Back Issue #60 by TwoMorrows Publishing

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A chilling look back at Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s

HALLOWEEN HEROES AND VILLAINS: SCARECROW • SOLOMON GRUNDY • MAN-WOLF • LORD PUMPKIN • and RUTLAND, VERMONT’s Halloween Parade

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

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

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

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Star*Reach’s Batman, Aquaman II, 1984 Black Canary miniseries, Captain America: The Musical, Miracleman: Triumphant, unpublished issues of The Cat and Warlock, BLEVINS, DEODATO, FRADON, SEKOWSKY, WEISS, MIKE GRELL cover!

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

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(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Dead Heroes”! JIM (“Death of Captain Marvel”) STARLIN interview, Deadman after Neal Adams, Jason Todd Robin, the death and resurrection of the Flash, Elektra, the many deaths of Aunt May, art by and/or commentary from APARO, BATES, CONWAY, GARCIA-LOPEZ, GEOFF JOHNS, MILLER, WOLFMAN, and a cosmically cool cover by JIM STARLIN!

(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “1970s Time Capsule”! Examines relevance in comics, Planet of the Apes, DC Salutes the Bicentennial, Richard Dragon–Kung-Fu Fighter, FOOM, Amazing World of DC, Fast Willie Jackson, Marvel Comics calendars, art and commentary from ADAMS, BRUNNER, GIORDANO, LARKIN, LEVITZ, MAGGIN, MOENCH, O’NEIL, PLOOG, STERANKO, cover by BUCKLER and BEATTY!

Special 50th Anniversary FULL-COLOR issue ($8.95 price) on “Batman in the Bronze Age!” O’NEIL, ADAMS, and LEVITZ roundtable, praise for “unsung” Batman creators JIM APARO, DAVID V. REED, BOB BROWN, ERNIE CHAN, and JOHN CALNAN, Joker’s Daughter, Batman Family, Nocturna, Dark Knight, art and commentary from BYRNE, COLAN, CONWAY, MOENCH, MILLER, NEWTON, WEIN, and more. APARO cover!

(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “AllInterview Issue”! Part 2 of an exclusive STEVE ENGLEHART interview (continued from ALTER EGO #103)! “Pro2Pro” interviews between SIMONSON & LARSEN, MOENCH & WEIN, and comics letterers KLEIN & CHIANG. Plus JOHN OSTRANDER, MICHAEL USLAN, and longtime DC color artist ADRIENNE ROY! Cover by Englehart collaborator MARSHALL ROGERS!

Bronze Age Mystery Comics! Interviews with BERNIE WRIGHTSON, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, GERRY TALAOC, DC mystery writer LORE SHOBERG, MARK EVANIER and DAN SPIEGLE discuss Scooby-Doo, Charlton chiller anthologies, Black Orchid, Madame Xanadu art and commentary by TONY DeZUNIGA, MIKE KALUTA, VAL MAYERIK, DAVID MICHELINIE, MATT WAGNER, and a rare cover painting by WRIGHTSON!

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“Gods!” Takes an in-depth look at WALTER SIMONSON’s Thor, the Thunder God in the Bronze Age, “Pro2Pro” interview with TOM DeFALCO and RON FRENZ, Hercules: Prince of Power, Moondragon, Three Ways to End the New Gods Saga, exclusive interview with fantasy writer MICHAEL MOORCOCK, art and commentary by GERRY CONWAY, JACK KIRBY, BOB LAYTON, and more, with a swingin’ Thor cover by SIMONSON!

“Liberated Ladies” eyeing female characters that broke barriers in the Bronze Age: Big Barda, Valkyrie, Ms. Marvel, Phoenix, Savage She-Hulk, and the sword-wielding Starfire. Plus a “Pro2Pro” interview with JILL THOMPSON, GAIL SIMONE, and BARBARA KESEL, art and commentary by JOHN BYRNE, GEORGE PEREZ, JACK KIRBY, MIKE VOSBURG, and more, with a new cover by BRUCE TIMM!

“Licensed Comics”! Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Man from Atlantis, DC’s Edgar Rice Burroughs backups (John Carter, Pellucidar, Carson of Venus), Marvel’s Warlord of Mars, and an interview with CAROL SERLING, wife of ROD SERLING. With art and commentary from ANDERSON, BYRNE, CLAREMONT, DORMAN, DUURSEMA, KALUTA, MILLER, OSTRANDER, and more. Cover by BRIAN KOSCHACK.

“Avengers Assemble!” Writer ROGER STERN’S acclaimed 1980s Avengers run, West Coast Avengers, early Avengers toys, and histories of Hawkeye, Mockingbird, and Wonder Man, with art and commentary from JOHN and SAL BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, BRETT BREEDING, TOM DeFALCO, STEVE ENGLEHART, BOB HALL, AL MILGROM, TOM MORGAN, TOM PALMER, JOE SINNOTT, and more. PÉREZ cover!

JENETTE KAHN interviewed by ROBERT GREENBERGER, DC’s Dollar Comics and unrealized kids’ line (featuring an aborted Sugar and Spike revival), the Wonder Woman Foundation, and the early days of the Vertigo imprint. Exploring the talents of ROSS ANDRU, KAREN BERGER, STEVE BISSETTE, JIM ENGEL, GARTH ENNIS, NEIL GAIMAN, SHELLY MAYER, ALAN MOORE, GRANT MORRISON, and more!

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Volume 1, Number 60 October 2012 Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

The Retro Comics Experience!

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks COVER ARTIST Tim Sale COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek

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BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 FLASHBACK: Looking Back at Batman: The Long Halloween . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Tim Sale and Greg Wright recall working with Jeph Loeb on this landmark series INTERVIEW: It’s a Matter of Color: with Gregory Wright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 The celebrated color artist (and writer and editor) discusses his interpretations of Tim Sale’s art BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: The Scarecrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 The history of one of Batman’s oldest foes, with comments from Barr, Davis, Friedrich, Grant, and O’Neil, plus Golden Age great Jerry Robinson in one of his last interviews FLASHBACK: Marvel Comics’ Scarecrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 Yep, there was another Scarecrow in comics—an anti-hero with a patchy career at Marvel PRINCE STREET NEWS: A Visit to the (Great) Pumpkin Patch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 Karl Heitmueller corrals comics’ creepiest for an All Hallows’ Event BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: Black and White and Dead All Over: The Solomon Grundy Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 Born on a Monday, Grundy keeps coming back to bedevil. With Conway, James Robinson, and Thomas BACKSTAGE PASS: Rutland Memories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 Al Bradford’s Polaroid-packed peek into the costume parties that most of us only know through their fictional comic-book incarnations BEYOND CAPES: That’s Not a Man, That’s a Man-Wolf, Baby! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 The horror series that spun out of Spider-Man’s web. With Isabella, Kraft, and Slott FLASHBACK: Dead Avengers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65 Resuscitating the classic Avengers storyline “The Korvac Saga” BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: Life, the Ultraverse, and Everything: The Reign of the Lord Pumpkin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 Dan Danko, Steve Englehart, and Aaron Lopresti illuminate the lore of the Malibu menace BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 Reader feedback BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $60 Standard US, $85 Canada, $107 Surface International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Tim Sale. Batman and the Scarecrow TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2012 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. Prince Street News © 2012 Karl Heitmueller. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

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SPECIAL THANKS Scott Andrews Tony Isabella Frank Balkin David Anthony Kraft Mike W. Barr Josh Kushins Bat-Blog Aaron Lopresti Al Bradford Robert Menzies Jarrod Buttery Dennis O’Neil Dewey Cassell James Robinson Nicholas Connor Jerry Robinson Estate Gerry Conway Patrick Robinson Bob Cosgrove Rootology Jonathan Crane Brian Sagar Dan Danko Tim Sale Alan Davis Bill Schelly DC Comics John Schwirian Scott Edelman Dan Slott Mike Friedrich Aaron Sultan Joe Giella Roy Thomas Len Gould John Wells Grand ComicDavid Wenzel Book Database Randy Wiggins Alan Grant Wikipedia Robert Greenberger Gregory Wright Karl Heitmueller Heritage Comics Auctions David Hyde

Michael Eury

My second cousin Khettie recently alerted me to the fact that the Riddler in the Batman: Arkham City video game looks a lot like yours truly. Yikes! I’m not sure if I should be flattered, or weirded out, or if I should contact my lawyer. Or maybe I should consider this the ultimate inspiration for a Halloween costume…

SEPARATED AT BIRTH?

Batman #237) about this real-world town and its Halloween happenings and wishing I could attend its parades and costume parties. Thanks to Al, I can, at least vicariously, through his fun-filled photo gallery from the dawn of the Bronze Age—which shows those spandexedwhippersnappers strutting through today’s comic-cons that cosplay ain’t nothin’ new, baby! Yep, this crowd-pleasing issue fills your goodies bag with enough Halloween treats to keep you stuffed with comics history for weeks!

Haven’t you forgotten the greatest of Halloween villains, you cretin?!

TM & © DC Comics.

(By the way, the fellow to my right in the photo above is Eddy Zeno, one of the nicest chaps I know, and the author of the mustread book, Curt Swan: A Life in Comics. The photo was taken by my wife Rose at the 2008 Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois. Eddy occasionally contributes to BACK ISSUE, and returns next issue with a look at DC Comics’ The Bible.) Resemblances to ye ed aside, the Riddler is spotlighted in this issue’s cover feature, an issue-by-issue examination of Batman: The Long Halloween, the 1996–1997 murder-mystery maxiseries masterfully maintained by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. If you’re strictly old school (Golden, Silver, or Bronze Age only), The Long Halloween is a more “recent” (actually, it’s 16 years old!) series that you really must read. And we offer a BIG thank-you to Randy Wiggins for rescuing this feature from the dreaded deadline doom and delivering it in record time! The rest of the issue explores the histories of many of comics’ creepiest characters: Jonathan Crane, the fearsome Scarecrow; Marvel’s missed-him-if-you-blinked anti-hero, also known as the Scarecrow; one of our favorite swamp things, Solomon Grundy; Man-Wolf, the Spider-Man spin-off spawned during the monster craze of the ’70s; and the Ultraverse’s resident reprobate, Lord Pumpkin. Also, Len Gould defibrillates the World’s Deadest Heroes as he looks at the Avengers’ “Korvac Saga” and Karl Heitmueller plows through the pumpkin patch for another hilarious “Prince Street News.” I don’t often play favorites with BI features, but I’m particularly enamored with Al Bradford’s recollections of his Rutland, Vermont, experiences in this issue. During my youth, I remember reading comic-book stories (such as the classic “Night of the Reaper” in 2 • BACK ISSUE • Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

Now, Norman, we’ve got to give some other folks their due! Besides, you’re no stranger to BACK ISSUE. Before anyone else complains about the absence of their favorite spooky hero or villain, check out BI’s back issues for these previous articles: • #6 “Halloween Issue” (Tomb of Dracula, Swamp Thing, Man-Thing, Godzilla) • #10 “Pulp Fiction” (The Shadow) • #15 “Weird Heroes” (Werewolf by Night, Deadman, the Demon, Phantom Stranger, Ragman, Ghost Rider) • #17 “Super Girls” (Tigra the Were-Woman) • #18 “Big Green Issue” (Green Goblin) • #20 “Secret Identities” (Moon Knight, the Question) • #21 “The Devil You Say!” (Daredevil, Hellboy, Son of Satan, Blue Devil) • #24 “Magic” (Dr. Strange, Dr. Fate, Amethyst, Silverblade, Zatanna) • #31 “Steve Gerber” (Man-Thing, the Zombie) • #36 “Villains” (Hobgoblin) • #37 “Monsters” (Frankenstein, Vampirella, Morbius, Swamp Thing, Patchwork Man, Man-Bat, Anton Arcane, Dr. Thirteen, It, Golem) • #44 “Spider-Man” (Green Goblin) • #50 “Batman” (Nocturna) • #52 “Mystery Comics” (Horror Hosts, Black Orchid, Madame Xanadu, Scooby-Doo)

[Editor’s note: This article, which surveys the 1996–1997 maxiseries issue by issue, contains spoilers regarding its murder-mystery plot.]

Randall C. Wiggins

In 1996 DC Comics introduced the maxiseries Batman: The Long Halloween by writer Jeph Loeb artist Tim Sale. They had previously worked together on a revival of Challengers of the Unknown and had enjoyed the creative process and wanted to work together again. Thus began a series of one-shots produced with editor Archie Goodwin: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight one-shot Halloween stories Halloween Special #1 (Nov. 1993), Madness (1994), and Ghosts (1995). With each progressing work, Loeb and Sale developed their skill with the mythology of the Dark Knight. Sales dictated a demand for more and maybe longer work from the pair, so they worked out a scheme with Goodwin that became a maxiseries capped with prestigeformat bookends—Batman: The Long Halloween (TLH). When the first issue, “Crime” (Oct. 1996), hit the stands, I was reaching the end of a seven-year run as a comic-book store owner, so I wouldn’t get to see how well this series would sell or how its influence would impact the world of the Batman—not firsthand, anyway. I do remember that when I was first introduced to the amazing work of the Loeb/Sale team I was skeptical, but interested, and ready to see where things would go. I came from the generation of comics fans where Batman was drawn by Jim Aparo, Gene Colan, Don Newton, and the other incredible artists from the 1970s and 1980s. Tim Sale’s style was an unknown for me and it took a little getting used to, but in time I did just that and he has become one of my all-time favorite Batman artists. Writer Jeph Loeb is a master of suspense, plotting, and character development, and over the years he has only improved to become a leading writer for both DC and Marvel.

HAUNTING HUES AND HOLIDAY HORRORS One of the most important, yet often overlooked elements of a comic book is color. We take it for granted as part of the art and just enjoy the story and art as a whole. Batman: The Long Halloween changed that for many people, me included. The Long Halloween, set during the early years of Batman’s career as a crimefighter, tells the story of a serial killer who kills crime figures each month on a real or appointed holiday; because of this, he is given the moniker “Holiday.” Gotham Police Captain James Gordon, District Attorney Harvey Dent, and the Batman team to identify and capture the killer, while Dent is also working to bring down the Carmine “the Roman” Falcone crime family.

The Usual Suspects Inside back cover from TLH #3, colored for BI by designer Rich Fowlks. (All other Long Halloween art reproduced herein features Gregory Wright’s colors.) TM & © DC Comics.

Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

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Sketching the Dark Knight (left) A 1992 sketch of Batman by Tim Sale, illustrated for Frank Balkin, who kindly shares it with BACK ISSUE. (right) TLH #1 cover. TM & © DC Comics.

the Man of Steel, with the well-regarded Superman for All Seasons.) “Jeph was a writer/producer in movies and TV, and had a relationship with Jenette Kahn, who was DC’s president and publisher in the 1980s,” Sale tells BACK ISSUE. “Kahn had an interest in expanding DC’s properties into those fields, while Jeph also had a desire to write comics, having loved them since being a kid, as many of us do. I had some non-superhero work under my belt that was coming to an end and was looking for work, so I went for the first time to the San Diego Comic-Con— at the time still about comics, primarily—where I met Barbara Randall [Kesel], Jeph’s key editorial contact at As the year goes on and the body count rises, various DC, and she put the two of us together.” Batman rogues make their appearances in the series, Sale’s interpretations of the characters that fill the making Batman’s job all the harder in tracking Holiday. Batman universe are radically different from what might Nearly every Bat-villain makes an appearance in one or be called a company “house style.” According to the more issues of this series and usually in a highly artist, “DC has always been generous about altered state, as Loeb and Sale took strides allowing me to bend the characters to my in bringing the old alive in new ways. own whims and ideas. When we later Gregory Wright brought out the expanded to Dark Victory, I very much fine detail work of Tim Sale’s art with enjoyed drawing the character of a very basic color design. Janice Porter, and more Two-Face.” Regarding the magnetic appeal Sale’s noir style of art seems of the noir style of his art combined to have influenced film director with Gregory’s color, Tim Sale says, Christopher Nolan. I told Tim that I “it was definitely a conscious choice had read that his work had influenced on all our parts. Jeph and I had the production design of Nolan’s first worked for years with Greg Wright, Bat-film [Batman Begins, 2005] and and we had a comfortable relationship. asked if he had any input in its Jeph had his own strong opinions, production. “No, I did not,” he jeph loeb and even though I am color blind, responds. “But I have read that as I did as well. I spoke often with Greg well. I suppose we just matched about a limited color palette; I just am drawn to noir, somehow in the images we are drawn to, which is, and letting the black and white shine.” of course, very flattering to me.” (Sale and Loeb formed such a successful partnership, The writing of The Long Halloween, according to Sale, they went from Batman to the next obvious candidate, was predominantly left to Loeb, whose work as Head of

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Television for Marvel made him unavailable for this BACK “It is entirely to Jeph’s credit, his concept, to have ISSUE interview. In regard to the writing of TLH, Sale a holiday theme each month, although the images notes, “It was all Jeph. I had opinions, but it was all were up to me,” Sale says. “That idea—to have a Jeph.” But Loeb allowed Sale room for interpretation: thematic thread running through all the covers— “He is generous, but I learned very early to give few changed the way I think about comic covers that are notes, if I had them, after his scripts, and stay out part of a mini- or maxiseries. of the way until he sent me something, as “The color choices were entirely Greg’s,” he was so much better at it than me! Sale continues. “By this point he knew We would talk about what we thought my preference for flat, somewhat muted was fun in general terms, agree on colors, but the colors themselves are that, and he would, as he called it, entirely Greg’s, and I love them.” ‘percolate’ and send me a script. Gregory Wright adds, “Tim did the Much of Jeph’s generosity is how much cover design; I colored them with Tim’s he respects my ability to visually tell the input. I suggested all the color, but he story he has written. He has always had very simple graphic color in mind.” insisted that our credit be as ‘storytellers’ BATMAN: THE LONG and not as ‘writer’ and ‘artist.’” HALLOWEEN— ISSUE BY ISSUE One of the most important Issue #1: “Crime” (Oct. 1996) aspects of a comic book is the cover. tim sale The cover of the first issue features a It is the first thing the prospective black cat behind a jack o’ lantern with buyer sees, and it has to grab that scratches on its face. There is a deep person’s attention fast because it is in competition with hundreds of other titles. Batman: The Long Halloween red background with the title border at the top. The cat did its job every single month with amazing covers; signifies Catwoman, the pumpkin is for Halloween, each one simple, yet highly effective in drawing the eye and the scratches on its surface would be the scratches directly to the center, where the image rested amongst a on Carmine’s face made by Catwoman back in the sedate pale color. Each month’s cover featured a holiday Batman: Year One storyline, written by Frank Miller. The issue opens with the wedding of Carmine or an image linked in some way to signify a holiday. Falcone’s nephew, Johnny Vitti. Bruce Wayne and

Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

The Shadows Know Really, you’d have to search far and wide to find an artist who masters mood better than Tim Sale. Two pages from TLH #1: (left) page 15, with a certain cat burglar at work, and (right) page 27, with Batman and his rooftop allies, Gordon and Dent. TM & © DC Comics.

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Monsters Come in All Sizes Two pages from Long Halloween #2: (left) Batman’s detective skills on display, and (right) Solomon Grundy up at Bat. (Turn to page 39 for gruesome Grundy’s history). TM & © DC Comics.

Falcone meet and are at odds over business practices concerning the bank they are on the board of. This is the initial step that starts the story of The Long Halloween. A little later Bruce, listening in on a conversation between Carmine and his aide, Milos, is caught by none other than Selina Kyle. This is the first of Batman’s rogues to be introduced in the story. Harvey Dent—not yet Two-Face—is found writing down car license-tag numbers and is attacked by Carmine’s guards and thrown out while Selina, now in her guise as Catwoman, breaks into the Falcone penthouse only to be confronted by Bruce, now as Batman. After a fight with Catwoman, Batman meets with Capt. Gordon and D.A. Dent on the roof of police headquarters. We next see Bruce Wayne battling with Carmine Falcone in the bank’s boardroom, where he storms out after letting his opinion of Falcone be known publicly. Shortly after, he puts the fear of the Bat into the corrupt bank

president, who resigns the next day, leaving the position open for Bruce to take over and block Falcone from using the bank to launder his dirty money, keeping other banks from dealing with Falcone as well. The next scene is of a meeting in Falcone’s office, where he orders a hit on the former bank president, and demands to have his nephew, Johnny Viti, return from his honeymoon. Alberto, Carmine’s repressed son, asked to be involved in the family business but his father rejects him … as he always does. Next we see the preparation for a murder in a basic gray-and-white color palette, leading to a full page of Johnny Viti shot dead in the tub, which is shown in black, white, and red. In the closing pages of issue #1, Batman, Catwoman, and Harvey Dent burn down one of Falcone’s warehouses, where Carmine has been stashing his dirty money, and on the final page, after Harvey has returned home, we see him close his front door … and the house explodes. Catwoman is, for the most part, unchanged from what is portrayed in the mainstream continuity of the DC Universe. Her costume and general appearance are more stylized to fit the noir feel of the book, which harkens back to the 1940s. Harvey Dent is a hardnosed advocate for law and order, not yet scarred but already showing mild manicobsessive tendencies that continue to develop as the series unwinds. Issue #2: “Thanksgiving” (Nov. 1996) Issue #2’s cover features Solomon Grundy sitting at a table with two skeletons and a turkey ready for eating. There is an orange background, with the title border at the top of the cover. Other than Thanksgiving being the theme of the issue and Grundy being its villain, there is no other special significance to the imagery of this cover that I could see.

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This issue starts out with Batman and Gordon questioning suspects in the bombing of Harvey Dent’s home, which supposedly killed the district attorney and his wife. Soon after, Batman fights Solomon Grundy for the first time (but will come up on him again later). Carla Falcone, Johnny Viti’s mother and Carmine’s sister, pays a visit to her brother and her nephew Alberto. After this, we find that Dent is very much alive and has been in disguise as a felon hoping to overhear what the other suspects in his “murder” may have to say. Next we see Batman placing a plate of Thanksgiving dinner in a sewer tunnel, then a hand, obviously Grundy’s, reaching out and taking the turkey leg. Following this peaceful scene, we have another murder: five men shot dead over Thanksgiving dinner. The color scheme is grayish tan and white, with the only real color being the cornucopia on the full page showing the four dead men laying head down on the table, gun beside the brightly colored cornucopia; the fifth man is only represented by a hand grasping the tablecloth. This is where issue #2 ends. Solomon Grundy being portrayed as a far more gruesome and dangerous creature than the campy, brainless zombie that he had become in regular DC continuity strikes a note of fear and dread in act and appearance. The series is developing new clues as the story grows more complex. Issue #3: “Christmas” (Dec. 1996) The cover for issue #3 features the Joker wearing a Santa hat, sitting on a throne-like chair, surrounded by presents and looking very unhappy. The background color is white, with the title border at the top as usual. A very simple cover with a plain meaning—it’s the Joker—and he is up to something. The first few pages feature the Joker being his usual self, causing trouble, robbing a family, and leaving

with a red Santa bag full of their presents—Scrooge would be proud. This is followed by Gordon and Batman visiting Julian Day (the Calendar Man) in Arkham Asylum, in hopes of getting a clue to the now-named “Holiday” killer. Next we see the Joker paying a visit to crimelord Maroni, followed by Batman sneaking up on the same crimeboss as he leaves the restaurant where Joker visited him. Harvey takes his wife Gilda to their new home, only to find the Joker has come to call after being told by Maroni that he thinks Dent is Holiday. Joker then visits Carmine Falcone himself, leaving his calling cards on the front stoop of Falcone’s restaurant. They are found by Batman, who also finds Milos, Falcone’s aide, and the next Holiday victim. This is where issue #3 ends. The Joker is a character that has been a part of the Batman mythos almost as long as the Dark Knight himself. Loeb and Sale use him well and with small changes, but not enough to make him anything than what he is—a raving psychopath and a true danger to all. In appearance, he has become a little more exaggerated than in normal continuity, but the style works well for what Sale is doing with the art for this series.

Cruel Yule ’Tis the season to be jolly? Yikes! Not with this laughing fella! (left) The Joker drops in for Christmas in TLH #3. (right) From page 15 of issue #3. TM & © DC Comics.

Issue #4: “New Year’s Eve” (Jan. 1997) This cover has a black background with two wine glasses meeting in the middle. In one glass you see the face of Batman, and in the other you see the face of the Joker. Batman spends most of TLH #4 chasing down the Joker, who has gotten into his head to poison Gotham City because he believes there’s isn’t room for two psychotic killers in town. He fails, of course. Other goings on include a New Year’s Eve party on a yacht, where Carmine Falcone and Maroni threaten each other, and the Holiday killer striking again, this time “killing” Alberto Falcone, who may or may not be the Holiday killer himself. Also of note is Harvey Dent’s discovery of Bruce Wayne’s father being connected to the Falcone empire, although loosely, many years before. Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

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Squaring Off (left) The Dark Knight is fearless when encountering “the Roman” in TLH #5, and (right) Catwoman sinks her claws into Poison Ivy in issue #6. TM & © DC Comics.

The first four issues of the series set up the mystery of The Long Halloween so that the remainder of the series plays out to its dramatic finish in issue #13. Each issue adds new clues and a higher body count as the year goes by, and as Batman is caught up in trying to unravel the Holiday slayings. Issue #5: “Valentine’s Day” (Feb. 1997) The cover of issue #5 has a red valentine with white trim centered on a black background. In the center of the valentine you see Batman looking annoyed, with a black cat circling his head; all of this is done in black and red. The action in this issue is simple and to the point. Capt. Gordon and D.A. Dent visit Wayne Manor to question Bruce, who is out as Batman questioning Carmine Falcone at his son’s grave. Falcone pulls a gun as Catwoman shows up and saves Batman, with whom she flirts a bit. The next big scene is of another Holiday killing taking place in front and inside of Maroni’s restaurant, where Maroni swears vengeance on Falcone, who he blames for hitting his people. The remainder of the issue is spent with Dent and Gordon making nice with their wives for the Valentine’s night. The final page shows a hypnotized Bruce Wayne in the clutches of the dangerous seductress Poison Ivy.

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Issue #6: “St. Patrick’s Day” (Mar. 1997) This cover is black, with the head of Poison Ivy in its center, and leaves of dark green surrounding a face of lighter green—a very simple cover that conveys a great deal of menace. This issue features the return of Carmine’s daughter, Sofia, who from the opening pages we are led to believe spent some time in prison. This apple didn’t fall far from the tree because she jumps right in and starts planning trouble with her Aunt Carla. Bruce Wayne is under Poison Ivy’s spell, and once Catwoman figures this out she goes on the attack to mark her territory and let Ivy know that Bruce is hers. Once broken from the spell, Batman meets Catwoman on the room of police headquarters, where he thanks her for saving his “friend” Mr. Wayne. It’s all business with these two when he is in costume. Holiday strikes again, killing more of Maroni’s men at one of his safe houses, while Sofia is sitting just outside in a car waiting … for what, we don’t know and aren’t told. The final pages show Carmine Falcone paying someone off, but the scene is in the dark … and that is how the writer and artist leave the reader as to this person’s identity, until the next issue. Of all the rogues to appear in Batman: The Long Halloween, Poison Ivy is probably the most affected by style changes in appearance. Most of this is in the area

Riddle Me This… Loeb and Sale added psychological depth to Gotham’s resident puzzlemaster, the Riddler. Original art to page 22 of TLH #7 (Apr. 1997) courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © DC Comics.

