Back Issue #67 by TwoMorrows Publishing

THIS ISSUE: HEROES OUT OF TIME

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& GUSTYN BRIAN AU NOLA’s MIKE MIG

Booster Gold • Kang • Karate Kid • X-Men: Days of Future Past and more With Dan Jurgens • Bob Wayne & Lewis Shiner and an exclusive P. Craig Russell interview

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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“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!

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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!

“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!

“Halloween Heroes and Villains”! JEPH LOEB and TIM SALE’s chiller Batman: The Long Halloween, the Scarecrow (both the DC and Marvel versions), Solomon Grundy, Man-Wolf, Lord Pumpkin, Rutland, Vermont’s Halloween parades, and… the Korvac Saga’s Dead Avengers! With commentary from and/or art by CONWAY, GIL KANE, LOPRESTI, MOENCH, PÉREZ, DAVE WENZEL, and more. Cover by TIM SALE!

“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!

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“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”!

“Bronze Age Backup Series”! Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Metamorpho, GOODWIN and SIMONSON’s Manhunter, PASKO and GIFFEN’s Dr. Fate, “Whatever Happened To…?”, Nemesis, Rose and the Thorn, Seven Soldiers of Victory, art and commentary by CARY BURKETT, JOHN CALNAN, DICK GIORDANO, MIKE GRELL, ELLIOT S! MAGGIN, DAN SPIEGLE, cover by GRELL and JOE RUBINSTEIN.

“Bronze Age B-Teams”! Defenders issue-byissue overview, Champions, Guardians of the Galaxy, Inhumans, PETER DAVID’s X-Factor, Teen Titans West, Legion of Substitute Heroes, an all-star chatfest of Doom Patrol interviews, plus art and commentary by ROSS ANDRU, SAL BUSCEMA, KEITH GIFFEN, TONY ISABELLA, PAUL KUPPERBERG, ERIK LARSEN, GEORGE PÉREZ, BOB ROZAKIS, cover by KEVIN NOWLAN.

“Bronze Age Team-Ups”! Marvel Team-Up and Two-in-One, Super-Villain Team-Up, CLAREMONT and SIMONSON’s X-Men/New Teen Titans, DC Comics Presents, SuperTeam Family, HANEY and APARO’s Batman of Earth-B(&B), Superman/Captain Marvel smackdowns, plus art and commentary by BUCKLER, ENGLEHART, GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, GIFFEN, LEVITZ, WEIN, and a classic GIL KANE cover inked anew by TERRY AUSTIN.

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Volume 1, Number 67 September 2013 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, '90s, and Beyond!

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Mike Mignola (a 1989 illustration) COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek

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BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 INTERVIEW: Batman: Gotham by Gaslight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Brian Augustyn, Mike Mignola, Mark Waid, and John Workman revisit this Victorian-era “Tale of the Batman” INTERVIEW: P. Craig Russell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Exploring the early (and later) career of one of comics’ modern masters FLASHBACK: Karate Kid: I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 The Legion of Super-Heroes member gets his kicks in the 1970s FLASHBACK: X-Men: Days of Future Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 The landmark X-tale by Chris Claremont and John Byrne that inspired a movie FLASHBACK: The Asgardian Wars: The New Mutants 1985 Summer Vacation . . . . . . . . .38 Arthur Adams discusses this well-remembered junior X-Men project BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: Kang: The Villain Who Folded Himself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43 A thorough examination of the head-scratching continuity of Marvel’s time-hopping hellion FLASHBACK: Booster Gold: Celebrity Hero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55 Dan Jurgens’ first Man of Tomorrow—with rare developmental artwork PRO2PRO: Bob Wayne and Lewis Shiner (with Art Thibert): Time Masters . . . . . . . . . . .64 The writers and artist of Rip Hunter and company’s time-fest revisit the series with their editor, Bob Greenberger BEYOND CAPES: Bill & Ted & Evan’s Excellent Adventure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70 For a guy who never saw the original movie, Evan Dorkin produced a most excellent comics adaptation BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76 Letters about our Tabloids and Treasuries issue, BI #61 BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 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 Mike Mignola. Batman: Gotham By Gaslight TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2013 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

www.twomorrows.com Heroes Out of Time Issue

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From Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. TM & © DC Comics.

SPECIAL THANKS Arthur Adams David Mazzucchelli Ceasar Alvarez David Michelinie Val Armorr Mike Mignola Richard Arndt Michael Netzer Brian Augustyn Fabian Nicieza Michael Aushenker Bob Rozakis Mike W. Barr P. Craig Russell Kurt Busiek Jason Shayer Dewey Cassell Lewis Shiner Chris Claremont Joe Staton DC Comics Roger Stern Evan Dorkin Bryan D. Stroud Mike Flynn Art Thibert Stephan Friedt Roy Thomas Carl Gafford Mark Waid Grand Comic-Book Bob Wayne Database John Wells Mike Grell John Workman Bob Greenberger Heritage Comics Auctions Paul Levitz Andy Mangels

ON MY NIGHTSTAND Actually, I do time travel with great regularity, from my research of local history to watching old TV shows to reading comics from (and before) my childhood. Most of my reading is done in bed, where I’m often smacked in the face by books when I nod off (I stopped reading super-sized volumes like DC Absolute Editions in bed for fear of a bloody nose). But I just acquired a delicious collection of vintage comics stories that is keeping me awake at night. Titan Books has recently added to its Simon & Kirby Library imprint a Science Fiction volume. This smartly

designed, full-color hardcover edited by Steve Saffel weighs in at 352 pages (enough to pack a wallop should I fall asleep—which, fortunately, these wild and wonky tales won’t allow me to do) and gathers dozens of space-, time-, and imagination-spanning adventures produced by or under the watch of luminaries Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Launched by a Dave Gibbons introduction (with chapter intros by Peter Sanderson), this edition blasts off with rare Simon & Kirby material from the ’40s then warp-drives into the mid- to late-’50s with Atomic Age short stories. A ’60s chapter collects tales from Harvey Comics anthologies edited by Simon, and includes contributions by Archie Goodwin, Reed Crandall, Al Williamson, and Wally Wood. Concluding the book are a gallery of covers and some offbeat proposals by Jack and Joe (the latter teaming with Jerry Grandenetti). The stories are colored anew by Harry Mendryk, who’s also responsible for their art restoration. Truly a gorgeous edition, well worth the $49.99 price! A Bronze Age-connected gem in the volume is the Jack Kirby-writtenand-drawn “The Last Enemy!” from Alarming Tales #1 (Sept. 1957), where a time traveler’s trip to the year 2514 introduces him to a world of human-sized, sentient, talking tigers, rats, bears, and dogs, showing that Kirby was batting around such concepts before Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth. You don’t have to be a Simon & Kirby fan to appreciate the unbridled creativity and historical significance of the tales in this collection.

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. 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! 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-in-Chief, BACK ISSUE 118 Edgewood Ave. NE Concord, NC 28025

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the Estate of Jack Kirby.

If you could time travel, would you venture into the past or the future? While I’m fascinated by the past and intrigued by the future, if time travel were a possibility I’d stay put in the present. At least here I can learn from yesteryear and hopefully leave a footprint that will, in some small measure, make a better tomorrow. At one time or another, each of us has felt like we’re in a place that’s unfamiliar, where we don’t quite belong, and that is our theme this issue: Heroes Out of Time. It explores time-hopping and reality-altering comics, including Dan Jurgens’ Booster Gold (for those looking for the “Blue and Gold” team of Booster and Blue Beetle, see BACK ISSUE #22). I don’t like to play favorites, but as a ’70s comics junkie I’m particularly fond of John Wells’ article about displaced Legionnaire Karate Kid’s solo series (priming you for next issue’s “Legion of Super-Heroes in the Bronze Age” theme, which includes a Time Trapper history originally intended for this issue). Our cover feature transplants Batman into the Victorian era, where he actually seems right at home thanks to writer Brian Augustyn, artists Mike Mignola and P. Craig Russell, and editor Mark Waid. So park your souped-up DeLorean in the garage, lock the door on your TARDIS, and let the pages that follow do your time traveling for you.

Michael Eury

“In Elseworlds, heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places—some that have existed, or might have existed, and others that can’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t exist. The result is stories that make characters that are as familiar as yesterday seem as fresh as tomorrow.” Those words, coined by Denny O’Neil, are the charter for the Elseworlds imprint that was the direct descendant of the old “Imaginary Stories” that were staples in the Silver Age of DC Comics. Where did it all begin? Why, with “A Tale of the Batman” printed in prestige format in 1989 before the term “Elseworlds” had actually been conceived. It was called Gotham by Gaslight, and it was a groundbreaker with a terrific stable of talent guiding it.

ALTERNATE ORIGINS

Bryan D.

Writer Brian Augustyn recollects how the project began: “It was actually accidental. We were both editors, [Mark] Waid and I, at the time; and thinking about the process, he was the editor of Secret Origins and Stroud he’d been given his first summer Annual. This was back before they told us what our [Annuals’] themes would be. We got to actually be creative by ourselves. Mark’s big problem was that he had just finished doing Secret Origins for quite a number of big characters—the Batman cast, and I think he’d recently done something with the Superman family. In other words, all the stuff he might want to hang onto if he knew an Annual was coming. “Being the budding, creative genius that he was, he had a sense that his Annual should be something brian augustyn special, something big. But again, how do you follow it when your recent issues have covered all the major characters? So he had in mind, I think, that he might do something like ‘Alternate Origins,’ for lack of a better way of putting it. Not just untold stories, but something along the order of how would these characters be different if they were placed in a different time or a different reality or whatever. He was having trouble, I think, articulating that and I think I said something like, ‘What if Batman was in the Victorian era?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, okay.’ So then I said, ‘And he fought, um … Jack the Ripper.’ This was just top-of-the-head stuff. We were spitballing. So he kept talking for a moment and then went back and said, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. Batman in the Victorian era?’ I said, ‘Sure, because he’s a very gothic character and fits into the Victorian era in a way. Jack the Ripper fits historically.’ “So we talked about it back and forth for a few minutes,” Augustyn continues, “and he said something along the lines of, ‘We should see if we can come up with a story to go with that.’ So I said, ‘Sure, we should. For the Annual.’ So by morning, I had it in, I think, a four-page presentation. I don’t think it was

“What If Batman Was in the Victorian Era?” A 1989 Mike Mignola commission featuring his Gotham by Gaslight version of Batman. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © DC Comics.

