my first one but I tried hard to get

the approach, etc.

the feeling into the book that it was heading in a new

SIMONSON: In a way, it’s hard to tell at the time

direction. That’s why the idea of developing another

you’re doing it, if you’re making a leap or not. I find

character to lift Thor’s hammer was born; it was a story

it’s difficult to answer because that was a long time

about Thor that was new.

ago and I was certainly happy with the work as it was

CASEY: Did you feel like you accomplished with your

coming out. I was delighted to be doing Thor. But I’d

first issue what you were going for, much like what Jack

like to qualify the answer only by saying that most of

had accomplished with his first issue, in just the feeling

the time—and I guess this is from experience—I do

of it? That’s partly what I mean by making that leap. . .

find the work I do, when I write it, draw it and get it

SIMONSON: Well, yes, and I certainly felt that I’d made

out of the house, somehow, it’s never quite as good

some leap from the previous material. I didn’t make the

as I saw it in my mind’s eye when I was thinking about

kind of leap Jack made. His first issue of Jimmy Olsen made

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the biggest leap between one issue and the next of any comic I’ve ever read.

Visionaries

CASEY: Right, yeah. [laughs] SIMONSON: I went over to one of the comic shops in New York a couple days after my first issue came out to pick up a few copies, just for my own files, and they were all sold out. And I remember just thinking, “It’s what? How weird.” So it took off in a way that maybe supported the idea that it had made a jump from the previous issues.

CASEY: I would assume a sellout really meant something back then.

SIMONSON: Yeah, it was very cool. One of the funny things about Thor #337 was that at the time, I think the book had direct sales of maybe 70,000 copies. We’d all

Thor Visionaries Simonson’s Thunder God classics are collected in three Thor Visionaries trade paperbacks. © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

kill for that now, but it was pretty low at the time. But we ended up having a sell-through on the newsstand of something in the range of 90%.

profile in Esquire magazine. But the comics then were

CASEY: Oh, my God!

pretty much aimed at a general audience and I think

SIMONSON: Normally, the newsstand sell-through then

that was the model I was emulating.

was 25–35 percent, something like that. And what

I’m a big fan of the Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge

happened was a lot of the dealers went and cleaned out

stories of Carl Barks, and one of the things I love about

every 7-11 spinner rack they could find. The newsstand

them is that they can be read by children and adults

sales on the book were huge because a lot of the comic-

alike without apology. That was the audience I had in

book retailers grabbed them because they were able to

mind [with Thor]; it’s the sort of audience most of my

resell them. So that was kind of funny. And back then,

work has in mind. A general audience.

It was also hard to gauge exactly who was reading

I don’t know if reorders were possible.

CASEY: Were you aware that, for readers of my

your comic book. The only real feedback came from two

generation, this was probably our first real sustained

sources back then, letters and conventions. And while

exposure to Thor? For me, I’d bought a few scattered

I did go to cons and did receive mail, I don’t specifically

issues here and there, and I knew him from reading

remember a lot of kid response. We did get some letters

Avengers, but your run was the first time I’d religiously

from children and while they were always gratifying,

followed the monthly. I know you were scratching a lot

they weren’t always interesting enough to print in letter

of personal creative itches as you were doing the work,

columns. [laughs] But I was delighted to get them,

but were you also consciously aware of that portion of

delighted that kids as well as grown-ups were reading

the readership. . . in essence, the brand new young reader?

the comic.

SIMONSON: I was certainly trying to create a comic that would honor the earlier work that Stan and Jack had done on Thor. I was in college myself when I was reading Thor in the mid-’60s. At that time, Marvel had developed enough of a collegiate audience to rate a

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d{

Michael Eu

ry

The Chronicles Chronicles of of The trade paperback reviews

CONAN b y R oy Th omas and Barr y W inds or-S mith

I’ll start with a confession: I’m not a fan of war stories, simply because I do not wish to see a graphic recreation of the horrors of combat. Similarly, I’ve steered clear of epic fantasy involving barbarism, swordplay, and sorcery—and yes, I readily admit to the thousands of you reading this that I have not seen any of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Revoke my fanboy club membership if you must, but that’s the truth.