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of color. For the first time, her entire body is a light shade of green rather than just her clothes, which in this series she seems to have forgone in exchange for a body wrap of vines and leaves. The plot harkens back to subplot from the early 1980s when Poison Ivy used her kiss to make the entire board of Wayne Enterprises, including Bruce Wayne, sign over the Wayne fortune and the company to her. Of course, that was pre–Crisis continuity, and TLH and the other Sale/Loeb work in the Batman mythology is also considered non-continuity, so it’s moot. Issue #7: “April Fool’s Day” (Apr. 1997) April’s issue #7 features a greenish-yellow cover with the Riddler standing front and center and ready to cause trouble—but not in this issue. Puzzles and questions bounce back and forth between Batman and the Riddler, and they are never in the same room together. Batman is in his TM & © DC Comics.

cave studying clues, while the Riddler examines the clues Carmine Falcone has gathered and is offering to pay for the answer to the mystery of who Holiday is. Batman comes up with Harvey Dent, Harvey Dent comes up with Bruce Wayne, and the Riddler comes up with a bloody nose and a visit to the alley, escorted by Sofia, only to be met by Holiday, who doesn’t kill him. That’s right—no death count this issue. (April Fool’s!) The Riddler has been handled in a variety of ways over the years and many writers and artists have had a swing at giving this oddball a shot. Loeb gave Edward Nigma the job of working for Falcone, trying to solve the Holiday identity issue—which he failed to do. He then faced Holiday himself and lived, however becoming a hopeless drunk. In regular continuity of the time, the Riddler was still a common Bat-villain going in and out of the revolving door that is Arkham Asylum. Issue #8: “Mother’s Day” (May 1997) A young Bruce Wayne with a bouquet of flowers, sitting by his mother’s headstone, with the whole image in a dark-blue tint over the black line art, makes this cover very memorable. The action of the series is changing as the Scarecrow has escaped Arkham Asylum while Batman is questioning the Calendar Man. Later, Bruce Wayne visits Crime Alley,

Helping Hand (left) Batman turns to the Calendar Man for help in solving the Holiday murders. TLH #8, page 4. (right) Cover to issue #9. TM & © DC Comics.

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where his parents were murdered, as is his tradition, only to be interrupted by Gordon, who orders a manhunt when Bruce takes off in fright, thinking he is back on that night when he lost the two people he loved most. The police find him at his mother’s grave. While all this is going on, Sofia Falcone is chasing down leads for her father to the identity of Holiday and ends up finding the killer’s most recent victim, the man who made the custom .22 pistols used in all of the murders. Issue #9: “Father’s Day” (June 1997) As with the previous issue, #9’s cover features Bruce Wayne, this time as Batman, with a bouquet in hand, standing beside his father’s headstone. The cover is dark blue over the black line art, as was issue #8’s. (Both covers share the spotlight as my favorites of the series.) Picking up where the last issue left off, we see Bruce Wayne in jail, thinking about his father and how he watched from the upstairs balcony as his father saved the life of a young Carmine Falcone, the very incident that led Harvey Dent to believe that Wayne was tied to the Falcone crime family. With a quick grand-jury hearing, Bruce is acquitted and released. While this is going on, Sal Maroni, head of the Maroni crime family, is visiting the retired head of that family, Lou Maroni, when Holiday strikes again, killing Lou with his .22 and leaving a memento of the crime as he always does. We also find out that Harvey Dent has received his double-sided coin from his father. There are a few moments of father/child bonding—or attempted bonding—between Jim Gordon and his son and Sofia and her father.

Issue #10: “Independence Day” (July 1997) This cover features Batman and Catwoman with yellow fireworks behind them on a maroon background. Their figures are in silhouette, with only Batman’s cape being in blue. This issue starts with a bang as Holiday kills Gotham’s coroner on the docks and tosses the body over the side into the water. Bruce and Selina continue their romance in and out of costume as they work together in capturing Scarecrow, who has been working with the Mad Hatter in a scheme to rob a bank for Carmine “the Roman” Falcone, who engineered their escape in the first place. While talking with Gordon and Dent on the docks, Batman sees Harvey flipping his coin for the first time, and they discuss why Holiday chose to kill a civil servant after going after crime figures up to this point. Like the regular continuity of the day, Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne carry on an on again/off again flirtation in and out of costume with her not knowing his secret identity. She did know in pre–Crisis continuity and would come to know again in later years, but for now they continued to play cat and mouse with one another.

Does Gotham Have Any Sane Villains? (left) Batman tangles with Scarecrow and Mad Hatter on page 18 of issue #10. (right) The harddrinking Riddler, as seen on page 7 of TLH #11. TM & © DC Comics.

Issue #11: “Roman Holiday” (Aug. 1997) This issue has an eye-catching cove with a multi-layered cake in the center of a sky-blue background. The cake is decorated with numerous figures of characters from the series standing in as candles, with Batman at the very top. Important happenings abound in the deadly month of August, but first, Batman is led on a search for answers and the Riddler, whom he finds in a drunken stupor. Their brief conversation lends our hero no clues, so he moves on, as does the reader, to “the Roman’s” birthday party,

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Challengers of the Unknown #1–8 – DC (Mar. 1991–Oct. 1991) Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special (“Choices”) #1 – DC (Dec. 1993) Batman: Madness – A Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special – DC (Dec. 1994) Batman: Ghosts – Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special – DC (Dec. 1995) [Editor’s note: Choices, Madness, and Ghosts have been collected as

Batman: Haunted Knight.] Wolverine/Gambit: Victims #1–4 – Marvel (Sept. 1995–Dec. 1995) Batman: The Long Halloween #1–13 – DC (Oct. 1996–Oct. 1997) Superman for All Seasons #1–4 – DC (Sept. 1998–Dec. 1998) Wizard Presents: Batman: Dark Victory #0 – DC/Gareb Shamus Enterprises (Sept. 1999) Batman: Dark Victory #1–13 – DC (Dec. 1999–Dec. 2000) Daredevil: Yellow #1–6 – Marvel

(Aug. 2001–Jan. 2002) Spider-Man: Blue #1–6 – Marvel (July 2002–Apr. 2003) Hulk: Gray #1–6 – Marvel (Dec. 2003–Apr. 2004) Catwoman: When in Rome #1–6 – DC (Nov. 2004–Aug. 2005) Captain America: White #0 – Marvel (Sept. 2005) Special thanks to Patrick Robinson of Columbus Book Exchange and Comics for help in the compilation of Loeb/Sale's list of works. www.facebook.com/pages/Columbus-BookExchange-and-Comics/103351952234

where Carla is continuing to express her displeasure with her brother’s progress, or lack thereof, in finding Holiday. She won’t have to worry about it much longer, as she becomes Holiday’s second victim of the issue. Who is the first, you are probably trying to remember? We’ll get to that in a minute. First we have to visit the courthouse, where the intrepid district attorney Dent is grilling Salvatore “the Boss” Maroni about his involvement in the Falcone crime family. Maroni uses a conveniently timed fake coughing spell to extract a bottle from his coat pocket that had been slipped to him in the hallway by Dent’s own assistant, who has been under the thumb of Falcone all along. The next moment shows one of comics’ most iconic events—the creation of TwoFace—when the acid in the medicine bottle flies through the air, splashing the left side of Harvey’s once ruggedly handsome face. Holiday strikes for the first time of the issue, killing Dent’s doctor as he tells those waiting in the hall that Harvey has disappeared. The issue closes with the previously-mentioned second killing of Carla Falcone Viti, shown in monochrome with final page getting a splash of red over her shocked face as though she knew who Holiday was and couldn’t believe her now-dead eyes. This is the issue that transformed the slightly obsessive D.A. Harvey Dent into the villain named Two-Face. The mental strain of keeping up his calm front of self-discipline all of his life snapped, and Dent’s inhibitions escaped. Issue #12: “Labor Day” (Sept. 1997) This cover features a simple frame of a woman holding her hand up in front of the camera to conceal her face. The frame has a bat-shape at the top. The background color is a greenish off-white. Holiday is revealed!—on the last page of the issue, anyway—and it isn’t Harvey Dent, as readers are being led to believe by the far-too-obvious clue being tossed about. But seeing as how we know Harvey is now Two-Face, it was a sure bet he wasn’t doing double duty as Holiday.

Pity Poor Gilda Batman suspects that Harvey Dent is actually Holiday on page 15 of TLH #12. TM & © DC Comics.

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THE COLLABORATIONS OF JEPH LOEB AND TIM SALE

Solomon Grundy makes a brief reappearance in the early pages of the issue as he and a bandaged Harvey have words but come to terms rather quickly. Batman questions Calandar Man again, where he gets the idea of how to flush out the target who, as I mentioned, isn’t who the reader believes it to be. Under the cloak of night, Batman, disguised as a helmeted, heavily covered guard, and Gordon lead Maroni through the tunnels beneath Gotham Jail in a supposed move to keep the mobster safe from Holiday, while all along using the man as bait. The trap gets sprung, bullets fly, and Gordon’s flashlight reveals … [SPOILER ALERT] Alberto Falcone! So, Holiday isn’t Dent, but Dent is just as crazy now anyway, running around as Two-Face, looking for a reason to kill. Issue #13: “Punishment” (Oct. 1997) A rotting orange pumpkin on a dark gray background— that is what we get with the cover to issue #13. Very plain and easy to understand. The final issue of the maxiseries gives us the end of the Holiday killings with the death of Sal Maroni, the final victim of the serial killer … or at least of Alberto’s reign as Holiday. The last issue is spent summing up the story and eliminating loose ends and planting the seeds to tie in to Dark Victory, the next Batman maxiseries Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale would work on together. Sofia Falcone falls to what looks to be her death, but is revealed in Dark Victory to only have been a very serious injury. Carmine Falcone meets his fate with two

bullets from a .22 fired by the hand of Two-Face. Harvey Dent is now fully submerged within his new personality caused by Maroni’s acid facial in the courtroom. Batman puts an end to the gang of Arkham escapees in a rather artistically exaggerated, but humorous, battle. Things get tied up with the Dent personality peeking out as he surrenders on the roof of police headquarters, having completed what he set out to do—put an end to the Falcone empire. The final pages show Gilda Dent disposing of the evidence of her own tenure as Holiday as she talks to a husband who isn’t there to hear her. The final page shows Gilda in the center of darkness saying, “I believe in Harvey Dent.” The story is about over, the holidays are done and accounted for. The villains are locked up and Holiday is gone, and so is former D.A. Harvey Dent, lost to the horrors of the mind that is now shared with the evil of Two-Face.

Deleted Scenes From The Long Halloween collected edition, two of the unfinished, unpublished pages from the series.

THE LONG HALLOWEEN LIVES ON Over a decade and a half after the publication of Batman: The Long Halloween, both Tim Sale and Gregory Wright remain in awe of Jeph Loeb’s story. Sale has nothing but praise for his longtime partner, as evidenced by his earlier comments. Wright reveals to BACK ISSUE his appreciation of Loeb: “Jeph and I spoke a bit about story. I like to use color to tell the story and sometimes I would talk to Jeph about a story point to get an idea what sort of color to use.

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Batman in Black and White A glimpse of Sale’s amazing line art, rife with mood and contrasts. Double-page spread pages 42 and 43 from the final issue of Batman: The Long Halloween, #13 (Oct. 1997). Autographed original art courtesy of Heritage. TM & © DC Comics.

TM & © DC Comics.

Jeph took great delight in not telling me the whole Tim Sale recalls the special features assembled story, to see when I’d figure it out. He was delighted for the collected editions: “The collections of Long that I didn’t figure it out right away.” Halloween were put together long before I had a scanner Figuring out who did it—the identity of Holiday— or a computer, so whatever extras are there were had was a puzzle even the Riddler couldn’t solve to be scrounged from here and there on the when put to the task by Carmine “the Internet, for the most part. What we did Roman” Falcone. So, how many readhave was the four extra pages that I had ers figured it out? I didn’t. I thought penciled that didn’t fit in the monthly for sure it would be Sofia Falcone, books, and that Archie had promised Alberto’s sister, but I was off base … us would make it to the collections. I don’t guess it would be much of I was overjoyed that those made a spoiler at this point in time to say I their way in.” had the wrong Falcone sibling, As a parting question, I asked would it? Well, that bullet’s out of Sale how he felt about the popularity the old .22 now, but knowing whoof TLH and the effect it has had on the dunit does not diminish the mysBatman franchise. “I never know tery and impact of TLH. quite how to answer that question,” As with all great limited series, he modestly replies. “I kinda feel it’s archie goodwin eventually there comes the compinot for me to say. Other people see lation hardcover followed by the things I don’t, I know that.” softcover, and if popularity and sales warrant it, the In addition to the collected editions mentioned Absolute Edition. Batman: The Long Halloween has above, you can probably find the 13 original single appeared in all three formats. The collected editions issues of the series in the include a Jeph Loeb introduction, “It’s All Archie’s secondary market for not Fault,” referring to the project’s editor, the late Archie much more than their original Goodwin, as well as an afterward by Tim Sale, and a retail price. Whatever format few pages of sketches with notes from Tim Sale about you choose, have a scary where they would have gone if those pages had not Halloween reading Batman: been deleted from the story. There is also a helpful chart The Long Halloween. of the crime families in Gotham, which is more or less a RANDALL C. WIGGINS is a comic-book who’s who of Holiday’s victims, since almost everybody on collector and writer of various things, the list got knocked off by the holiday-happy serial killer. living in Georgia. This is his first TLH’s Absolute Edition features a slipcase, creative-team work for BACK ISSUE. He wishes to interviews, Loeb’s original proposal, and sketches by thank Robert Greenberger for his assistance with this article. Sale, in this deluxe format’s mega-size.

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Gregory Wright is a colorist and writer (and former editor) for various comic-book companies. His color work includes a number of projects with Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale including Batman: The Long Halloween and Batman: Dark Victory. – Randall Wiggins RANDALL WIGGINS: When you got the job on Batman: The Long Halloween (TLH), did you make the color choices? GREGORY WRIGHT: Yes. I made all the color choices. Tim [Sale] and I always discussed the color and how it would look. My style has always been to try and tell the story with the color. Both Tim and Jeph [Loeb] are amazing storytellers, so all the work we did together had a very cohesive fit. Tim’s style was always evolving, so we discussed how to do it better and different each time. I also felt (as did Tim) that in these series, I should rethink the color for all of the characters in the same by R a n dall C. Wiggins way he rethought them in the drawing. conducted on May 28, June 6, and June 8, WIGGINS: So, you’ve worked with Tim a good bit over 2012 the years? WRIGHT: The first work I did with Tim was some Batman/ Predator pieces for Dark Horse. We went on to Madness, The Long Halloween, Gambit/Wolverine, and Dark Victory. WIGGINS: The combination of his art and your color made TLH special. How did you come to make the choices you did for the series? WRIGHT: I like simple, bold strokes of color, not bright color. I find that when the art is as good as Tim’s, using less color can bring out more of the original line art. For me, it’s about showcasing the art and telling the story. WIGGINS: When I think about TLH and Dark Victory (DV), I think of the color scheme as being muted, which is probably not the correct word for it, but the way it worked with the noir style of the stories worked so well. WRIGHT: When you’re telling stories that take place in the dark, the less color, the more it conveys darkness. With Tim’s art I was able to take my style and preferences to more absolute levels. The style I use with Tim doesn’t work with most other artists. And many artists asked for it, but mostly, they didn’t have the ability to compose a panel, or a page in the manner Tim can. WIGGINS: He does have a singular style. WRIGHT: I wouldn’t say it was singular. It has evolved quite a bit, but what remains is his impeccable composition gregory wright and storytelling. WIGGINS: Even the art and color for the Batman/Predator project was very different than either LTH or DV. WRIGHT: True. If you look at Gambit/Wolverine, it’s very different—more standard. I’m not sure that’s the right term, maybe it was more Marvel… Tim and I evolved the style you’re talking about with The Long Halloween. Even Madness looks far more

Less is More Wright’s “simple bold strokes of color” in play on the opening page of Batman: The Long Halloween #1. TM & © DC Comics.

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The Wright Stuff Wright’s favorite covers from the series, both using green: (left) TLH #6, with Poison Ivy, and (right) #7, with the Riddler. TM & © DC Comics.

standard. One of the reasons Tim liked my work originally was that I was able to color a page with two or three shades of the same color. WIGGINS: I need to find that one [Wolverine/ Gambit]. I don’t follow Marvel as closely as DC, money being what it is, or isn’t. WRIGHT: Ha! Tell me about it! WIGGINS: I remember when I started collecting and reading, a comic book was 60 cents! WRIGHT: 15 cents for me. Crazy! WIGGINS: Let’s talk about the covers for The Long Halloween. Those covers were amazing! WRIGHT: Tim did all the cover designs himself. WIGGINS: What did Tim relay to you as far as instructions for the cover colors? WRIGHT: He wanted very graphic looks. We kind of chose one color for each. I have to point out that Archie Goodwin was our editor. Archie was incredibly supportive of what we were doing. WIGGINS: Did you have a favorite cover or covers? WRIGHT: My two favorite covers were May, with Poison Ivy [#6], and the Riddler one [#7]. Guess I like green. I was trying to go between greenish yellow and something I really liked that I changed Ivy to a green hue completely. WIGGINS: That was an interesting shade of green for a background color on the Riddler cover. WRIGHT: It was a very light yellow-green. You know, after [we] did that, they started doing it in the regular

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Batman comics too. I changed a lot of character colors in these books. WIGGINS: I noticed. WRIGHT: And a lot of what I did got used in the other books. I did the same when I colored Batman with Kelley Jones. The only thing about Tim’s Joker that bugged me was that the lips were so thin that I couldn’t get the red in there, so that’s why the teeth got to be yellow. I didn’t want white teeth next to white skin. This book did have some odd color separations. Joker’s teeth are darker yellow than I planned, and the fire at the end was supposed to be white-hot light yellow and came out greenish. WIGGINS: I don’t really understand how separations are done. Could you talk about that? WRIGHT: When Long Halloween was done, colorists colored the art on black-and-white Xeroxes. These were then sent to a separation house where they would color it again on a computer. Now, the houses would have 11 different people doing an issue. So you would have 11 different interpretations of what I did. There was a person in charge of making it all the same, so you wouldn’t have crazy, out-of-whack colors. But they frequently got subtle things wrong. Hence, green fire and darker teeth. On the computer screen it may have looked fine, but when you check

to see what colors (CMYK) made up the color on screen, you would find that there were colors that didn’t belong. Like … blue. Blue plus yellow—green! Today, we all do the color on our own computers, so we can control that sort of thing. WIGGINS: What about the pages that were all gray or purple or another color over the black line art? Was that intentional? WRIGHT: Yes, the pages that were monochrome were intentional. I would actually give a note and tell [the separators] the exact color it was in some cases. There are sections that are black and white, and I had to tell them it had to be black and white, not sepia, not blue-gray, and that they had to be consistent. There is a page in one of the issues where you see sepia and black and white next to each other, so it was important to have that difference. I can’t remember which issue that is, but I do remember the page. WIGGINS: You did some amazing new, and for the time, adventurous experiments and tricks with color design. WRIGHT: Many editors would not have allowed us to do the things we did. Archie was always encouraging us to try things, see where they would go. And he always understood what we were doing. WIGGINS: He pretty much set the three of you to work and stood back, then?

WRIGHT: Pretty much, but only because he knew how we worked. Archie was my first boss in comics. I worked with him at Epic Comics when he was running that. WIGGINS: I don’t remember that one. WRIGHT: [Epic] was Marvel’s creator-owned imprint. WIGGINS: What did you do there? WRIGHT: I started working at Marvel in the Epic department under Archie Goodwin as an editorial assistant. I got promoted to be an assistant editor under Mark Gruenwald. I actually worked with Archie from the moment I was hired to the moment he passed away. I worked for him in editorial, editing him on a graphic novel, and did color work for him for many years. While [at Marvel,] I started to do some freelance, because assistant editors were encouraged to do freelance so they would better understand the editorial process. As a writer, I got started by partnering up with my good friend Dwayne McDuffie, who later formed Milestone Media. I also utilized my skills as a photographer and cinematographer as a colorist. I went to NYU for Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

Lip Service (left) Sale’s lip-less Joker led Wright to color the Clown Prince of Crime’s teeth yellow for contrast against his skin. From TLH #4. (right) A monochromatic sequence from issue #1. TM & © DC Comics.

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Shady Characters Instead of overloading a page with color, Greg Wright’s controlled use of shades leads the eye to carefully explore the wonders rendered therein by artist Tim Sale. The villain-rich double-page spread (pages 20 and 21) from Batman: The Long Halloween’s final issue, #13. TM & © DC Comics.

film. Comics are very much like film. I started coloring random pages and had to learn how to mimic other colorists. I particularly liked the color of Christie Scheele. WIGGINS: I’m not familiar with her work. WRIGHT: Christie did Daredevil for years over JR Jr. [John Romita, Jr.]. I was also one of the first colorists to add rendering and highlights to that basic color. WIGGINS: Can you explain rendering for the readers who may not understand the term? WRIGHT: Rendering—adding form to a flat drawing with shadows and highlights. [I was one of the first but] not the first. Steve Oliff had been doing amazing stuff like that unnoticed for several years on Akira and Alien Legion at Epic. Barry Windsor-Smith also did a lot of rendering and highlights on the stuff he colored over his own art. And, of course, there were colorists who were actually painting color on what we called blue lines. That stuff had lots of rendering. I was able to do more with color as technology advanced and we were allowed to do limited airbrushing. Now, of course, the sky’s the limit. WIGGINS: True, anything can be done with computers. WRIGHT: Funny thing is, the color I am most proud of and get the most respect for are the simple color jobs where I really am thinking about the color. WIGGINS: Such as? WRIGHT: Like the Tim Sale stuff. Simple, flat tones, but with tremendous thought about exactly what colors are going to be used and why. The color being done on Mike Mignola’s work is also very well thought out. And actually using color well in a simple way is my favorite. WIGGINS: On Hellboy? WRIGHT: Yes, Hellboy. It’s got more complexity now, but it used to be very simple and flat, awesome stuff. WIGGINS: Tim Sale’s art speaks to the reader, as I’m sure it spoke to you as the colorist. That must have been something to see in black and white. WRIGHT: Absolutely. Tim’s art is inspiring in black and white. A colorist can destroy a page or an entire story. Or, hopefully, really elevate it. What should never happen is for the color to take over the art. WIGGINS: I admit I am not a fan of a lot of the computer coloring 18 • BACK ISSUE • Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

that companies are doing now. What do you think of all of this? WRIGHT: Some of it is really good. Some of it isn’t. There used to be a whole lot of people going way overboard, but that’s calmed down now. WIGGINS: What are you working on now? WRIGHT: I just finished a project for Image called Wild Children. And I did a good bit of Elephantmen. And I’m finishing a project called The Squeeg. WIGGINS: Tell me more about The Squeeg. WRIGHT: The Squeeg was created by David Lieto. It was a screenplay. He decided to make a comic to help sell it. He first enlisted Tom Grindberg, and Tom brought me in. WIGGINS: What is it about? WRIGHT: It’s about a guy who needs redemption and gets it in an odd way. He finds a magic squeegee that changes him into a superhero. WIGGINS: That’s new. WRIGHT: Sounds silly, but no more than Thor. A guy finds a cane in a cave, smacks it against the wall, and POOF!—Thor. I felt the screenplay needed to be more tongue-in-cheek, so the comic is a bit funnier; and most of the characters mock the Squeeg. That is, until he shows what he can actually do. And he’s learning to be a superhero in a world that doesn’t have them. So it’s a pretty fun read. WIGGINS: What did you do on the project? WRIGHT: I wrote it based on the screenplay and I lettered and did gray tones on the art. It’s taken a while and it’s still not done, but David has been very patient. It should be completed this summer and be on sale as a trade paperback. WIGGINS: Is this the first comic-book project that you have written? WRIGHT: Oh, no. I used to write Silver Sable, Morbius, Deathlok, Nick Fury: Agent of Shield, Daredevil, and assorted bits here and there with The Punisher and Spider-Man. WIGGINS: Nothing for DC? WRIGHT: Not much writing … I wrote one story, but I colored lots for them as well. I did Batman, Starman, Nightwing, and all the big Marvel/DC crossovers. WIGGINS: Thank for your time and for a great interview. WRIGHT: Looking forward to the article.

Bryan Stroud Perhaps one of the most important facets to the world of the Batman is his impressive and voluminous rogues’ gallery. Arguably, no other hero has such a long list of equally memorable and dangerous villains to vex them. Before Bane, Ra’s al Ghul, and Poison Ivy; before the Riddler, Two-Face, and even the Penguin, there was the Scarecrow. It was 1941, a little over a year after the Joker and Catwoman were introduced in the pages of Batman #1 (Spring 1940) and slightly over two years since the debut of the Caped Crusader himself in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939) when this bizarre new nemesis would enter the pantheon of Batman foes in World’s Finest Comics #3 (Fall 1941).

STRAW MAN IN THE GOLDEN AGE In “Riddle of the Human Scarecrow,” we are introduced to Jonathan Crane (apparently based loosely on Ichabod Crane from Washington Irving’s classic short story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”), who liked to frighten birds as a boy. After that bit of foreshadowing we learn that he later became a professor of psychology at Gotham University, taking a particular interest in fear and using unorthodox teaching methods, such as firing a loaded pistol into a flowerpot during a lecture to make a point. He later overhears his colleagues on the faculty ridiculing his appearance in his shabby dress, likening him to a scarecrow. Brooding over these remarks, Crane, who spends his money on books rather than at the haberdashery, feels that he’d garner the respect he deserves if he had money. The idea takes root until he conceives a plan: “So I look like a scarecrow—that will be my symbol— a symbol of poverty and fear combined! The perfect symbol—the scarecrow!” Crane proceeds to act upon his inspiration, donning a ragged brown scarecrow costume with his face concealed by burlap. A large, floppy hat covers his head and his calling cards are the straws that embellish the garb. He embarks on his new career by offering his services to a businessman. The Scarecrow will frighten the businessman’s partner into dropping a lawsuit against him. He utilizes his pistol to emphasize his point, ultimately murdering the partner.

Boo! Detail from artist Jason Pearson’s cover to the 1998 Scarecrow one-shot. TM & © DC Comics.

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TM & © DC Comics.

From that point forward, the Scarecrow’s course is When asked about the story conferences between set, using his intimidating persona along with smoke Bob Kane, Bill Finger, George Roussos, and himself, bombs and gunplay to incite fear and terror for a Robinson shared that “we’d have story conferences price. Batman and Robin put Jonathan Crane behind where we’d work out the sketches and I would do a bars within the constraints of those first 13 layout and bring it in and we met together and pages, but he vowed to return. discussed the pros and cons of the visual.” Jerry Robinson, who inked that From a technical standpoint, Robinson first appearance, in a September said, “The only thing I can think of 2011 interview recollected with with regard to actual rendition is that BACK ISSUE the creative thought more of it was done with a brush process involved: for the clothing. Batman was first “I remember working on the done with pen, but a brush was first issue with the Scarecrow used to give more of the feeling and where we were developing his darkness on the Scarecrow.” visual. I remember working out the In the early days of comic books, problems of how he was going the villains tended to be pretty to move and what he’d look like generic. Street toughs, second-story and giving him some human men, thieves, and hoods were very jerry robinson characteristics and still having him much the norm in the urban jungle, carry out the visual of the but then came something new: Scarecrow. It was fun to devise. It was kind of a really adversaries worthy of the costumed heroes, equally colorful out-there character. Of course, at the time we were noted and one of a kind arrived on the scene. The era of the for bizarre characters what with the Joker, the Penguin, supervillain had come and comics were forever changed. and so forth. It was in that same series of bizarre villains.” Jerry Robinson took some pride in this innovation: “In all the comics in the early days, these are the ’30s, you remember. Late ’30s, early ’40s, and the villains of the day were gangsters and bank robbers: the Pretty Boy Floyds and the Machine Gun Kellys and Dillingers and so forth. Hijackers. And that’s where a lot of the villains came from. “I think we were really the first to introduce the concept of the supervillain, á la the Joker, who I think was the first. The stronger the villain, the stronger the hero. Some people thought that making the villain too strong would detract from the hero. We approached it from the other end, trying to make the villain almost the equal or more the equal than the hero. It added to the suspense. I knew from my studies of literature at the time that all great heroes had a protagonist. Everything from Arthur Conan Doyle and Professor Moriarty to David and Goliath.” [Editor’s note: Golden Age great Jerry Robinson died December 7, 2011, less than one month shy of his 90th birthday. His conversation with Bryan Stroud for this article is among the last interviews conducted with the artist best known as the co-creator of the Joker.] The Scarecrow next appeared in the pages of Detective Comics #73 (Mar. 1943). In a tale appropriately titled “The Scarecrow Returns,” Jonathan Crane takes on a slightly different M.O. by using a technique that may have been foreshadowing the Riddler. He begins to leave clues as to where he will strike. Additionally, he has some henchmen to assist him. It’s all for naught, however, when pitted against the World’s Greatest Detective. Despite leading Batman and Robin on a merry chase, the Scarecrow is again apprehended and incarcerated, apparently for the long term because … he isn’t seen again for over two decades.

Face Front World’s Finest #3’s cover (above) offered no hint of the Scarecrow’s debut, but the villain’s return in Detective #73 (Mar. 1943, left) earned him a cover shot. TM & © DC Comics.