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Versus Jack the Ripper (below) Original promo art by Mignola. Courtesy of Heritage. (above) Mignola’s moody cover for Gotham by Gaslight. TM & © DC Comics.

an official proposal, but it was the story as I envisioned it. He liked it a lot and said, ‘Okay, this is what we’re doing.’ He also went off and started thinking about doing a one-off alternate Batman story and a one-off alternate Superman story, which as far as I can tell didn’t come to be at that point because very quickly, as I said, this was an accident, we sort of tossed the idea down the hill and watched it turn into an avalanche. It just sort of took on a life of its own.” What a life it was, too, beginning with an inspired foreword by none other than Robert Bloch, highly esteemed science-fiction writer and the author of Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper. Mark Waid’s memories of the evolution include a few additional anecdotes about how an idea comes to full fruition: “Here’s how it went from a notion to a fully approved project in 18 hours: In 1988, I was the editor of DC’s monthly Secret Origins anthology, and with an 80-Page Annual coming up on the schedule, I was idly pondering ideas for contents—which DC hero would be big enough to star in it, how I was ever going to get that much work out of one artist, etc. I was on the bus ride home that night when it suddenly occurred to me—why not do four ‘imaginary stories’? Four alternate-history, could-have-been tales, one each for Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Flash? What if Superman’s rocket had landed in Russia instead of Smallville? What if … what if … okay, I couldn’t come up with any other ones right off, but ‘What if Superman’s rocket had landed in Russia?’ That was a winner. Surely three others would come just as easily! “The moment I set foot in my apartmark waid ment, I called up Brian Augustyn, fellow editor and best friend, and hit him with the idea so he could tell me if I’d lost my mind,” Waid says. “Fortunately, he was not only in my corner, but he immediately tossed out the suggestion ‘What if Batman had fought Jack the Ripper?’ and we seized on it and began building on it. It was a brief conversation … but the very next morning, Brian came in with the entire pitch for the story, pretty much full-blown, as I recall, and I was electrified. Forget burying this thing in an anthology Annual, I said—I’ll just line up something else. We both sensed that this should be its own project, but how to sell it to the powers-that-be…? “Easy. Mike Mignola was around that morning, delivering pages of something or another to Mike Carlin, and suspecting Mig might be intrigued, Brian and I—still tweaking from enthusiasm—screamed the pitch at poor Mike like it was written in ALL CAPS, but we weren’t even halfway through before he signed on. By the luckiest of breaks, we’d caught him between projects.”

RISK-TAKING Waid recalls, “As soon as Mike said ‘yes,’ I barreled into executive editor Dick Giordano’s office and pitched him. (Dick was always great to me; he loved my energy and, as someone who was a celebrated risk-taker, he likewise got a routine kick out of my inability to self-differentiate between fearlessness and stupidity. Dick told me more than once that he loved watching me get behind something because—as he had been himself—I was always willing to walk way, way further out on the tightrope than any of the other editors my age.) I literally acted the whole thing out for Dick. It was a performance. I was jumping on furniture, I was gesturing, I was on fire. And Dick could barely contain his laughter, but I didn’t mind because he wasn’t laughing at me, he was excited for me. The

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second I wrapped, he signed off on the spot and we went to work—all less than 24 hours after the initial idea hit Brian. “Brian and I, at the time, were kind of two men sharing one brain, always kicking ideas back and forth and enjoying any and all collaborations. That said, Brian did all the smart thinking and heavy lifting. I no longer remember what suggestions I may have added into the mix, but trust me when I say that this was Brian’s baby and anything you like about it was his and anything you wince at was probably mine. The most active hand I remember taking editorially came late in production; Brian was a better plotter, but at the time I had a slightly better ear for dialogue, so I fussed with some of the balloons and captions, probably too much so. I do specifically remember two edits I made. The first was on the top of story page 23, where I was looking for some transition between the previous mike mignola scene and this one, where Gordon was sifting through clues. And for some idiot reason, I thought cutting to one of Gordon’s thought balloons would do the job fairly seamlessly—not taking into account the fact that the art didn’t show Gordon, just an establishing shot of Police Headquarters—which is why, to my eternal shame, we ended up with a half-page shot of a building thinking, ‘Now the postcards.’ Live and learn. “I also remember being amused some time later when a Comics Journal reviewer went on at great length about how the fact that Gordon’s secretary was named ‘Bonnie’ was a smart callback to social-class matters of the 1890s and how Irish girls traditionally ended up in those sorts of administrative roles back in the day and blah blah blah and how much research we must have done to be so clever about that, and I didn’t have the heart to write the guy and tell him, ‘The reason I named her Bonnie was because that was her name on the Adam West [Batman] TV show.’” Brian Augustyn’s memories of landing Mike Mignola for the artwork indicates a major coup: “What we needed for that to work for Mr. Giordano was we needed a solid, A-level artist. At that point Mike Mignola had come up to deliver his last pages of Cosmic Odyssey, and that made him right up there at the edge of the A-list because it was still very early in his career. We knew him from seeing him around the office. We took him to lunch or sat him down in our office and we put the hard-pressed push on him from both guns, Mark and I, and Mike kept saying, ‘I’m way too busy, I’m way too busy. I couldn’t possibly do this. I’ve already agreed to do a Wolverine project and that deadline is going to come and go before I

Who He Is and How He Came to Be (below) The Victorian Batman’s origin, as told on page 2 of Gotham by Gaslight. (above) From page 11, the grimy Gotham of this era is a murderer’s dream. TM & © DC Comics.

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know it. I can’t possibly take time … all right, I’ll listen to your idea, but I’m not going to be able to do it unless you delay it. “We pitched it and he was like, ‘Oh, that’s interesting, but I wish I wasn’t so busy.’ So we went through several rounds of that, pushing, and Mark and I kind of one-upping the idea and I would say, ‘Oh, and it’s Victorian,’ and then Mark would say, ‘Jack the Ripper,’ and, you know, pitching what we considered all the virtues of the story. At some point Mike began to stop complaining that he couldn’t do it and that he didn’t have time. He was just silently absorbing it and looking, I guess, a little pained. We figured it was because we were really bugging him or that he was getting interested, but his deadline wouldn’t allow. “At some point Mike said something along the lines of, ‘Or he could do blah, blah, blah.’ And that was when Mike realized he was starting to contribute to the storyline. [chuckle] And then he realized, as we all did at the same moment, he was in. He said something like, ‘Oh, crap. I’m doing this book, aren’t I?’” Dick Giordano applauded the addition of Mike Mignola to the story that would become Gotham by Gaslight and signed off on the project. “Really, I’m not sure there could have been a more perfect artist,” Augustyn contends. “Mike was and still is a master of the sort of foggy, mysterious, edge-of-horror kind of stuff and he’s gone on to make his own trademark, what with Hellboy and several other Batman-related projects he did after the fact. He was and is the perfect guy for the job and it wouldn’t have happened as anything other than a summer annual if Mike hadn’t joined us. He made it so much more than it could have been. Thank God for Mike Mignola.” Mike Mignola shares that he thought the timing was good for this project: “I remember it came at a great time. I had just done Cosmic Odyssey and I’d never planned on becoming a superhero artist. So I’d done this giant superhero thing for DC and then I was doing a backup feature written by Neil Gaiman for Swamp Thing. It seems like it was within a day or two of that when Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn cornered me at DC and said, ‘We’ve got this thing.’ At the time I think it was going to be a longer project, but when they told me about it I thought, ‘Wow. This would really be a pain in the ass. It would really be a lot of work, but this would cement me as something other than a superhero artist.’ Thinking back, it was really one of the few times that I thought, ‘I need to do something to kind of redefine who I am and what I’m thought of.’”

Darknight Detective (right) Batman’s early appearances are rumored in this newspaper clipping, from GbG page 15. (above) Batman in profile, from the back cover. TM & © DC Comics.

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A TALE OF THE BATMAN Now that we know something about the genesis of Gotham by Gaslight, let’s take a look at the tale itself. It is set in 1889, where we find Bruce Wayne traveling abroad and meeting with none other than Sigmund Freud in Vienna, Austria. It seems the young Wayne heir has been spending time with the good doctor to learn more about his theories, and Freud shares that his friend, a London detective, also remarked on what a good student Bruce had been. Wayne’s time learning from his travels is at an end, however, and he boards a vessel to return to America and his home city of Gotham in particular. The captions, depicted as entries in his journal, indicate a 15-year sojourn of training and preparation, with five years alone on this particular journey. To his surprise and delight, he is hailed by an old friend of the family, an attorney, who is on the same voyage, whom he warmly refers to as “Uncle Jake,” or more formally, Jacob Packer. The readers are given an insight to Packer’s personality by his speech patterns and habits, which include spending time in Europe gambling and making a few mildly salacious comments about female guests aboard the vessel. Bruce’s thoughts reveal his distaste with Jake’s lack of the social graces and his curiosity at just how he could manage to fit into “polite society.” They part at the dock upon disembarking, and Bruce is met by Alfred and taken by carriage back to Wayne Manor. Bruce is amazed at the changes in Gotham during his absence, particularly its growth. He soon pays a visit to Police Inspector Gordon, who has a more than passing resemblance to Teddy Roosevelt. There is good reason for this, according to Brian Augustyn: “Now, Gordon’s basing on Roosevelt was the only one I contributed to. The rest were just Mike’s choices. Teddy Roosevelt was, or became, the police commissioner of New York City in the middle 1890s. So to my mind that was a visual tip to history, to have him look like a young Teddy Roosevelt. That way, when he became the police commissioner it would be tracking a real-world scenario.” Wayne and Gordon are obviously quite friendly and the Inspector invites Bruce to aid in police work, but the heir likens it to labor. The subject of the changes in Gotham arises and Gordon suggests that along with the growth in population and industry, the seedier side is thriving as well. To illustrate the point, he shows a likeness of a recent arrestee who has a chilling, frozen grin on his face. This Victorian-era Joker makes his first and only appearance here, and Brian Augustyn fills in the gaps with this behind-the-scenes anecdote:

“One of our early positive reviews declared this ‘a work of genius on the strength of the fact that in the very early part of the book when Bruce Wayne is in police detective Gordon’s office and there’s a wanted poster for the Joker.’ And it’s there and then tossed away. It’s something Mignola sort of elaborated on, and the image of the Joker drawn in that poster is based specifically on a still of Conrad Veidt from The Man Who Laughs, which, of course, is the inspiration of the original Joker for Jerry Robinson. “In any case, Mike did the inspiration and again it was a throwaway gig,” Augustyn continues. “The Joker is not in the story. But Gordon refers to him ... and it was just me using slang that I found somewhere for the period, and had him refer to him as a jasper, I think it was. Gordon just sort of tosses off the phrase. And this early reviewer praised the genius of research saying, ‘What a great slang term to use for the Joker, because Jasper is a mineral that’s bright green.’ All I can say is, ‘You know what? Unconsciously I’m more of a genius than I am consciously.’” Elsewhere, we begin to experience the dark underbelly that some of Gotham has become and a tortured figure is lurking about, mentally comparing the city to London and disclosing that “she” is also here and everywhere, laughing at him. At the Gotham rail yard, miscreants are in the act of blowing a safe when a dread figure emerges through the inky darkness to mete out justice. Nary has a word escaped the cloaked personage, but his presence and actions speak for him with crystal clarity. The headlines soon describe the sightings along with accompanying stories about brutally murdered women. Inevitably, the two are linked as Bruce Wayne discovers from a chance encounter at a society affair attended by Commissioner Tolliver. Ultimately the newshounds speculate that Jack the Ripper himself may have invaded the nights of Gotham City.