It wasn’t always that way. During my youth, back before my

The Chronicles of Conan

testosterone was diminished by watching romantic comedies with my wife, I enjoyed “manly” adventures. I was an Edgar Rice Burroughs devotee, saw Excalibur three times, and read Marvel Comics’ Conan

Volume 1: Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories Dark Horse Books • 2003 Softcover • 168 pages, color • $15.95 Volume 2: Rogues in the House and Other Stories Dark Horse Books • 2003 Softcover • 168 pages, color • $15.95

the Barbarian each month.

So nostalgically, I find it exciting that Dark Horse Comics is reprinting Marvel’s Conan run in a series of astoundingly beautiful trade paperbacks under the umbrella title The Chronicles of Conan.

And given this issue’s “Marvel Milestones” theme, the importance of these tales cannot be overlooked.

Conan the Barbarian #1, cover dated October 1970, was a radical departure from the titles (mostly super-hero, with the occasional Sgt. Fury and Millie the Model thrown in for a hint of diversity) previously published by Marvel during its 1960s’ Silver Age. Recalls Conan author Roy Thomas in his exceptionally informative Afterword in Volume 1, Marvel’s acquisition of novelist Robert E. Howard’s legendary barbarian was rooted in reader feedback, which also included requests for Tarzan, Doc Savage, and Lord of the Rings comics. Thomas’ regaling backstory (worthy of a BACK ISSUE “Beyond Capes”— too bad you didn’t save

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this for us, Roy!) reveals how Marvel publisher Martin Goodman’s penny-pinching almost led to a deal to adapt Lin Carter’s Thongor of Lemuria instead of Conan, and how then-newcomer Barry (Windsor-) Smith was tapped to illustrate Conan the Barbarian because Thomas’ A-list choice, John Buscema, commanded too high a page rate for this fledgling title.

Conan the Barbarian became a surprise hit (although it took several issues to find its audience), ushering in a new comic-book genre— “sword and sorcery”—inspiring a spate of imitators including Kull the Conqueror, Red Sonja, The Warlord, Sword and Sorcery, Wulf the Barbarian, IronJaw, and even Thongor (in the pages of Marvel’s Creatures on the Loose).

Without Thomas and Windsor-Smith’s Conan convincing publishers that comics could be more than just super-heroes and car-

Volume 1’s Afterword features three panels of pencil reproductions from Smith’s Conan artwork, including this one.

toon critters, the climate that cultivated everything from Cerebus to Sandman might not have emerged.

The Chronicles of Conan Volume 1 gathers Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian #1-8, with Volume 2 following with its reprints of issues #9-13 and 16 (Smith did not

Conan TM & © 2004 Conan Properties International, LLC.

illustrate #14 and #15). The historical significance of these stories aside, it’s fascinating to observe the progression of the Thomas/Smith team. Issue #1’s “The Coming of Conan,” an original story by Roy, is quite stilted: Thomas strains to find a voice for both the barbarian and for his own narration, and Smith’s anatomy is lopsided and weakly structured (although considerably solidified by the inks of stalwart Dan Adkins). Despite these deficiencies, “The Coming of Conan” still screams with innovation—no other comic had ever looked and read quite like this one.

With each story in these trades, both writer and artist congeal as an artistic team and help transform the trailblazing Conan into one of the most unique comics of its day. After three issues of original tales or loose variations of Howard’s work, with Conan battling other barbarians, beast-men, and spectral

Considered the seminal

warriors, Thomas strikes pay dirt by adapting Howard’s opus “The Tower of the

installment of the Thomas/Smith

Elephant” in issue #4. In this classic, Conan encounters a tortured soul named

Conan era, “Red Nails” is included

Yag-Kosha, a jade-hued humanoid with an elephant’s head. Yag-Kosha intro-

in Dark Horse’s forthcoming fourth

duced to Marvel’s Conan series the same concept that made so many of its super-

The Chronicles of Conan volume.

heroes a hit: larger-than-life, horrific beings with tragic lives. More bombastic

Conan TM & © 2004 Conan Properties International, LLC.

beasts follow in subsequent stories, although not all of them evoke sympathy.