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Silver Age Scarecrow Revisited Artist Joe Giella, who inked penciler Carmine Infantino’s eerie cover to Batman #189 (left), confesses he had always “had a problem with Carmine’s original pencil job” and argues that “Batman’s arm would not fall that way.” Bat-editor Julius Schwartz wouldn’t allow Giella to fix that arm—so over four decades later, Giella has taken it upon himself to perform some minor “surgery” via this commissioned illo (right).

Following this third published appearance, the Scarecrow started to gain traction in a big way, even TM & © DC Comics. being tapped as the villain for the landmark issue #200 of Batman (Mar. 1968). “The Man Who Radiated Fear” was written by Mike Friedrich in his professional FEARMONGERING DURING BATMANIA debut. Friedrich relates his approach to writing a story The first sighting of the Scarecrow in the Silver Age featuring the Scarecrow: is in the pages of Batman #189 (Feb. 1967). “At that point in my life I had rapidly Batmania was still in full swing as evidenced accumulated a near-complete collection by the “Holy cliff-hanger!” on the cover. of Batman and Detective Comics (I never “Fright of the Scarecrow!” begins could afford the first couple of years with a recap of the Scarecrow’s origin, of Detective, but I had almost everytaken straight from the panels of thing past that), and so would have his debut, which seems like a good been familiar with the early ’40s idea considering his long absence. Scarecrow. The ’40s version would The costume hasn’t changed and have been my inspiration more he is again availing himself of the than any more recent appearances use of gang members, but more in the ’60s, which I don’t recall now. significantly, for the first time, “I was attracted to the idea of a courtesy of writer Gardner Fox, villain who turned one of Batman’s Jonathan Crane uses chemically strengths (his supposedly fearsome mike friedrich induced fear via a hallucinogenic appearance to criminals) against derivative to aid him in his crimes. him. In those days we didn’t think It is a technique that will become part and parcel of much about backstory, so I didn’t go any deeper than the Scarecrow moving forward. that surface contrast.” Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

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Mirror Images (left) Multiple Scarecrows spook the Dynamic Duo in Batman #200 (art by Chic Stone and Joe Giella), while (right) the Caped Crusader is scared of himself on the Neal Adams cover of Detective #389 (July 1969). TM & © DC Comics.

Friedrich brings up an excellent point. Batman’s original charter, if you will, implied the important nature of using the psychology of fear to aid him in the war on crime: “Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot, so my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible ... a ... a ... a bat! That's it! It's an omen. I shall become a bat!”

at how they respond with outright, paralyzing terror at the sight of the Dynamic Duo. It is ultimately revealed that the Scarecrow had successfully injected Batman with a three-day progressive fear serum that affected all those around him until he was led into a hall of mirrors with the ultimate goal of turning his “evil eye” on himself. The villain is, of course, thwarted and returned to prison once again and in this story he is again in the company of henchmen.

To have a foe that effectively turns the tables on him would cause a fascinating twist in the mythos of the Batman. Mike Friedrich used the device extensively throughout this story, introducing a ruthless Scarecrow with an enhanced fear gas that decimates Batman and Robin to the point that they’re prepared to hang up their uniforms and career. Fortunately, the faithful Alfred is on hand to remind them of the reason they took up the capes to begin with and to help them break the strong psychological hold the Scarecrow has induced. From that pivotal moment, Batman and Robin clean up the underworld with a vengeance, taking down the Joker, Killer Moth, and Penguin and collecting color-coded straws left by the Scarecrow along the way. Justice again prevails and the Tyrant of Terror is put away, but not for long. Another key appearance at the end of the Silver Age occurred in Detective #389 (July 1969). Herein, writer Frank Robbins also delves into the idea that fear is a classic tool of the Batman. In the 15 pages that comprise “Batman’s Evil Eye,” the Dynamic Duo spend some time reminiscing about “the good old days” when the very sight of Batman would instill fear into the seedy element of Gotham City. The Dark Knight even speculates that perhaps they’ve become old hat at this stage in the crimefighting game. However, once our heroes encounter the criminal element, they are astonished

The Scarecrow has not historically been much of a joiner, but in the pages of Justice League of America #111 (May–June 1974) he becomes a founding member of the Injustice Gang of the World, along with Chronos, the Mirror Master, Poison Ivy, the Shadow Thief, and the Tattooed Man. This new organization in turn reported to the latest threat to the JLA, a man calling himself Libra. In this adventure, the Scarecrow uses his trademark fear inducements to convince innocent bystanders and even Superman himself that the massive, frightening beasts conjured up will destroy them and that the belief in them can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. By now the Scarecrow is becoming a fixture as the Bronze Age rolls forward, and as with any character with longevity, he goes through a number of hands. One man who both wrote and edited Scarecrow stories was Denny O’Neil. In O’Neil’s “The Scarecrow’s Trail of Fear!” from Batman #262 (Apr. 1975), the Master of Fear is now employing new terror-inducing technology, this time of the electronic variety. He is again working with some henchmen and displays a device that “sends vibrations to the parasynthetic nervous system … the part of the human body that controls the involuntary emotions.” While it is an effective weapon, the World’s Greatest Detective is able to use it as a sort of homing device to close in on the felon and to beat it, by

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BRONZE AGE BADNESS

deducing that much of it was mind over matter since use of his “universal antidote,” it soon manifests itself by it did not affect the villain wielding it. causing those around him, whether in his costume or as O’Neil doesn’t recollect doing much if any “morgue” Bruce Wayne, to experience morbid fear in his presence. research as he fleshed out the story, but suggests that Somewhat reminiscent of “Batman’s Evil Eye,” writer in all likelihood editor Julius Schwartz provided the Gerry Conway takes things further by having the Batman necessary elements for Batman’s most frightening foe. sequester himself as he tries to deduce what exactly The Scarecrow took on the most famous member has happened to him and how he can stop it. of Batman’s rogues’ gallery in his own short-lived book The loyal Alfred, knowing the self-sufficiency and in “The Scarecrow’s Fearsome Face-Off!” from the pages pride in Bruce Wayne, takes it upon himself to contact of The Joker #8 (July–Aug. 1976). An interesting Dick Grayson, alias Robin, to enlist his aid. addition this time is that rather than having One of Dick’s first acts is to further recruit a gang, his sidekick is Nightmare, his pet Barbara (Batgirl) Gordon via a quick visit raven, and he also appeared to take a to our nation’s capital in Washington, page from the Batman’s book by using D.C., where she is currently based. a one-seater helicopter reminiscent Soon, Robin and Batgirl are driving of the Whirly-Bat. Chemical fear is at a breakneck pace back north to the name of the game as the Gotham City to help Batman when Scarecrow seeks out a variety the sleek Batmobile’s electronics allegedly more potent than his own. alert them of a robbery in progress, The running problem with the so it’s a quick detour to the Gotham Joker’s self-titled series of books was Trade Center where they just happen that the Comics Code was still in to encounter the Scarecrow and his full force and one of the important similarly clad lackeys using fear gas denny o’neil elements was that each story would to clear things out. While they’re not end with the villain being punished, able to apprehend the Scarecrow or so after their clash, both the Scarecrow and the Joker his gang, they manage to acquire an important bit of were apprehended, without the help of their mutual evidence in the form of a fear-gas pellet. nemesis, Batman. Still, it was some more important More detective work ultimately leads Robin and face time for Jonathan Crane. Batgirl to a secluded location outside town. The Scarecrow’s profile continued to rise as the 1980s Unfortunately for them it’s an ambush by the began, as evidenced by his presence in Detective Comics #503 (June 1981). This time our fearful felon bedevils most of the Batman Family in “The 6 Days of the Scarecrow!” It all starts when Batman is taking down a two-bit hood and he is abruptly struck with a dart from somewhere in the darkness. While he deals with it through the

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Straw Dogs (left) Scarecrow encounter from Batman #262 (Apr. 1975), by Denny O’Neil, Ernie Chan (Chua), and Dick Giordano. (right) Detail from Jim Starlin’s cover to Detective #503 (June 1981). TM & © DC Comics.

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Take a Whiff (left) A henchman guinea pig, from Batman #296 (Feb. 1978), by David V. Reed and Sal Amendola. (right) The Golden Age Scarecrow appeared in the Earth-Two classic B&B #197 (Apr. 1983). Cover by Jim Aparo. TM & © DC Comics.

Scarecrow. This leads Batman, who’d been directing things via radio transmission, into hasty action. Leaving his self-exile, he travels to Hortonville to see what has become of his allies. Robin and Batgirl, meanwhile, have been regaled by the Scarecrow about his latest fear breakthrough wherein he has isolated a mammalian pheromone, similar to those used in the insect world, to produce distress. He admits that he was, in fact, the source of the dart that has affected Batman and he further reveals that in a mere 24-hour period, the hormone in Batman’s body will drive him mad. Naturally, the Batman arrives in time to save his protégés and to receive the antidote that the Scarecrow has on hand to counteract the pheromone in the event of a mishap. The interesting aftermath is that Jonathan Crane, now a victim of his own mixture, is afraid of everything and cowers in a corner of a secured room in Arkham Asylum. Thus the Scarecrow has graduated from a run-of-the-mill criminal to the ranks of the criminally insane.

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“FEAR FOR $ALE” Jumping ahead nearly six years, once again in the pages of Detective Comics, #571 (Feb. 1987), the Scarecrow again surfaces and wreaks his special havoc with a particular twist. “Fear for $ale” has emerged as a genuinely seminal tale of the Scarecrow and brought together a well-suited creative team, beginning with Denny O’Neil in the editor’s chair. Denny has some interesting recollections about his techniques as an editor: “There are lots of editorial philosophies. The one that worked best for me was for me to define the ballpark. There are certain kinds of stories that are off limits. There are certain elements of the character that can’t be varied. With those loose givens, go knock yourself out and if you need help from me, you’ve got it. If you don’t need help from me, I’m not going to impose on you. “Those are the same rules I liked to play by when I was a freelance writer. I want to know what the parameters are. I want to know what the deadline is. And if I need something I want you to instantly respond to my call. [chuckle] “There are other editors who operate that way and operate that way successfully. And editing is the complete existential job. Almost every good editor I worked for, and there were probably a dozen good ones, out of maybe a hundred I worked for over the years, and they all kind of do the job a different way. There are very few books done on how to be an editor, opposed to all the books on how to write and the other stuff that’s involved. And the first time I tried it, I did it all wrong. The second and third time were much more successful. You learn by doing and pray that you don’t screw it up too badly. [chuckle] “The first time they hired me, I thought, ‘Okay, they must have hired me to be an editor because they like my writing, so my success is to be judged by how close somebody else’s work is to mine,’ and that was just absolutely 100% the wrong approach. The best you can

hope for doing that is third-rate O’Neil and what you’re emergency fire hose to soak Hogan down so that he can shooting for is first-rate Barr or Moench or whoever. extract him from the wreckage. Successful, the Dynamic “So I eventually came to look on editing as a helping Duo question Hogan later at Gotham Memorial Hospital. profession. Like teaching.” Hogan’s only response, irrational as it may be, is As it happens, the writer for “Fear for that he cannot explain, but he’d do it again. $ale” is Mike W. Barr, in first-rate form. Later in the Batcave, Bruce is analyzing Before getting to Barr’s comments, Jack’s blood sample, where he has though, perhaps a synopsis of the detected a familiar psychoactive chemical story would be in order. that perfectly matches a file sample Batman is accompanied by Robin in used exclusively by the Scarecrow. the story, but it is the successor Robin, The Dynamic Duo is soon back Jason Todd. In their civilian guises, in action with Robin placed on the pair attends an auto-racing event. eavesdropping detail via a bug Jason is enjoying the recreational aspect, planted in Hogan’s hospital room. but Bruce reminds him they’re actually Back at that selfsame hospital on business. In the prior week, major room, Hogan has received a visitor, sports figures have suffered disastrous though it isn’t the attending mike w. barr accidents by taking unreasonable physician. The Scarecrow explains risks, and the chance of coincidence that he is indeed responsible for is far too remote for the World’s Greatest Detective. Hogan’s current predicament through his utilization of Bruce Wayne carefully observes the star driver with a new drug that actually takes away the rational fears his binoculars and divines that not only is he failing we all have, leaving the race-car driver to take to use his safety harness, but his entire demeanor senseless chances. The twist here is that the master of indicates a devil-may-care attitude that can only lead fear has removed those fears that cause discretion to destruction. and the price for the antidote (blackmail or extortion, Batman and Robin are soon in their uniforms, anyone?) is a mere $50,000.00. anticipating certain disaster. The driver, Jack Hogan, has Robin takes the initiative to burst in on the scene indeed failed to negotiate a hairpin turn and his car is and the Scarecrow uses classic tactics, snapping a a fiery crash site. Batman instructs Robin to use the straw with chemically induced fear to leave the Boy Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

One of ye ed’s favorite Batman runs… …is the Barr/Davis Detective stint from the 1980s, and it’s great to see those tales collected in Legends of the Dark Knight: Alan Davis! These pages from Detective #571 show the World’s Greatest Detective at work, Scarecrow’s origin, and the villain’s new toxin in action. TM & © DC Comics.

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Wonder so paralyzed with dread that he is easy pickings for a quick trussing up. The Scarecrow again addresses Hogan, upping the ante to $100,000.00, but Jack is having nothing of it. Crane casually suggests to Jack that he’ll wager Hogan can’t leap from the window to the ground and live. The bet is quickly taken with predictable results and a cackling Crane departs with his hostage. The scene shifts to a house outside Gotham City where daredevil Alvin Kenner is planning his next commercial stunt when he receives a visitor. The Scarecrow is able to divine that it’s actually the Dark Knight in disguise and fires a series of drugged darts into our hero, incapacitating him. When Batman revives, he retrieves an envelope left by the Scarecrow containing Robin’s “R” emblem. An odd smile crosses Batman’s face and the game is afoot. The Scarecrow has taken Robin to a concrete plant and has explained to the Boy Wonder that his mentor has been injected with his new drug that causes carelessness, which will be the Batman’s undoing as he attempts rescue. Traps have been laid and the Scarecrow is brimming with confidence that his nemesis will stride boldly into them, ensuring his doom. The World’s Greatest Detective has indeed deduced the location of his partner through the concrete dust on the insignia and the reference to quarry, and again the odd smile crosses his face as he predicts he can take whatever the Master of Fear can throw at him. Then, brief internal conflict as Batman realizes how the drug-laced darts are affecting his judgment. His first encounter with danger, however, shows the potent effects of the Scarecrow’s latest elixir as he scarcely dodges a hurtling semi, rakishly using his cape as a matador would when facing a charging bull. He does successfully escape the first trap, to the elation of Robin,

who is watching the monitor with his captor, but Crane is convinced his drug is more potent than the iron will of Batman. The next predicament faced by the Dark Knight ends with similar results. Initially, he plans another devil-may-care stunt to get past some grinding machinery, then regroups enough to change tactics, using his utility belt to effect as an explosive, but then realizes that he has effectively tossed away a good portion of his arsenal. A final barrier presents itself when Batman is ambushed in a corridor by another mechanical menace that drives him into a water-filled pit. Automatic machine guns emerge from the walls and a barrage of firepower pelts the water for ten solid minutes ensuring the Caped Crusader’s doom. Inside the control room, the Scarecrow is jubilant and Robin is beginning to mourn when the Batman bursts through the door, delivering an uppercut that leaves a confused Jonathan Crane unconscious. Batman then explains to his questioning protégé that he was able to avoid the gunfire by wedging himself into a corner, trapping enough air in his cape to sustain himself. As to overcoming the effects of the drug, he simply explains that he replaced the nullified fears with a new one that could drive him on. The final panel illustrates what the Batman refused to divulge to Robin when a tombstone is shown with the inscription: HERE LIES JASON TODD, 1974–1986, MURDERED BY THE SCARECROW. The writer/artist team of Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis indulged me with some insights into their respective creative processes with this unusual storyline. Mike W. Barr particularly spent some time divining the character of the Scarecrow and revealed it was his idea to use the character for this story, using the standard theme of fear, but with a new twist. “I stuck to the history of the character, having seen nothing there that needed changing, but then tried to see something new in his personality so the reader feels he’s seen a new facet of this familiar character,” Barr says. When queried about his inspiration, Mike offers the following: “This is the example I always give when people ask me, ‘Where do you get your ideas?’: The Scarecrow had been established, since being brought back by Gardner Fox and

All Tied Up Scarecrow apprehended, from Detective #571. And the Barr/Davis combo will get a BACK ISSUE spotlight in the foreseeable future … patience, Bat-fans! TM & © DC Comics.

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Julie Schwartz, as using psycho-active chemicals to stimulate fear in his victims. The way my mind works is to try to find some twist on a character’s established method; with the Scarecrow this meant taking away fear rather than instilling it. This led pretty easily to the idea that fear is, in some instances, valuable and desired, that a fear of not being killed leads us to not take stupid risks; this is more commonly called self-preservation. The Scarecrow removed that instinct for self-preservation from people in dangerous professions—professional racers, for instance. From there, the rest is follow-through. “‘Fear for $ale’ is atypical in a lot of ways. It’s probably the only Batman story even in which Batman throws only one punch, and has no fights with the villain’s henchmen, or fights at all. It’s proven to be a popular story over the years. DC reprinted it twice when each of

the first two Christian Bale Batman movies came out, and it provided the inspiration for the animated series episode ‘Never Fear,’ though I received no credit on it. I wish I remembered what I had for breakfast the day I wrote that story!” When asked if he’d been prescient with Jason Todd’s tombstone, which actually came to pass a couple of years later at the hands of the Joker in the pages of Batman: A Death in the Family, he shares this: “Not consciously. If the final fate of Jason Todd had been decided at that point, I hadn’t been informed of it. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the major contribution the art of Alan Davis and Paul Neary made to the story. It’s hard to go wrong when you’ve got collaborators like these.” That provides an ideal segue to some remarks gleaned from penciler Alan Davis. When asked about discussions with Denny O’Neil and /or Mike W. Barr, he reveals that his prior working relationship with Mike laid the groundwork nicely: “We spoke on the phone quite often, but Mike’s scripts were usually so well constructed and complete that everything I needed was there. Mike is easily the most visual writer I have worked with. His pacing and choice of angles was flawless.” This story contains a decidedly retro feel and Alan filled in the gaps on his approach: “The retro thing was true for our run on Detective. Mike described the tone, which I interpreted to be a surreal edge of ’50s wackiness, everything larger than life and slightly weird. I think some at DC may have been less than enthusiastic about that ‘comic’ flavor because it wasn’t compatible with the grim and gritty Dark Knight sensibility. “My specific Batman cues came from Jim Aparo’s version, despite the fact that Neal Adams’ work had been a large influence to me I had only seen Neal’s Marvel work until I was working in comics and discovered conventions, comic marts, and back issues. So by the time I saw Neal’s Batman, Jim Aparo’s Batman was, and still is, fixed in my mind as the definitive version—closely followed by Don Newton— despite the cart-before-the-horse evolutionary chain.” Alan kept to the classic Scarecrow visual, but added some traits that seemed to make him somewhat different and stranger. He did some research, and was given some direction, but a lot of latitude: “I checked out some previous versions but, to the best of my recollection, Mike told me to ignore the earlier Scarecrow designs and asked me to come up with something ‘new,’ weird, scarier (less Wizard of Oz). I had designed or redesigned other characters for Mike on Batman and the Outsiders, so he was happy to let me loose. “I started with the notion of making the Scarecrow look more like an actual scarecrow. Humanoid-shaped, but misshapen, disjointed—limbs bending the wrong way. alan davis The solution seemed pretty obvious, by draping the gangly Ichabod Crane figure with a sackcloth suit sewn along wildly twisting seams, it would be arbitrarily tight in some places and bunched in others to confuse the shape of the wearer—especially when he adopted exaggerated body language and struck crazy poses. “The thing I always loved about American comics is that they told a story through the immediacy of emotion and movement. It’s the skill all my favorite artists have in common—and sadly, fairly rare in modern US comics. To me, the essence of American superhero art is the balance of cartoon form with stylized faux-photo lighting.” Alan confirmed the assumption that Steve Ditko has had an influence on his art when asked about his special treatment of the Scarecrow’s hands: “I am a huge Steve Ditko fan. I have always credited him as one of my major influences. The clawed hands were just another aspect

Gripped by Fear Detail from Alan Davis’ powerful cover for Detective Comics #571 (Feb. 1987), featuring the classic “Fear for $ale.” TM & © DC Comics.

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“GOD OF FEAR”

“The God of Fear” Bat-scribe Alan Grant used the Scarecrow in such early-’90s issues as (left) Batman #457 (Dec. 1990, cover by Norm Breyfogle) and Shadow of the Bat #17 (late Sept. 1993, cover by Brian Stelfreeze). TM & © DC Comics.

Alan Grant did an inspired turn on the character in the Shadow of the Bat title in 1993 and explains some of his thought processes for the “God of Fear” storyline: “I read the original ‘origin of the Scarecrow’ tale, which gave me most of the backstory information I needed for the God of Fear. “I’ve always had a great liking for the character of the Scarecrow. I find it fascinating (and grotesque) that any human should gain pleasure from striking fear into the hearts of innocents. I always felt that the Scarecrow had got a bit of a rough deal, story-wise, because despite his obvious potential, I don’t think he’d ever been truly recognized as one of the great Batman villains. I certainly much prefer him as a villain to the likes of the Joker—perhaps because, unlike Joker, his criminal career had a definite starting point, one which grew organically out of his strange boyhood discovery of making the Scarecrow more ‘scarecrow-ish.’ that he liked frightening birds. From that Less human. As far as I remember, the one simple observation, his subsequent clawed fingers just evolved from that development made almost perfect sense. basic premise.” “I did check out a few dictionaries of Alan summarizes his experience pagan gods and goddesses, and was on “Fear for $ale” with these closing quite surprised to find that—at least remarks: as far as I could ascertain—no culture, “Mike was very visual, so I didn’t anywhere in the world, had a God of have to fix up poor storytelling or Fear. This seemed to me quite a worry about trying to make things glaring omission, and the genesis of more interesting. I was still pretty the story was born from that. Fear is green when I drew the comic and an emotion that every human being, though I did my best, my drawing at some time or other, has felt; the wasn’t as good as the story. I’d love only way to conquer one’s fear(s) is alan grant to have the opportunity to draw it to accept it/them as best one can, again—better! Mike’s story was and go ahead and act anyway.” brilliantly simple, captured the Grant’s other research into the history of the essence of all that is Batman, and with a resolution that was clever and poignant. It’s undoubtedly one of the character was helpful in his own journey in molding the Scarecrow: very best Batman stories ever written.”

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“I tried to stick to the very basics that had been laid down—as a boy, Scarecrow liked frightening birds, and grew up into someone who enjoyed frightening everybody. He became a lonely, frustrated, unfulfilled professor—and didn’t realize how much he enjoyed frightening people until he was scorned and mocked so much, the worm finally turned. “His love of books also resonated with me, which is why I used so many quotations from other people in the story. Scarecrow would have read every single one of those books, so it didn’t seem unnatural for him to utilize quotes from those who had great insight into the human condition.” At the suggestion that the Batman and Scarecrow have the similar condition of being driven by bad past experiences, Grant observes this: “Neither character would even exist had it not been for their bad childhood experiences. Bruce Wayne either got lucky, or had the insight to realize he could channel his feelings into something that would be socially useful. Jonathan Crane, meanwhile, deliberately chose what might be called ‘the left-hand path’ and became the arch-evil epitomized by the Scarecrow. Both characters were born out of negative emotions— fear, anger, a desire for revenge; they both based their costumes and persona on these emotions. But Bruce Wayne chose to fight for the good, while Jonathan Crane chose to fight only for himself. “I always felt that Scarecrow, rather than the Joker, was Batman’s perfect antithesis. Scarecrow and Batman have much in common, only their intentions separating them. Joker, however, has always been an enigma and the only facet of his character which has routinely been played up in stories is his madness. I could argue that Scarecrow is not insane, that his love of fear actually led rationally to his criminal career, which makes him the real nemesis for Batman.”

“MISTRESS OF FEAR” The Scarecrow actually mimicked the Joker in 1998 by very briefly having his own book. This one-shot, with a publication month of February, was the showcase for the story “Mistress of Fear.” In the hands of writer Peter Milligan and artist Duncan Fegredo, the reader is taken on a macabre journey with new twists on the character, to include a somewhat different, yet easily recognizable costume. The tale is actually told from the viewpoint of the villain himself, and his self-appointed mission is to conquer his greatest foe, which, it turns out, is a crippled young girl named Becky Albright. The story begins with a bit of flashback as a tortured Jonathan Crane, mentioning prior tormenters, had chosen to terrorize a suburb of Gotham City, using it as his personal canvas to spread his fear gas, inducing the byproducts panic, hatred, and paranoia. Confident that none of his victims will have the courage or wherewithal to offer testimony against him, he sneers at the challenge to his crimes in the form of the Dark Knight. As it happens, Becky Albright, a law student, did just that, landing him in Arkham Asylum among his peers, including the Joker and

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No Fear (right) Becky Albright resists the Master of Fear in Scarecrow #1 (Feb. 1998), by Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo. (left) Jim Balent’s cover to the 2005 trade paperback, Batman: Scarecrow Tales. TM & © DC Comics.

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his greatest fear, because she has the character he lacks and refuses to give in to the hatred and need for vengeance that has twisted him. This story was an excellent trip into the psychoses that drive Jonathan Crane and the dark tones, shadows, and subdued coloring enhance the trip through the Scarecrow’s nightmare. The Scarecrow’s ascent in the world of the Batman continued its sinister journey in other storylines, such as the much-heralded The Long Halloween series, which is covered in depth elsewhere in this issue.

WANT TO SEE SOMETHING REALLY SCARY?

Scarecrow in the Media Jonathan Crane’s creepy alter ego, as seen in (top left) the film Batman Begins (2005), as portrayed by Cillian Murphy; (top right) in CGI in 2010 for DC Universe Online; and (bottom) in 1992 for TV’s Batman: The Animated Series. Scarecrow TM & © DC Comics.

Riddler, who mercilessly jeer at his inability to scare Ms. Albright into paralyzed inaction. Upon successful escape, Crane is determined to regain his precious self-respect and to make Becky Albright pay for her impudence, so with the help of his henchmen, who seem to be copies of Jake and Elwood Blues, he begins his campaign, intent on breaking her. He stalks his prey, learning of her habits to aid him in his schemes until ultimately striking and using everything in his formidable arsenal, to include specific fears like agoraphobia and claustrophobia and then dismantling her mental defenses to get to her core. What makes Becky Albright afraid? What he ultimately discovers is what he feels is a kindred soul. Huddled against the psychological onslaught, she relives her own torments as a bullied crippled child, which triggers Crane’s memories of abuse at the hands of his peers on the playground as they call him a scrawny freak and … a scarecrow. His final push at the end of the story is to offer her a costume he has designed, similar to his, with an offer to join the ranks, indeed to take her revenge on those who caused her pain, but she flatly rejects his overtures. The Batman arrives to subdue the Scarecrow before he can do Becky lasting harm and informs the incredulous miscreant that she is, in fact,

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Leave us not forget Scarecrow’s appearances in animated form and on the big screen, the former in Batman: The Animated Series, The New Batman Adventures, and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. The Scarecrow made his film debut as a major character in Batman Begins, along with a cameo appearance in the follow-up movie The Dark Knight, both terrifically portrayed by Cillian Murphy. Interestingly, rather than the classic full body costume, the Scarecrow is simply given a burlap mask, but the classic elements of fear gas are utilized to the full extent along with Jonathan Crane’s profession as a coolly calculating psychologist. More recent incarnations of the Scarecrow include the “Scarebeast,” (picture the Scarecrow on steroids or as a derivative of Bane) and his recruitment into the Sinestro Corps in the “Blackest Night” series. Through every shift and change in his over 70 years of existence, the Scarecrow has remained, at his core, one of the most intriguing of Batman’s foes. He continues to outwardly manifest his own inner demons to torture the society that has rejected him, using base fears and terrors to haunt us all. So when it gets dark, when the moon is at its apex, and when things do not appear quite as they should, be on the lookout for the cause of that chill down your spine, that feel of gooseflesh and that bump in the night. The Master of Fear, Jonathan Crane, alias the Scarecrow, may be lying in wait to cause your latest nightmare in his endless reign of terror. BRYAN STROUD is a longtime fan of DC Comics, particularly the Silver and Bronze Ages, and has been contributing to the website of his lifelong best friend, Ron Daudt, for over a decade, doing reviews of those classics. Beginning in 2007, Bryan seized an opportunity to begin interviewing the creators of the comics he’s loved and has been fortunate enough to conduct over 70 to date at www.thesilverlantern.com.