A MENACE TAKES SHAPE One fateful night, the two denizens of the darkness nearly cross paths when the Batman hears the screams of the latest victim and arrives moments after the Ripper departs with his surgical knife and bloodstained hands. The worst fears of the authorities are confirmed when a card arrives, addressed to Inspector Gordon. It contains haphazardly printed text that reads: “Dear Boss, Helloo to America. Hello to Gotham City. Truly the streets are paved in gold, though they’ll run RED ’fore I’m thru. My knife is as sharp as ever and NO WHORE is safe even if she don’t take money—HA HA, yours truly, Jack the Ripper.” The story’s letterer, John Workman, recalls his approach on the card, along with some of the text from the journal-style entries that are used as captions throughout the book: “I just thought, ‘Now, if I were Jack the Ripper and was crazy as a loon, how would I put this together?’ So that was just me following that theory. There might have been some description in Brian’s script saying, ‘Have some of them as if a child had written them’ and ‘Go off weirder and weirder as you get down to Jack the Ripper.’ I don’t remember that little bit below [the signature], if that was me or what. It does look like the same pen was used. Anyway, I just thought if you were really addled and crazed, how would these things work out?” When queried about the journal entries, which enhanced the period flavor, Workman explains, “There

was a series drawn by Pat Broderick, and I did that sometime around the same time period, I think, and I came up with what I call my fake Irish script and I used that for this series and I used something similar for the journal entries.” One thing John did not take credit for was the cover logo or lettering, to include the clever “credit” on the building in the lower right corner identifying it as “Mignola & Co.” Also, just like Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn, John Workman is an unabashed fan of Mike Mignola’s work: “I’ve always loved Mignola’s stuff. He has an understanding of shapes that is very rare. He doesn’t do a lot of rendering on it, just the outline. The only other person I can think of offhand that had that ability was Alex Toth, who would just do some sort of shape and yet give you everything you needed to know visually about what was going on.” The story continues with Commissioner Tolliver receiving a file causing a hasty visit to Wayne Manor Heroes Out of Time Issue

Killer Smile Gotham’s Jeering Jasper was patterned after Joker-inspiring actor Conrad Veidt, from the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs. Page 10 of the story. Words by Augustyn, art by Mignola and Russell. TM & © DC Comics.

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Bruce Behind Bars (left) John Workman’s innovative lettering on display, on page 22. (right) Bruce Wayne is incarcerated at Arkham on page 28. Note Inspector Gordon’s resemblance to Teddy Roosevelt. TM & © DC Comics.

and a search of the premises. A bemused Bruce Wayne, confident they’ll find nothing of interest, including his carefully concealed “evening clothes,” returns to his breakfast but is soon caught up short when Gordon produces an incriminating bloody glove and knife. Wayne’s trial starts with a string of testimonies following opening remarks by the district attorney, Harvey Dent. Bruce’s “Uncle Jake” is the counsel for the defense. As the trial continues, a nervous Alfred suggests to Bruce that he should, perhaps, reveal his extracurricular activities as an alibi, but Wayne refuses, suggesting that the media frenzy has placed Batman and the Ripper into the same category, so the revelation can only damage his defense. He remains confident in Packer’s abilities and that the prosecution has no case, however, he is found guilty and finds himself at Arkham Asylum awaiting his execution. Fortunately, Bruce continues to have his wits about him as well as the loyalty of James Gordon, who delivers a file with all the information they have on the Ripper. Bruce throws himself into full analytical mode, racing the clock as his date with destiny draws ever nearer, frantic to solve the question: Who is the real murderer? Finally, nearing despair, he spies the vital link when he notes a daguerreotype of his father’s medical detachment during the Civil War: The distinctive “A” mark on the regimental flag matches that on the handle of a knife used by the killer.

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Wayne breaks jail and arrives just as the murderer is about to strike again. The sight of the Dark Knight causes the killer to panic and flee, but the determination of his dark pursuer is inexorable, be it on foot, by rooftop, or on horseback throughout a thrilling chase sequence encompassing five pages until finally his quarry is captured and confronted. The Batman demands to know: “Why did you kill all those women … Jacob Packer?” “Uncle Jake” reveals all when he explains that he had to somehow stop the mocking laughter of Martha Wayne. It seems the young Packer, son of a farmer, had assisted Doctor Thomas Wayne during the war. Being of a generous nature, Thomas introduced Packer into society and paid his way to medical school, though Jake flunked out. Undaunted, Wayne redirected him to law school, continuing to foot the bill, but Jacob wanted more and what he wanted was the affections of Martha Wayne. Confessing his love to her, she laughed at him and turned him away and he never got over the rejection, going so far as to hire a man to murder Thomas and Martha Wayne, but he continued to hear the mocking laughter throughout the years. Packer further remarks that their “whelp” got away. At that dramatic moment, Bruce removes his cowl and backs Packer up against a massive tombstone in the graveyard where the chase has ended; confronting him for the murder of his parents, and the

many women, and the frame job Wayne has suffered at the hands of Jack the Ripper. Just then the authorities arrive and the re-masked Batman reveals the true killer. Packer proceeds to confess all to the authorities, but in a final, mad move, brandishes a knife at Batman, raking the bat emblem on his chest, but suffering a fatal gunshot before he can cause any further harm. The Batman thanks the Inspector and receives assurance that the newly revealed facts will be sufficient to exonerate Bruce Wayne, then melts into the darkness of the forest. Jacob Packer, per Mike Mignola, is modeled on a famous actor: “The Jack the Ripper character is based on Boris Karloff. I believe, if memory serves, his [Bruce Wayne’s] mother who gets killed is a likeness of my wife. I’m not a real photo-reference guy most of the time. On that job I don’t remember if I used any kind of photos. I might have taken a couple of shots for the mother and I probably used photos I had of Boris Karloff. And I’m sure I looked at Teddy Roosevelt for Gordon. “I was just figuring out my stuff back then,” Mignola continues, “but even then I would try to model something on a particular actor so I can keep myself straight and separate it out from the other guy. It’s more important that the character be distinct rather than it being Boris Karloff, if you know what I mean. It’s a way of saying, ‘I don’t want a particular character to look like Bruce Wayne,’ so Bruce Wayne is going to be my standard, idealized hero face, which I get from looking in my mirror and saying, ‘Okay, what’s the heroic version of that face?’ But for the Ripper character, it’s ‘How do I keep the character from looking like that?’ Boris Karloff has this characteristic and that characteristic and he’s a guy where I can get a lot of photos. So you get the photos and say,

‘Okay, Karloff has this thing going from this angle and Karloff from this angle has this going on.’ The goal is not to say, ‘I’m going to draw a portrait of Boris Karloff.’”

RESEARCHING THE ERA The art of Mike Mignola was certainly the ideal complement to Brian Augustyn’s period dialogue, which came about through his meticulous research: “The trick of writing any kind of comic dialogue or copy is to look at the space limitations and the speed at which a visually driven narrative can be absorbed. You’ve got to make the dialogue seem like more than it actually is. There is a sort of required shorthand. So the technique is the same as writing any other kind of comicbook dialogue. It’s to get said what needs to be said both for exposition and development and character interplay. If you’re writing a contemporary story you just want to give your characters slightly different voices through some vocabulary things or phonetic Heroes Out of Time Issue

Don’t Go Out After Dark (left) The Ripper claims a victim on page 19. (right) We’ve gotta catch our breath here! Mignola’s clever layouts and pacing convey the fear Batman’s prey is feeling on eerie page 36. TM & © DC Comics.

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The Man Behind the Red Hood Of course, Mr. Mignola can draw the Dark Knight (and the Boy Wonder) in any era… Original art to the variant cover for Batman #700 (Aug. 2010). Courtesy of Heritage. TM & © DC Comics.

accents or something like that. “In the case here, the idea was that I sought and created a voice for the era that involved a little bit of jargon from the time and maybe a slightly more formal way,” Augustyn says. “In my head, people would speak more formally, [with] fewer contractions and slang of a different era rather than modern slang. “Nothing will grab you out of a story from the past quicker than a turn of phrase that you know isn’t in the setting. Somebody in a Western movie says, ‘Been there, done that,’ and forget it—I’m out of that storyline. Even at that, there can be some surprising lapses, and I’m sure we made some, too, but my idea was simply to let the dialogue speak for the characters, throw in some period slang or wording, and just be a little more consciously formal in the way that the words were used, getting into the characters’ head with specific quirks.”

It should be noted that a nice tip of the hat was given to the enduring popularity of Gotham by Gaslight when the unique cloaked costume of the Batman made an appearance in the animated Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode titled “Trials of the Demon,” which also had a storyline where Batman traveled back in time. While it has yet to come to fruition, work began on a Gotham by Gaslight video game in the recent past. This story has been cited as the first Elseworlds tale, and while Mark Waid was happy to be involved in the project, he maintains a healthy perspective about his role in the resulting genre as a whole: “I have mixed emotions. On the one hand, it’s nice to feel like your career has a few legacy moments. On the other hand, I will never, ever forget walking into a Toys ‘R’ Us with Brian about eight years later and the looks on our faces when we saw the action-figure aisle pegs stocked with an entire line of ‘Batman Elseworlds’ toys. Pirate Batman, Cowboy Batman, Ninja Batman, Caveman Batman, Sneeze-Guard Batman, Color-Blind Batman. Too much. TOO MUCH. We were simultaneously chuffed and horrified. “Elseworlds became, like any good idea, really easy to run into the ground after a while,” Waid believes. “In the late ’80s and early ’90s, there were quite a few good ones: Holy Terror was the last one I’d brought in, from my friend Alan Brennert, and I can’t throw stones at a sub-imprint that allowed us to do Kingdom Come. But by about 1993 or so, it seems like two-thirds of all the pitches coming into DC were for Elseworlds stories, so much so that I remember seeing a list of works-inprogress that was two pages long, and I always said that when you finally got down to ‘What if the Flash had lived during the Crimean War?’ you’d taken the whole thing too far. Eventually, exec editor Mike Carlin just had to issue a blanket ‘No More Elseworlds’ edict, and that was probably wise.” Gotham by Gaslight is, at its core, a detective story, one that spans the Atlantic between London and Gotham and written, coincidentally, roughly a century after the infamous and still-unsolved Whitechapel murders. The canvas of the Darknight Detective must, of a necessity, include his equally dark and menacing, yet beloved Gotham City. An unstated but undeniable part of the Batman’s mission statement is to protect this place from those who would do it and its citizens within any harm. It is one of the prime elements that makes this tale work so well. The efforts of the Guardian of Gotham are as real and vital in the Victorian Era as they have been throughout the other decades the boots of our hero have trod. Mark Waid offers a fitting coda for what makes the Batman and this story timeless in nature: “I think at heart it’s his mission, not his detective essence, that makes him timeless. The themes of loss and anger and vengeance he embodies are eternal.” 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 and interviews with creators of the books he loves. He has been fortunate enough to conduct over 80 to date at www.thesilverlantern.com. Bryan recently co-authored Nick Cardy: Wit-Lash.

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Richard Arndt conducted on May 20, 2012

Wonderfully Wicked Detail from the cover of the book The Art of P. Craig Russell (Desperado Publishing Company, Inc., 2007). © P. Craig Russell.