Some, like the giant spider Omm, the Unspeakable from issue #13’s “Web of the Spider-God” (from Volume 2), deserve a quick taste of Conan’s blade—and get it!

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Volume 2 concludes with “The Frost Giant’s Daughter,” Smith’s first solo art foray without the supportive inking lines of either Adkins, Sal Buscema, Frank Giacoia, Tom Sutton, or Tom Palmer. By this point, Smith confidently asserts himself in a wonderfully drafted tale.

Another joy of The Chronicles of Conan is its expertly remastered color, a far stretch from the color-separated, meager four-color slop that was originally published onto newsprint some over 30 years ago. If there’s anything missing from Dark Horse’s Conan collected editions, it’s reprintings of the original Marvel covers, like the publisher has done with its repackaging of Marvel’s Star Wars tales (as reviewed in BACK ISSUE #2).

At this writing, Volume 3 and Volume 4 have yet to reach the stands, (Volume 4 completes the lauded Thomas/Smith collaboration, and reprints the first Conan tale by John Buscema), but promise to continue the reprinting of Marvel’s Conan classics in this contemporary and vibrantly colorful format. Classic Marvelites, unload those valuable back issues on eBay and enjoy this vivid new presentation of the Thomas/Smith Conan era in Dark Horse’s wonderful TPB packages!

NEW In Print!

New Comics. Classic Appeal.

Conan #3 Writer: Kurt Busiek • Cover Artist: Joseph Michael Linsner Interior Artist: Cary Nord • Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Now on sale for $2.99 Attention, manly men, Conan is back—in all-new stories! Unencumbered by the Comics Code Authority’s restrictions that kept Marvel’s Conan from pushing the envelope, Dark Horse’s interpretation is stark and sometimes gruesome, and many critics, including Entertainment Weekly, are taking note. Issue #3 thrusts the barbarian into a battle with the baddest from Asgard.

Iron Fist #2 Writer: Jim Mullaney • Artist: Kevin Lau • Publisher: Marvel Comics • Now on sale for $2.99 Back during Conan’s Marvel heyday, bare-chested sword-wielding wasn’t the only brand of battle going on: Everybody was kung-fu fightin’, and the martial artist with the blistering punch, Danny Rand, aka Iron Fist, kicked onto the scene. And he’s back in print, but with new emotional baggage in this hard-hitting interpretation.

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

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

Your interview with Adam Hughes and me concerning The Maze Agency [BACK ISSUE #2] elicited questions from a few readers as to the status of the book. This caused me to review the interview and to realize that, in my secondto-last set of comments, the following copy was omitted: “DC won’t let WildStorm publish it, I’ve inquired of Dark Horse, but can’t get a response. I sent Maze to CrossGen, but never got a response there, either. A couple of the black-and-white boys have expressed interest, but the rate has been less than satisfactory.”

On a related subject, BACK ISSUE #2 also carried a review of the third Dark Horse trade paperback collection of Marvel’s Star Wars series. While it’s satisfying to see my sole contribution to that series (#49, “The Last Jedi”) in print again, readers should be aware that Dark Horse has not yet made good on its promise, made to me by Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson in January of 2003, to pay the creators of those stories reprint fees. While it’s great for publishers to keep old material in print, it’s far less than great for the creators if everyone involved with the project is being paid except them, the persons without whom the stories would not exist. Just as creators owe readers their best efforts, readers owe creators the courtesy of not patronizing publishers that profit from their work without paying them.

Please know that BACK ISSUE has my continued support.

It’s as close as the comic-book business has ever gotten to objective journalism; I hope it will soon close the gap.

– Mike W. Barr

Thanks for setting the record straight, Mike. – M.E.

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This issue of BACK ISSUE is dedicated to the memory of the editor’s loving father, Ray H. Eury, 1931–2004.

mics. © 1973 DC Co

Just thought I’d drop you a line to let you know how great of a job you guys are doing on this magazine.

One of the first things I've noticed is how well designed BACK ISSUE is. Lots of white space; clever use of fonts; and the way you incorporate background illustrations beneath the text. All this makes for one pleasant read!