Dewey Cassell

The Scarecrow. It depends on how old you are as to what image that name first brings to mind. For some, it is Dorothy’s companion played by Ray Bolger in the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. If you are slightly younger, it may be the DC Comics’ supervillain who was introduced in the pages of World’s Finest #3 in 1941. Or perhaps if you are even younger—and you didn’t blink—the name might bring to mind an anti-hero with a frightening visage who sprung forth from the canvas of a painting, as first depicted in Marvel Comics’ Dead of Night #11 (Aug. 1975). This Scarecrow was the product of writer Scott Edelman’s imagination, though he credits the name to Roger Slifer. The character had a straw body but possessed superhuman strength. He was susceptible to fire, but could be regenerated through the painting. In a 1976 interview from #11 of the newspaper COMPASS, Edelman described the background behind the Scarecrow: “There was a dimensional doorway through which [the evil] Kalumai would come to earth to do all the nasty things. There had been a huge magical war and the final act of Kalumai’s dying adversary was to produce the painting over the doorway with his life force. Whenever Kalumai tries to break out, that life force reaches out to take over somebody. There’s nothing to hold it. When the danger is over, it returns to the painting. So the Scarecrow would only come out when there was a danger from the beings within Kalumai [and] the demons.” Edelman elaborated on the fitful beginnings of the character in the letters page accompanying Scarecrow’s first appearance in Dead of Night: “Little did Len Wein realize when he finally approved the plot for this first story that there had been twelve separate and distinct ‘first’ stories written for the character before he had even heard of it.” Examples of concepts Edelman had considered included an actual scarecrow possessed by a microscopic man from the home world of Psycho-Man; a young man who learns to control the emotions of others and wears a scarecrow costume; a pulp hero killed in the 1940s who was sent back to Earth; and a messenger of God responsible for maintaining the balance between good and evil.

TITLE-HOPPING TATTERDEMALION The task of finding a home for the Scarecrow was also not an easy one. It was originally planned to be a rotating series with Tigra and Frankenstein in the pages of the black-and-white magazine Monsters Unleashed. Before the Scarecrow could make its debut in Monsters Unleashed, though, there was a change in editorial direction. Edelman then heard that Len Wein was looking for backup features for the Giant-Size books and it was decided to place the Scarecrow series in Giant-Size Werewolf by Night. But then Marvel determined that their reprint books needed a boost in sales, so the

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Now That’s a Dark Knight! (left) Scarecrow’s debut in Dead of Night (a former reprint title) #11 (Aug. 1975). Cover by Gil Kane and Bernie Wrightson. (right) Romita character sketches. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Scarecrow ended up in Dead of Night, which was a Rival was not the artist originally intended for the reprint title for its first ten issues. first Scarecrow story. However, as Edelman explains, The cover of Dead of Night #11 was provided he is not sure who was: “One thing I felt fairly by the unusual combination of Gil Kane certain of before you set me off doing my pencils and Bernie Wrightson inks. The Scarecrow research is that the unnamed Scarecrow story was illustrated by artist I mentioned in the Dead of Night Filipino artist Rico Rival. Following text piece who was first supposed character designs by John Romita, Sr., to draw the Scarecrow was Bill Draut, Rival did a great job of capturing the but now that I look at the Grand elements of horror and mystery and Comics Database, I see he was doing mysticism, setting the tone for the no work for Marvel during that book. Using Rival did require a change time.” Edelman did have his own in approach, however, as Edelman preference, though, as he adds, “As explains to BACK ISSUE: “One fact for the art of Rico Rival, while he did that might not be obvious is that the a decent job, my dream artist from two Scarecrow stories were written as that group at the time—again, this scott edelman full scripts, and not according to the is me remembering what I think I famous Marvel [plot first] method. thought in 1975—was Alex Nino.” Because the artists in the Philippines were responsible The series was unabashedly violent, with the Cult for all of the art, it didn’t go plot-pencils-script-lettering- of Kalumai riddling the Scarecrow with bullets, which inking the way it was for books done by US artists.” passed harmlessly through his straw body, and the Scarecrow snapping the neck of his adversary, standing over his defeated foes and laughing maniacally. It was reflective of a revised Comics Code that had taken effect in the early 1970s and the growing appeal of vigilante justice, as evident in the popularity of the Punisher, introduced by Marvel the previous year. Supporting characters introduced in the first story included Jess Duncan, who purchased the Scarecrow painting at auction and proudly displayed it in his Soho loft before it was stolen by the Cult of Kalumai. His younger brother, Dave Duncan, was a magazine writer. As the series progressed, it was suggested Dave might have some special connection to the Scarecrow. Harmony Maxwell, art critic and love interest, was kidnapped by the Cult of Kalumai, which intended to sacrifice her to set free their exiled deity, but she was rescued by the Scarecrow. However, Dead of Night was canceled, so the Scarecrow had to once again find a new home. The second Scarecrow story ended up appearing six months later in Marvel Spotlight #26 (Feb. 1986), once again written by Scott Edelman, but illustrated by another Filipino artist, Ruben Yandoc, who remained largely faithful to the look and feel of the character established by Rival. In the Marvel

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Fearsome Night-Prowler (top) The vengeful Scarecrow seems unstoppable in this sequence drawn by Rico Rival, from Dead of Night #11. (bottom) Don Perlin’s splash page for the unpublished Scarecrow continuation. Courtesy of Scott Edelman. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Spotlight story, the Scarecrow battles a horde of demons in their quest to obtain the Horn of Kalumai. In Dead of Night, the Scarecrow demonstrated the ability to control a flock of crows and in Marvel Spotlight, he exhibits a similar skill in commanding a giant fish to defeat the demons. It would be six more months before the Scarecrow appeared again, this time in the pages of Marvel Twoin-One #18 (Aug. 1976). The story was co-plotted by Edelman and Bill Mantlo, written by Mantlo, and illustrated by Ron Wilson. In the story, Kalumai manages to possess a man attending an art exhibit and mutates him into a fiery creature. The Thing, who happened to be attending the exhibit with girlfriend Alicia Masters, is joined by the Scarecrow in fighting the creature, which ends up setting fire to the painting.

THE SCARECROW’S FATE Edelman provides some insight into the fate of the Scarecrow: “As for why the character never took off, some of it must of course be the fault of my own writing—after all, the first Scarecrow story was the first comics script I ever wrote—but there was also the fact that the first appearance was in the last issue of a horror anthology title, and we all know that’s never a good sign. Why, who remembers today what was in the final issue of another one of Marvel’s horror anthology books, Amazing Fantasy #15?” Availability may have been another contributing factor. Aaron Sultan, longtime fan and collector of the Scarecrow, recalls the difficulty in finding a copy of Dead of Night #11, likening its scarcity to that of Howard the Duck #1. Marvel apparently expected the Scarecrow to be a hit. Plans were made to launch a solo title for the character following his debut in Dead of Night, as evident from the “Scarecrow #1” written in the upper margin of the original artwork for the story which ended up appearing in Marvel Spotlight #26. Marvel also devoted a full-page advertisement to the Scarecrow in the 1975 Marvel Comic Con program, and the title appeared in the subscription ads in Marvel comics. In spite of the vote of confidence, however, the Scarecrow failed to establish a foothold and languished in obscurity after Marvel Two-in-One. Marvel Comics’ Scarecrow did not escape the attention of its rival comic-book publisher, DC Comics. When it was announced that the Scarecrow would get his own book, DC reportedly made plans to sue Marvel. However, it was not just the threat of a lawsuit that derailed plans for the Scarecrow. Edelman elaborated in the COMPASS interview: “The guy who is president of the [Marvel] corporation says hold off until the lawsuit is over or until we find out what is going on. In the meantime, a new president took over; Al Landau was replaced by Jim Galton. And then Jim Galton says let’s cut back on some books … the [two] men had completely different ideas on how to run a company; one wanted

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Terrifying Two-Fer In 2007 Ron Wilson and Joe Rubinstein recreated the Wilson/Joe Sinnott Thing/Scarecrow cover of Marvel Two-in-One #18. From the collection of Brian Sagar. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Petrifying Pair of Pictures (left) Courtesy of Robert Menzies, a Scarecrow illo produced by Howard Bender and Duffy Vohland for Marvel UK’s Super Spider-Man and the Titans #216. (right) A 1975 sketch by then-newcomer John Byrne. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

hundreds of books, the other for us to sit on what we have and make them better. So he said well, let’s wait [and] see how it does.” There was actually another story about the Scarecrow in the works, to be rendered by Don Perlin, as evidenced by a plug in issue #10 of FOOM, the in-house Marvel fan club magazine, as well as surviving photocopies of the plot and the splash page Perlin drew for the story. Later in the COMPASS interview, Edelman noted, “I made a mention to Archie [Goodwin, new Marvel editor] that I’d like to attempt doing a backup feature of just one Scarecrow story because at the moment, the Scarecrow is in limbo. Marvel Two-in-One is not out yet, but in it, the painting is destroyed, Scarecrow is destroyed, and the brother everyone suspects of being the Scarecrow is missing. And that’s how it ends. A blurb states, ‘Is this really the end?’ So I want to do a sevenpage story to explain what is really going on.” Edelman never got that chance, but the character enjoyed a slightly extended lifespan thanks to Marvel UK. In the 1970s, Marvel comics in the UK typically featured reprints of stories originally published in the US. However, since the UK comics were published weekly, the US stories had to be split into multiple chapters, resulting in the need for new “splash” pages to accompany each chapter. Consequently, there was actually new Scarecrow art created when the character appeared in the UK comics, including a full-page pinup. The character returned 15 years later in the pages of Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, penned by Roy and Dann Thomas and illustrated by Larry Alexander in issue #31 and by Geoff Isherwood in issues #38 and 40. In this storyline, the owner of the Horror Television Network (HTV), Skirra Corvus (a combination of Icelandic and Latin for “scare crow”), reveals himself to Doctor Strange as the “Straw Man” and warns of impending plans of the Fear Lords to overtake the Earth. A battle ensues involving first the Lurking Unknown and then D’Spayre, in which the “Straw Man” is set ablaze not once, but twice,

calling into serious question the efficacy of his chosen form, and ultimately leaving the character once again in an uncertain state. It turns out that this was not the first Marvel character to be named the Scarecrow. There was a villain named Ebenezer Laughton, who first appeared in 1964 in issue #51 of Tales of Suspense. This Scarecrow had appeared only sporadically since his early battles against Iron Man and the X-Men, but he had resurfaced in the early 1970s in the pages of Captain America, and would continue to periodically contest Cap and later Ghost Rider over the next decade and a half. Perhaps out of concern over possible confusion between the characters, the name of the newer Scarecrow was changed to the Straw Man when he appeared in Doctor Strange. (The Thing had referred to him as the Straw Man in the pages of Marvel Two-in-One.) However, a name change rarely helps a character, especially one that has already struggled to establish a foothold with fans. Add to it that while the Scarecrow enjoyed some consistency in writing, he had five different artists in his six appearances. It is no wonder the Straw Man has not appeared since. So while Ray Bolger eventually got his brain, or at least a diploma, Edelman’s Scarecrow never found a home. Curious fans can find the early Scarecrow stories reprinted in vol. 2 of Essential Marvel Horror. It is a shame that an idea for a character with so much potential never caught fire. Sincere thanks to Scott Edelman for his recollections of the Scarecrow and permission to use quotes and images from his blog on www.scottedelman.com, as well as Aaron Sultan for his insight and artwork. DEWEY CASSELL is a frequent contributor to BACK ISSUE and author of the book The Art of George Tuska. His new book about Marie Severin was published by TwoMorrows in July 2012.

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John Wells

When one thinks of creatures from the swamp throughout comic-book history, one tends to picture green, plantlike monsters that are accurately described as mossencrusted. From Hillman Comics’ Heap in 1942 to Marvel and DC’s Man-Thing and Swamp Thing in 1971, such characters adhered to a strict template that stemmed (pun intended) from Theodore Sturgeon’s short story “It!” in the Aug. 1940 issue of the pulp magazine Unknown. DC Comics’ Solomon Grundy was something different.

GRUNDY’S ROOTS Rising out of Gotham City’s Slaughter Swamp in 1944, Grundy shambled like the monsters that came before and after, but his chalk-white flesh, tattered black clothing, and general lack of chlorophyll distinguished him from the herd. He could also speak and, in his inarticulate way, informed a group of thugs that he had no name but had been “born on Monday.” Inspired, one of the crooks named him Solomon Grundy after the old nursery rhyme and the general framework of the story grew from there, spanning a week just as the short verse did. Adopted by those small-time hoods as their front man, the superhumanly strong Grundy was an almostunstoppable force to the Golden Age Green Lantern. Hobbled by severe head injuries, GL kept fighting even without his magical power ring and, encouraged by his friend Doiby Dickles, ultimately threw the creature directly into the path of an oncoming train. GL pieced together the details afterwards, discovering that a rich man named Cyrus Gold had been murdered in Slaughter Swamp in 1894. Decomposing in the bog, Gold’s corpse was transformed through unknown means. “Bits of rotten wood and leaves built themselves into the monster of Solomon Grundy,” the hero explained. Since his power ring failed to function on wooden objects, the creature was uniquely invulnerable to anything that Green Lantern threw at him other than naked fists. Published in All-American Comics #61 (Oct. 1944), “Fighters Never Quit” was illustrated by Paul Reinman from a script by Alfred Bester, later to gain acclaim for

Born on a Monday… Gruesome Grundy, as rendered by Scott Kolins for the cover of Solomon Grundy #1 (May 2009), a series spanning seven issues followed by a collected edition. TM & © DC Comics.

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The Origin of Solomon Grundy (left) Ol’ chalk-face’s first appearance, in All-American Comics #61 (Oct. 1944). Cover art by Paul Reinman. (right) Grundy’s origin, based upon the nursery rhyme “Solomon Grundy” and culled from the pages of All-American, as presented in DC’s house ’zine The Amazing World of DC Comics #11 (Mar. 1976). TM & © DC Comics.

his 1950s science-fiction novels The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination. The author recalled to Lou Mougin in Comics Interview #32 (1986) that the story had been a rush job for editor Sheldon Mayer that he had to write with a one-day deadline. Bester freely admitted that Sturgeon’s short story had been his inspiration. “I told Ted about it,” he revealed. “I said, ‘Ted, I’m very grateful to you, and if you want a piece of my check’—it was, like, a hundred and nineteen dollars— I said, ‘You’re welcome to it. But I want you to know that I did extrapolate what you had done with ‘It’— I think that you should have developed ‘It’ further.” Inevitably, Solomon Grundy returned (in 1945’s Comic Cavalcade #13), now consumed with hatred toward his nemesis Green Lantern. The feud even carried over into a Gardner Fox-scripted full-length Justice Society of America adventure in 1947’s All-Star Comics #33, where the character was able to hold his own against the entire team. Six-year-old Roy Thomas encountered the monster here, later writing in The All-Star Companion #4 (2009) that Grundy “sent shivers up my young spine.” Imprisoned on the moon in a bubble of Green Lantern’s magical energy at the conflict’s conclusion, Grundy returned to Earth in 1947’s Comic Cavalcade #24. Writer John Broome endowed him with a surprising degree of intellect and scientific knowledge and even the ability to shape-shift into normal human form. His obsessive loathing of Green Lantern was gone, too, but the creature was hardly pleased when GL imprisoned him at the Earth’s core.

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SILVER AGE RETURN Within a few years, Green Lantern and the entire JSA joined Grundy in limbo. By 1963, though, the heroes had returned in a revival spearheaded by editor Julius Schwartz and writer Gardner Fox. Slowly but surely, the JSA’s enemies were coming back, too. For Solomon Grundy, that day came in Showcase #55 (Mar.–Apr. 1965) in a tryout for a Dr. Fate/Hourman series written by Fox and illustrated by Murphy Anderson. (Perhaps anticipating an objection from the Comics Code Authority, the script noted that the creature was a manifestation of sunlight interacting with the peculiar Slaughter Swamp but not that he was the animated corpse of Cyrus Gold, a detail reminiscent of zombies and strictly forbidden by the CCA.) Fox simply picked up where he’d left off in AllStar Comics #33, unaware of Broome’s follow-up. Thus, Grundy escaped from the moon again rather than the center of the Earth and conveyed in his childlike speech patterns that he still wanted to kill Green Lantern. Matters weren’t helped by the fact that, in this pre–Environmental Protection Agency era, Hourman’s Tyler Chemicals was routinely flushing radioactive waste into Slaughter Swamp that only augmented the Marshland Monster’s mighty power by giving him telekinetic control of wooden objects. The irradiated water also enabled Grundy to temporarily transform guest-star Green Lantern into a chalk-skinned counterpart of himself before Fate and Hourman halted the rampage. Sticking his foe in a force bubble for the fourth time and sending him into orbit, GL hadn’t yet accepted that—even with his power augmented by Dr. Fate’s magic—this trick never worked for very long.

Without This Ring, You Be Dead (top) The Marshland Menace disables Green Lantern— while Hawkman wings to the rescue— in this undated recreation by Sheldon Moldoff of Solomon Grundy’s Golden Age adventures. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). (below) Grundy vs. Dr. Fate and Hourman in Showcase #55 (Mar.–Apr. 1965). Cover art by Murphy Anderson. TM & © DC Comics.

Amidst dozens of supervillains revolving around gimmicks or themes, Solomon Grundy was a comparative rarity as a being of pure, brute force. It was a characteristic he shared with the Blockbuster, a misunderstood monster who’d recently fought Batman in Detective Comics #345 and 349. That sort of raw power made them ideally suited to fight the Justice Society and their modern Justice League counterparts in the teams’ fourth annual team-up (1966’s Justice League of America #46–47). Grundy and Blockbuster finally wound up battling each other, but were too evenly matched to achieve anything more than a draw. That in itself was enough to forge a primal mutual respect and the two bruisers closed out the story with big smiles on their faces. They’d virtually “knocked the hate out of each other!”

BRONZE AGE BEHEMOTH Rather than antagonizing Grundy with another prison, the JSA evidently decided to just drop him off at Slaughter Swamp with the expectation that he wouldn’t cause trouble as long as no one bothered him. That lasted until JLA #91–92 (Aug.–Sept. 1971), when a lost extraterrestrial boy named A-Rym stumbled into the Marshland Monster’s domain with the JLA and JSA in hot pursuit. Empathizing with the child’s plight, Grundy felt his own feelings of isolation and persecution surge and he went on a new rampage. Issue #91’s cliffhanger had the creature standing amidst the unconscious bodies of several heroes with Superman himself hoisted above his head. The key to victory lay in a detail that Solomon Grundy did not comprehend. The Justice League was from a parallel world called Earth-One while the Justice Society that he was familiar with lived on Earth-Two. The two planets had many similar heroes, however, and the conceit of this particular two-parter was that every JSA guest-star was appearing opposite their JLA counterpart. As the story neared its conclusion, Alan Scott—the Green Lantern who was Grundy’s primary foe—pooled his power with that of Hal Jordan—Earth-One’s Green Lantern—to defeat the creature and form a force bubble around Slaughter Swamp that would contain him therein. Scripted by Mike Friedrich, the adventure was part of a new era that saw the fans of DC’s Silver Age comics come into their own and revive the characters

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Golden Age Survivor (left) The larger-thanlife SFX on the cover Mike Sekowsky and Joe Giella’s cover to Justice League of America #46 (Aug. 1966) show Batmania in full swing, as Grundy goes at it with Blockbuster. (right) Solomon was mined again for 1971’s JLA/JSA team-up. Cover to Justice League #92 (Sept. 1971) by Neal Adams. (below) Detail from José Luis GarcíaLópez’s cover to Superman #301 (July 1976), where writer Gerry Conway added Grundy to the Man of Steel’s rogues’ gallery. TM & © DC Comics.

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they’d loved as kids. Influenced by the visceral action of Marvel’s groundbreaking comic books of the 1960s, this generation was eager to bring that sort of bonecrunching feel to DC’s comparatively restrained comics. Such was the case with Gerry Conway, who was intimately familiar with the Marvel style after a five-year stint at the company on many of its major titles. Returning to DC in 1975, Conway sought to apply that approach to each of the titles he worked on. Among them was the Julius Schwartz-edited Superman, where he became the book’s writer effective with issue #301 (July 1976), along with new regular penciler José Luis García-López. In that first issue, Conway wanted an adversary on whom Superman could truly cut loose, and Solomon Grundy fit the bill. Augmented by García-López’s layouts (including a two-page spread for the opponents’ first encounter), the story effectively showed the path of destruction throughout Metropolis. Building off JLA #91–92, Grundy had finally grasped the concept of parallel worlds. If there was a Green Lantern on this other Earth, he reasoned, perhaps there was another Solomon Grundy who might ease his loneliness. Through sheer force of will, he bridged the dimensional divide and found himself in Earth-One’s Metropolis. The tainted water of Slaughter Swamp was pouring through with him and that was becoming as great a concern to Superman as gerry conway the creature’s rampage itself. Disguising himself as Grundy, the Man of Steel convinced the real Marshland Monster that he was his non-existent counterpart and flew him to the moon, where they’d no longer be

Sewer Dweller (top) Solomon Grundy—and this next-generation, Earth-One version of the swamp monster—joined the Man of Steel’s rogues’ gallery during the Bronze Age. Original art to story page 14 of Superman #319 (Jan. 1978). Script by Martin Pasko, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by Frank Chiaramonte. Courtesy of Heritage. (bottom) The Justice Society grapples with Grundy in this scrumptiously illo’ed Wally Wood pinup from the 1977 Super DC Calendar. Scan courtesy of John Wells. TM & © DC Comics.

hunted. And then, feeling more than a touch of guilt, he left him there. Back on Earth, the swamp waters poured into Metropolis’ sewer system. “Perhaps,” Conway’s final caption suggested, “Solomon Grundy simply arrived too early.” “I’d always thought of Solomon Grundy as DC’s version of the Hulk (at least, as written when he was revived in the ’60s),” Conway explains to BACK ISSUE. “Of course, there have been many versions of the Hulk—misunderstood monster, homicidal maniac, brilliant-but-evil killer, unthinking force of destruction—but Grundy was more of a blank canvas when I wrote him in the ’70s. For Superman, I was looking for an opponent that could counter at least some of the Man of Steel’s physicality—and for an opponent that was the opposite of Superman’s traditional science-based, mad-but-brilliant villains. A force of nature, in effect, as if Superman were confronting chaos embodied. Or something/ someone who could take a punch.” Returned to Earth-Two by the villainous Fiddler, Grundy visited the revived Justice Society series long enough to fight a seriously outclassed Wildcat before that world’s Superman and Power Girl dropped him into a volcano (All-Star Comics #63, Nov.–Dec. 1976). Sadly, a full-fledged rematch with the team never took place in that title, but a Wally Wood-illustrated Grundy/JSA clash—against the backdrop of Egypt’s Sphinx—was one of several highlights in the 1977 Super DC Calendar. Back on Earth-One, Martin Pasko paid off on Conway’s tease when a naked duplicate of Solomon Grundy— with residual memories of the original— emerged from the sewers of Metropolis in the Curt Swan-penciled Superman #319 (Jan. 1978). It still might not have happened, though, had it not been for the Man of Steel’s power-leeching nemesis Parasite, who’d used a power-prism to enhance the sewer water—and then to amplify the new Grundy’s powers. Unfamiliar with Jim Croce’s song catalog, the creature had never been advised that “you don’t tug on Superman’s cape.” Baffled that Grundy II wanted his cloak, the hero finally figured out in issue #322 that the monster simply wanted to be the Man of Steel’s equal and he thought the red garment would let him fly. Negotiating a truce, Superman got his chalk-skinned new friend to knock out the Parasite before rewarding Grundy with a new home on a low-gravity planet where he could fly to his heart’s content, crimson cape fluttering in the breeze.

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A Gaggle of Grundies (left) García-López’s cover to DC Comics Presents #8 (Apr. 1979), a Superman/ Swamp Thing team-up, featuring (right) a Grundy invasion in Metropolis! Story by Steve Englehart, art by Murphy Anderson. TM & © DC Comics.

Even with the Parasite’s meddling, Metropolis’ sewers were still a breeding ground for monsters. By the final pages of Steve Englehart and Murphy Anderson’s story in DC Comics Presents #8 (Apr. 1979), there were dozens of Grundies climbing out of the city’s manholes— a scourge that was resolved when S.T.A.R. Labs gave Superman a neutralizing solution for the sewers. The crisis was also a milestone of sorts, representing the first meeting of Grundy with another famed DC character who’d been conceived in murky bog waters. The Swamp Thing had once been scientist Alec Holland—or so he then believed—and hoped that studying Grundy would provide him clues to regain his human form. In fact, there was no comparison between the two. Strange as he was, Swamp Thing was composed of living matter and Solomon Grundy was “not even truly alive.” And yet they did “live” in some fashion. All but mute, Swamp Thing—who had struggled desperately to hold onto even his current existence—tried to stop Superman’s destruction of the Grundy invasion but he failed. On television, Solomon Grundy was alive and well. Challenge of the Super Friends, a revamped version of the ABC animated series based on the Justice League, premiered on Sept. 9, 1978. Over the course of 16 episodes and for the first time in the series’ history, the Super Friends regularly faced costumed adversaries from the comic books. Characters like Lex Luthor, Black Manta, the Cheetah, Sinestro, and—yes— Solomon Grundy were among those assembled as the Legion of Doom. The scripts weren’t really comparable with comic books, though, and, per network censors, neither Grundy (voiced with a southern accent by Jimmy Weldon) nor anyone else could even hit anyone. Still, it was an extraordinary thrill to see characters like this in animation for the first time, even in compromised form.

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And those episodes were positively dignified compared to the pair of live-action Legends of the Superheroes specials that aired on NBC on Jan. 18 and 25, 1979. Filled with bad jokes set to a laugh track, the pair of episodes were greeted with horror by most fans. Even then, this was the first—in some cases only—time that many of these characters would ever be portrayed in the flesh and that salient fact made it hard to look away. Solomon Grundy (played by Mickey Morton, above) actually came off looking pretty good compared to many of his fellow actors. Other than a cameo in the May 6, 2011 episode of Smallville (where he was played by John DeSantis), it was the only time to date that a “live” Grundy would appear on film.

THE BIG ’80s Back in the comics, a Huntress tale (by Paul Levitz, Joe Staton, and Steve Mitchell) in 1980’s Wonder Woman #271–273 and a Batman adventure (by Gerry Conway, Gene Colan, and Tony DeZuniga) in 1983’s Detective Comics #523 made an interesting contrast. Each returned Grundy to the roots of his 1940s appearances and Showcase revival, surrounding him with human crooks who happily took the spoils while the monster pursued his own agenda. And both stories depicted the monster as fascinated with pretty figurines, a statue in the former and mannequins and dolls in the latter. The Earth-Two Solomon Grundy in the Huntress three-parter was squarely in the mold of his 1970s persona, that of a misunderstood child who mirrored Marvel’s own contemporary characterization of the Hulk. The Earth-One Grundy of the Batman story—yet another survivor of Metropolis’ swamp blight—was not so benign. When his gang failed to get him more dolls, the monster snapped their necks. The DC Universe was growing darker … and not just the villains. Determining that his foe was nothing but lifeless wood pulp, the Dark Knight lured the creature into a fire and reduced him to ashes. “For Batman, I saw Grundy in the same way I saw Killer Croc,” Conway explains, “a physical opponent rather than yet another brilliant-but-twisted mindgame player. I wanted Batman to have someone he’d have to fight hand to hand, rather than outwit. Grundy fit the bill—and because he wasn’t evil per se,

he forced Batman, on some level, to confront his own black-and-white morality, which I thought made for a good subtext. And Grundy could take a punch.” With fan-turned-pro Roy Thomas at the helm, the more sympathetic view of Solomon Grundy persisted for most of the 1980s. Thomas finally got the opportunity to write his beloved Justice Society when he folded them into his 1981 comic book All-Star Squadron. Set during the early days of World War II, the series began on the eve of the 1941 Pearl Harbor sneak attack and detailed how several villains attacked the JSA to ensure they didn’t interfere (Justice League of America #193; All-Star Squadron #1–3). Among those rogues was Solomon Grundy, inexplicably appearing three years before his “birth.” As the story proceeded, he and the other criminals were revealed to have been pulled from the future by the time-traveling Degaton. Grundy, it seemed, had been plucked from the center of the Earth, where he’d been left in Comic Cavalcade #24. But when the master planner was done with the creature, he returned him to the future in the energy globe where he’d been trapped previously in All-Star Comics #33. It took 16 years, but Thomas finally explained that continuity glitch in Showcase #55! On the heels of All-Star Squadron’s success, Thomas (along with his wife Dann and artists Jerry Ordway and Mike Machlan) launched a present-day companion series called Infinity, Inc. Revolving around the offspring and successors of the Justice Society, the series also allowed Thomas the opportunity—sans time travel—

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Don’t Let Grundy Near Your Action Figures (left) Solomon as a petulant monsterchild in Detective Comics #523 (Feb. 1983), by Conway, Gene Colan, and Tony DeZuniga. (right) Robotman and Grundy trade blows in All-Star Squadron #3 (Nov. 1981), by Roy Thomas, Rich Buckler, and Jerry Ordway. TM & © DC Comics.