P. Craig Russell began his career in the early 1970s as an assistant to Dan Adkins. His first published credit was for a werewolf story in Marvel’s Chamber of Chills #1 (Nov. 1972). Since then he’s worked as a penciler and/or inker on Ant-Man, Conan, Master of Kung Fu, Morbius, Killraven, Dr. Strange, Batman, Robin, Sandman, Fables, and many other features. Other notable works include Michael Moorcock’s fantasy character Elric, his own adaptations of opera, and adaptations of the works of Oscar Wilde and Neil Gaiman, as well as inking Mike Mignola on this issue’s cover feature, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. – Richard Arndt RICHARD ARNDT: Can you give us a little information about your background and how you got into comics? P. CRAIG RUSSELL: Well, I’m from Ohio—Wellsville, Ohio, a little town on the Ohio River. I got involved in comics professionally through Dan Adkins. Dan was an inker at Marvel Comics and had also been Wally Wood’s assistant for a number of years. He was living back in Ohio, in a town called East Liverpool, which was only about two miles from my hometown. I was going to the University of Cincinnati at the time and I went to meet him my sophomore year. I would have been about 19 years old, I guess. He told me if I would

work with him for six months he could get me into Marvel Comics. After a couple more semesters of college, that’s what I did. I worked for him for six months and got my foot in the door. ARNDT: The first credit I found for you was a little six-page werewolf tale in the first issue of Chamber of Chills. RUSSELL: That was the very first published work that I had. Dan would have laid that out—I mean, he designed the storytelling. It was a six-page story that he inked and, frankly, I couldn’t have had a better introduction to comics because his inks were so solid. He really worked me through it. Made me redraw stuff. Said, “This isn’t good enough. Try it this way.” Even so, I was already having my own ideas about storytelling. The werewolf from the story does his transformation on the last page and Dan had this happening in three panels and I changed it into six, so I was already starting to meddle around with the layout of the page, which has always been my biggest interest. ARNDT: You also worked on a Conan the Barbarian very early on. From Barry Smith layouts, if I remember right. RUSSELL: Right! They were having a hard time meeting deadlines on that book. Dan was the inker and he was very slow to begin with, and then Barry put a tremendous amount of work into each issue’s pencils. So they did one issue where Barry did [just] the layouts and Dan’s studio— Heroes Out of Time Issue

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which at the time consisted of Dan, myself, Val Mayerik, and a guy named Mark Kersey, who was there for a while—we were to do the finished art. My contribution was to simply draw the backgrounds, Val Mayerik was to draw a lot of the figure work, and Dan was to ink the entire thing to give it a consistent look. It was Val and Beginnings: I who were doing the finished pencil work. As usual, Chamber of Chills #1 (Nov. 1972) though, Dan got behind on his deadline and had Val and I and this Mark step in to do inking as well. Milestones: It wasn’t a good idea. [laughs] Neither Val nor I were Ant-Man in Marvel Feature / Conan the Barbarian / trained enough to be good inkers, even of our own Killraven/War of the Worlds in Amazing Adventures / work. It got delivered very late and was colored over a Parsifal in Star*Reach / Dr. Strange Annual / Elric / weekend. If you look at the original book, everything Night Music / various Batman story arcs / Batman: is colored red, yellow, and blue. It was as barebones a Gotham by Gaslight / Robin 3000 / The Jungle Book / coloring job as you could get. Nobody was happy The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde / The Sandman / multiple with it—well, except for the splash page, which Barry Eisner and Harvey Awards nominations and wins had pretty much penciled himself and which Dan inked. Works in Progress: That looked pretty good. It was all downhill after that. P. Craig Russell’s Guide to Graphic ARNDT: I remember looking at that comic for the first Storytelling / The Graveyard Book time and thinking the first three pages are pretty good and the rest pretty bad. Website: RUSSELL: Yeah, Barry probably did more penciling on www.artofpcraigrussell.com those first few pages, and then it really fell apart. [laughs] ARNDT: You went from there to Ant-Man in Marvel Feature, and you also penciled an issue of Dr. Strange in Marvel Premiere. RUSSELL: Ant-Man may have come first. I’m not sure where the Conan job was situated. It came in right during that period in the middle of everything. ARNDT: The Conan story came out the month before your first work on Ant-Man appeared. RUSSELL: Okay, I could have gone from the Conan to the Ant-Man, or the Conan may simply have appeared Portrait by Michael Netzer, from his Portraits of the Creators Sketchbook. first. It was all around the exact same time, though. Again, Dan inked my first issue and it was all from his layouts, except for one page where Hank Pym is throwing a match and I went Jim Steranko-crazy and put 30 panels on the page. That was my contribution to it. Dan also got the Dr. Strange story for me, too. I was still working in his studio. He didn’t ink that, though. Dave Hunt, Frank Giacoia, and Mike Esposito inked my work there. It must have been a late book or they wouldn’t have had three inkers on it. It still looked a lot better than the Ant-Man stories. Obviously, that type of material, the Dr. Strange stuff, was more of my preferred subject matter. More fantasy and not so much the little guy running around in the grass. ARNDT: I remember kind of liking the Ant-Man feature. It had its limitations, but it was still kind of cool. RUSSELL: Yeah, 40 years later it’s almost something I’d like to have another go at ’cause I think I have a few more ideas of how to play with the concept—the contrast between extremely large objects and an extremely small guy. I could have more fun with it now than what I did then. ARNDT: Was your first complete pencil/ink job the Master of Kung Fu story for Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu #1 (Sept. 1974)? RUSSELL: Yes, I think it was. In fact, I think it was the first time I ever inked anything by myself. I was still living out in Flatbush at the time and I inked that with a brush. I hadn’t started on Killraven [in Amazing Adventures] yet. I’d done a fill-in on Iron Man and two issues of Morbius [in Adventure into Fear]. Actually, I did my first Morbius story, then my first War of the Worlds [Killraven] tale, then the second Morbius, and then continued on with War of the Worlds all the way.

p. craig russell

Let’s Get Small From the very early days of Russell’s career, a page from the first Ant-Man tale he penciled, which appeared in Marvel Feature #7 (Jan. 1973). Inks by Dan Adkins and Mark Kersey. TM & © Marvel Comics.

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ARNDT: Your art style really changed dramatically while you were working on Killraven/War of the Worlds. It became much more intricate and … mysterious and solid. RUSSELL: On Killraven I had the freedom to play around. Those stories and settings played more to the type of things I enjoyed doing, rather than superheroes in New York City. Anything with elements of fantasy intrigued me. Don McGregor’s storylines were such that, set in the future as they were, you could do just about anything you wanted to. There was a lot of playing around and experimentation and bringing in outside influences. That level of experimentation just worked out better for my work than if I’d been doing Spider-Man or something like that. ARNDT: You had quite a number of different inkers on your work on Killraven, including your own inks. I remember at the time not particularly liking Jack Abel’s work over your pencils. He was a perfectly capable inker, but he tended to overpower the pencils to some extent, to take out the little wrinkles and make the work look really slick, which wasn’t always to the penciler’s advantage. RUSSELL: Jack inked my first issue, and I think he did one more down the line somewhere. I usually asked for Jack as an inker early on because I wasn’t gonna get Joe Sinnott, you know? There were a lot of inkers at Marvel that were perfectly good inkers, but they weren’t right for me. There were the more brushy inkers … such as Giacoia, Esposito, and Hunt. They were capable, but not a good match. Jack, who also worked with me on Morbius, took his time and inked the drawing. That didn’t always happen. I felt that Abel was the best I was going to get at the time. Once I started inking my own work, I would have inked it all the time except that I was so slow. That’s why there were other inkers or finishers over my pencils or layouts later on. ARNDT: Dan Green did a good job on your pencils. RUSSELL: Yeah, Dan was okay. ARNDT: I’ve also noted how many different people have mentioned how much they enjoyed the finished art that Sonny Trinidad did over your pencils… RUSSELL: I did two issues of layouts that Sonny finished the pencils and inked. One was for Killraven and the other for Son of Satan. Sonny had such a dynamic and very personal inking style of his own. It wasn’t just traditional brushwork inking. It was a real personal style. He was able to make those layouts into something. ARNDT: It really did look quite nice, the two of you combined… RUSSELL: Thank you. ARNDT: …it didn’t look exactly like Sonny’s solo work and it didn’t look completely like your own, either. In its own way, it was quite unique. RUSSELL: Well, the whole point of those were just to get us caught up on our deadlines, mostly so I could do another issue of Killraven entirely on my own. ARNDT: I’ve talked to Don—Don McGregor—several times, and he’s always had high praise for your work. RUSSELL: Well, likewise. He was exactly who I needed as a writer at that moment in time. I really wanted to do something special, or at least try to, and for that you really needed a writer as excited about the work as you. We were a mutual admiration and cheering society. We cheered each other on. Some of the other books I’d worked on before that, it was just another job, another assignment for the writer. It was never just another assignment for Don McGregor! ARNDT: I’ve gotten the impression that no writing assignment was just an assignment for Don. He’s very passionate about what he’s working on. RUSSELL: Yeah, and that was just great for me because I was still pretty much the naïve, shy Midwestern and he was just a slugger. He fought all the fights, although most of the fights were over or about writing. The powers-that-be pretty much left the artist alone. He’s the one who had to deal with the editors and censorship and all that.

ARNDT: I was recently following a blog writer who had decided to read all of the Killraven stories for the first time, from the start to the finish, using the original comics, and then write reviews of each issue. He was clearly getting frustrated with them and I understood where he was coming from because he was reading them one after the other with only, at most, a day or two between chapters. The stories don’t always make total sense that way. They originally came out every two months, which gave you a lot of gap time between issues. If you just read them straight though—and I find this occurring with a lot of the huge omnibus volumes dealing with 1970s comics—they can get awfully monotonous. RUSSELL: Oh! Then I won’t do that! [laughs] I’ve actually thought about sitting down and reading them straight through, but if that’s what happens I don’t want to do that! ARNDT: I really think you need to take a little time between the issues. If you just read them straight through then you start picking out everything that’s wrong, and not everything that’s right. RUSSELL: Oh, interesting! As a writer, you would probably be more tuned into that. ARNDT: I just started the first Essential Captain Marvel volume… RUSSELL: Oh! The one with Gil Kane! ARNDT: Even before that. It starts with Stan Lee and Roy Thomas scripts, with Gene Colan on the art. RUSSELL: Oh, that’s right, yes! ARNDT: Actually, the first five or six issues tie together really well. Then the book got a new writer and a new artist and it just seemed to fall apart. It was after that period that Thomas and Kane rebooted the character and he got the costume most folks are familiar with, although Syd Shores drew that costume first. Heroes Out of Time Issue

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In the Mighty Marvel Manner Two original art pages, courtesy of Heritage: (left) Conan the Barbarian #21 (Dec. 1972) featured layouts by Barry WindsorSmith, pencils by Dan Adkins protégés Craig Russell and Val Mayerik, and inks by Adkins and Sal Buscema. (right) Title page to Russell’s Shang-Chi tale from Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu #1 (Sept. 1974). Conan TM & © Conan Properties. Master of Kung Fu TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