I especially enjoyed “Off My Chest” from issue #2 featuring Mike W. Barr. The talk of the DC Implosion was very intriguing. I've always viewed Mike W. Barr as one of the best comic writers around; a classic DC super-hero “nononsense” writer. Can’t go wrong with that.

I was, however, disappointed that you didn’t cover more of Comico’s The Elementals in the Flashback feature. This was an extremely innovative and well-drawn series. Perhaps you may talk about it more in the future (?).

Some article suggestions for future issues: 1) How about an article on Jim Aparo featuring some of his Batman artwork? This guy was one of the quintessential Batman artists from the ’80s.

It’d be a treat to read up on him.

2) An article on the Pacific Comics’ Starslayer series drawn by Mike Grell?

3) Some coverage on The Micronauts series from the ’80s?

4) Camelot 3000? Everybody remembers that one. Drawn by the one and only Brian Bolland.

Anyways, keep up the good work. You have a reader for life.

– Brett Weston

© 1982 D C Comics.

BACK ISSUE is designed by the ultra-talented Robert Clark, who presents our “old” material in a “new” way.

Don’t be too disappointed in the absence of Elementals coverage in issue #2, Brett—as you suggest, that important series deserves a major spotlight, which it will receive in a future issue.

Two of your requests are already in the works, and the others will probably happen down the road.

Glad to have a reader for life! – M.E.

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Questions? Comments? Exaltations? Send 'em to euryman@msn.com.

Thanks for helping make BACK ISSUE the ultimate comics experience!

ON S U B M I S SEI S GUIDELIN BACK ISSUE is on the lookout for the following comics-related material from the 1970s and 1980s:

I picked up BACK ISSUE #2 a bit ago and just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed it. Comico was one of the companies that brought me back into comics in the ’80s and it was a pleasure to read the behind-the-scenes articles. I really wish the Space Ghost vs. The Herculoids issue had come out.

The Maze Agency was a favorite of mine, one of the books I would use to introduce non-comics fans to comics, so the Mike W. Barr article was a real treat. The only thing I didn't like about the Wagner/Schutz article was one measly little comment that implied that you editors thought the Robotech books were junk. Some of us like Robotech and Star Blazers. But then I could be reading too much into it.

The rest of the interview was really fascinating.

Anyway, please keep covering © 1986 DC Co mics. diverse books in BACK ISSUE. I’m looking forward to the ’Mazing Man coverage. For myself, I’d like to see something about the different sword-and-sorcery and science-fiction books that were out in the ’80s. Alien Worlds is a start, but there are others that were out there. Maybe a Dynamo Joe feature sometime?

– Penny Kenny Despite the disparaging Robotech remarks, Penny, those titles were Comico’s best-sellers, so thousands of Robotech fans can’t be wrong!

Sword and sorcery, sci-fi, humor, romance, fantasy— BACK ISSUE will cover as many genres and series as possible.

And with the wealth of quality material published in the 1970s and 1980s, we certainly won’t run short of subject matter.

Thanks to everyone who wrote. While we lack the space to publish every letter, each is read and appreciated.

Your friendly neighborhood Euryman, Michael Eury

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Unpublished artwork Original artwork Penciled artwork Character designs, model sheets, etc.

Original scripts

Photos Original sketches and/or convention sketches Rare fanzine material Other rarities

Creators and collectors of 1970s and 1980s comics artwork are invited to share your goodies with other fans! Contributors will be acknowledged in print and receive complimentary copies (and the editor’s gratitude).

Submit artwork as (listed in order of preference):

Scanned images: 300dpi TIF (preferred) or JPEG (e-mailed or on CD, or to our FTP site; please inquire)

Clear color or black-and-white photocopies BACK ISSUE is also open to pitches from writers for article ideas appropriate for our recurring and/or rotating departments. Request a copy of the BACK ISSUE Writers’ Bible by e-mailing euryman@msn.com or by sending a SASE to the address below.