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Grundy vs. the JSA Kids Thomas brought back the muck-monster in Infinity, Inc. #3 (June 1984). Art by Ordway and Mike Machlan. TM & © DC Comics.

to use villains who weren’t around yet in the Squadron’s 1942 time period. Solomon Grundy was near the top of his list, surfacing for the first time in Infinity Inc. #3 (June 1984). Mentally lured to Hollywood by the Ultra-Humanite to fight the young team, the creature went into a rage when he discovered that Jade and Obsidian were the daughter and son of Green Lantern. Worn down by the entire group, Grundy was carried off to the hidden city of Feithera in Greenland for study and safekeeping. It was there, almost two years later, that the creature found redemption. Confronted by Jade, Grundy was ready to start fighting anew but the heroine convinced him to call a truce. In return for the Marshland Monster’s agreement to physically hold back a massive glacier that was bearing down on Feithera, Jade promised to ferry him to a warmer climate once the city was evacuated. It was a bargain she fully intended to keep, but time was against her. Crushed by the glacier, Grundy had survived long enough to see Jade returning and understood that she hadn’t reneged on her vow (Infinity, Inc. #23, Feb. 1986). Undead swamp monsters are a hardy lot, and Grundy was no exception. The villainous Wizard assigned the Icicle to recover the creature’s frozen body from the Arctic Circle, but the intervention of roy thomas Jade threw a wrinkle into the plan that he hadn’t expected. The behemoth actually remembered the heroine’s integrity and agreed to help her defeat the Wizard’s Injustice, Unlimited (Infinity, Inc. #35–36). Solomon Grundy was suddenly Jade’s best friend, an aggressive and often unwanted guardian who was now a constant presence on the Infinity, Inc. grounds. It was better, they concluded, to have him with them than against them. “Because Grundy was such an inveterate foe of Green Lantern,” Roy Thomas tells BACK ISSUE, “I decided it would be a kick, and somewhat ironic, for him to become Jade’s defender. Other than that, though, I had nothing in particular in mind and played it all by ear. I just liked writing Solomon Grundy, and bringing him fairly prominently into Infinity, Inc. gave me a chance to do so on a regular basis. “I enjoyed seeing him drawn by the likes of Jerry Ordway, Todd McFarlane, and Michael Bair,” Thomas continues. “It seemed to me that a number of artists really responded well to the challenge of handling him, as had Murphy Anderson and, of course, Irwin Hasen earlier, after his initial art by Paul Reinman. My favorite 46 • BACK ISSUE • Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

work remains the five-page Hawkman chapter in All-Star Comics #33 by Joe Kubert, though. I recall that both Ronn Foss and Jerry Bails drew their own versions, in the early days [of the 1960s fanzines], of that splash panel.” Infinity, Inc. #39 (June 1987) devoted the entirety of the issue to Grundy’s origin and history with art by Michael Bair, Tony DeZuniga, and Pablo Marcos. The story was notable for actually depicting Cyrus Gold for the first time and detailing his murder. The episode also made allowances for a major change wrought by 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths maxiseries: Earth-One and Earth-Two had been eliminated, replaced by a single continuity in which the Justice Society and Justice League existed on the same world. Thus, no duplicate Grundy was required when he wandered into the pages of Swamp Thing #67 (Dec. 1987). In the midst of a far-reaching storyline by writer/penciler Rick Veitch, Solomon Grundy had been possessed by the displaced plant elemental Sprout. Turned bright green in the process, the character had rarely come so close to mirroring Marvel’s Hulk. The sudden presence of a soul in Grundy’s body was intoxicating, but it quickly became apparent to Swamp Thing that this was not a good fit. Standing on the grounds of the Slaughter Swamp Pulp and Paper Mill (and the remains of the forest that fueled it), Grundy/Sprout found himself erratically lashing out at Swamp Thing. The lingering effect of Cyrus Gold’s brain damage was partly to blame, but more importantly there was Solomon Grundy’s unflagging devotion to Jade. Plunging into a vat of acid, he bleached Sprout out of his body and trudged off to reunite with Green Lantern’s daughter.

That devotion ultimately led to tragedy. Impersonating Jade, the evil Harlequin prodded Grundy into hitting Infinity, Inc. ally Mister Bones and using his cyanide touch to kill team leader Skyman (Infinity, Inc. #51). Grundy eventually learned the truth and slammed the Harlequin into unconsciousness but it was too little, too late (II #53). The Marshland Monster wandered off and the members of Infinity, Inc. went their separate ways.

Jade’s “Big Brother” Grundy stuck close to GL’s daughter Jade for a while in Infinity, Inc. (inset) Cover to II #36 (Mar. 1987) by Joe Brozowski and Dick Giordano. (left) Detail from II #39’s cover, by Mike Bair and Giordano. (right) A bonding moment from issue #40, by Thomas, Vince Argondezzi, and DeZuniga.

GRUNDY IN THE ’90s When Jade finally tracked down Grundy in 1993, she could no longer halt his rampages. Instead, she and her father Alan Scott had to use their joint power to convert Grundy into a wooden statue (Green Lantern Corps #4, by Roger Stern, Jim Balent, and Andrew Pepoy) and buried him in Slaughter Swamp. He was reborn in 1995, embarking on a rampage that brought Batman to the bog (Batman: Shadow of the Bat #39, by Alan Grant, Kevin Walker, Curt Shoultz, and Frank McLaughlin). In contrast to their previous encounter in 1983, the Dark Knight rejected the possibility of killing him even if Grundy wasn’t technically alive. “He walks like a man—talks like a man,” Batman observed, “And who am I to judge where life begins or ends?”

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TM & © DC Comics.

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Pow! Right in the Kisser! (left) The Dark Knight vs. Grundy, from Batman: The Long Halloween #2, by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. (right) A very different take on Grundy, courtesy of James Robinson and Tony Harris, from Starman #12 (Oct. 1995). TM & © DC Comics.

Since Batman and the original Green Lantern had discover Solomon Grundy in the sewers of Opal City each operated in Gotham City, it felt appropriate to fold (Starman #10, Aug. 1995). As he’d been with Jade, the Solomon Grundy into the Dark Knight’s rogues’ gallery. creature—sporting long, white hair as visualized by penciler That role was solidified in issue #2 (Jan. 1997) Tony Harris—was fiercely loyal to his friends of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Batman: The Jack and previous Starmen Mikaal Tomas and Long Halloween. Set in the early days of Ted Knight. Now, though, “Solly” could the Dark Knight’s career, that maxiseries be almost pacifistic, even enduring a (and its 1999–2000 sequel Dark Victory) beating by criminals at one point rather portrayed the creature as a denizen than fighting back (Starman #15). of the Gotham sewer system who was It was Ted Knight who articulated more than willing to fight alongside what seemed to be happening. When Batman’s other bizarre enemies. Grundy died and returned to the 1991’s Len Strazewski-scripted swamp, he was born anew. Despite “a eight-issue Justice Society of America vestigial memory of prior events,” miniseries (set in 1950) had even Solomon Grundy was essentially a depicted the Marshland Monster as new person with a different personality hired muscle for would-be conqueror each time (Starman #17). james robinson Vandal Savage; Grundy seemed Knight’s theory was confirmed positively civilized. There was little after Solly’s heroics in a department sense that this was an undead creature from the swamp. store collapse left him comatose. Thanks to a trippy Writer James Robinson began to address the shifting solution by the plant-based Floronic Man, Jack, Ted, interpretations of the character when he had Jack Knight Alan Scott, and Batman were actually able to enter the Marshland Monster’s consciousness and come to face to face with dozens of different incarnations of Solomon Grundy as well as Cyrus Gold himself. Each represented some aspect of Gold’s personality but, at heart, he’d been a bad man. More often than not, it was that side of him that was reflected in Solomon Grundy. Locating Solly, the most that Jack and company could do was say a proper goodbye to their friend and return to the real world before he died (Starman #32–34, July–Sept. 1997). James Robinson tells BACK ISSUE, “I’m actually quite proud that I came up with the notion to explain why all those different versions of Grundy (more in terms of personality than appearance) had appeared prior to his exploits in Starman. As with a lot of things, however, this all came on the fly, due to Tony Harris taking it upon himself to do a quite visually different version of Grundy. This in turn led to my softening the

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character to the likable version who appeared in the first few arcs of Starman. “Now remember, this was back in the era when at DC if you claimed a character as yours for your book, no else could use him unless you let him, so Grundy was mine alone for that period. However, knowing I’d have to return him to the DCU proper at some point, and realizing all Tony and I had done was create yet one more inconsistent version of Grundy, I resolved to have him leave the book a hero while explaining why Grundy often seemed so different in terms of his personality from one writer’s depiction of him to the next.” Solomon Grundy arose once more as his traditional savage self (Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #4, Nov. 1999, by Geoff Johns, Lee Moder, and Dan Davis) and joined a band of villains who were laying siege to Opal City. In the end, when he sacrificed his own existence to save Mikaal Tomas—his friend from Solly’s lifetime—he couldn’t explain it. With his dying breath, Grundy denied that “some subconscious memory” had prompted his actions (Starman #72, Nov. 2000, by Robinson and Peter Snejbjerg). But what other explanation was there? By the late 1990s, Solomon Grundy’s comics appearances multiplied. He was a primal, recognizable character when writers needed a strong, mindless villain, and his decades-long history made him an easy choice to for artists to draw into flashback scenes dating back to the 1940s. Steven T. Seagle and John K. Snyder’s Green Lantern: Brightest Day, Blackest Night one-shot (2002) even presented a 48-page retelling of the Marshland Monster’s 1944 origin. With new elements like costumed Nazis and Justice Society cameos, the adventure bore little resemblance to Alfred Bester’s original plot although both climaxed with Grundy being splattered by a train. Outside of mainstream continuity, there were more variations to be had. Some, like Alex Ross’ Challenge of the Super Friends–inspired Justice #1–12 (2005–2007), were traditional while others were more of a departure. Grundy appeared as a bouncer at a supervillain bar in

Mark Waid and Ross’ Kingdom Come #2 (1996) while he was merged with Marvel’s Hulk as “Skulk” in Amalgam Comics’ Doctor Strangefate #1 (Apr. 1996). In a world where the Crime Syndicate reigned supreme, their opponents included Sir Solomon Grundy, who’d been “blasted to life out of the White Cliffs of Dover during an aerial bombardment” (JLA Secret Files 2004 #1). Mark Millar and Phil Hester’s Swamp Thing #155 (June 1995) portrayed an alternate reality where Grundy was only the first of dozens of murder victims who’d been dumped in Slaughter Swamp, unable to ascend to the afterlife until the heroic Black Lamp freed their souls. And 180 degrees away from that portrayal was the Marshland Monster’s cameo in the DC/Archie company crossover Tiny Titans/Little Archie #1 (Dec. 2010, by Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani), wherein he seemed to be sweet on Riverdale teacher Miss Grundy. Even in the official DC timeline, variants of the creature existed, notably in the midst of writer Grant Morrison’s sweeping Seven Soldiers project. Seven Soldiers: Klarion #1 (June 2005) established that the Witch-People of Limbotown used animated corpses— Grundies—as slaves while the title character of Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein #2 (Mar. 2006) discovered that he was, in part, a Grundy-Man himself. Building on James Robinson’s rebirth revelation, writer Brad Meltzer and penciler Ed Benes reintroduced Solomon Grundy not as a shambling monster but as an erudite mastermind in a business suit (Justice League of America #1–6, 2006–2007). The writer, who’d previously written the classic version of the character in 2002’s Green Arrow #17–18, revealed that Grundy’s latest resurrection had blessed him with great intelligence. Declaring that he was “sick and tired of dying,” the villain arranged the abduction of Red Tornado’s robot body with the intention of having Professor Ivo convert it into a body to house his own consciousness. Through the efforts of the real Red Tornado, Grundy failed … and died again.

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Grundy 2K (left) John K. Snyder III’s rendition of Solomon Grundy, from the 2002 one-shot Green Lantern: Brightest Day, Blackest Night. (right) In the mid-2000s, the marsh-man was part of the maxiseries Justice, including this chilling character study by Alex Ross. TM & © DC Comics.

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Keep On Creepin’ On (top) What could be cooler than Solomon Grundy (and Batman) painted by Swamp Thing’s Bernie Wrightson?? From the 2010 one-shot Batman: Hidden Treasures. (inset) Grundy in the “Blackest Night” crossover, and (bottom) DC’s Dan DiDio encounters a befuddled bog beast at the 2011 New York Comic-Con. TM & © DC Comics.

On the eve of the Blackest Night miniseries in which the dead of the DC Universe rose from the grave, an addled Cyrus Gold—not Solomon Grundy—emerged from Slaughter Swamp in 2009’s Faces of Evil: Solomon Grundy #1 (by Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins). Through some magical means, the creature’s progenitor had been resurrected for one week. If he could determine who had killed him in the 19th century, the mystical Phantom Stranger explained, the cycle of rebirth would cease. Writer/artist Scott Kolins continued the story in Solomon Grundy #1–7 (May–Nov. 2009), revealing that Gold had been a thief and murderer who’d dumped bodies in Slaughter Swamp. When his crimes caught up with him, he hadn’t been murdered. Rather, he’d committed suicide. That recovered memory broke the curse, but it only meant that Cyrus Gold’s soul had gone to Hell. Solomon Grundy would still be reborn but as “an empty husk” without Gold as his template. Revived as a Black Lantern during the Blackest Night event (Superman/Batman #66–67), the creature fancied himself a monster-hunter and took on Bizarro, himself a chalk-skinned being who wasn’t strictly alive. The match didn’t end well for Grundy, who was tossed into the sun and vaporized. Chronologically speaking, Solomon Grundy made no further appearances after that, but he was readily available in stories set in the past. In the 1990s, Swamp Thing co-creator Bernie Wrightson had finally tackled DC’s other famed bog dweller when he drew a Grundy tale—told entirely in splash pages and captions—for Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. Written by Ron Marz, the story somehow never got published following the 1998 death of editor Archie Goodwin. In 2010, the episode was finally exhumed and saw print in Batman: Hidden Treasures #1. Grundy had also made a comeback in 21st-century animation. In the 2001–2006 Justice League/Justice League Unlimited series (where his vocals were delivered by Mark Hamill), the creature’s origin was tweaked to make him mobster Cyrus Gold who’d died a mere quarter-century in the past. The Batman (2004–2008) declared Grundy (played by Kevin Grevioux) a 19th-century urban legend whose image was appropriated by Clayface in one episode. (The real Solomon Grundy surfaced in two issues of the tie-in comic book, The Batman Strikes #19 and 37.) And in Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008–2011), the character was an undead crimelord who could only mumble orders to his men since his mouth was sewn shut. Diedrich Bader—who vocalized Batman himself—also played this Grundy. And there was more. Grundy was a figure in both DC Universe Online and the Batman: Arkham City video game. In comic books, as James Robinson revisits the Justice Society and its heirs in 2012’s Earth 2 comic book, he’s already reintroduced a certain Marshland Monster. Is this the end of Solomon Grundy? Not by a long shot. JOHN WELLS, the so-called Mark Waid of Earth-Two, is a comics historian specializing in DC Comics. He’s written for a variety of publications over the past quarter-century ranging from The Comics Buyer’s Guide to Alter Ego. John recently assisted with Paul Levitz’s 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking.

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Al Bradford

(with a BIG assist from Bob Cosgrove)

I first met Tom Fagan in 1969 at my friend Marty Greim’s apartment. He was in Boston for the Boston Globe Book festival, where he ran a booth for Tuttle Publishing, a Rutland-based company he worked for. Marty and Tom had already known each other for at least a year, and Tom had contributed articles to Marty’s fanzine, Comic Crusader. Almost immediately after being introduced, Tom invited me and my girlfriend Sue O’Neil (who would later be my first wife) to the upcoming Rutland Halloween Parade and after-parade party. This was a more naive time—at least I was more naive—and I said that I doubted our parents would allow an overnight trip for the two of us. Right away, Tom exhibited his Puckish nature, and said it would be okay since he was a priest. (How times have changed, eh?) Not only did we believe him, but our parents bought it, too, and agreed to let us stay overnight together at “Father Fagan’s”! Even more unbelievable, perhaps, is that though when we arrived Tom confessed that he wasn’t a priest (although he nearly became one). He did insist that since our parents let us take the trip believing him to be a reliable chaperone, we stay in separate rooms while at Clement House. In addition to his day job at Tuttle, Tom had landed a gig as caretaker for the Clement Estate, a large old mansion on spacious grounds. It looked a bit like the Addams Family manse, only much better kept—perfect for a big party, which was exactly what Tom planned.

Rutland is Real! Bronze Age comics readers saw frequent appearances of annual festivals of costumed crusaders and cosplaying fans (see sidebar), like this one in Justice League of America #103 (Dec. 1972)—but awesome Al Bradford’s article and photo gallery whisk us out of the four-color pages into the Kodachromed real world of these Vermont shindigs! TM & © DC Comics.

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Night Owl (right) Batman #237 (Dec. 1971), the most famous Rutland comics appearance, featured (bottom) the Dark Knight crashing the party. (top) Speaking with “Thor” is Denny O’Neil, who wrote this classic. And that’s Len Wein as Cain in the foreground. Art by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano. TM & © DC Comics.

We parked in the large, circular driveway and Tom greeted us at the door, along with wife Mary and daughter Deanna, then, I think, about 13. Deanna’s name was a token of Tom’s devotion to his film hero, James Dean. It’s a pretty name for a girl, though I’ve sometimes reflected that it’s a good thing for his daughter that Tom’s tastes didn’t run more towards, say, Elvis. Marty Greim, his [then-]wife Ellie, and Bob Cosgrove had already arrived. They had planned insect-themed outfits, as Yellowjacket, the Wasp, and the Fly, respectively, and Tom had created a float backdrop just for them, blowing up a drawing Bob did for the occasion. Sue and I would be riding on the Batman float, since we were dressing as the Joker and Catwoman. There was a good bit of woods behind the estate, and I recall Tom taking us for a walk, accompanied by “Satan” and “Diablo”—“the boys,” as Tom more familiarly called them—his two huge German Shepherds. He showed us the dammed pond, which was later to be featured in the Rutland Batman story, “Night of the Reaper.” It seemed that every year we went to Rutland someone walking around the edge of that pond would slip on the grass and get their feet wet. That was my year.

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Other fans started to arrive, among them many of New York’s TISOS crowd. At the time, the meaning of “TISOS” was secret, but it’s now common knowledge that it stood for “The Illegitimate Sons of Superman.” I’ve seen most of the TISOS crowd on other occasions, so it’s hard now for me to sort out just which members were present. Rich Rubenfeld was there. Rich dressed as the Flash (Barry Allen). Andy Yanchus was present, with a dead-on Phantom Stranger costume. Two other TISOS members were there: one, Len Wein, in his pre–Swamp Thing days, portraying Cain, the horror host of DC’s House of Mystery book, and the other, Mark Hanerfeld, made up as Abel, host of House of Secrets. Both presented dead-on likenesses of their characters—not surprisingly, since Joe Orlando had designed the characters based on Len and Mark. Arriving with Len was his pal, Marv Wolfman. Len and Marv were just knocking on the doors of pro-dom in those days. I knew both from their fanzine work. Marv had published Stories of Suspense, hosted by— surprise—a wolfman. Copies of that little treasure— reproduced by ditto machine—will today set you back a small fortune, particularly the issue where Marv had the foresight to publish the first appearance of author Stephen King, who, I think, went on to write one or two other horror things. Marv himself would later do distinguished work not with a wolfman but with another horror icon, Dracula. Most of my conversations with Tom’s other guests I remember about as well as I do any other conversation that happened 40 years ago—that is to say, not at all or hardly at all. For some reason, though, I still recall a few. Marv was excited that DC had acquired the rights to Tarzan, and that Kubert—I say “Kubert” because at that point, the only one in the business was Joe— would be doing the books. Marv was dismissive of the Gold Key Tarzan adaptations by writer Gaylord Dubois, observing that Dubois was a “70-something-year-old man.” Marv and I were then both young enough to fit

A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF RUTLAND COMICS APPEARANCES Parade, party, and Tom Fagan appearances. Avengers #83 (Dec. 1970) – Marvel Batman #237 (Dec. 1971) – DC Marvel Feature #2 (Mar. 1972) – Marvel Thor #206 (Dec. 1972) – Marvel Justice League of America #103 (Dec. 1972) – DC Amazing Adventures #16 (Jan. 1973) – Marvel

Thor #207 (Jan. 1973) – Marvel Avengers #119 (Jan. 1974) – Marvel Thor #232 (Feb. 1975) – Marvel Doctor Spektor #18 (Dec. 1975) – Gold Key Freedom Fighters #6 (Jan.–Feb. 1977) – DC Justice League of America #145 (Aug. 1977) – DC DC Super Stars #18 (Jan.–Feb. 1978) (story: “The Gargoyles”) – DC

Ghosts #95 (Dec. 1980) (story: “All the Stage is a Haunt”) – DC Defenders #100 (Oct. 1981) – Marvel Thunderbunny #5 (Feb. 1986) – WaRP Graphics Animal Man #50 (Aug. 1992) – DC Generation X #22 (Dec. 1996) – Marvel Superboy and the Ravers #16 (Dec. 1997) – DC

comfortably into the “never trust anyone over-30 crowd,” and occasionally I recall our conversation and wonder, now that we’re both closer to Dubois’ then-age than we are to 20, whether his opinion has changed. I love Kubert, and I enjoyed both his take on Tarzan, and later, John Buscema’s, but in my opinion, the Dubois adaptations illustrated by Russ Manning turned out to be the best of the lot. Roy Thomas was there, and quite pleased to see that a character he had worked with John Buscema to design, Yellowjacket, had come to life via Marty Greim’s costume. Roy himself made a convincing Spider-Man, and his then-wife, Jean Thomas, made an attractive Invisible Girl. Though quite pretty, facially Jean didn’t too much resemble Sue Storm, but, hey— neither does Jessica Alba. I remember Roy revealing plans for a new Marvel comic: Conan. He was quite excited about it, but I was less than thrilled when he mentioned that the artist was to be Barry Smith. At this point in his career, he was little more than a third-rate Kirby imitator. Obviously, to paraphrase the man turned into a newt in Holy Grail, he “got better.” Other professionals were there as well. I think Denny O’Neil was there—again, I may be recalling a different occasion. Who else is lost to the mists of time. I don’t believe that Neal Adams, who later collaborated with Denny on “Night of the Reaper,” by far the best of the Rutland Halloween parade-inspired comic-book stories, ever actually made it to a parade … more’s the pity. The hour arrived. A mass of us, in costume, made our way to the center of town to get lined-up for our debut. Superheroes seem to wear the same costumes summer and winter. I can only observe that October 31 was cold for superheroes as well. On our way, we passed a Friendly’s, yielding briefly to the temptation to stop in and request a “table for 25.” And then we were on our floats, waving, tossing candies to kids, generally making fools of ourselves, and having a fabulous time. Later, back at the mansion, the party continued. Tom was, I’m sure, holding his ubiquitous Black Label. Refreshments flowed. In truth, befitting our four-color identities, we were a pretty un-rowdy crowd, “high” on comics, fantasy, and fellowship. At the Clement Estate there was one chair in particular that had a striking look, like something Loki or Dr. Doom might sit in, and a number of us, including Roy Thomas and Bob Cosgrove, took turns having our picture taken in it.

Al Bradford says: (top) Sue O’Neil and me as the Catwoman and Joker. Photo courtesy of Marty Greim, from the pages of Comic Crusader #8. I put DayGlo green poster paint in my hair. I wish I had a color picture of this costume! (1969) (bottom) Roy Thomas and his first wife Jean as Spidey and Sue Storm. Photo from Comic Crusader #8, courtesy of Marty Greim. (1969)

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More of Al’s Recollections: (top) Tom Hegeman modeling the ultimate Rutland collectible, a “Hi, I’m your host, Tom Fagan” T-shirt. Even though I no longer own one, I do still have the original art. The facial caricature is by Marty Greim, and I drew the body. We printed a dozen or so of them with a silk-screen kit I once owned. Tom Fagan was extremely flattered that we’d gone to all that trouble to create the gag shirts. (1972) (center) Tom Watkins as one of the greatest comic-book villains ever, Dr. Doom. His “iron” mask was constructed from pieces of plastic cut from old bleach bottles. (1970) (bottom) Sue O’Neil and I as the Marvel Thunder God and his inamorata. Yeah, that was a real sledgehammer. (1970) 54 • BACK ISSUE • Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

Even midnight on Bald Mountain gives way, eventually, to morning, and as it did so, Tom and Mary hustled to guide their happily tired guests to their rooms. Morning. We said our farewells and left, having had a great time and resolving to come again next year, and the year after that. I actually made it to four or five more Rutland parades, and I’ll just regale you with a few of the high spots. In 1970 I was on a float dressed as Thor, and a friend of Tom’s named A. J. Marro (a dead-ringer for offbeat character actor Michael J. Pollard) was on the same float, dressed as the Red Skull. A. J. had begun his celebrating much earlier in the evening and was three sheets to the wind, swaying precariously around the surface of the slowly moving float. At one point the float lurched around a corner, and he went tumbling right off into the street. With my cloak streaming behind me, and feeling a little bit like a real superhero, I leaped off the float and helped the chagrined-but-unhurt Mr. Marro to his feet and back onto the float. Later, when I told of this incident at the post–parade party, I jokingly said it was Tom, not A. J., who’d had the embarrassing fall off the float. In later years I repeated the story, forgetting that I’d embellished it by substituting Tom for A. J., and telling it as if it was really Tom! When Tom (a bit peevishly) pointed out that he’d never fallen off a float, I replied unrepentantly that it was now part of the Tom Fagan Legend, and nobody really cared who actually fell off the float. He was somewhat mollified when I quoted Jimmy Stewart’s line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence: “When the legend overtakes the truth, print the legend.” Tom may never have fallen off a float, but on at least one occasion he did pass out in Clement House’s only working bathroom at one of his parties, causing a mass migration of guests to the bushes out back to answer nature’s call. One last “brush with greatness” that I recall from my last Halloween visit to Rutland: The parties were no longer being held in Clement House; the mansion had been sold and beautifully renovated, and the new owner had no interest in hosting a bunch of costumed comics fans and pros, however illustrious. A town-owned building that had previously been used as the float construction site was to be the place for the party. Sue and I arrived at the building after the parade, and found it darkened and locked. There were a few other people present, but Tom wasn’t among them yet, and Tom had the key. A teenage kid introduced himself and I was slightly familiar with the name because Tom had done some writing for his fanzine. We got to talking about his zine and he, apparently aware through Tom that I was a fan artist, was cajoling me to do some art for him. I am usually a very accommodating guy, but the wind was picking up, the temperature was dropping, and I, dressed in a thin Thulsa Doom costume, was beginning to show signs of hypothermia (slurred speech and uncontrollable shivering), so I rather abruptly and rudely stopped the conversation and retreated to my well-heated van. I never saw or heard from the kid again—but I sure heard of him. It was Frank Miller. The next year, against Tom’s protests, the Rutland powers-that-be had changed the parade date from the Saturday nearest Halloween to actual Halloween night in the middle of the week, so I stopped going. But It was a lot of fun while it lasted. Thanks, Tom, wherever you are. AL BRADFORD has been a comics fan for at least 58 of his 61 years; maybe longer. He actively joined fandom in 1968, and has just published his first book, Al’s Monsters and Stories, available on Amazon.com.