RUSSELL: That happens when the team changes so completely. Maybe what I was thinking about was Warlock. Gil Kane doing Warlock. Gil’s pages were coming in while I was working in Dan Adkins’ studio. Dan was doing the inks. Gil was also doing Conan at the time, and Dan inking them as well. It was so exciting to see Gil’s pencils come in! ARNDT: It could have been both. Gil and Dan did Captain Marvel in 1969–1970 and Warlock in 1972–1973. In both cases Jim Starlin came in right afterwards or very shortly afterwards and had his Thanos stories running in both, so it would be easy to get confused. RUSSELL: I thought Dan Adkins was one of the best inkers for Gil Kane ever. ARNDT: Yes, his inks on Kane are very nice. I also thought that Dan Adkins was the best outside inker for Barry Windsor-Smith. RUSSELL: Absolutely! If Barry wasn’t inking his own work, then Dan was the guy that anybody should have gone for. Dan inked Barry on that one Dr. Strange issue [Marvel Premiere #3] and he did a number of issues of Conan over Barry’s pencils. It’s just that Dan was so slow. I was told that Dan was Windsor-Smith’s first choice as an inker. He really liked Dan’s work on his work. Because Dan inked the drawing! He really paid attention to it. ARNDT: He kept the intricate parts of the pencils there. RUSSELL: He kept the intricate parts, and they were crisp! Other inkers would do the intricate parts, but it would look mushy or fuzzy or something, but Dan was

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just crisp on the details. Crystal-clear. He could do the tiniest detail, and when it was shrunk down it was still crystal-clear on the page. ARNDT: That’s it, exactly. It looked great in reproduction. Now, it was towards the end or just after the end of Killraven/War of the Worlds that you started working for Mike Friedrich’s independent Star*Reach comic. RUSSELL: Actually, I finished the Killraven series, then I did the Dr. Strange Annual, and it was after that book that I did the Star*Reach issues with Parsifal. That was just after I’d quit at Marvel. I’d finished the Killraven series and they said, “Don’t worry. We’ll find something else for you.” But Doc Strange was a one-shot and when Star*Reach came along I was able to do the kind of stories that I wanted to do, so I wasn’t in any hurry to do any Marvel work for a while because I had Star*Reach. ARNDT: You redid that Dr. Strange Annual story many years later… RUSSELL: Marc Andreyko scripted that version. We worked out the expanded plot together so that It was almost a completely new story. I wrote some of it, but it’s mostly Marc Andreyko’s script. We added 13 pages to the original Annual’s length to get a 48-page book. ARNDT: What was the reasoning behind that? I like the idea, to tell you the truth. RUSSELL: Over the years, I’d been wondering why they never reprinted that Dr. Strange Annual. People liked it. It deserved to be seen. Marc said, “You should call them about reprinting it.” I had done that over the years but

I said I’d try again and called Bob Harras. The original Annual was an odd-sized book at 35 pages, so what I suggested was to add 13 pages so that we’d have a prestige 48-page book. Bob said fine. I thought that all I’d have to do was the 13 extra pages, but I looked at my old stuff and my drawing and my inking style in particular were so different that the new pages wouldn’t have matched with the old. I thought what I needed to do was trace off the old pages and redo them, so I did that for the first few pages. They are the exact same layout as the original. I was correcting the drawing and fixing the anatomy and I found it was a tremendous amount of work to recreate this. If I’m going to do this much work I should do something new. That’s when the story moved away from the original pages, so that even when it was the same scene or situation as the original story there was a complete new drawing of it. It became a new mix or hybrid or recreation of my old style and the new final version. It’s just a real mix. ARNDT: I have both versions and I like them both. RUSSELL: I much prefer the new version. ARNDT: Yes, it’s more mature. RUSSELL: One of the nicer things about that [new book] was that Jim Steranko saw it and said that “every single picture in this version is better than the first time.” I thought, “That’s nice!” [laughs] He was a big hero of mine when I was starting out. Still is. ARNDT: I noticed that when you were working at Star*Reach, most of your mainstream work appeared to be inking jobs. No pencils or pencil/ink work. RUSSELL: Yeah, when I was working for Star*Reach and Eclipse, neither of them paid the rates that were comparable to Marvel. So for my bread-and-butter money, those inking jobs were great gigs to have. I could do the X-Men for a couple of months and then I could do the projects that I wanted to do, but that didn’t really pay the bills.

ARNDT: Exactly who is Patrick Mason, who scripted Parsifal and several other parts of your many opera adaptations? RUSSELL: Patrick was a friend of mine. We grew up together in Wellsville, Ohio. My dad had the shoe store. His dad had the TV repair shop. Patrick is on the voice faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He’s one year older than me. We worked together on the Nibelung series. He did the translation of The Magic Flute for me. We’ve done several small and several large projects together over the years. Since he’s a classical singer he really knows languages, so he can translate German for me, which is great. The Parsifal piece from Star*Reach, our first opera adaptation, was a prose piece that he wrote based on the opera. Not a script, but a full prose retelling. He gave it to me and said I may want to do something with it. That’s just when Star*Reach was starting and they were open for all kinds of different comics notions, so I said, “I’ll do this!” ARNDT: How did you get in touch with Mike Friedrich? Was it the connection from your time together on Ant-Man?

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Invasion! Russell’s work on Killraven/War of the Worlds was a standout on the spinner racks. (right) Interior page from Amazing Adventures #28 (Jan. 1975). (left) Cover to issue #36 (May 1976.) TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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RUSSELL: Well, we’d had that relationship. We’d talked together a few times, when I was in Cincinnati and then later when I was in New York, I guess. He just approached me. I don’t remember exactly, but it was just some phone call and he told me what he was doing and asked if I was interested in being part of it. Parsifal was run in Star*Reach in three parts, all in black and white and then later collected as a one-shot 32-page color comic book. The one-shot was the worst printing you’ve ever seen. Mike later reprinted it on the right paper and with the color corrected. The first printing, though, was yellow and brown and murky. It was just dreadful. I still have copies of it. When it came out it looked like a 40-year-old comic book. [laughs] ARNDT: I have both versions and you’re right. The paper on the first edition is actually brown. It’s not white at all. RUSSELL: Yeah! Where did they find brown paper?! It looks a bit like butcher paper! To Mike’s credit, though, he had it redone and it was very nice, the final version. ARNDT: Mike told me the same story and he also mentioned that having to redo those issues, combined

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with the sheer cost of color, was what killed Star*Reach and its sister magazine Imagine financially. RUSSELL: Yeah, I guess that could do it. It must have been expensive. ARNDT: And it wasn’t just your book. Howard Chaykin’s one-shot color book, Cody Starbuck, had the same problem. Those issues of Star*Reach and Imagine that first had the color segment in the middle of the book were also very murky and brown and had to be redone. RUSSELL: Yeah, Mike’s first two color books, mine and Chaykin’s, were just … awful. When I did the color sections in Imagine, those turned out very nice, so by that time he’d licked the problem, whatever it was. I was very happy with the way my story “The Avatar and the Chimera” [Imagine #2 and 3] turned out. ARNDT: One thing I wanted to mention is that your work seems fully matured from Star*Reach on. RUSSELL: Yeah, my student years were over. I’d finally gotten my act together enough, so that by the Star*Reach stuff I was more in control of what I was doing … and bringing in a lot of influences from outside of comics. The French symbolist painters of the 19th Century and early 20th Century, book illustrations— Dulac and Rackham and all those cats that influenced Charles Vess and Michael Kaluta and all those guys. That late 19th and early 20th Century artistic influence really had an impact on a lot of comic artists at that time. ARNDT: Especially among the “Young Turks” of the early 1970s. RUSSELL: Yeah! For some reason, and I don’t know why with that generation, but we were all very much excited about that sort of thing and bringing it into our work. ARNDT: Perhaps because there was such a small number of young artists in comics at the time, and they tended to see each other a lot and share their influences? RUSSELL: Perhaps, but I didn’t do that. I didn’t hang out, and I don’t really know why. Like I said, I was a shy, backwards kid. Windsor-Smith, I just realized, is only two years older than I am, although he was light years ahead of me in development at that age. I found those guys very intimidating, although Kaluta was the nicest of the bunch. Both he and Bernie Wrightson were very approachable. Just real, downhome guys to talk to. But I really didn’t hang out with them. Or Charles Vess. My group of friends was Don McGregor and Dave Kraft and John David Warner. They’re all writers! And that’s who I kinda ran around with, professionally. ARNDT: This is something that’s always rather puzzled me: Why was the last page of your story “Siegfried and the Dragon” replaced with a splash page? RUSSELL: I have no idea! For some reason, Mike Friedrich thought it was an ambiguous ending where Siegfried walked into the cave, so he took my cover for that issue and used it as the last page. It was his comic and I was still young and didn’t put up much of a fight. Then it, the story itself, didn’t appear in Star*Reach. It was sold to Marvel and appeared in Epic Illustrated. ARNDT: The original last page did appear as the back cover of Imagine #6, the last issue. It was actually printed a year before the story actually appeared. That made it a little confusing. RUSSELL: Yeah, I bet! It was on the last issue of Star*Reach or Imagine? ARNDT: Imagine. It was one of the issues that were printed magazine size. RUSSELL: Yeah, that story has never actually appeared as a complete piece in its intended six- or eight-page format. I don’t know. [laughs]

That story was really my first stab at the Ring of the Nibelung and for me, it was, “Okay, I’ll do this part and when I get to do the whole thing, this part will be done.” But it was 20 years before I got around to doing the whole Ring Cycle. My style had changed enough that I couldn’t use “Siegfried.” Those pages wouldn’t have matched anything I was drawing. I did use some of the layouts for the final Ring book, mostly just because I could. I used the page design, and that made its way into the final version. ARNDT: You also worked as an inker on Batman for a couple of years during this period. Those Batman stories were, frankly, some of the better-written and -drawn stories of the late 1970s. RUSSELL: Yes, I did two issues inking Michael Golden and two stories that were written and laid out by Jim Starlin and for which I provided finished art. Golden’s pencils were complete. Starlin’s layouts were pretty good, solid layouts where I had to bring in the background texture and that sort of thing. I really enjoyed working on those stories. That was 1978, 1979, I guess. ARNDT: I was surprised at how well your style and Michael Golden’s meshed. His penciling style doesn’t seem even remotely close to yours, but the final result was quite striking. RUSSELL: Michael is a very linear artist, in that, and this is very similar to what I do in my work, he does a single, contoured line. Now, in his final, finished, solo work he does a lot of crosshatching and texture. But his pencil work, at least what I saw, was a single, contoured line, unlike Neal Adams, for example, who uses lots of shading, crosshatching, and thin-to-thick lines. Michael did a clear, linear line and, in that way he was much like Steve Ditko, whom I also found I was very compatible with as an inker. Golden, Rick Leonardi, Gil Kane, Ditko. I worked out on those guys really well. We have a similar approach, perhaps not in the look of it, but in the approach to doing the drawing that is very similar. The artists I had difficulty with would be John Buscema or Carmine Infantino, people who have a looser, sketchier, almost painterly style, that I found it harder to find the right tone with, the right way to approach the drawing. Carmine had a very sketchy style. Sometimes, looking at the page, it was, “Pick a line, any line.” The structure was all there but he was using several lines to make it and you had to choose which line to use as the final line. With Golden I was comfortable with [his art] right away. As a matter of fact, he was the first person that I felt that I “got it” when I was inking. I remember the exact panel I was working on that I felt that way. When I started the first few pages [on that first story] my inking felt scratchy, and then suddenly the line just warmed up and it had a nice, round, full feel to it. Within one panel I learned how to ink. From then on, I was okay. ARNDT: You mentioned Steve Ditko earlier, and back in the 1980s I picked up a reprint comic and looked at the cover and asked myself, “Why is Craig Russell drawing a cover for a Charlton reprint?” It was a Charlton cover and it looked exactly like your artwork! Right down to the T! Even the coloring looked like what was happening on your artwork at the time. But it’s Steve Ditko, 100%! The cover is from Out of This World #11 (Jan. 1959), although I originally saw it on a reprint issue. RUSSELL: And it looks my inks on it? ARNDT: No! It looks like your pencils and inks. When I got to looking at it more closely, I realized that the figures are solid Ditko, but the coloring, everything looks exactly like the artwork you were doing at the time.