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

Advertise In BACK ISSUE! FULL-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 10" Tall • $300 HALF-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 4.875" Tall • $175 QUARTER-PAGE: 3.75" Wide x 4.875" Tall • $100 Prepay for two ads in Alter Ego, DRAW!, Write Now!, Back Issue, or any combination and save: TWO FULL-PAGE ADS: $500 ($100 savings) TWO HALF-PAGE ADS: $300 ($50 savings) TWO QUARTER-PAGE ADS: $175 ($25 savings) These rates are for black-&-white ads, supplied on-disk (TIF, EPS, or Quark Xpress files acceptable) or as cameraready art. Typesetting service available at 20% mark-up.

Due to our already low ad rates, no agency discounts apply.

Sorry, display ads not available for the Jack Kirby Collector.

Send ad copy and check/money order (US funds), Visa, or Mastercard to: TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 Phone: 919/449-0344 • FAX 919/449-0327 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com

BOOKS by BACK ISSUE’s editor MICHAEL EURY

KRYPTON COMPANION Unlocks the secrets of Superman’s Silver and Bronze Ages, when kryptonite came in multiple colors and super-pets scampered across the skies! Writer/editor MICHAEL EURY explores the legacy of classic editors MORT WEISINGER and JULIUS SCHWARTZ through all-new interviews with NEAL ADAMS, MURPHY ANDERSON, CARY BATES, NICK CARDY, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, KEITH GIFFEN, ELLIOT S! MAGGIN, JIM MOONEY, DENNIS O’NEIL, BOB OKSNER, MARTIN PASKO, BOB ROZAKIS, JIM SHOOTER, LEN WEIN, MARV WOLFMAN, and other fan favorites!

Plus: Super-artist CURT SWAN’s 1987 essay “Drawing Superman,” JERRY SIEGEL’s “lost” imaginary story “The Death of Clark Kent,” MARK WAID’s tribute to Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, and rare and previously unpublished artwork by WAYNE BORING, ALAN DAVIS, ADAM HUGHES, PAUL SMITH, BRUCE TIMM, and other Super-stars. Bonus: A roundtable discussion with modern-day creators examining Superman’s influential past! Cover by DAVE GIBBONS!

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

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

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

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

COMICS GONE APE!

DICK GIORDANO: CHANGING COMICS, ONE DAY AT A TIME

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

MICHAEL EURY’s biography of comics’ most prominent and affable personality! Covers his career as illustrator, inker, and editor, peppered with DICK’S PERSONAL REFLECTIONS on his career milestones!

Lavishly illustrated with RARE AND NEVER SEEN comics, merchandising, and advertising art (includes a color section)! Also includes an extensive index of his published work, comments and tributes by NEAL ADAMS, DENNIS O’NEIL, TERRY AUSTIN, PAUL LEVITZ, MARV WOLFMAN, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, JIM APARO and others, plus a Foreword by NEAL ADAMS and Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ!

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

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

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

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

THE

BATCAVE C O M P A N I O N NOW SHIPPING! Batman. Is he the campy Caped Crusader? Or the grim Gotham Guardian?

Both, as The Batcave Companion reveals.

On the brink of cancellation in 1963, Batman was rescued by DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz, who, abetted by several talented writers and artists, gave the hero a much-needed “New Look” which soon catapulted Batman to multimedia stardom.

In the next decade, when Batman required another fresh start, Schwartz once again led a team of creators that returned the hero to his “creature of the night” roots.

Writers Michael Eury (The Krypton Companion, The Justice League Companion) and Michael Kronenberg (Spies, Vixens, and Masters of Kung Fu: The Art of Paul Gulacy) unearth the stories behind the stories of both Batman’s “New Look” and Bronze Age (1970s) comic-book eras through incisive essays, invaluable issue-by-issue indexes, and insightful commentary from many of the visionaries responsible for and inspired by Batman’s 1960s and 1970s adventures: Neal Adams, Michael Allred, Terry Austin, Mike W. Barr, Steve Englehart, Mike Friedrich, Mike Grell, Carmine Infantino, Joe Giella, Adam Hughes, Sheldon Moldoff, Will Murray, Dennis O’Neil, Bob Rozakis, Mark Waid, Len Wein, and Bernie Wrightson.

Featuring 240 art- and info-packed pages, The Batcave Companion is a must-have examination of two of the most influential periods in Batman’s 70-year history.

Written by Back Issue’s

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

TwoMorrows. Celebrating The Art & History Of Comics.

TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

TwoMorrows Publishing 2009 Update WINTER/SPRING

Supplement to the 2008 TwoMorrows Preview Catalog

ORDER AT: www.twomorrows.com

SAVE

BATCAVE COMPANION

All characters TM & ©2009 their respective owners.

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

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WHE % N YO ORD U ONL ER INE!

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

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

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

CAPTAIN ACTION: THE ORIGINAL SUPERHERO ACTION FIGURE

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

(Hardcover 2nd Edition)

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

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

The comic book industry experienced an unexpected flowering in the early 1960s, compliments of Marvel Comics, and this book presents a step-by-step look at how a company that had the reputation of being one of the least creative in a generally moribund industry, emerged as one of the most dynamic, slightly irreverent and downright original contributions to an era when pop-culture emerged as the dominant force in the artistic life of America. In scores of handy, easy to reference entries, MARVEL COMICS IN THE 1960s takes the reader from the legendary company’s first fumbling beginnings as helmed by savvy editor/writer STAN LEE (aided by such artists as JACK KIRBY and STEVE DITKO), to the full maturity of its wild, colorful, offbeat grandiosity.

With the history of Marvel Comics in the 1960s divided into four distinct phases, author PIERRE COMTOIS explains just how Lee, Kirby, Ditko, and others created a line of comic books that, while grounded in the traditional elements of panel-to-panel storytelling, broke through the juvenile mindset of a low brow industry and provided a tapestry of full blown pop culture icons.

(224-page trade paperback) $27.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490168 • Ships July 2009

GRAILPAGES:

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

(128-page trade paperback) $15.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490151 Diamond Order Code: JAN094470 • Ships March 2009

MAGAZINES

DIEDGITIIOTANSL BL AVAILA

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

BRICKJOURNAL #3

BRICKJOURNAL #4

BRICKJOURNAL #5

BRICKJOURNAL #6

Event Reports from BRICKWORLD, FIRST LEGO LEAGUE WORLD FESTIVAL and PIECE OF PEACE (Japan), spotlight on our cover model builder BRYCE McGLONE, and interviews with ARTHUR GUGICK and STEVEN CANVIN of LEGO MINDSTORMS to see where LEGO ROBOTICS is going!

There’s also STEP-BY-STEP BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS, TECHNIQUES, & more!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

TM

BACK ISSUE celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through a variety of recurring (and rotating) departments, plus rare and unpublished art. Edited by MICHAEL EURY. DRAW! is the professional “How-To” magazine on cartooning and animation, featuring in-depth interviews and step-bystep demonstrations from top comics professionals. Edited by MIKE MANLEY. ROUGH STUFF features never-seen pencil pages, sketches, layouts, roughs, and unused inked pages from throughout comics history, plus columns, critiques, and more!

Edited by BOB McLEOD. WRITE NOW! features writing tips from pros on both sides of the desk, interviews, sample scripts, reviews, exclusive Nuts & Bolts tutorials, and more!

Edited by DANNY FINGEROTH.

ALTER EGO #81

ALTER EGO #82

ALTER EGO #83

ALTER EGO #84

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

MLJ ISSUE! Golden Age MLJ index illustrated with vintage images of The Shield, Hangman, Mr. Justice, Black Hood,

by IRV NOVICK, JACK COLE, CHARLES BIRO, MORT MESKIN, GIL KANE, & others—behind a marvelous MLJ-heroes cover

by BOB McLEOD! Plus interviews with IRV NOVICK and JOE EDWARDS, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

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

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

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

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

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

C o l l e c t o r

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

Edited by JOHN MORROW.

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

BACK ISSUE #29

BACK ISSUE #30

BACK ISSUE #31

BACK ISSUE #32

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

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

“STEVE GERBER Salute!” In-depth look at his Howard the Duck, Man-Thing, Omega the Unknown, Defenders, Metal Men, Mister Miracle, Thundarr the Barbarian, and more!

Plus: Creators pay tribute to Steve Gerber, featuring art by and commentary from BRUNNER, BUCKLER, COLAN, GOLDEN, STAN LEE, LEVITZ, MAYERIK, MOONEY, PLOOG, SIMONSON, and others. Cover painting by FRANK BRUNNER!