RUTLAND PHOTO GALLERY All photos by Al Bradford, unless otherwise noted. Photo captions by Al Bradford.

(top left) Sue O’Neil (Bradford) is the Barda on the left, and the late Cara Sherman Tereno is the Barda on the right. Although dissimilar, both costumes were accurate. Jack Kirby was one of the most (if not the most) creative comic artists ever, but consistency wasn’t his strong suit. His costumes for the same character could vary from issue to issue, sometimes from page to page. By the way, Cara sewed on each individual scale, while Sue’s were drawn in magic marker. Not sure about Cara’s Mega-Rod, but Sue’s was hand-painted on a length of wooden stair rail. (1973) (top right) I don’t know who this was wearing the Loki costume Sue originally made for me in 1971, nor do I know who the hot pink gorilla was, although I do remember it being a girl. (1973) (center left) The Hulk and his mate, Jarella. Participants unknown. (1974) (center right) A simple yet effective outfit: torn pants and green food coloring, an unknown Lou Ferrigno predecessor applies his makeup. (1974) (bottom left) The only year my brother Pete attended, in my borrowed Thor outfit that I’d worn the year before. Captain America unknown. (1971) (bottom right) The late Rich Morrisey as the Spectre, freezing in his costume, which consisted mostly of white house paint! (1974)

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(left) Sue O’Neil (Bradford) as Thor comics’ Hela, Goddess of Death. This costume was a group effort. Sue made the mask and cloak, and her brother Dan cut and wired together the plywood “antlers,” which I painted. I also drew all the Kirbyesque body embellishments in magic marker. (1971) (top right) Comics writer Len Wein as Morbius, the Living Vampire. (1970) (bottom right) Marv Wolfman as Aquaman and Tom Watkins as Solomon Grundy. (1970)

(above left) Hela meets Batman! (top right) A couple of unknown revelers wearing Captain Company masks of the two Warren horror comics hosts, Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie. (1974) (bottom) A gaggle of DC characters rides a float. The only two I know are Tom Watkins (Solomon Grundy) and Marv Wolfman (Aquaman, mostly cut off at the far left). The bearded Superman, I recall, explained his facial hair by saying he’d “been affected by red Kryptonite.” (1970)

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(top left) Marty Greim posing with one of Tom Fagan’s float backdrop blowups, featuring a Barry Smithdrawn Conan confronting Cthulhu as rendered by Herb Arnold. This was a particularly appropriate mash-up, considering that Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard were friends and correspondents. (1970) (top right) Tom Fagan works on painting a float backdrop, while Marty Greim supports a finished backdrop blown up from a beautiful Jim Steranko Batman/Batgirl illustration done just for the parade. (1970) (2nd row left) Joe Staton donated the original E-Man art from which Tom Fagan did his opaque projector magic for this float backdrop. (1974) (2nd row right) Unknown parade participant, and a better look at my backdrop. (1974) (3rd row left) I don’t know who the Batman or Scarecrow on this float are, but I do know that the float backdrop was blown up from a drawing I did for Tom. (1974) (3rd row right) Disney character the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh confronts King Kull villain Thulsa Doom near the dam featured in the Neal Adams/Denny O’Neil classic Batman story, “Night of the Reaper.” I am Thulsa Doom, so this picture was probably taken by Sue O’Neil. (1972) (bottom left) Tom Fagan didn’t always dress as Batman. Here he is as the Marvel comics’ pseudo-Batman, Nighthawk, created by Roy Thomas specifically for the Rutland issue of The Avengers. (1970) (bottom middle) New York convention impresario Phil Seuling as Captain Marvel and Tom Fagan as Nighthawk ham it up while waiting for the parade to begin. (1970) (bottom right) Phil Seuling made a pretty impressive Big Red Cheese. (1970) Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

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(top) Andy Yanchus as Man-Bat. Fiberglass rods support vinylmembrane wings. (1970) (2nd row left) Tom Watkins as Solomon Grundy and Andy Yanchus as Man-Bat in the Clement House ballroom. (1970) (2nd row right) I wish I could take credit for planning this awesome un-retouched shot of Andy Yanchus posing on the balcony of Clement House with glowing eyes, but it was just pure, dumb luck! (1970) (3rd row left) Bob Polio as Prince Valiant. Bob was the first fan I met since the few I’d known in elementary school. It was through him that I met Bob Cosgrove, Marty Greim, Tom Fagan, Don Phelps, and all the other fans I knew in the late ’60s and ’70s. Bob does production work for the New England Comics chain, and lettered The Tick comics. He hand-carved the beautiful and authentic-looking Singing Sword and its scabbard from wood. (ca. 1970) (3rd row middle) Carl Gafford as the late, great Vaughn Bodé’s satirical fantasy character, Cheech Wizard. (1973) (3rd row right) Tom Hegeman as the Flying Dutchman, with Mercy Van Vlack as Batgirl. Photo by Ben Poindexter. (1979) (bottom left) Unknown Luke Cage, Hero for Hire. (1973) (bottom middle) Tom Hegeman’s mom made this classic Captain Klutz outfit for him, to his specifications. He later sent the costume to Klutz creator and MAD artist Don Martin, and received a page of original Captain Klutz art in exchange! Ah, those were the days. Although Hegeman did wear this costume in Rutland, I took this particular photo the next summer at the NY Phil Seuling con. (1973) (bottom right) Unknown participant as the Scarlet Witch. (1970) 58 • BACK ISSUE • Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

When I suggested writing an article on John Jameson— Man-Wolf—I thought it would be an easy assignment. After all, you only need to look at a handful of battles with Spider-Man and his brief run in Creatures on the Loose, right? Well, once again, my memory had deceived me and I soon found myself ascending the slippery slope that is Man-Wolf’s history—a history filled with confusion and contradiction.

REAL MEN OF VALOR

John Schwirian

The character of John Jameson is almost as old as Spider-Man himself, with John making his debut in Amazing Spider-Man #1 (Mar. 1963). On the fourth page of this classic tale, J. Jonah Jameson holds up a photo of his son as he rants: “The youth of this nation must learn to respect real heroes—men such as my son, John Jameson, the test pilot! Not selfish freaks such as Spider-Man!” Later, a despondent Peter Parker finds himself at the airfield to watch John Jameson’s launch into orbit around the Earth. However, part of the guidance equipment breaks free from the capsule, leaving John no way to steer his spacecraft. Enter Spider-Man with a plan. He grabs a replacement guidance unit, convinces a pilot to fly him up where he intercepts the wayward capsule, leaps on, and installs the module. Back in control, John Jameson opens the safety parachute and Spidey rides along gently to Earth. Of course, J. Jonah blames Spider-Man for the whole thing, but John remains grateful for the save. Several years later, Colonel John Jameson returns in Amazing Spider-Man #42 (Nov. 1966). At Kennedy Airport, we watch as John suffers a dizzy spell as spores contracted during his last space walk begin to transform him into a man capable of functioning under the extreme gravitational pull of Jupiter. Stark Industries quickly whips up a suit to help John control his new powers while J. Jonah convinces his son to go after that “crook” Spider-Man (who now looks guilty of having robbed a bank when in fact he was “stealing” a bank bag filled with explosives). Of course, a fight ensues, and Spidey deduces that whatever gave John these powers is also affecting his sanity. So, the wily Spider-Man lures his opponent into a power station, where he knocks John into a generator. The ensuing power overload in the suit suffices to burn out the spores and returns John to normal—for now.

“JAMESON! THAT THING … WHAT IS IT?” “IT’S … MY SON!” To fully understand the inspiration for John Jameson’s transformation into the Man-Wolf, one has to look back to 1973. Gerry Conway, writer on Amazing Spider-Man,

That’s My Boy! J. Jonah Jameson’s “skeleton in the closet” was his astronaut son’s penchant for sprouting hair and fangs under a full moon. (And you think your kids cause you problems!) Detail from the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #124 (Sept. 1973). Cover art by John Romita, Sr. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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had just written the deaths of Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin. Rather than rest on his laurels, Conway felt that more change in the series was necessary. “I was trying to create new, fun villains for Spidey to battle,” Conway clarifies, “and find a way to make them personally involved with the cast. It felt to me as if Spidey hadn’t had any good new villains since the Kingpin entered the scene. I also liked the idea of a truly physical menace, rather than another twisted-scientist-in-a-suit.” To Conway, “a werewolf seemed like the perfect candidate to trade blows with Spider-Man. The next step was to make the character interesting on a level beyond just being a physical foe. Enter John Jameson. I wanted a personal involvement with the cast, and I felt the relationship between Jameson and his son had been underplayed. I remember being very affected by the first John Jameson story when we learned what motivated Jonah’s intense dislike of Spider-Man— his feeling that Spidey’s grandstanding diminished the public’s appreciation for ‘real’ heroes like his son, the astronaut. Thinking about werewolves and the moon and wanting to involve a personal angle just led me to John Jameson in a fairly organic way.” Conway reintroduced John Jameson to readers in Amazing Spider-Man #124–125 (Sept. –Oct. 1973). As J. Jonah bellows about Spider-Man having murdered Norman Osborn, John arrives to take his dad to dinner to meet his fiancée Kristine Saunders. Artist Gil Kane clearly illustrates a strange, red stone on a cord around John’s neck upon his appearance, a stone that sharp-eyed readers will recognize at the climax of this issue’s action. Jonah explains that John just retired from astronautics after having made one of the last moonwalks. Thus, the scene is set for the drama to follow. Later that night, a mysterious young man changes into a werewolf and attacks J. Jonah Jameson. Spider-Man tries to intervene but is

overpowered. It is then that Jonah spots the stone necklace worn by the werewolf and he realizes the truth as the Man-Wolf flees. The next issue, Jonah visits John during the day and learns the origin of John’s misfortune. It seems that on his last visit to the moon, John discovered a stone different from all the other moon rocks. Feeling that the stone was calling to him, John became obsessed with possessing it. He convinced a friend in quarantine to “borrow” the stone for him under the supposition that all the moon rocks were pretty much the same and no one would miss it. John had the stone made into a pendant and wore it with no worries—until one night, under a full moon, he changed into … a Man-Wolf! That was six months earlier, and he has changed with every full moon since. He tried to discard the pendant, but the stone had grafted itself to his skin. Friends made a radiation suit for him to block out the lunar rays, but it came apart the first night he wore it. As father and son spoke, the full moon rose and John changed again. Once more, Spidey came to the rescue—this time tearing the pendant, and a chunk of fur and skin, away from the Man-Wolf. John Jameson was restored and Spider-Man tossed the stone into the river. But some people never learn! After the space spores, you’d think Jameson would be more cautious with extraterrestrial artifacts. And what about the scientist who so readily handed a glowing, red moon rock over to John Jameson? “Hey, it was the 1970s!” laughs Conway. “People were a lot less realityconscious then. Besides, if you can accept that a moon rock can turn an astronaut into a werewolf, where’s the problem with a little sloppy procedure by a NASA official? But seriously, ‘comic-book reality’ in the ’70s was very different from ‘comic-book reality’ in the 21st century. Our science was mostly pseudo, and we were proud of it.”

MORBIUS, THE LIVING PLOT DEVICE The Man-Wolf saga returned nearly a year later in Giant-Size SuperHeroes #1 (June 1974). In the months that followed his battle with Spider-Man, John Jameson continued to feel ill, and eventually became the Man-Wolf once more—but how could this be possible without the moon pendant? The responsibility lay with another Halloween refugee—Michael Morbius, the Living Vampire. Morbius retrieved the stone from the East River and stayed near Jameson, letting the stone’s energies slowly reclaim the astronaut. Morbius claimed that he needed the Man-Wolf in order to cure his vampirism, but all he did was use Man-Wolf to keep Spider-Man busy while he pursued his true goal. Strange, there were plenty of superpowered thugs out there that would give their eye teeth to trade blows with Spidey, so did Morbius really need Man-Wolf? The truth is that writer Gerry Conway felt that teaming Morbius and Man-Wolf was a great story device, and Morbius provided a handy way to restore the Man-Wolf curse. When asked why he brought Man-Wolf back so soon, Conway simply replies, “He was popular.”

MAN-WOLF ON THE LOOSE That self-same popularity explains why, after only two appearances, Man-Wolf was granted the lead feature in Creatures on the Loose with issue #30 (July 1974). “I suspect it was mostly my idea,” says Roy Thomas, who edited Creatures at the time. “We had Morbius (a sort of sciencefiction vampire) as well as Dracula, so I figured, why not put Man-Wolf, who already existed (and might bring over a Spider-Man reader or two,

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since he was JJJ’s son) in a second werewolf series? I’d helped create him (the idea of the moon rock, I believe), so I always liked the concept.” Initially, Doug Moench crafted the Man-Wolf to kill J. Jonah Jameson. Creatures story while George Tuska handled the #34–35 sees Jameson declared AWOL by the military, art. The setup was the standard werewolf fare: make a plot twist that leads Man-Wolf into conflict with the John into a fugitive, a protagonist on the run. After two Hate-Monger and eventually to be captured by Nick issues of Man-Wolf on a rampage, Doug Moench Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. Kraft could now embark on a new, stepped aside, which brought Tony Isabella up to the radical direction, departing from the horror and superplate for the next issue, and he brought another hero format and delving into space fantasy. classic Spidey villain with him—Kraven the Kraft explains that “Man-Wolf is, Hunter. “It seemed like a natural to me,” obviously, a favorite character of mine,” says Isabella. Of course! Who better but that came after careful work on the to capture a werewolf than the greatest series. When he first inherited the series, hunter in the world? And Kraven Kraft was not happy with where the not only succeeds in trapping the story was going. “He’s like, a third-rate Man-Wolf, but is also able to transform werewolf,” Kraft says. “He runs around him back into John Jameson. and he menaces people. He acts like The story ends on a cliffhanger, every generic werewolf. Marvel already with the next issue arriving with yet had Werewolf by Night, which was really another new writer. According to just [Marvel’s version of the Universal Tony Isabella, “I think the deal was Monster] the Wolf Man, so why do that I would write at least one issue you need a copy of a copy of a copy? tony isabella and stay on the series if I had time. I’m not throwing off on the work I didn’t have time between my other they did on Werewolf, but it’s like, let’s assignments and my editing work.” Isabella plotted part do a spin-off of a spin-off. That is a tough series to write— of the follow-up tale, while new scripter David Anthony where do you go with it? Just more stories about he Kraft brought a fresh perspective with him—one that runs around at night. Where’s the future in that?” would be gorgeously illustrated by artist George Pérez. Kraft continues, “I wanted a real Marvel character. Kraft and Pérez’s first job was to wrap up the dangling When you think about Marvel characters, a lot of them plot lines left by Moench and Isabella. Their first issue are monsters, like the Thing. He’s a nice guy, but he’s (Creatures #33) concluded the Kraven problem, but never a monster. So I thought, ‘Man-Wolf needs to be a resolved who Kraven’s associate was that wanted the legitimate Marvel character.’ I remember going to Roy Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

Creature Feature (left) Detail from Romita’s cover to Giant-Size Super-Heroes #1. (right) Man-Wolf spins out of Spideydom into his own series! Gil Kane’s cover pencils to Creatures on the Loose #30 (July 1974), courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). Note in the inset some cosmetic changes made by inker John Romita. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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with some trepidation, saying, ‘I want to take him into space and up was reading pulp fantasy-fiction and I had written a sort of have him be a stargod.’ Roy said, ‘Sounds great. Do it.’” space epic along those lines. Now, in the days when I was writing Roy Thomas doesn’t recall this specific discussion, but does Man-Wolf, we were all making this stuff up by the seat of our pants remember supporting Kraft’s proposal: “I never read the later as we went along. So a lot of the stuff wasn’t as polished, but we Man-Wolf stories, but I [thought] a science-fiction direction was were all learning as we went along. I thought, ‘Why not take this eventually a good one for the character, if Dave could make it sell.” Man-Wolf thing and plop it into what I already had and float in some Thus with Creatures #36 (July 1975), the Other Realm saga of the characters from that story?’ Other Realm was well developed began. Returned to the care of the military, Jameson is assigned with a nice history, and the backstory was coming, but, of course, a mission into space to determine why the 30 people on an we never got that far.” orbiting space station have ceased all communications WE NOW INTERRUPT YOUR REGULARLY with Earth. Of course, once in space, Jameson SCHEDULED BROADCAST… becomes the Man-Wolf again, but does manage When last seen, John Jameson and crew were to arrive safely at the space station. There, he plummeting to their apparent doom on the moon, encounters Gorjoon the barbarian, Garth the so imagine the surprise when Man-Wolf turned up swordsman, and Lambert the sorcerer. The trio the same month in Marvel Team-Up #37 (Sept. 1975), had commandeered the space station in their a continuation of the previous issue’s meeting of search for the Godstone (also referred to as the Spider-Man and Frankenstein’s Monster. In this story Weirdstone and the moonstone), an object that by Gerry Conway and Sal Buscema, mad scientist Jameson now wears as a pendant about his neck. Baron Ludwig von Stupf is capturing monsters so The three fantasy warriors eventually convince he can replicate them into an army to serve him. Jameson to accompany them back to their world, Several references are made to the Creatures on the david anthony kraft while Kraven’s mysterious associate appears and Loose series, but nothing very specific. The most kidnaps Kristine Saunders. On top of all this, a telling remark comes near the end when Spidey physician on the space station was able to scan the Man-Wolf and determined that the moonstone had more than just says, “I wonder what [Man-Wolf] was doing when von Shtupf grafted itself to Jameson’s skin—it has rooted tendrils into Jameson’s captured him with his teleportation device?,” which is followed by an editor’s note that reminds the reader that Man-Wolf was “hurtling internal organs in a symbiotic relationship. towards the moon in Creatures on the Loose #37.” Whew! That’s a lot of new plot developments! The cruelest twist What could have caused such a careless lapse in Marvel continuity? of all was the fact that Creatures on the Loose was canceled with #37. There would be no continuation of this story. Kraft apologized in the According to David Anthony Kraft, the answer is probably very letters page, and tried to give a quick explanation about the Other simple: “A lot of these books were prepared in advance and not Realm quest that would have followed. Unfortunately, this probably everybody knew what everyone else was doing, so Gerry would left the readers even more confused, as the fantasy epic wasn’t as probably have been thinking, ‘What can I do next in Team-Up? familiar then as it is today. “Remember that post–Star Wars,” Kraft I know, I’ll do Man-Wolf because he was in Spider-Man, with no idea elaborates, “science fantasy became fairly commonplace. When I did what I was doing and quite possibly without having looked at what that Man-Wolf stuff, that was way out there. My background growing I’d done. Either that or the Team-Up story was done earlier and was sitting in a drawer.”

Transformations (left) Man-Wolf’s earliest solo adventures capitalized on comics’ monster craze, such as Creatures on the Loose #31 (Sept. 1974). Cover by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia. (right) Writer David Anthony Kraft made Man-Wolf a sci-fi strip. Cover to issue #36 (July 1975) by Kane and Klaus Janson. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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THE DAWNING OF THE AGE OF THE STARGOD Three years would pass before Man-Wolf would appear in print again, in Marvel Premiere #45–46 (Dec. 1978–Jan. 1979). The tale picks up where it left off in Creatures, with no mention made of the Marvel Team-Up story. “When they let me do the Marvel Premieres,” Kraft laughs, “I don’t think I even realized that Man-Wolf had been running around in the meantime.” What follows is a fast-paced, action-packed adventure in which John Jameson travels through a portal on the moon and arrives in the Other Realm. Here, he is no longer a savage werewolf, but a powerful Stargod in full possession of his faculties. John learns the story of the Starstone, which once belonged to the god that served this realm. When the Stargod began to die, he transported himself to Earth’s moon, where he stored his energies in the Starstone before he passed away. When Jameson found the stone, he was only able to access a fraction of its power (thus becoming the Man-Wolf), but in the Other Realm, he was imbued with all the energies of the Stargod. Joining the rebellion, John battles his way to the palace of the usurper Arisen Tyrk, only to find that the lunatic dictator holds John’s fiancée Kristine hostage. A glorious battle follows, Tyrk is destroyed, and John and Kristine are returned to Earth.

Star-Spanning Werewolf (top) Writer David Anthony Kraft— with penciler George Pérez—took ManWolf into a startling new direction, which included this headlining appearance in Marvel Premiere #45 (Dec. 1978). Cover by Pérez and Bob McLeod. (bottom) A 1977 quickie sketch of Man-Wolf by Pérez, courtesy of Heritage.

WOLFMAN ON MAN-WOLF The story of John Jameson continued in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man under the careful guidance of Marv Wolfman and Mike Esposito (with a quick glimpse in Fantastic Four #204, also written by Wolfman). Back on Earth, the moonstone, having completely infiltrated John’s system, is now slowly killing him. J. Jonah Jameson seeks out the aid of Dr. Marla Madison, who places John in cryogenic suspension until a cure can be found. In Amazing Spider-Man #188 (Jan. 1979), John’s body is stolen from a cryogenics hospital in uptown New York City by goons working for Spencer Smythe. The builder of many Spider-Slayer robots financed by J. Jonah Jameson, Smythe is now dying due to exposure to the radioactive elements he used. Smythe revived John in the form of the Man-Wolf and sent him to kill J. Jonah and Spider-Man as part of his twisted plan for revenge (ASM #189–190). Under Smythe’s control, Man-Wolf snatches Jonah and carries him to the top of a bridge. Along the way, Jonah tries to reach his son, recalling happier days of childhood ballgames, high-school graduation, and times with his now-deceased mother. Jonah seems to connect with John, as the Man-Wolf hesitates and stares rather than attack. Spidey arrives and, following a few punches, the Man-Wolf changes back into John. Angry, Smythe activates a device he’d implanted, causing John to fall off the bridge and vanish in a flash of light.

LAST STAND IN THE OTHER REALM An old comic-book caveat states that if there is no body, then the character is not dead. This holds true for John Jameson, as he returned a couple of years later in Savage She-Hulk #13–14 (Feb.–Mar. 1981). Kraft was the writer on She-Hulk and felt that he could make a Stargod story work in this format. “I brought him into She-Hulk,” Kraft relates, “because he was a character that was near and dear to me. I thought of a way to [weave Man-Wolf] into the continuity I had worked out in She-Hulk, something a lot of writers will do— continue stories [from other series] because you know the characters and you know the plot. There were ways to take characters you loved and use them.” The story tells of how John found himself back in the lupine form of the Stargod, stranded on a bizarre planetoid Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

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in some alternate dimension. Using his knowledge of science, he creates a large radio, which he uses to contact She-Hulk’s friend Richard Rory on Earth. Meanwhile, the warriors of Other Realm retrieve the magic shadow cloak from the Defenders’ HQ, snaring Hellcat in the process. Kraft chuckles, “I always liked Hellcat, so I thought, ‘Why not toss her in too?’” The warriors need to find She-Hulk, for she is the cause of the disastrous events befalling their world. Somehow, Other Realm became trapped in a collapsing microscopic universe that currently resided in the She-Hulk’s bloodstream. Her “volatile physiology” was somehow accelerating their doom. In a complex series of events, She-Hulk and Hellcat are transported to Man-Wolf, who has She-Hulk hold a giant focusing gemstone over her head while he returns to Other Realm and sends the destructive energy back to the gem. Somehow, it all works—Other Realm is saved and Hellcat, She-Hulk, and Man-Wolf all safely return to Earth.

DUST TO DUST After all this work to restore Man-Wolf to the mainstream universe with renewed potential, the word came down from on high that John Jameson was to be cured of his lycanthropy. Kraft tries to explain this decision: “Well, you know, different people have different ideas. They wanted an end to the Man-Wolf—bring him back to Earth and cure him. And I’m thinking, ‘No, here’s what you’re not realizing. You’ve actually got a good character here. All the groundwork is done, you just need to run with him. Instead, you’re trying to solve a character.’ But that was my opinion. So they gave me the opportunity to write that story, which was not what I wanted to write at all. Still, I would rather write it myself than let somebody else do it; somebody to whom the character wasn’t important at all. It was one of those things where, ‘Here’s what we’re going to do, whether you like it or not. So, do you want to write it?’ ‘Well, all right, if somebody has to do it—I’ll do it,’ but my heart wasn’t really into that, either.” The result was Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #3 (1981). Back on Earth, Man-Wolf goes on another rampage, including another confrontation with Spider-Man. Come dawn, John Jameson seeks shelter from Kristine Saunders. Spider-sense leads Spider-Man to Kristine’s apartment, where John begs for help. Joined by JJJ,

Spidey takes them to Dr. Curt Connors (a.k.a. the Lizard), who has experience with unwanted transformations. Using a “magnoverter,” Connors manages to get John’s body to reject the moonstone, which then fell from his throat and crumbled into dust. The end, right? Well, not exactly…

CAP WOLF John Jameson would pop again in the pages of The Avengers, where he served as Captain America’s personal Quinjet pilot. When John mysteriously disappeared, Captain America set out to find him. This turned into a seven-issue storyline titled “Man and Wolf” that ran through Captain America #402–408 (Early July–Oct. 1992). Writer Mark Gruenwald brought in every lupine character he could think of, including Man-Wolf, Jack Russell (Werewolf by Night), Wolfsbane, Feral, Ferocia, and Wolverine. Additionally, he threw in Cable and Dr. Druid. The villains— Nightshade, Moonhunter, and Dredmund Cromwell—used blood from Jack Russell to create an army of werewolves, a serum that they also applied to Captain America when he stumbled upon their operations. Dredmund had also obtained the crumbled remains of the moonstone and magically restored it, but it wasn’t the stone that changed Jameson. The moonstone was responsible for drawing werewolves to the lab, but it was an injection of Jack Russell’s blood that restored Jameson’s lycanthropy. Dredmund used the moonstone to transform himself into the cosmic-powered Starwolf, a transformation that only lasted minutes as the lupine Captain America tore the stone from Dredmund’s throat and Cable crushed it beneath his boot. The heroes forced Nightshade to administer a serum to cure her victims of their lycanthropy, and things returned to normal once more for John Jameson.

CIVIL WAR: THE BEAST RELEASED ONCE MORE Eventually, John left his position with Captain America and the Avengers and slipped out of sight. However, in Sensational Spider-Man #25–27 (June–Aug. 2006), he became the bestial Man-Wolf yet again when Stegron the Dinosaur Man used a strange meteorite to bring out the beast in humans. Using his Spider-Armor, Spidey neutralized the meteorite, but he did not save Jameson…

I MARRIED A SHE-HULK Dan Slott had reintroduced Jameson in his She-Hulk stories about the same time Stegron unleashed his meteorite. While Slott used Jameson as a love interest for She-Hulk, he had other reasons for bringing him into the series, including “their connection from the time they met in the first ever She-Hulk series, John’s time from when he served as Avengers backup crew, and the timing worked out right for his introduction/appearance in the Spider-Man [guest star] issue.” Slott had Jameson renew his contact with the spiritual essence of the starstone and regained his powers as the Stargod. Under the influence of Starfox (Eros of Titan), John is briefly married to She-Hulk. He even gets to punch Thanos during this time. When last seen, John was still in full control of the Stargod powers and poised to turn Man-Wolf from a mindless villain into one of Marvel’s heavyweight heroes. By day, JOHN SCHWIRIAN is a mild-mannered high-school English/special ed teacher, but by night, he dons the role of comic-book historian. In addition to his passion for all things Teen Titans, he explores the sunken regions of the DC Universe in his selfpublished fanzine The Aquaman Chronicles.