RUSSELL: And this is Out of This World #11, you say? ARNDT: Yeah, you can find the cover on the Grand Comic-Book Database (www.comics.org). It’s a gorgeous cover. It’s all Steve Ditko. If you look it up I’m sure you’re going to say, “What the hell is he talking about? This doesn’t look anything like me!” RUSSELL: [laughs] Well, that happens, too. Some guy will say that so-and-so really influenced their work and I look at their work and can’t see any trace of so-andso’s influence at all. I was just talking to Kevin Nowlan, who’s going to be doing finishes over my layouts for one of my upcoming stories, and we’ve never talked before. We were talking on the phone and we were telling each other how much we like each other’s work. I just think Kevin is phenomenal. And Kevin said that when he was starting out how he’d had a lot of my stuff in his early work and he was sure I could see it—and I never saw it. Ever. And I’ve got all of his early work. ARNDT: Sometimes I look at an artist’s early work just to see where they were coming from. Barry WindsorSmith was obviously heavily influenced early on by Jack Kirby and Jim Steranko. Heroes Out of Time Issue

Master of the Graphic Arts A page from the fabled Dr. Strange Annual #1 of 1976, plotted, illustrated, and colored by Russell, and co-plotted, scripted, and edited by Marv Wolfman. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Batman Beyond (left) Russell’s finishes over writer/layout artist Jim Starlin’s Batman tale “Murder in the Night!,” from Detective Comics #481 (Dec. 1978–Jan. 1979). (right) Title plate from Craig’s The Curse of the Ring limited edition portfolio of 1980, one of the artist’s early explorations of Ring of the Nibelung lore. Courtesy of Heritage. Batman and Detective Comics TM & © DC Comics. The Curse of the Ring © 1979 P. Craig Russell.

RUSSELL: And isn’t that a hoot, since his current work couldn’t be more unlike them now. But, yeah, his early stuff sure was. ARNDT: Steve Ditko was copying Joe Kubert and Will Eisner. RUSSELL: Yeah, and wasn’t Jerry Robinson a big influence to Ditko? ARNDT: That I don’t know. I’m just not that knowledgeable about that. It’s easy to see that Darwyn Cooke is influenced by Frank Robbins. RUSSELL: Maybe it was Mort Meskin. Mort was more like Kubert in that they both had that same sort of brush style. But even Frank Frazetta, his early stuff was very influenced by Hal Foster. ARNDT: I think a lot of artists were influenced by Hal Foster. You can’t blame them. RUSSELL: [laughs] If you need horses, you go to Hal Foster! ARNDT: Even Kirby was influenced by Hal Foster. The face of Kirby’s Demon is a direct swipe from a Hal Foster panel. RUSSELL: Amazing. Even someone as inventive as Kirby is influenced by someone from his childhood. ARNDT: I think that’s kind of cool, to tell you the truth. RUSSELL: Yeah, me, too. ARNDT: The artwork of yours that most reminded me of that Ditko cover from Out of This World was your work on the black-and-white volume of Night Music from 1979. I really loved that book. RUSSELL: Oh, thanks! I was lucky to have Eclipse Comics there when it came out. They told me to do

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whatever I wanted and they’d publish it. They were only paying me a hundred dollars a page, so… [laughs] That’s why I needed those inking jobs. But, yeah, I got to do anything I wanted. ARNDT: A hundred dollars went a lot further then than it would today. RUSSELL: That’s true. ARNDT: Was that the first time you acted as your own scripter as well as plotting and illustrating the story? RUSSELL: Well, yes, yeah. That first issue of Night Music, I did write the stories. I’d plotted some things previously. The Dr. Strange Annual and the wordless stories—“The Avatar and the Chimera.” The first Jungle Book story I did—“The King’s Ankh”—was actually scripted by Jo Duffy but credited to me. She couldn’t take credit for it because it was appearing in an Eclipse comic and she was under contract to Marvel Comics at the time. By that point, even if I wasn’t doing final scripting, especially on the Jungle Book stories, I was going through the book page by page, paragraph by paragraph, as I was doing my layouts, and it was a good training on how to write and pace the story. I was sort of writing without taking the responsibility for it. But doing “Starship Remembrance,” “Salome,” and the Jungle Book stories [the latter two from the color comics continuation of Night Music] was where I was finally doing the scripting all on my own. “Starship Remembrance” was even an original script, not an adaptation. I think the first—no, no, wait, the very first self-scripted story [I did] was “Dancing on the

Razor’s Edge,” and I did that in 1977. It was one of those projects that Al Milgrom came up with. He was going to do a 32-page comic with eight-page stories. The stories were to be done by Bernie Wrightson, Jim Starlin, Walt Simonson, and myself. I immediately did that “Razor’s Edge” story and nobody else did theirs. [laughs] Wrightson’s was published years later. He finally did finish it and it was published in Epic Illustrated. I don’t know if Simonson or Starlin’s stories were ever done. ARNDT: Now that you mention it, I remember that Jim Starlin did his story as well, although the sequel to it actually appeared first, in Heavy Metal. Wrightson’s cover and story and Starlin’s story both appeared in the last issue of Epic Illustrated. Bernie’s story was a six-page story called “They Just Fade Away,” and Starlin’s was a five-page story called “Amber I.” I’ve no idea whether Walt Simonson’s story ever appeared. RUSSELL: It’s too bad that comic never happened. Al Milgrom was a prince. He was just a great guy, back then when I was living in New York. Simonson, Chaykin, I’d see those guys occasionally. ARNDT: Milgrom was the editor of Marvel Fanfare, a catch-all comic that you did a lot of work for. RUSSELL: That was all because of Al. He’d call me and dangle various kinds of stories in front of me to see if I was interested. When I was doing the inking work for DC in the late 1970s it was because of Al. He was the editor of that Batman book. He was a great guy. Good inker, too. There was a charity book called Heroes for Hope, or something like that, where he inked three pages of Mike Kaluta’s work. DC did one book and Marvel did the other, and I think Al did the Marvel one because that’s where he was at the time, but I’m not certain… Anyway, Kaluta’s art is so elegant and illustrative and one might think of Al Milgrom as a standard house inker… ARNDT: His work often looks loose and scratchy, although I’ve seen him do very tight work on certain artists. RUSSELL: Yes, and it’s kind of a tragic story. He was, as he called himself, a good soldier. Which means that if somebody screwed up and a book needed to be inked over a weekend, Al would do it. Well, you can’t do that and maintain a certain quality. It was just, “You gotta get this done.” So his reputation suffered. Not because he wasn’t a good inker, but because he was doing things very fast for the company. He could, though, do the most meticulous work. Those three pages of Kaluta— it looked like Kaluta inked them! The inks were that appropriate to the pencils. When I talked to Al on the phone I said, “Al, I saw those Kaluta pages. They looked great!” He said “Thanks, Craig. Everybody’s been coming up to me in the hall all week long and saying that. I just wish they wouldn’t sound so surprised.” [both laugh] ARNDT: But he provided very tight ink lines when he and Jim Starlin were doing work together as “Gemini” (Jim and I—get it?). RUSSELL: Yeah, yeah. That was love. Young guys, proving their worth, putting everything into the book. They were a good team. ARNDT: How did you get involved with Michael Moorcock’s Elric material? That was started at Star*Reach, then moved to both Heavy Metal, with Frank Brunner’s artwork, and then Epic Illustrated, with your artwork for a few issues, and then to one of the early graphic novels for the Epic line. RUSSELL: That started out, for me, as a 90-page book for Star*Reach. I was doing an adaptation of “The Dreaming City” and Frank Brunner was doing a 20- or 30-page story, I forget which one [Interviewer’s note: Brunner’s adaption was entitled “Elric of Melnibone” and appeared in Heavy Metal in 1979.], but the book went through several changes, one of which was a fight we got in over who was going to do the cover. Brunner wanted to do the cover and I was saying that I was doing twothirds of the book and I wanted to do the cover. Somehow or another

we got split off. It was now going to be a 50-page book for another publisher, someone who actually wasn’t in comics. I remember meeting the guy in New York and than that fell through and my section was eventually sold to Marvel as a graphic novel. [Interviewer’s note: Actually, almost all early graphic “novels” were actually novellas. Few ran beyond 64 pages.] The first two chapters appeared as a preview in Epic Illustrated. This would have been probably 1981, as I was working on it in 1979 through 1980. Then I did “While the Gods Laugh,” which was intended to appear complete in Epic Illustrated. We knew that’s where it was going to go when we did it. That was all though Mike Friedrich. He’d gotten the licensing rights to Elric. We were doing a lot of work together back then. He’s been part of my career since Ant-Man, then on the Star*Reach books, and through his [talent] agency. He’s sort of retired now, but he’s still doing some work because my career and the contracts are so tied in with him over the years that he still follows up on some of that. ARNDT: Mike was the first person to suggest the book on Star*Reach that I’m writing, and he’s been very helpful in the preparation. RUSSELL: Did he by chance give you the background on the Elric material, because I’m not sure of who did what when and all that? ARNDT: The first Elric adaptation was by Roy Thomas for the Conan/Elric team-up in the color Conan comic back in 1972. Mike’s involvement came in 1976 when two college buddies, Robert Gould and Eric Kimball, did an original Elric story, not an adaptation, that somehow Michael Moorcock approved of and allowed to be published. Gould, of course, would go on to become the cover painter for the Elric series for quite a number of years and one of the more accomplished book-cover artists going. But at the time, I think he was a total novice, still in college, and that Elric story was his professional

Adapting an Epic Title page to part one of the Thomas/Russell adaptation of Michael Moorcock’s Elric tale, The Dreaming City, in the Marvel magazine Epic Illustrated #3 (Fall 1980). Elric TM & © Michael Moorcock.