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

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

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DRAW! #17

DRAW! #18

ROUGH STUFF #10

ROUGH STUFF #11

ROUGH STUFF #12

Interview with Scott Pilgrim’s creator and artist BRYAN LEE O’MALLEY on how he creates the acclaimed series, plus learn how B.P.R.D.’s GUY DAVIS works on his series.

Also, more Comic Art Bootcamp: Learning from The Great Cartoonists by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, reviews, and more!

Features an in-depth interview and demo

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

Interview with RON GARNEY, with copious examples of sketchwork and comments.

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALTER EGO #85

ALTER EGO #86

ALTER EGO #87

ALTER EGO #88

WRITE NOW! #20

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BACK ISSUE #33

BACK ISSUE #34

BACK ISSUE #35

KIRBY COLLECTOR #52

KIRBY COLLECTOR #53

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Volume 19: MIKE PLOOG

Volume 20: KYLE BAKER

Volume 21: CHRIS SPROUSE

Volume 22: MARK BUCKINGHAM

Volume 23: DARWYN COOKE

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

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

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

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781605490144 Diamond Order Code: JUL088519 Ships May 2008

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

AGE OF TV HEROES Examines the history of the live-action television adventures of everyone’s favorite comic book heroes! FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER features the in-depth stories of the actors and behind-thescene players that made the classic super-hero television programs we all grew up with.

Included are new and exclusive interviews and commentary from ADAM WEST (Batman), LYNDA CARTER (Wonder Woman), PATRICK WARBURTON (The Tick), NICHOLAS HAMMOND (Spider-Man), WILLIAM KATT (The Greatest American Hero), JACK LARSON (The Adventures of Superman), JOHN WESLEY SHIPP (The Flash), JACKSON BOSTWICK (Shazam!), and many more!

Written by JASON HOFIUS and GEORGE KHOURY, with a new cover by superstar painter ALEX ROSS! (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490106 Diamond Order Code: SEP084302 Rescheduled for July 2009

SUBSCRIPTION RATES 2009 SUBSCRIPTION RATES:

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EXTRAORDINARY WORKS KIRBY FIVE-OH! OF ALAN MOORE: LIMITED HARDCOVER Indispensable Edition Limited to 500 copies, KIRBY FIVE-OH! The definitive biography of the co-creator of WATCHMEN and V FOR VENDETTA finally returns to print in a NEW EXPANDED AND UPDATED VERSION! Features an extensive series of interviews with MOORE about his entire career, including a new interview covering his work since the sold-out 2003 edition of this book was published.

Includes RARE STRIPS, SCRIPTS, ART, and private PHOTOS of the author, plus a series of tribute comic strips by many of Moore’s closest collaborators, a COLOR SECTION featuring a RARE MOORE STORY (remastered, and starring MR. MONSTER), and more! Edited by GEORGE KHOURY, with a cover by DAVE McKEAN! (240-page trade paperback) $29.95 US ISBN: 9781605490090 Diamond Order Code: OCT084400 Limited Hardcover Signed by Alan Moore (100 hardcover copies) $49.95 US Only available from TwoMorrows!

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US

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (4 issues)

$50

$60

$60

$84

$136

BACK ISSUE! (6 issues)

$44

$60

$70

$105

$115

DRAW! (4 issues)

$30

$40

$47

$70

$77

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

$88

$120

$140

$210

$230

BRICKJOURNAL (4 issues)

$38

$48

$55

$78

$85

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

Reprints JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #27-30, with looks at Jack’s 1970s and ‘80s work, plus a two-part focus on how widespread Kirby’s influence is! Features rare interviews with KIRBY himself, plus Watchmen’s ALAN MOORE and DAVE GIBBONS, NEIL GAIMAN, Bone’s JEFF SMITH, MARK HAMILL, and others! See page after page of rare Kirby art, including a NEW SPECIAL SECTION with over 30 PIECES OF KIRBY ART NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED, and more!

(288-page trade paperback) $29.95 US ISBN: 9781605490120 Diamond Order Code: DEC084286 Ships February 2009

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

SHIPPING COSTS: Order online for exact weight-based postage, or ADD $2 PER MAGAZINE OR DVD/$4 PER BOOK IN THE US for Media Mail shipping.