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Len Gould

Comics have always had a fascination with the cycle of death and rebirth. Today’s shelves are so clogged with derivatives of this premise that it no longer resonates with the veteran reader. Heroes die and heroes return. Villains die and villains return. Knowing this, the ultimate endgame means there is little suspense as these cardboard deaths are meaningless. Thirty years ago these story arcs were rare, and substantially more meaningful. Sure, Wonder Man came back from the dead, but it took him 141 issues to do so! Bit players may have come and gone, but the big guys—well, you knew they would always return next month. They would only die in “What If?” scenarios, which, while fun reads, were never really relevant. All of this changed with “The Korvac Saga” in The Avengers. Not only did heroes die, they were annihilated in a way that had the reader wondering just what the heck was going on. “The Korvac Saga” is usually among the all-time favorite yarns for fans of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The yearlong tale culminated in a blistering story entitled “The Hope … and the Slaughter,” in Avengers #177 (Nov. 1978). It is one of the most fondly remembered adventures of the Bronze Age. David Wenzel, the penciler for the final four issues of the tale, recalls, “I have a lot of memories from doing those issues. I was very honored to be following up on a story that George Pérez had started. Developing the stories was an interesting task, as up until that comic I had always had the writer present me with a script, but Jim Shooter was head editor in those days and decided to give me the story breakdowns over the phone. So each issue I would have to take copious notes as to how Jim wanted the plot to be developed. It was difficult, but it was also great because as Jim evolved the various plot threads, I had input and was able to witness how his thought process worked. His proposal to essentially ‘kill’ all of the Avengers was pretty heady for comics in those days.” Korvac was a god amongst gods. To summarize the entire saga would be an article unto itself. For the sake of this piece, let’s just assume that the Avengers take a bus (seriously!) to Long Island to confront “Michael” and his love, the Collector’s daughter, Carina. Korvac was very upset when the Avengers arrived with tagalongs Captain Marvel and Starhawk. Now Korvac, tired of being pestered by the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy over the past few months, goes off the deep end. How impactful is this? Well, after the obligatory full-splash recap page, on page two, the following denizens of the Marvel Universe feel the impact: The first to notice is the ever-vigilant Hemidall on the Rainbow Bridge to Asgard. And he knows,

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Bronze Age Shocker The splash from the end of Avengers #177, depicting its horrific aftermath. Story by Jim Shooter, art by David Wenzel and Pablo Marcos. From the collection of Len Gould, who adds that this is “both the single most dramatic Avengers page of the 1970s and certainly the worst colored page when printed.” Thanks for sharing it and the art on the next page, Len! © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Next, the allies begin their initial coordinated attack. Charlie-27, the Vision, Wonder Man, and Iron Man begin to grapple with Korvac. Thor and Hercules join in to help. Tossed aside like children, Charlie-27 and Hercules fall victim to his power blasts as the others struggle to restrain him. Meanwhile, the less powerful heroes choose a different tactic and go for Korvac’s love Carina. This doesn’t work at all as within two pages, Yellowjacket is brutally murdered; the two archers, Hawkeye and Yondu, die together; Ms. Marvel is “shot down in full flight”; and Martinex’s crystal body is blown apart. Korvac is dispensing heroes with ease, methodically going from one to the next. Notes penciler David Wenzel, “Jim Shooter had very specific ways. He wanted me to draw the demise of all of the heroes. Korvac was an incredibly powerful ‘godlike’ villain and he wanted his power to be beyond comprehension. So as each Avenger made their attack on him he was to knock them aside with a cosmic show of incredible power.” Indeed, the next page saw Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, the Wasp, and Jocasta taken out one at a time. Pieces of the Wasp’s wings and Jocasta’s body parts fly through the air along with fragments of costumes. The room is now littered with bodies. Captain America manages to break through Korvac’s defense and valiantly gets a few punches in. This angers Korvac, which results in Cap being “Soon word will reach the ear of Mighty Odin!” cruelly punched through a wall, instantly killing him. The next to notice is Uatu, the Watcher, and he is An enraged Wonder Man is the next to attack, considering breaking his oath to not interfere. and within a few panels is dead as well. He dies Ratcheting things up a notch, Eternity himself screaming. The last few heroes left standing gather david wenzel decides to “resist” fighting Korvac as one would fight themselves for a final assault. Iron Man, Starhawk, a virus. The final panel shows a united Mephisto, Thor, and the Vision attack as one, staggering Korvac Odin, and Zeus leading an unending army, their to his knees. He looks to his love Carina for help, and she hesitates differences set aside to fight the common threat. for the briefest of moments. Korvac, stunned by this, literally dies of This is page two. Korvac was preparing to lead the universe into a new golden age a broken heart before the reader’s eyes. The Avengers are wondering of peace, but the Avengers’ persistent hounding has forced him to what has happened when a despondent Carina takes up the fight. She slays Starhawk, obliterates Iron Man, and annihilates the reconsider. “Perhaps you are proud of finding me,” he tells them, “[but now,] there will be war—and it may well wreck all of this continuum.” Vision. Only Thor is left. She wills a blast from mighty hammer of Thor, The scene returns to the present with the Guardians of the Galaxy Mjolnir, and she falls. Thor is stunned: “Odin’s Beard! My hammer did landing their spaceship out front. Charlie-27 smashes through the strike ’gainst my will!” He is struggling to comprehend the scene before door, and you can guess how well this goes over with “Michael.” him, when out from the shadows steps Moondragon. She tells Thor that You knew something ominous would happen, just not exactly what. Carina “wished to die.” But with their last bit of energy—you guessed The “exactly what” became apparent by the bottom of the page it—Korvac and Moondragon put life back into those who were slain. The full-page splash of this scene is truly one of the great as Korvac looked skyward at the orbiting space station Drydock … and obliterated it. The accompanying text box in the bottom panel chillingly moments of Avengers history, arguably one of the most iconic read, “On the 784th deck of the huge command sphere, in a corridor moments for a group with decades of iconic moments. Thor and only meters from the teleport chamber he was racing toward, Guardian Moondragon stand surrounded by death of a most chaotic kind. Vance Astro dies screaming.” From this point, the pacing accelerates Thor transforms into Dr. Blake and gets to work while Moondragon laments that no one but her will remember this day. to full speed as the combined allies launch a desperate attack. No one but her—and generations of Avengers fans. The next to die is Vance Astro’s love, Nikki, who jumps onto Korvac and is swatted away like a fly. She slams into the far wall David Wenzel’s portrait appears courtesy of DavidWenzel.com. upside-down. Indeed, Jim Shooter’s caption notes that “Her death buys little.” But is does buy enough time for Quicksilver to attack LEN GOULD has been a devotee and collector of comics and original comic art from behind at full speed. He is blasted away by Korvac and dies in for over 30 years. In addition to BACK ISSUE, his writings have appeared in Rough Stuff magazine, the CFA-APA, and online at www.comicartfans.com. full reverse, his costume shredding off of his body. 66 • BACK ISSUE • Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

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A COMICS HISTORY GAME-CHANGER!

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES THE

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Jarrod Buttery

“Once, long ago in a land far away, there existed the most beautiful of kingdoms known to man. The region was ruled by a wise and kind King who brought a prosperity to the people they had never known before. The beautiful Queen was loved by all as well. And one day the entire kingdom would fall to its heir … the gentle young Prince. One day the gentle young Prince accidentally blinded one of the servants with which he was playing. This greatly disturbed the kind King. So he went to his court magician and bade him that he create a playmate for the young Prince. “So the magician created a friend for the young Prince. And he gave the friend arms to hug the young Prince. A brain to teach him … a mouth to sing to him … but most importantly, the magician gave the friend an eternally burning magic candle, to guide the young Prince when all was dark … to keep him warm from the winter chill … and give him hopes in the depths of night. “The gentle young Prince was quite pleased with his new friend. He named him Lord Pumpkin, and together the two played all kinds of games. “And played… “And played… “And played… “Until one day… “Lord Pumpkin played no more.”

PORTENTOUS BEGINNINGS Malibu Comics operated out of Calabasas, California. Apparently, the city’s name is derived from the Spanish calabaza, meaning “pumpkin” or “squash.” In the late ’80s, Malibu published original titles such as Ex-Mutants and Dinosaurs for Hire, as well as licensed properties like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Robotech. In 1988, Dan Danko was a college graduate looking for an internship. “I was a huge comics fan, but up until the time I started work there I didn’t know Malibu existed,” admits Danko. “Malibu was Tom Mason, Dave Olbrich, Chris Ulm, and Scott Rosenberg, plus the accountant, the receptionist, and a guy in shipping. We later bought a library of characters that became dan danko our line of comics called Protectors. We updated and redesigned the characters and attempted to launch a unified universe with the limitations of the company budget. “And about that time—this is what changed everything—Image Comics was formed. And those guys wanted to form their own imprint. Apparently, Marvel wasn’t interested and so we approached the Image guys with a 90/10 cut, and even that 10% alone turned out to be a phenomenal amount of money. The Image guys were selling millions of comics per

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month. As a result Malibu was suddenly flush with cash and Chris wanted to take that and redo what we had tried to do with Protectors, but now we had the ability to do it from the bottom up.” Danko continues, “Chris Ulm came up with the brainchild of creating a coherent universe that harkened back to the early days of Marvel: a limited amount of books with a continuity that ran between them. The original concept was that it was a characterand creator-driven universe—Malibu owned everything, though. That’s a common misunderstanding that pops up on the Internet: that the creators owned the characters, which was not the case at all. But Chris wanted to be able to give the writers the freedom that, as long as they were playing within boundaries set by Malibu, they could do whatever they wanted.

“The Ultraverse bible was sent to the writers and the artists as a means to create continuity within the universe,” Danko details. “It was their playground. So one day, out of nowhere, Aaron Lopresti sent me a brilliant drawing he did of Lord Pumpkin. He had read the description and loved the character. While the UV bible did have a character description, the Lord Pumpkin design was pretty much Aaron’s. (Coincidentally, another artist also read the description and had worked up a design.) So I gave Aaron some feedback—I think it was to make his hands more gnarled and plant–like, if I recall—and he ran with it. He wanted to use the character as a villain in Sludge. Steve Gerber had some reservations. I honestly don’t recall the specifics of his concerns, but I do remember Steve neither wanted me to be looking over his shoulder nor did he want to violate my BIRTH OF AN ULTRAVERSE vision of Lord Pumpkin. I assured him that he “When the ‘Ultraverse’ (UV) founders met in Scottsdale, could run with the character as a villain and Aaron Arizona, to create this new universe, I was there was eager to develop Lord Pumpkin. Gerber did a as Malibu senior editor to develop the ideas of great job, but definitely took LP in a direction I the writers whom we had brought on board,” had not envisioned! recalls Danko. “After we returned from Arizona, aaron lopresti “Aaron was the one who picked Lord Pumpkin I was asked to help populate the UV bible with out of the UV bible and was responsible for getting supporting characters. We filled out the UV with him into Sludge with Gerber’s eventual blessing. a wealth of characters whose existence was pretty much a Although LP did attract the attention of other artists, I think Aaron’s 1/4–1/2 page in the UV bible. support (and later Gerber’s) and his fantastic design transitioned LP “One of those characters was Lord Pumpkin. I tried to create from my idea to Ultraverse reality.” characters that would spark the imagination, characters that may not Aaron Lopresti remembers his time in the Ultraverse: “Dave be able to carry their own book per se, but hopefully felt like they Olbrich and Tom Mason approached me at Dragon Con 1992 and were more unique than your standard superhero. Many of them were talked to me very cryptically about some new projects that they had based on some type of fantasy element and had some darkness at their coming up at Malibu, but it didn’t really go anywhere right away. core that drove them as characters. Lord Pumpkin was a mixture of I was drawing some Spider-Man backup stories at the time after fantasy and supervillain, and he sort of originated with the idea of a spending a good two years writing and drawing Forbush-Man stories magic candle. So to answer the age-old question, ‘What came first, for Marvel’s What The--?! It was probably a year later when it looked the pumpkin or the candle,’ it was definitely the candle. like I was finally going to get my big break taking over She-Hulk from

LP wasn’t one of Gerber’s babies… ...but the Ultraverse baddie got his start in Steve Gerber’s Sludge series. Cover to and excerpt from Sludge #6 (Mar. 1994). Art by Lopresti and Martin. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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John Byrne, when Marvel’s upper brass decided I wasn’t ready to draw a monthly book (they were right). At that point I called Dave Olbrich at just the right time. They were getting ready to launch the Ultraverse and they needed monthly artists. The original idea was to have me draw Hardcase because they wanted me on one of the initial launch books. “I went to Fred Greenberg’s New York Con in early 1993 with the intent of starting Hardcase afterwards,” Lopresti says. “But while there I visited the Malibu booth, where they had a book full of character designs for their Ultraverse line. I saw Kevin Nowlan’s Sludge design and I knew immediately that I had to draw that book. Growing up I was a huge monster fan and Bernie Wrightson was my favourite artist. I imagined myself as the new Wrightson drawing a neo-Swamp Thing book. Ulm reluctantly switched me to Sludge (then had to find someone to take over Hardcase).” Regarding the Ultraverse bible, Lopresti says, “One character stood out to me: Pumpkinhead. Since we were doing a monster book with Sludge, I figured it would be cool to have a creepy pumpkin-headed villain. At the time I had no idea whose concept it was or anything about the character. I just designed a spooky pumpkin-head character and faxed it to both Malibu and Steve Gerber and said, ‘Let’s use this guy!’ “That’s when I found out that it was a Dan Danko creation. Dan and I corresponded about the character and that’s where the candle in his mouth came from, because I had originally drawn him without one. Before we actually got the character in Sludge, the name got changed to Lord Pumpkin because ‘Pumpkinhead’ had been used in a Stan Winston film. So the character became Lord Pumpkin, which fit perfectly with Dan’s vision of his medieval origin.”

THERE’S A COMIC CALLED SLUDGE?

Created as a child’s plaything…

Explored in BACK ISSUE #31 (Dec. 2008), Sludge was writer Steve Gerber’s urban crime drama within the Ultraverse. Another novel concept from Gerber’s seemingly unlimited imagination, the character Sludge was originally Frank Hoag, a cop on the take, who refused to do one more dirty job for the Marcello family. Hoag was shot, caught in an explosion, drenched in toxic waste, and dumped in the sewer. This being New York (and comics), Hoag emerged as a shambling humanoid mound of sewage and, well … sludge. He tried to end his pathetic existence but quickly found himself in the middle of a gang war: on one side the Marcello family and on the other, the Pump. Initially draped in shadows, addressing only his most trusted lieutenant, Pistol, the Pump made his full-page visual debut halfway through Sludge #3 (Dec. 1993). Clad in a purple pinstripe suit, the sorcerous scarecrow was instantly visually mesmerizing. Lopresti’s art conveyed an inhuman aura and body language. With hands composed of twisted vines, and his jack o’ lantern head alive with a green eldritch glow, it was immediately obvious that this was not some guy in a costume. The gang war had just escalated to another level. Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

…Lord Pumpkin, seen above in Ultraverse Premiere #3 (May 1994), took on a life of his own in the Ultraverse. (left) Another Sludge cover appearance, from issue #9 (Sept. 1994). © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Indeed, when Marcello’s forces turn up to confront the upstart on their turf, the Pump effortlessly obliterates them, including an armored vehicle (!), with dragon– like blasts of green flame from his mouth. The mystical flame also proved to be the one thing (so far) that could actually damage Sludge. The muck-monster thus became a patsy for the Pump. In issue #6 (Mar. 1994), the gang war intensified as the Pump announced himself as Lord Pumpkin and struck at the other gangs with Sludge and Pistol in tow. “Street Wars” continued until issue #9 (Sept. 1994), whereupon a cyborg sharpshooter spies the candle within Lord Pumpkin’s mouth. The seemingly unstoppable Pump is dropped mid-sentence when a single shot snuffs his candle. As he thuds to the ground, the lifeless pumpkin rolls across the floor. In the space of seven issues, the villainous vegetable had gained quite a following. Issue #10 (Oct. 1994) even announced a competition for photographs of carved pumpkins. Unfortunately, Sludge lasted only two more issues (plus a one-shot). However, his archenemy proved more difficult to dispose of…. In the midst of the “Street Wars” storyline, Lord Pumpkin’s origin was presented as an ashcan giveaway with Hero Magazine. “The character received a lot of positive feedback in Sludge,” recalls Danko, “and Malibu decided to reprint his origin in Ultraverse Premiere #3 (May 1994). I decided to tell a story that sort of poorly bridged my original concept with

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Steve’s execution. So I went back to LP’s roots and told the story of how he became evil—writing it in fairy-tale language and telling the story of this innocent character who was driven insane by a boy prince’s cruelty.” A few lines from Ultraverse Premiere #3 opened this article. The five short pages presented some of the most beautiful artwork in any of the Ultraverse books. Danko told how a medieval King bade a wizard to make a playmate for a—>ahem<—boisterous young Prince. The wicked Prince tortured and tormented the creature until the Pumpkin struck back. He incinerated the Royal Court, took over the kingdom, and, through a scrying glass, turned his attentions to Earth. Lopresti is justifiably proud of the story: “The five-page Lord Pumpkin origin story was conceived by Dan Danko. It gave us both the opportunity to do Lord Pumpkin the way we both wanted him to be. Dan got to pry the character away from Steve Gerber and tell his story while I got to cut loose and be as illustrative as possible with a medieval setting. It was shot from my pencils and Albert Calleros, who was the best colorist at Malibu, colored it and knocked it out of the park. It was the best thing I had done up to that point, and I think it still holds up fairly well.”

In the Mighty Marvel Manner (left) Loki stops by to make mischief in Lord Pumpkin #1 (Apr. 1995), the first of a four-issue miniseries flipbook, with NecroMantra. Cover by Kyle Hotz. (right) Cover to LP #4, by Jeff Lafferty and Pav Kovacic. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Danko explains, “Once again, there was positive response, and that gave Lord Pumpkin an opportunity for a one-shot. LP’s origins (in my head) were basically fairy tale–like, and I went that route with the Ultraverse Premiere story, so when the opportunity for a one-shot came, I continued that story. I didn’t use the fairy-tale syntax, but kept it in the world of knights and fantasy … and added the clown characters as a nightmare twist showing two worlds rotted by LP’s vision and hatred.” Indeed, Lord Pumpkin #0 (Oct. 1994) was a sequel to both his origin and “Street Wars.” The pumpkin head, discarded in a landfill, unlit and amnesiac, had grown itself a new body. It found its way to a local circus where—once again—the innocent creature was mistreated and abused. Until he regained his candle.... “The first two Lord Pumpkin solo stories followed the same basic theme: LP was a pure and innocent character in both who fell victim to the cruelty and inhumanity of the ‘humans’ around him … and then showed them what ‘real’ cruelty was,” says Danko. Lopresti states, “The Lord Pumpkin #0 issue that Dan and I did is still my favorite project at Malibu. It is a bit gross in spots which I kind of regret now, but I think the artwork is probably the best I did at Malibu.” Soon after, Lord Pumpkin played a major role in the Ultraverse crossover miniseries, Godwheel. It had been established that many of Malibu’s Ultras gained their powers from a mysterious energy blast: the Jumpstart Effect. The earlier Break-Thru miniseries revealed that this energy came from a crashed alien probe on the moon. The probe was later shown to have originated from the Godwheel: a flat disk in space, half the size of our solar system, with twin suns at the center. “It looks like a giant record.” “‘Record’? What’s a ‘record’?” “Oh, come on, I’m not that old!” Fighting for control of the Godwheel, the mad god Argus literally smashes Lord Pumpkin. Yet soon after, each spilled seed grows into an individual Lord Pumpkin. Fighting this horde, plus the Ultras arrayed against him, Argus opens a portal to summon other dark gods. To everyone’s surprise, Marvel’s Thor emerges and deals the winning blow against Argus. Thor and the Ultraverse heroes return to Earth while the villains remain behind (Godwheel #3, Feb. 1995).

MARVEL GOES ULTRA “In October ’94 the market crashed,” recalls Danko. “Stores were going out of business, everybody’s sales plummeted. Valiant went under, we were about to go under. Paul Levitz approached us about buying Malibu, as it was well known at the time that the small companies were hurting—the big ones were, too. DC negotiated a price but every month our sales dropped and DC kept dragging out the negotiations. I don’t know how, but I believe that Marvel got wind of the negotiations and panicked. If we had been bought by DC, the combined market share would’ve made DC number one. I’m not saying that was Marvel’s only concern, but they made a reactionary [higher] bid. “Marvel bought us and then proceeded to not know what to do with us. The Marvel editors were really great to work with, but they were put in a bad situation: They had to worry about their own books and suddenly were also responsible for working with us to create crossovers to boost Malibu’s sales. Big plans we talked about never really materialized the way we had hoped. At a certain point, Marvel came to realize that the biggest value Malibu had was as a coloring house. And that’s another misunderstanding that I’ve often read: that Marvel bought us for the coloring department. I think it’s truer that they bought us so that DC wouldn’t, but ultimately they realized that the one thing they were going to get out of this was our coloring department.” Spinning out of Godwheel was a four-part flip-book miniseries: Lord Pumpkin/Necromantra. Both characters were left behind on the Godwheel and one half of each issue detailed Lord Pumpkin’s trip across the medieval land—eventually discovering the kingdom of his birth. The Godwheel was his original home. Along the way he acquired a talking crow as travelling companion. “Lord Pumpkin/Necromantra #2 (May 1995) is my favorite comic script, with absolutely fantastic art by Kyle Holtz,” Danko recalls fondly. “When I used to write comics, whenever I found the story losing traction, I’d throw in something that was totally from left field and hopefully unexpected. As I wrote that issue, I found myself in a corner and suddenly started writing dialogue for the crow. Lord Pumpkin was strangling the crow and the crow says, ‘You cannot kill me because you’ll never know where I come from, or how it is that a crow can talk.’ Honestly, as I wrote that line, I had no idea where the crow came from and why it could talk, but I rolled with it.” Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

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THE UNTOLD ORIGIN Despite the purchase by Marvel, sales across the industry continued to decline. “We had layoff after layoff,” says Danko. “It was clear our days were numbered. Morale was awful and rather than continuing the suffering, I quit in August and left the country, travelling for six months. During that time, I’d check in and during one of my calls, [editor] Roland Mann asked if I’d be interested in writing another Lord Pumpkin one-shot. “I wrote a story and Fed-Exed to Roland. Obviously, it never saw print. The story was a companion to Lord Pumpkin’s first solo tale in Ultraverse Premiere. In that first story, there’s a series of panels showing the young prince abusing Lord Pumpkin, the captions reading something like, ‘Together they played all kinds of games … and played and played and played … until one day…’ Turn the page, Lord Pumpkin is standing over the prince’s dead body, ‘Lord Pumpkin played no more.’ So the primary thrust of the new story was to take place between those two pages. “That story, which was never published, elaborated on Lord Pumpkin’s origins and his coming to power in the kingdom. One critical scene showed the cruel young prince shoving a jousting lance through the still kind and innocent Lord Pumpkin’s body, leaving a large, gaping hole in LP’s chest, and through that hole, the young prince, much to his delight, spies LP’s beating heart. The prince pulls it out and tries to crush the heart, but is unable to do so. Frustrated, the prince throws the heart from the window. When he turns around, Lord

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Pumpkin’s demeanor has decidedly changed to his more familiar evilness … and he kills the prince. “The last page of the story is a long shot of the castle with the heart in the foreground,” Danko says. “Time passes. The lush landscape dies. Bodies come to hang from the castle walls. Pestilence and evil come to the land as Lord Pumpkin rules. Winter comes and a snow falls, covering the heart. But as the heart is about to disappear under the snow, something pushes through from inside … a bird’s beak … and the crow hatches from the heart and takes to the sky. “And that was the origin of the crow. Although I never knew it when I first introduced the character, the crow was Lord Pumpkin’s heart, his humanity, long ago ripped from his body. The crow sought to be reunited with LP, to make him whole again, and return the humanity that was taken from him … which echoed the crow’s sentiment in Lord Pumpkin/ Necromantra when he said something to the effect of, ‘You hate them for everything you aren’t. You hate them for being human.’ “Anyway, that’s the untold story of Lord Pumpkin. Ultimately, his was a story of redemption for the unredeemable. Whether or not LP would’ve allowed that to happen or he in turn would’ve poisoned his own heart with his cancerous hatred, I really don’t know. I’d like to say the crow and LP would’ve become one and all would’ve been well for the old gourd— with his humanity returned he finally would’ve found the peace he so desperately sought.”

As if that wasn’t intriguing enough, Aaron Lopresti tells us of another unpublished Lord Pumpkin project: “Dan and I did a five-page Lord Pumpkin story that I penciled and inked that showed the first meeting between LP and his sidekick, Pistol (originally named Gun Boy, which I like better). The story never saw print because Malibu went under.” Lopresti kindly shares copies of his art with BACK ISSUE (see page 74). The wicked gourd certainly seems to have left his mark—popular with both creators and fans. As Ultraverse titles folded, Lord Pumpkin continued to appear in comics such as Prime and Steve Englehart’s The Night Man. Then, six years after the last title was canceled in 1997, Englehart was approached to bring back the Ultraverse. Determined to use at least one character from every Ultraverse founding father, Englehart proposed a new version of The Strangers, featuring Hardcase, Mantra, Prime, Choice, Sludge, Rune, Lady Killer, the Night Man, Rhiannon, Atom Bob … and Lord Pumpkin. Englehart tells BACK ISSUE, “I was charged with bringing in the most popular Ultraverse heroes, but, of course, I needed the most popular villains, as well. Lord Pumpkin, to me, was a great-looking villain—not very clearly delineated as a character as yet, but with unlimited potential. Since I expected to play with that vast canvas for a while, I was looking forward to finding out a lot more about him. The overall scope of the canvas was the introduction of the Ultraverse into the Marvel Universe, and so one of the factors in choosing my characters was, did the UV character have a counterpart in the MU? Lord Pumpkin most decidedly did not, so that was another point in his favor.” However, for whatever reasons, Marvel decided not to go ahead with the project. Beyond the Ultraverse, Aaron Lopresti’s 2008 art book, Fantastical Creatures Field Guide, contains details of a character called “the King Pumpkin.” Lopresti laughs,

“I think there is something inherently creepy and cool with jack o’ lanterns, so anytime I can use a pumpkinheaded character I will! My King Pumpkin character is an obvious homage to Lord Pumpkin. If I ever get to do any more Garbage Man stories for DC, don’t be surprised if another pumpkin-headed character shows up!” The Ultraverse was a popular corner of comics history, which died because of industry sales—not for a lack of colorful characters and novel ideas. “It was the last great traditional comic-book company,” Englehart opines. “Steve Gerber and I, as veterans of ’70s Marvel, were ecstatic to get back to that fun and freedom. We’d thought it was gone forever. And all too soon, it was….” Lopresti declares, “I have to say that working on Sludge was maybe the most fun I have had in comics. It was the first professional-looking work that I had ever done and the guys at Malibu were really responsible for that. At Marvel I was trying to guess what the editors wanted instead of just drawing the way I knew best. When I went to Malibu they treated me like an important professional who knew what he was doing. That gave me the confidence to do the best work of my career at the time and really make a substantial jump within the industry.” Dan Danko, too, is proud of the Ultraverse and his contribution therein: “Malibu Comics was an amazing time in my life. I was privileged to work with some fantastic creators, spread my own creative wings, and make friendships that have lasted to this day. Even though the editorial department was gone within a year of my departure, leaving Malibu was, and still is, the hardest decision I’d ever faced because it was so much more than a job. It was a family. “Working with Aaron on Lord Pumpkin was absolutely one of the high marks. There was such a creative synergy between us, and Aaron, without a doubt, always made my work better. I couldn’t have hoped for a more talented artist to bring Lord Pumpkin to life.”

Did Being a TV Star Give Him a Big Head? (above) A screen capture from Ultraverse: The Animated Series, revealing Lord Pumpkin’s slightly simplified appearance on television. (left) A Lopresti cover gracing issue #2 (Feb. 1995) of the miniseries Godwheel. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

JARROD BUTTERY lives in Western Australia and has written several articles for BACK ISSUE. Upon spying the research material, his wife actually said, “There’s a comic called Sludge now?”

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Marc, I’m glad you’ve discovered BACK ISSUE and hope you’re following us now either through your comic shop or digital editions (see TwoMorrows.com). In addition to those Dark Horse series you list, there are many other licensed comics we’ve yet to cover, including Bronze Age favorites like Marvel’s Battlestar Galactica and Shogun Warriors. Keep reading—we’ll get there one day. And you’re right, Mr. Monster hasn’t yet been featured in BI. That’s one of the gems of the 1980s boom of Independents we’ll also spotlight in the future. Being a fan of Mr. Monster, you’ll definitely want to check out “Comic Crypt,” produced by MM’s creator, Michael T. Gilbert, for our (big) sister publication, Alter Ego. – M.E.