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Darkness Falls (left) Russell’s interpretation of the Marvel Universe’s hellraising Mephisto, from a 1988 limited edition print. (right) Craig’s creepy Spider-Man/Scarlet Witch cover for Marvel Fanfare #6 (Jan. 1983). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

debut. The Star*Reach cover for the story was by Jeff Jones—a really striking portrait with Bernie Wrightson as the model for Elric. Steven Grant, the comic-book writer, had some kind of influence on that story as well. Apparently Moorcock also liked Mike’s presentation and publication of the story and licensed Friedrich to do actual adaptations of the character. Frank Brunner’s adaptation appeared at nearly the same time in both Heavy Metal and the last publication of Star*Reach’s—the collection Star*Reach’s Greatest Hits, in late 1979. His 20 pages were painted. Mike had run into money problems and couldn’t really publish either one of the adaptations. RUSSELL: That must be why that other guy came in. The one that I had to meet. I remember now—Brunner did the cover for that Star*Reach’s Greatest Hits collection. I really liked Jones’ Star*Reach cover. That was really sweet. ARNDT: Jones was very good at doing very commercial barbarian paintings, in an odd sort of way. He didn’t look anything like Frazetta’s barbarian work, which was very innovative at the time, or like the many Frazetta clones who would put the naked girl at the bottom of the page,

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crouching down on a pile of dead guys, while the hero stood above her swinging a giant battle axe. Jones’ work was very dynamic and eye-catching yet very moody and very mysterious at the same time. They were toughminded paintings with a gentler, fantasy-like edge. RUSSELL: Yeah, there was a poetic element to it, like Frazetta. It’s not just steroid-heads. There’s a glimpse of an entirely different world that the two of them would create strictly through the use of paint. It’s very difficult to do. Very few people can really get that other world in their paintings. What Jones could do so well was use negative space. Nobody used negative space like he did. He did black-and-white drawings and the white spaces were as interesting as what he actually drew. There are large areas of white in his drawings. Where other people would fill up everything with detail, he knew just where to have nothing there. ARNDT: In some ways that’s a sort of Toth approach to a page. RUSSELL: Yeah, that would be an artist to compare that to. ARNDT: Not that their artwork looked anything alike, but both of them positioned the white spaces in their pages to, as you said, give you something to look at that wasn’t really there. RUSSELL: Style-wise, they were two very dissimilar artists, but that approach, I think, comes, perhaps, from a common perception. ARNDT: You also did the Killraven graphic novel at around this same time? RUSSELL: That book was originally supposed to be serialized in Epic Illustrated, which Archie Goodwin was editing, not as the end to the 1970s series but as a continuation of the original storyline. But Marvel ended up having a hole in their graphic-novel schedule and they moved Killraven into the hole. What we planned on doing was just the right size. We added some pages

to the front to pad it out. That’s why that book came out as a single piece, but it was never intended to be that in the beginning. I was happy that it all appeared in a single volume—that’s better. ARNDT: I quite liked the story. The only real problem I ever had with that book is that godawful production on the cover. That white background shows every nick and fingerprint. After two readings it looked like it had been read two dozen times and left out in the sun. RUSSELL: You’re right. That cover showed all the marks. It’s funny, because if you have a slicker cover it wouldn’t have shown all that so much, but it was almost like a matte finish to the book that showed every mark. They should have used a color. It really did look fine when it was done, but two weeks later it didn’t look so hot. But my real problem with the book was that I wanted Petra Goldberg as the colorist. When I went to DC, even if I was just inking the book, I would ask for Petra to color it. But with that book, and with almost all those early graphic novels, the colorist was used to dealing with newsprint, which would take 100% yellow and soak it up to a point where it would not be too intense. But you put those same colors on glossy paper and it was just too intense. The blues were too blue, everything was just too much. The yellows in that book make my eyes bleed when I look at it. It was simply because of that mindset … that you colored for newsprint without adjustment for the new paper. I just wish I could dial down the color about 25%. I think it would look a lot better. ARNDT: Your book isn’t alone in that, though. Almost all the comic companies at that time struggled with the color appearing very garish on the Baxter paper or the Mando paper or the magazine glossy paper. RUSSELL: That was another type of atrocity. The Mando paper, that was just horrible. I still like good, not cheap, newsprint, but I also like a matte finish. I like the way color looks on that. Nice. When you get beyond glossy you have to be really careful. Most of the stuff today is done on computer, and they put in every bell and whistle they possibly can. It’s easy with computer color to over-color, over-produce. I really wanted to look at the computer color they did on the Barry Windsor-Smith Conan books, just to see what they did with the color on the one that I worked on, because the original color was so horrible. So I looked at the redo and it started off very well, with the sun rising behind the city on the first page, but then it just got into too much modeling, too much air-brushing and all of that stuff. It was unfortunate. And the scene where Conan walks into the Hall of Mirrors in “Hawks from the Sea,” or maybe it was “The Black Hound of Vengeance,” the original coloring by Glynis Wein had left that page almost entirely white. That was a perfect approach, because it was all mirrors and glass and there were just a few little light blue pastel reflections. In the Dark Horse thing it was brown. What the hell were they thinking? Brown isn’t mirrors! It doesn’t look like it’s reflecting light or anything. It was just … mud. ARNDT: I don’t think people, readers, give colorists enough attention, although they can really turn a page into something special. RUSSELL: Oh, yeah. At Marvel everybody always wanted Glynis Wein. She was a wonderful colorist. So was Petra. I always wanted Petra.

She wasn’t as sought after as Glynis but I thought she was just as good. She always colored the drawing, which means that if I had a little texture line going the side of a rock, Petra would have the color slightly different on either side of that texture line than the rest of the rock. She was really paying attention to the drawing. It wasn’t just putting a big blot of color on everything. She was just very sensitive. The Elric story “While the Gods Laugh” was reprinted by Eclipse or Pacific, or maybe it was First Comics. When they ran it they split the story into two parts for two different issues, and I recolored the entire story. So there are two completely different color versions out there by the same artist. ARNDT: It would be cool to contrast the two different versions. I have both versions. I should dig them out and do that. I’ve often wondered why, since singers do cover versions of other artists all the time, that comic artists don’t take a script they really admire and redraw it. RUSSELL: Actually, that’s a good idea. ARNDT: I mean, there wouldn’t be any point to redoing, say, “Master Race,” because you’re not going to do any better than the original… RUSSELL: Yes, it would be like redoing Casablanca. What would be the point? Don’t do that. ARNDT: I remember laughing because one guy sold the same story about ten years back to two different anthologies. Same script, just two different artists doing the art. RUSSELL: Really? That would be interesting and fun to compare. You know, I do these adaptations. I know that if another artist was doing the art for these stories, even though it is the same story, it would be a completely different thing.

Wilde Things A page from issue #2 (Mar. 2000) of The Ring of the Nibelung (The Rhinegold), published by Dark Horse Comics. (inset) Cover to Russell’s The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, published by NBM in 1994. © 1994 and 2000 P. Craig Russell.

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Have Sword, Will Travel Courtesy of Heritage, original cover art by Russell for the hardcover collection of his miniseries adapting Conan and the Jewels of Gwahlur. (inset) Cover to the third issue of the 2005 miniseries. Conan TM & © Conan Properties.

ARNDT: Yes! I only noticed these two stories because I happened to be reading both Dark Horse Presents and Negative Burn at roughly the same time. One version of the story was illustrated by Mike Perkins, a pretty decent English artist, and the other was done by Peter Snejberg, an excellent Danish artist. Both are very good artists. But the script was the exact same script, the exact same length, and they both appeared within a couple of months of each other. It was a sidebar story taken from The Lords of Misrule, a Dark Horse series which Snejberg actually drew. I wrote a letter to DHP’s editor at that time, and he wrote back saying he hadn’t been aware of it until I brought it to his attention and he wasn’t too thrilled about it. RUSSELL: Ha! Amazing! Well, you know, I did an adaptation of O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” for the last Star*Reach publication [Within Our Reach, 1991] and at the exact same time I was finishing up my artwork, Classic Illustrated came out with a new version of that story. You know I wasn’t the first person to adapt the Ring of the Nibelung. Gil Kane had his version out before mine.

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ARNDT: Gil actually started the Mowgli stories that you completed, didn’t he? RUSSELL: Yeah, he did the first four and I inked those. Then I did three more, so there’s still one that hasn’t been adapted yet. The fifth one. He did one through four and I did six, seven, and eight. Now I’m doing Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, which is basically The Jungle Book set in a graveyard. ARNDT: Oh, cool. I’ll be sure to get that when it comes out. I’m a big fan of Gaiman, and your version of Coraline is great. It does very well with students at my middle school library. RUSSELL: Great, that’s good to know. I’m trying to get Barry Windsor-Smith to do a chapter on it. I sent him an email the other day to see if he wanted to do the last chapter. It would be about 16 pages with a yearlong deadline, but I haven’t heard anything back yet. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I thought I would ask. Neil Gaiman mentioned to me today in an email— “Nobody draws trees like Barry Windsor-Smith.” ARNDT: That’s true, he’s got that drawing of the floating ghost in front of that batch of trees and your attention isn’t even really focused on the ghost. Your eye keeps going past it to all those damn beautiful trees. I hope you get him. You’ve got nothing to lose by asking. RUSSELL: That’s right. I’m doing the script and layouts and it will run 352 pages. Kevin Nowlan’s doing one. Scott Hampton. Jill Thompson. Tony Harris. We’ve got a bunch of good guys working on this book. Tony was one of the first people I asked. In fact, I was just working on his chapter earlier today. He’s doing “The Hounds of God” and it’s 46 pages that I’m laying out right now. I’m doing it the Harvey Kurtzman way—ruling the panel borders, lettering everything, drawing in the word balloons, and then sketching in the layouts, designing the page, sounding out the basic body language and expressions and stuff so that each artist knows what goes where. They’ll then do the finished B&W artwork. I’ll do one of the stories myself. I think I’m going to do the second chapter of the book. If Barry decides against it, I might do the last chapter myself as well. ARNDT: Well, I hope you get him, because that would be really cool, but if not, it will still be a great book. RUSSELL: Scott Hampton’s going to be doing the secondto-last chapter, the longest one, about 100 pages, and to follow that up with Windsor-Smith would be sweet. ARNDT: I love Scott Hampton’s stuff, too. I remember the first story of his I ever saw. It was in Alien Worlds [#3, July 1983], and was written by Bruce Jones, called “The Inheritors.” It was a beautiful story with simply stunning art. Later I went back and caught his debut in a Warren magazine, Vampirella, I think. It was a little three-pager, but it was very cool, too. RUSSELL: I couldn’t be happier to have Scott in the book. After The Graveyard Book, I’m planning on adapting Lois Lowry’s The Giver. That one will run 178 pages. ARNDT: That’s a great book! Another one to look forward to! Well, it’s running late and I know you’re got to go. I really appreciate you doing this interview. RUSSELL: And thank you. Bye!

John Wells

Calendar Man Karate Kid and the Legion vs. Toyman, by penciler James Sherman and inker Jack Abel, from the 1978 DC Calendar of Super-Spectacular Disasters. Courtesy of John Wells. TM & © DC Comics.