OUTSIDE THE US, PLEASE ORDER ONLINE TO CALCULATE YOUR EXACT POSTAGE COSTS & SAVE!

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

COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR Volume 7

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

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

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

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

Still more galleries of UNPUBLISHED ART

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

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

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG063714

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ROUGH STUFF #5

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

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

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY073902

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Features an in-depth interview and cover by TIM TOWNSEND, CRAIG HAMILTON, DAN JURGENS, and HOWARD PORTER offer preliminary art and commentaries, MARIE SEVERIN career retrospective, graphic novels feature with art and comments by DAWN BROWN, TOMER HANUKA, BEN TEMPLESMITH, and LANCE TOOKS, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV073966

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ROUGH STUFF #9

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ROUGH STUFF #8 Features an in-depth interview and cover painting by the extraordinary MIKE MAYHEW, preliminary and unpublished art

by ALEX HORLEY, TONY DeZUNIGA, NICK CARDY, and RAFAEL KAYANAN (including commentary by each artist), a look at the great Belgian comic book artists, a “Rough Critique” of MIKE MURDOCK’s work, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB084188

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

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

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THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

TM

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

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

BACK ISSUE #1

BACK ISSUE #2

BACK ISSUE #3

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

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

HUGHES cover!

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

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BACK ISSUE #4

BACK ISSUE #5

BACK ISSUE #6

BACK ISSUE #7

BACK ISSUE #8

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

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

Covers by ALEX ROSS and ADAM HUGHES!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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BACK ISSUE #14

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DAVE COCKRUM and MIKE GRELL go “Pro2Pro” on the Legion, pencil art gallery

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

“Weird Heroes” of the 1970s and ‘80s!

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

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

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

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

by NEAL ADAMS!

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BACK ISSUE #19

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

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

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

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

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

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BACK ISSUE #24

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

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

Includes a FREE DRAW! #15 PREVIEW!

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

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

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

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NEW STUFF FROM TWOMORROWS!

ALTER EGO #85

WRITE NOW! #20

ROUGH STUFF #12

DRAW! #17

BRICKJOURNAL #5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(80-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 US (Digital Edition) $3.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC084408 Now shipping!

KIRBY COLLECTOR #52

EXTRAORDINARY WORKS OF ALAN MOORE:

BATCAVE COMPANION

Spotlights Kirby’s most obscure work, like an UNUSED THOR STORY, BRUCE LEE comic, animation work, stage play, unaltered versions of pages from KAMANDI, DEMON, & DESTROYER DUCK, a feature examining the last page of his final issue of various series BEFORE EDITORIAL TAMPERING, unseen Kirby covers & more!

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 US Diamond Order Code: DEC084397 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Now shipping!

COLLECTED KIRBY COLLECTOR VOL. 7 Reprints KIRBY COLLECTOR #27-30 plus over 30 pieces of Kirby art never published!

(288-page trade paperback) $29.95 ISBN: 9781605490120 Now shipping!

GRAILPAGES

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

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

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

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

Indispensable Edition

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

2009 SUBSCRIPTION RATES:

Media Mail

Original Comic Book Art & The Collectors Examines the hobby of collecting original comic book art, letting you meet collectors from around the globe as they detail collections ranging from a few key pages, to hundreds of pages of original comic art

by JACK KIRBY, JOHN ROMITA SR., and others! Features interviews with industry pros, including writers GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, and ROY THOMAS, and exclusive perspectives from Silver Age artists DICK GIORDANO, BOB McLEOD, ERNIE CHAN, TONY DeZUNIGA, and the unparalleled great, GENE COLAN! Completing the book is a diverse sampling of breathtakingly beautiful original comic art, some lavishly presented in full-page spreads, including pages not seen publicly for decades. Written by STEVEN ALAN PAYNE. (128-page trade paperback) $15.95 US ISBN: 9781605490151 Diamond Order Code: JAN094470 Now shipping!

VOLUME 20: KYLE BAKER

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

VOLUME 21: CHRIS SPROUSE

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

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