Send your comments to: Email: euryman@gmail.com (subject: BACK ISSUE) Postal mail: Michael Eury, Editor • BACK ISSUE 118 Edgewood Ave. NE • Concord, NC 28025

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Having mentioned my cousin Khettie Chanthaheuang in my editorial, in honor of this issue’s cover feature—one of Khettie’s favorite comics!—here’s a photo of her as Harley Quinn, taken on Friday, June 22, just before HeroesCon in Charlotte, NC. Tim Sale fans, take note of the Joker staff Khettie sculpted in the likeness of Tim’s version of the Clown Prince of Crime.

MORE LICENSED COMICS, PLEASE! Just wanted to send out a quick email letting you know how much I appreciated the Licensed Comics issue #55 of BACK ISSUE magazine. This being my first exposure to your great magazine, I was impressed by the in-depth coverage of all of the Dark Horse Comics Star Wars books (28 pages!) and all the Indiana Jones comic articles. Well done! I enjoyed the Man from Atlantis piece also. Funny how that article was longer than the actual comic series! Any chance you’ll do a Licensed Comics follow-up issue? I would love to see in-depth articles on Dark Horse’s Aliens, Predator, Terminator, and Godzilla-related books with lots of unknown behind the scenes info! I would also love to see some kind of article done on Michael T. Gilbert’s wonderful character Mr. Monster! I can’t find your magazine on the newsstands so I’ll never know if you printed and responded to this letter. If you could spare me a quick reply via email letting me know if these “Dream” articles have ever been considered, I’d greatly appreciate it. Thanks for your time and the great read. – Marc Cawiezel

Mark DiFruscio replies: Thank you for the kind words, Keith. Greatly appreciated. I’m really glad you liked the article. One other minor correction though (due to a typo on my part, I believe): On page 63 of the digital issue (61 of the actual issue), I quote Eliot Brown as saying, “In #1, I took home some pages to do backgrounds on…” That actually should have read, “In #11, I took home some pages…” Not #1. Don’t know if that warrants a full-blown correction but I thought I’d mention it in case any readers might be looking for that cameo Eliot inserted of himself into issue #11. Thanks again. – Mark DiFruscio

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INDIANA JONES CORRECTION I just wanted to say that I really loved BACK ISSUE #55, I bought and downloaded the digital copy from your site, mainly for my interest in the Star Wars and Indiana Jones licensed comics retrospectives. I co-host and produce a segment, on a podcast called the IndyCast (http://theindycast.com/), entitled “The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones” (www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/furtheradventuresofindianajones) in which we review, discuss, and interview several of the book’s creators, writers, and artists for Marvel’s The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones, issue by issue. I noticed a small error while reading Mark DiFruscio’s otherwise AMAZING article covering Marvel’s Further Adventures series, which occurs on page 64 of the digital download, stating that Ron Frenz was the artist for the cover of issue #7. Ron Frenz worked on only two issues of TFAOIJ, doing the covers and pencils of issues #4 and 5, and it was actually Kerry Gammill who did the cover and pencils for issue #7. Another interesting note: While the Dark Horse Omnibus of The Further Adventures vol. 1 also credits Kerry Gammill for the cover of issue #8, it was revealed in our recent interview with Howard Chaykin (and some vintage Further Adventures advertising material that I recently obtained, picture attached; check out the bottom right corner) that the cover for issue #8 (regarded as one of the best of the series) was actually done by Howard Chaykin and Terry Austin. Hope this clears up a few mysteries of this fun, but sadly overlooked series which chronicled more adventures of our whip-cracking hero. Thanks so much for the nostalgic look back at one of my favorite comics from my childhood, and I hope to see more of it in the future. Keep up the great work! If this email could also be forwarded to Mr. DiFruscio please, it would be greatly appreciated. We have seen that his passion for The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones matches our own, and are interested in getting in contact with him for an interview on a future segment of our show. – Keith D. Voss

BATMAN DEATHTRAP SOUGHT—AND FOUND!

Michal, for more on Christopher’s quest, keep reading… Please let Christopher know that the Issue he is looking for is Batman #256 (May–June 1974). It’s a great 100-page Super Spectacular. The story he is referring to is “Catwoman’s Circus Caper,” and its Robin that is diving into the pool and Batman that kicks the spear away. I also wanted to let you know that issue #50 was my favorite to date, but every issue is great—it’s the first thing I read the day it comes out. Thank you and everyone else at BACK ISSUE for bringing back wonderful memories from my youth. – Marcus Slaughter Marcus, thank you for solving that Bat-deathtrap mystery, and for being such a loyal reader of BACK ISSUE. We don’t have an interior scan of that scene available, but the issue’s cover appears on this page… – M.E.

A STAUNCH SUPPORTER OF STERN’S AVENGERS I just wanted to let you know how much I’m enjoying BACK ISSUE #56! Whenever a successful movie is made from an aging franchise, fans always have the side benefit of tie-in merchandising and increased media coverage of their favorite characters. That’s true whether or not the movie is true to the original property. Fortunately The Avengers was just about everything this fan could ask for (since I gave up expecting Hank, Jan, Wanda, or Vizh to make the cut a few steps back)! And your Avengers-themed issue this month is one of the best perks that’s ever come alongside a movie release. I’m particularly happy with the coverage Jason Shayer and Michael Aushenker gave to Roger Stern’s contributions. I’m a Bronze Age fan to my core. I’ll happily take on anyone in an argument to prove that the 1970s were Marvel’s greatest decade. I cut my teeth

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Another terrific issue [BACK ISSUE #56]. As I am still flying high over the Avengers movie, this issue was a real treat. One aspect I really enjoy about BACK ISSUE is how you spotlight “second-string” superheroes. Characters like Hawkeye, who just don’t reach the notoriety of Spider-Man and Captain America, give your readers an untapped source for the more obscure stuff we crave. Sure, we can find entire books about Superman and Spider-Man, but where else are you going to find a magazine that cares enough to write an extensive analysis of Wonder Man? Christopher Boucher’s search request intrigued me, as I’m sure it did with a lot of other fans. Batman and Robin diving into a spear-filled vat of water … I don’t remember a cover like that, but it sure seems like there should be one to fit that description. I went to one of my favorite websites, Mike’s Amazing World, found at www.dcindexes.com. I cannot recommend this site enough. You can view every cover from all major publishers (not just DC), time lines, databases … in addition to being a valuable resource for identifying and cataloging your comics, it’s great for just browsing. But back to Christopher. A quick search of Caped Crusader covers showed Batman #166 and 207, which look amazingly similar, and #228, a Giant issue that reprints #166’s story and recreates the scene on the cover. But while they show Batman trapped underwater while being shot at from above, there are no spears. Going over to Detective Comics revealed that the Dynamic Duo, while never actually diving into a tub of water, seemed to enjoy the circus, as evidenced on the covers of Detective #134, 166, 232, and 237. There is your basic underwater scene on #229, but Batman’s not really in peril here, just scuba-diving to ambush some bad guys. #346 shows a pretty nifty trap featuring poison gas, electricity, bullets … but, alas, no water or spears. It was about that time that my attention span started wandering off to explore other parts of Mike’s incredibly addictive website, to check out the covers of the 1960s run of Metamorpho. So the bad news is: Sorry, Christopher, I’ve got nothing for you. But the good news is, I had a lot of fun looking! – Michal Jacot on Steve Englehart’s Avengers and Claremont, Cockrum, and Byrne’s X-Men. For me, X-Men was over when Byrne left the book and The Avengers slowly fizzled from #200 on until I crumpled my copy of Avengers #213 in a wad and decided I was done with comics for good. I wasn’t, really. I got suckered back in during college, when I learned that Jean Grey was alive again and Englehart was back at Marvel. But then, marriage and a job made me put comics on the back burner … until my first son was born. Ethan and I read comics together from about the time he was three. He became a huge Wonder Man fan, so he was also thrilled with your latest issue! Having the responsibility of training up a new fan, and then his little brother, I got back into comics. Busiek and Pérez on Avengers was also a huge incentive for me to start buying again. I knew I’d missed a lot, so I went and tracked down, in quarter boxes, some 300 or more issues of The Avengers and West Coast Avengers that I’d missed. About 150 of those could have stayed in the quarter box. Of course, the stuff by my old favorite Steve E was a treat, but I was also blown away by Roger Stern. I read his entire Avengers run in a week or so, and I was blown away by his talent. Here was someone whose long run deserves to sit beside Roy’s [Thomas] and Steve’s as quintessential Avengers mythology. The way he turned a story I considered to contain multiple counts of sheer characterization rape (“The Court Martial of Yellowjacket”) into a fulfilling and heroic arc for Hank Pym was nothing short of miraculous. His development of the characters overall was sensitive, entertaining, and believable. I was glad to hear Roger’s side of his firing from The Avengers as well. I remember, having been out of the loop, how surprised I was when I came to that announcement in the letters page, years after the fact. With his departure, the quality of the book declined sharply. I think it’s pretty clear that the editorial decisions he

questioned were signs of things falling apart for The Avengers and for Marvel. While I thought an awful lot of Busiek’s long and successful run, as well as the Avengers Forever series, I have to agree with Steve Englehart that, in many ways, the game was up with the end of the ’80s. And that’s coming from a guy who pretty much caught the ’80s in reruns! Dedicated as I am to my ’70s comics, some phenomenal work was done in the 1980s, especially on The Avengers, and I’m very pleased you covered it here in such depth. – Steven H. Wilson Mark Time & Parsec Award Winner Author, Unfriendly Persuasion: A Tale from the Arbiter Chronicles www.stevenhwilson.com

Kirby did the same thing in several instances. Great fun reading BI each issue. Keep it up! – Mark Reznicek Mark, you’re right—even King Kirby occasionally got caught two-lefthanded, examples being the Human Torch on the cover of Fantastic Four #3, and Mr. Fantastic on the splash page of FF #88, seen below… – M.E.

LITTLE MAN’S BIG SHOW

Did you catch the Sword of the Atom animated short on Cartoon Network’s DC Nation back in late May? Another favorite from the BACK ISSUE era immortalized on TV!

We appreciate the info, John. When it comes to information gathering, here at BI Central our motto is, “Better late than never”! – M.E.

HANDY-DANDY HAMMER-HOLDER I was surprised to find Thor demonstrating a hitherto unused superpower on page 72 of your latest issue [#56]: he turned his right hand into a left hand! Not sure what use this particular power would have, but ours is not to question the will of the gods. (heh-heh) A real nice [Mike] Gustovich drawing, otherwise, but it’s surprising to see such a glaring mistake from a seasoned vet. Oh, well, Jack

GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: THE OZ EDITION I recently got a copy of Amazing Heroes #139 (one of the few issues of that zine I never bought new) and just read this interesting snippet from an Eric Shanower interview. While at the Kubert School, Eric was encouraged by Sal Amendola to work up a proposal on the Oz characters but ultimately abandoned the idea. Later, he pitched an Oz-based short war story to Joe Kubert for publication in Sgt. Rock involving “General Jinjur fighting the gnomes.” After completing half of the story, Eric changed his mind about submitting it. Nick Cuti remembered the story, though, and asked the young artist to make a pitch for the proposed DC kids line. “I came up with a rather extensive proposal for an OZ comic book series. It was kind of based on the one I had done earlier, but it wasn’t exactly the same, using just characters that were in public domain, and he liked it, but I guess there were problems with DC’s proposed children’s line, obviously it never happened.” Too bad I didn’t discover this last year when I was writing the article for BI [#57: “The Lost DC Kids Line”]. – John Wells

A MARVELITE’S DELIGHT Bravo, gentlemen! BACK ISSUE #56 hit another home run for this child of the Bronze Age. Your coverage of all things Avengers far surpassed my expectations. The spotlight on Hawkeye was greatly appreciated as he has long been my favorite of the much-beloved Assemblers. In response to Jarrod Buttery’s query regarding the artists behind the Mockingbird illustration found on page 53: Pencils were done by Cynthia Martin and inks by Joe Rubinstein. The image is from Bobbi’s entry in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #8. In addition, the page from Hawkeye #3, where Mike Carlin is decked by Oddball, was inked by Danny Bulanadi, not Brett Breeding. As a kid, I found that scene particularly chilling. I always wondered whether or not the unfortunate Carlin lookalike had been killed or not. I was fascinated by the backstory revealed here, such a great example of Gruenie’s fondness for including hidden “Easter eggs” in his stories. As a faithful reader of the 1980s Avengers, this issue was a true Marvelite’s delight! Thanks for including so many beloved creators from the era such as Steven Grant, Brett Breeding, Bob Hall, Al Milgrom, Steve Englehart, and the incomparable Roger Stern. Roger is easily the best Avengers and Spider-Man writer of my generation. He deserves each and every accolade in the book! – Joseph Tages

Halloween Heroes and Villains Issue

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BACK ISSUE • 79

“WACko” FOR THE WEST COAST AVENGERS The article on the “WACkos” [West Coast Avengers] was great! I’m sad that there isn’t an entire issue of interviews/Backstage Passes dedicated to the West Coast Avengers. (I know this is sacrilege, but I always enjoyed their lighthearted romps versus the stuffy ol’ “regular” Avengers book.) I know there are a lot of Al Milgrom-haters out there, but c’mon, folks, it’s SUPERHERO COMICS—do you expect every page to be Da Vinci? Plus, we judge the artists differently depending on our age when we first discover them, the nostalgia factor versus what we’ve since up to that point. For a seven-year-old (which I was when I started reading “WCAvengers”), the art was as perfect as it could be. The same with [John] Romita’s art in Marvel Tales, Sergio’s [Aragones] art in Groo—the artists’ names didn’t become important until we were older; all that mattered was the enjoyment of the book. I’m sad to say that very few books enthuse me these days. (But I still enjoy the feel and smell of my old WCA books! Take that, glossy new books!) I’m a bit of an oddity amongst my “cape ’n’ cowl” friends because I prefer Will Eisner’s work, Dan Clowes, Jason (the Norwegian artist—I don’t want someone to think I forgot a last name! LOL), and Dave Sim. But I look fondly upon those comics I read during my formative years, no matter what the art looked like. As a kid, you want to escape (and most superhero artists are adept at that kind of work); but as an adult, I want … something different, I don’t know what … a challenge as a reader? Something fresh, perhaps? Having said that, I adore BACK ISSUE for whisking me back to a more innocent, simpler time, before I demanded more from my favorite art form. – Rex Racer Via Facebook Rex, BACK ISSUE does allow us to blissfully hide out in the past, doesn’t it? Thanks for the kind remark. A return look at West Coast Avengers/ Avengers West Coast in these pages is inevitable— there’s still a lot of good material there to mine, including the John Byrne era on the title… – M.E.

A SCI-FI MAG? Has TwoMorrows ever thought of doing a quarterly Sci-Magazine discussing sci-fi movies? I was at Barnes and Nobles tonight looking through the SF mags that are available now, and they remind me of USA Today and Wizard—all fluff and no

substance. In this mag you could do articles on older movies as well as movies in the theaters and movies coming to the theaters. For example, I would have liked to see a detailed article on Prometheus/Alien, discussing both movies with background and comparisons. Just an idea. – Matt Hamilton Via Facebook Publisher John Morrow tells me that TwoMorrows is considering some potential new magazines. What do the rest of you think about a sci-fi magazine in the Mighty TwoMorrows Manner? – M.E.

THE SHE-HULK MOVIE YOU DIDN’T SEE Michael, inside the front cover of the new BACK ISSUE there is an Avengers photo of all of the ’70s/’80s shows. I don’t recognize the She-Hulk image of Brigitte Nielsen. What is that from? – Sammie Bullock Via Facebook Sammie, the aborted She-Hulk feature was covered by Andy Mangels in a “Greatest Stories Never Told” article in BACK ISSUE #19. Next issue—the one you’ve been waiting for: Tabloids and Treasuries, spotlighting the Bronze Age’s BIGGEST comic books! Surveying the all-new tabloids from the 1970s, and a checklist of reprint treasury editions. Superman vs. the Amazing SpiderMan, The Bible, Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, The Wizard of Oz, even the PAUL DINI/ALEX ROSS World’s Greatest Super-Heroes editions—they’re all here! With commentary from and/or art by NEAL ADAMS, JOSE LUIS GARCIALOPEZ, MIKE GRELL, JACK KIRBY, JOE KUBERT, SHELDON MAYER, JOHN ROMITA, SR., ALEX TOTH, and more. Featuring a reimagining of Grell’s Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes Limited Collectors’ Edition wraparound cover by Alex Ross, all at tabloid size for $10.95! Don’t ask—just BI it! See you in 60! Michael Eury, editor-in-chief Legion of Super-Heroes TM & © DC Comics. BACK ISSUE TM & © DC Comics.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES BACK ISSUE is on the lookout for the following comics-related material from the 1970s through the 1990s: • • • • • • •

Unpublished artwork and covers Commissions (color or B&W) and professional-quality specialty drawings 1970s–1990s creator and convention photographs Character designs and model sheets Original art: covers and significant interior pages Little-seen fanzine material Other rarities

If you have any of the above materials, please query the editor via email prior to submission. Art contributors will be acknowledged in print and receive a complimentary copy of the issue.

Since BI is a full-color publication, preference is given to color artwork. Random convention sketches and “quick sketches” that do not reflect an artist’s best work and were not intended for print will no longer be considered for publication.

Advertise In BACK ISSUE!

BACK ISSUE does not read or consider unsolicited manuscripts. However, we routinely welcome new writers to our magazine, and have done so since day one!

TWO FULL-PAGE ADS: $500 ($100 savings) TWO HALF-PAGE ADS: $300 ($50 savings) TWO QUARTER-PAGE ADS: $175 ($25 savings)

If you’re interested in writing for BI, please request a copy of the BACK ISSUE Writer’s Style Guide by emailing the editor at euryman@gmail.com. Contact BI at: Michael Eury, Editor, BACK ISSUE 118 Edgewood Ave. NE Concord, NC 28025

80 • BACK ISSUE • Halloween Heroes and Villains 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!, Back Issue, or any combination and save:

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

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FANTASTIC FOUR FOLLOW-UP to #58’s THE WONDER YEARS! Never-seen FF wraparound cover, interview between FF inkers JOE SINNOTT and DICK AYERS, rare LEE & KIRBY interview, comparison of a Jack and Stan FF story conference to Stan’s final script and Jack’s penciled pages, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, gallery of KIRBY FF ART, pencils from BLACK PANTHER, SILVER SURFER, & more!

GLEN ORBIK demos how he creates his painted noir paperback and comic covers, ROBERT VALLEY discusses animating “The Beatles: Rock Band” music video and Tron: Uprising, plus Comic Art Bootcamp on “Dramatic Lighting” with MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS, Crusty Critic JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews art supplies, BOB McCLOUD gives a Rough Critique of a newcomer’s work, and more!

LEGO CAR BUILDING! Guest editors LINO MARTINS and NATHAN PROUDLOVE of LUGNuts share secrets behind their LEGO car creations, and present TECHNIC SUPERCAR MODELS by PAUL BORATKO III and other top builders! Plus custom instructions by TIM GOULD and CHRISTOPHER DECK, minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” section, and more!

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BACK ISSUE #58

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“JLA in the Bronze Age”! The “Satellite Years” of the ‘70s and early ‘80s, with BUCKLER, ENGLEHART, PÉREZ, and WEIN, salute to DICK DILLIN, the Justice League “Detroit” team, with CONWAY, PATTON, McDONNELL, plus CONWAY and GEOFF JOHNS go “Pro2Pro” on writing the JLA, unofficial JLA/Avengers crossovers, and Marvel’s JLA, the Squadron Supreme. Cover by McDONNELL and BILL WRAY!

“Toon Comics!” History of Space Ghost in comics, Comico’s Jonny Quest and Star Blazers, Marvel’s Hanna-Barbera line and Dennis the Menace, behind the scenes at Marvel Productions, Ltd., and a look at the unpublished Plastic Man comic strip. Art/comments by EVANIER, FOGLIO, HEMPEL and WHEATLEY, MARRS, RUDE, TOTH, WILDEY, and more. All-new painted Space Ghost cover by STEVE RUDE!

“Tabloids and Treasuries,” spotlighting every all-new tabloid from the 1970s. Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, The Bible, Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, The Wizard of Oz, even the PAUL DINI/ALEX ROSS World’s Greatest Super-Heroes editions! Commentary and art by ADAMS, GARCIA-LOPEZ, GRELL, KIRBY, KUBERT, MAYER, ROMITA SR., TOTH, and more. Wraparound cover by ALEX ROSS!

“Superman in the Bronze Age”! JULIUS SCHWARTZ, CURT SWAN, Superman Family, World of Krypton miniseries, and ALAN MOORE’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”, art & comments by ADAMS, ANDERSON, CARDY, CHAYKIN, PAUL KUPPERBERG, OKSNER, O’NEIL, PASKO, ROZAKIS, SAVIUK, and more. Cover by GARCÍA-LÓPEZ and SCOTT WILLIAMS! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

“British Invasion” issue! History of Marvel UK, Beatles in comics, DC’s ‘80s British talent pool, V for Vendetta, Excalibur, Marshal Law, Doctor Who, “Pro2Pro” interview with PETER MILLIGAN & BRENDAN McCARTHY, plus BERGER, BOLLAND, DAVIS, GIBBONS, STAN LEE, LLOYD, MOORE, DEZ SKINN, and others. Fold-out triptych cover by RON WILSON and DAVE HUNT of Marvel UK’s rare 1970s “Quadra-Poster”!

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GOLDEN AGE NEDOR super-heroes are spotlighted, with MIKE NOLAN’s Nedor Index, and art by MORT MESKIN, JERRY ROBINSON, GEORGE TUSKA, RUBEN MOIRERA, ALEX SHOMBURG, and others! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, more 2011 Fandom Celebration, and part II of JIM AMASH’s interview with Golden Age artist LEONARD STARR! Cover by SHANE FOLEY!

SUPERMAN issue! PAUL CASSIDY (early Superman artist), Italian Nembo Kid, and ARLEN SCHUMER’s look at the MORT WEISINGER era, plus an interview with son HANK WEISINGER! Art by SHUSTER, BORING, ANDERSON, PLASTINO, and others! LEONARD STARR interview Part III—FCA—Mr. Monster—more 2011 Fandom Celebration, and a MURPHY ANDERSON/ARLEN SCHUMER cover!

MARV WOLFMAN talks to RICHARD ARNDT about his first decade in comics on Tomb of Dracula, Teen Titans, Captain Marvel, John Carter, Daredevil, Nova, Batman, etc., behind a GENE COLAN cover! Art by COLAN, ANDERSON, CARDY, BORING, MOONEY, and more! Plus: the conclusion of our LEONARD STARR interview by JIM AMASH, FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

MARVEL ISSUE on Captain America and Fantastic Four! MARTIN GOODMAN’s Broadway debut, speculations about FF #1, history of the MMMS, interview with Golden Age writer/artist DON RICO, art by KIRBY, AVISON, SHORES, ROMITA, SEVERIN, TUSKA, ALLEN BELLMAN, and others! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER and BILL SCHELLY! Cover by BELLMAN and MITCH BREITWEISER!

3-D COMICS OF THE 1950S! In-depth feature by RAY (3-D) ZONE, actual red and green 1950s 3-D art (get out those glasses!) by SIMON & KIRBY, KUBERT, MESKIN, POWELL, MAURER, NOSTRAND, SWAN, BORING, SCHWARTZ, MOONEY, SHORES, TUSKA and many others! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Cover by JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY!

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FROM THE TOMB digs up the best of horror comics history! Since 2000, FROM THE TOMB has terrified readers worldwide, as the preeminent magazine on the history of horror comics, with stellar writing and intensely frightening illustrations from the best talent in the industry. Produced in the UK, issues have been scarce and highly collectible in the US, and here’s your chance to see what you’ve been missing! This “BEST OF” COLLECTION compiles the finest features of FROM THE TOMB’s ten years of terror, along with new material originally scheduled to see publication in the NEVER-PUBLISHED #29. It celebrates the 20th Century’s finest horror comics—and those they tried to ban—with a selection of revised and updated articles on BASIL WOLVERTON, JOHNNY CRAIG, RICHARD CORBEN, LOU CAMERON, RUDY PALAIS, MATT FOX, ALVIN HOLLINGSWORTH, plus classic publishers including ACG, ATLAS, EC, FICTION HOUSE, HARVEY COMICS, SKYWALD, WARREN, HOUSE OF HAMMER, A-BOMB COMICS, CANNIBALS, and others! It also includes a full-color section, and an invaluable set of collectors’ indices, to help you track down long-buried gems in the horror genre. SHIPS OCTOBER 2012! (192-page trade paperback with COLOR) $27.95 • (Digital Edition) $8.95 • ISBN: 9781605490434

The fabled master of glamour art finally gets his due! In the early 1940s, MATT BAKER became of one the earliest African-American comic book artists. But it wasn’t the color of his skin which made him such a significant figure in the history of the medium—it was his innate ability to draw gorgeous, exciting women and handsome, dynamic men in a fluid, graceful style. Imagine DAVE STEVENS or ADAM HUGHES working in the ‘40s, drawing a new story every month, and you’ll have a good idea of Matt Baker’s place in the industry throughout his career. Yet few of today’s comic book fans know of the artist or his work, because he died in 1959 at the young age of 38, just as the Silver Age of Comics was blossoming and bringing in a new generation of readers. MATT BAKER: THE ART OF GLAMOUR, edited by JIM AMASH and ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON, presents an impressive career cut tragically short. It features a wealth of essays; interviews with Baker’s friends, family, and coworkers; and a treasure trove of his finest artwork, including several complete stories. SHIPS OCTOBER 2012! (192-page HARDCOVER with 96 COLOR pages) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $11.95 ISBN: 9781605490328 • Diamond Order Code: JUN121310

The FILMATION Generation lives on! LOU SCHEIMER was the co-founder of FILMATION STUDIOS, which created the first DC cartoons with SUPERMAN, BATMAN, and AQUAMAN, ruled the song charts with THE ARCHIES, kept Trekkie hope alive with STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES, taught morals with FAT ALBERT AND THE COSBY KIDS, and swung into high adventure with TARZAN, THE LONE RANGER, and ZORRO. Forays into live-action included SHAZAM! and THE SECRETS OF ISIS, and in the 1980s, Filmation singlehandedly caused the syndication explosion with HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. Now, LOU SCHEIMER tells the entire story to best-selling author ANDY MANGELS, including what it meant to lead the last allAmerican animation company through nearly thirty years of innovation and fun! Profusely illustrated with photos, model sheets, storyboards, presentation art, looks at rare and unproduced series, and more—plus stories from top animation insiders about Scheimer and Filmation’s past, and rare Filmation art by BRUCE TIMM, ADAM HUGHES, ALEX ROSS, PHIL JIMENEZ, FRANK CHO, GENE HA, and MIKE McKONE—this book shows the Filmation Generation the story behind the stories! SHIPS SEPTEMBER 2012! (224-page trade paperback with COLOR) $26.95 • (Digital Edition) $8.95 • ISBN: 9781605490441 • Diamond Code: JUL121245

The AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: 1960-64! THE AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES is an ambitious new series of FULL-COLOR HARDCOVERS, where TwoMorrows’ top authors document every decade of comic book history from the 1940s to today! JOHN WELLS leads off with the first of two volumes on the 1960s, covering all the pivotal moments and behind-the-scenes details of comics in the JFK and Beatles era! You’ll get a year-by-year account of the most significant publications, notable creators, and impactful trends, including: DC Comics’ rebirth of GREEN LANTERN, HAWKMAN, and others, and the launch of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA and multiple earths! STAN LEE and JACK KIRBY’s transformation of superhero comics with the debut of Marvel’ FANTASTIC FOUR, SPIDER-MAN, HULK, X-MEN, AVENGERS, and other iconic characters! Plus BATMAN gets a “new look”, the BLUE BEETLE is revamped at Charlton Comics, and CREEPY #1 brings horror back to comic book form, just as Harvey’s “kid” comics are booming! These are just a few of the events chronicled in this exhaustive, full-color hardcover. Taken together, the series forms a cohesive, linear overview of the entire landscape of comics history, sure to be an invaluable resource for ANY comic book enthusiast! SHIPS NOVEMBER 2012! (224-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $11.95 • ISBN: 9781605490458

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