Amidst teenagers who could fly and project bolts of force, Karate Kid seemed like an odd fit in the Legion of Super-Heroes. And that was, creator Jim Shooter declared, the point. “Karate Kid was my solution to the Legion’s most glaring problem,” the writer said in Karate Kid #2 (May–June 1976), “lack of action. Too many Legionnaires simply pointed their fingers to use their power. Karate Kid meant action.” In that first story from 1966 (Adventure Comics #346, inset above), the Legionnaires were frankly dubious that any martial artist— even one using steel-shattering “super-karate”—could survive in their midst, but Karate Kid called out Superboy himself to prove otherwise. Truthfully, the scrappy teenager wasn’t that powerful, but he made an impressive showing and earned a spot on the team alongside three other newcomers. There was a wariness about the martial artist, though, that led to fears that he was an agent of the Khunds in issue #347’s sequel before fellow newbie Nemesis Kid revealed himself as the true spy in the Legion’s midst. The two-parter helped make Karate Kid a favorite of future Legion writer Paul Levitz. “I really enjoyed his intro story by Jim,” he tells BACK ISSUE. “The suspicion of him, the courage he showed taking on Superboy … just an interesting personality, with his self-developed

powers among the Legionnaires.” “KK was what we in the biz call an ‘effort character,’” writer Mike W. Barr observes, “a guy who had to earn his powers, rather than having them given to him by fortuitous pseudo-science. Batman is an effort character. Superman is not. The means of origin is almost never the most important factor in a character’s appeal, but it can be used to establish personality and worldview.” With the betrayal of Nemesis Kid and the early death of Ferro Lad, Adventure #346’s new recruits were reduced to a duo: Karate Kid and Princess Projectra, an illusion-caster from the medieval planet Orando who was literal royalty. When the LSH visited her homeworld in Adventure #362, the Kid kissed the young woman but immediately seemed to get cold feet. “I wanted to bring in all the royalty shtick, where she wasn’t allowed to fool around with these commoners, and have a hostility there,” Shooter explained in The Legion Outpost #8 (Summer 1974). Editor Mort Weisinger rejected the sequence, but the young writer kept the budding romance simmering in later stories. “I was sowing seeds there for future things between the Princess and Karate Kid,” Shooter continued, “getting her parents and everybody interested in what was going on.” Heroes Out of Time Issue

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Enter the Black Dragon (top) Val stands up for Jeckie on Mike Grell’s cover to Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes #209 (June 1975). Grell and writer Jim Shooter told Karate Kid’s origin in the next issue, from which the bottom page hails. Note KK’s Bruce Leeinspired visage. TM & © DC Comics.

THE DEADLY HANDS OF VAL ARMORR Returning to the Legion in 1975 after a five-year absence, Shooter was likely pleased that this element of class and status still informed the romance, figuring into a Cary Bates-scripted Princess Projectra story in Superboy #206. The young lovers were central to Shooter’s first new story in Superboy #209 (June 1975), where the Kid was among those trying to prevent Projectra’s death from the “Pain Plague.” More significant was a seven-page tale in Superboy #210, wherein Shooter wrote a full origin for his creation. In Adventure #367 (Apr. 1968), he’d revealed that the foundation of the orphaned Val Armorr’s “super-karate” lay in the training he received from the aged martial artist who raised him. The 1975 origin hinged on Karate Kid’s discovery that his unknown father had been a Japanese super-criminal called the Black Dragon … and that his beloved Sensei had slain him in combat. Learning that the villain had left behind a son and that the infant’s American mother Valentina Armorr was dead, the Sensei resolved to raise the boy. jim shooter In Karate Kid’s eyes, the revelation changed nothing. “The Black Dragon gave me life … but you gave me more—ideals and moral values,” he told the Sensei. “You made me a force for good. That’s more important than blood. You are my true father!” The story cemented a new look for Karate Kid that dated back to Superboy #193 (Feb. 1973). In that issue, artist Dave Cockrum had replaced the character’s unadorned orange costume with a striking update consisting of a black leggings and a shirt that was mostly covered by a gold-trimmed white gi secured with the requisite black belt. Curiously, Cockrum remarked in The Legion Outpost #3 (1973), he immediately “regretted” his design and returned to the Shooter original following that one story. It fell to his artistic successor Mike Grell to bring it back. After the Kid had his original outfit destroyed in issue #209, he pulled out the redesign and never looked back. “All credit for Karate Kid’s costume goes to the late, great Dave Cockrum,” Grell tells BACK ISSUE. “I was lucky enough to follow in this footsteps on the Legion of Super-Heroes and was given a folder containing copies of his costume sketches. I never would have made it through one issue without having that thing open on my desk.” It was Grell’s idea, though, to use issue #210’s origin as an opportunity to model the character’s features after those of the late martial-arts film star Bruce Lee, who’d died in 1973. “It is altogether fitting and proper that the greatest karate champion of the 30th Century should be modeled after the greatest martial arts expert of this century … the late, great Bruce Lee,” the artist wrote in Superboy #213. “This is just a small tribute to a man who has provided many hours of great entertainment to moviegoers everywhere.” Val Armorr’s Asian-American heritage was something that Jim Shooter had intended to be there from the beginning, but a combination of miscommunication and editorial discouragement had prevented it from taking place in the 1960s.

“THE TREND WAS OVER” Bruce Lee had been the foremost example of the martial-arts craze that swept the United States in the 1970s. Indeed, Marvel Comics had three representatives in the form of Master of Kung Fu, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, and Marvel Premiere (starring Iron Fist), while even often-overlooked Charlton was publishing Yang. By the time DC got into the act with Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter, the fad had definitely crested. Its first issue, in fact, appeared less than three months before the final new 24 • BACK ISSUE • Heroes Out of Time Issue

episode of David Carradine’s Kung Fu TV series aired on slowed down in endless sequentials. Karate Kid is the ABC in April of 1975. Paul Levitz later joked in The Legion opposite of all that. He is not totally Oriental, steeped Companion (2003) that this was “the period when the in proverbs and mystery. He is wide-open, impulsive standing joke about DC was when we started sometimes, even rowdy. Action, good pictures, putting out something, you could be and fast excitement are his forte.” absolutely sure the trend was over.” Ironically, the letterer assigned to create Nonetheless, editor Joe Orlando a logo for the comic book had conceived was assigned to come up with another his own version of Karate Kid as a boy title in that vein. Levitz—then Orlando’s in the early 1960s, even producing assistant—was batting around ideas one story with the character for an with colorist Carl Gafford in midearly fanzine. By the time DC’s 1975 when the latter came up Karate Kid debuted, John Workman with an idea that might survive the had already retired his fan creation waning fad. He “suggested that after learning of his similarity to an Karate Kid be spun off on his own obscure 1950s hero called Judo Joe. as a mag appealing to both Legion “It was weird doing the logo, and martial arts fans,” Levitz wrote years later, for the DC Karate Kid paul levitz in Karate Kid #1 (Mar.–Apr. 1976). book,” Workman remarked in a “Then publisher Carmine Infantino Jan. 20, 2010 post on Todd Klein’s pointed out the increased interest the series would blog (Kleinletters.com). “I did the exact same generate if it was set in the 20th Century, and we were Japanese-influenced logo for that book that I’d done off and running.” for my character when I was 11 or 12 years old.” Superboy editor Murray Boltinoff, under whose guidance its Legion series had seen a resurgence in popularity, was amenable to loaning one of his characters to another office. “He had no enormous attachments to any one of the Legionnaires at that point,” Paul Levitz remarked in The Legion Companion, and “wasn’t producing that much Legion material, so we got to try it.” Likewise, Jim Shooter—though uninvolved in the solo series—graciously penned a letter for Karate Kid #2 in which he articulated the qualities that he believed made his creation unique, emphasizing that he’d been created well before Iron Fist, Yang, and company: “Most of the Martial Arts heroes who followed Karate Kid in comics were pretty well disciplined, very Oriental and mysterious, or in a word, dull. Their fighting is weighted by heavy narrative and technical talk, and

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Action-Packed Solo Series (left) Grell’s cover to Karate Kid #1 (Mar.–Apr. 1976). Cover colorist Carl Gafford reveals in this article that he originally had a different background hue in mind. (right) Original Ric Estrada/Joe Staton art to a high-kicking interior page from #1. TM & © DC Comics.

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Samurai Night Fever (left) Barry Jameson (David Michelinie) dialogued Paul Levitz’s plot to KK #2, the source of this Estrada/Staton original. Courtesy of Anthony Snyder. (right) Karate Kid’s lettercol header, shown in both original art and color, printed forms. Scans courtesy of John Wells. TM & © DC Comics.

Beneath covers by Mike Grell, the new title’s stories were illustrated by an industry veteran and a relative newcomer. Ric Estrada had been drawing comic books since the early 1950s, while his inker, Joe Staton, had emerged in the early 1970s. Each had open, cartoony styles that complemented each other. “Joe Orlando told me that I stayed a lot more in line with Ric’s work than a lot of the finishers did,” Staton recalled in The Legion Companion. “Wally Wood would pretty much completely obliterate Ric. But I think I kept a fair amount of his basic stuff.” “I wanted to color it,” Carl Gafford tells BACK ISSUE, “but Orlando gave it to someone else (think it might have been John Albano, Jr.). Ironically, Tatjana Wood was on vacation the week the cover to #1 had to be colored, and I got to color that. Started with a black background, which Joe didn’t like, so I cut out the logo, characters, and type and put them on a red background.” A diehard Legion fan since the age of six, Paul Levitz successfully lobbied Orlando to let him write the book. His passion for the team was readily apparent throughout the script, which unobtrusively built on characterization and situations from stories long past. The central conflict set Karate Kid against his shortlived teammate Nemesis Kid, who still considered him a bitter enemy years later. Chasing the villain a millennium back to 1975, Karate Kid took their feud personally and sharply rejected the efforts of his fellow Legionnaires to help out. Instead, he stumbled into 20th Century New York City, and was initially rattled by the “primitive” living conditions but gradually won over by “an age when people did things.” In the 30th Century, his independent streak and desire to physically push and improve himself tended to set him apart from a society where people had things easy. The 1970s suited him, he declared, so he would stick around for awhile.

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That’s what he told the Legion, anyway. Jim Shooter, in his letter in issue #2, was the first to remark that the Kid’s rationale for ditching 2976 seemed “weak.” Paul Levitz agreed, noting that “there’s a lot more to KK’s 20th-Century trip, and it has to do with another character you created.” While Levitz’s explanation would eventually make it into the series, his own participation with Karate Kid was nearly at an end. Essentially, he explained in The Legion Companion, Carmine Infantino felt that a 19-year-old was “still a little fresh to be carrying the kinds of work I had, and wanted me pulled off the major assignments I was on at the time. In retrospect, I think it was probably a reasonable decision. My skills were not where they ought to have been at that time. So off I went to my assistant editor’s desk to play and polish for a little while, and by the time I came back, I was doing better.” Before he left, Levitz came up with a story for Karate Kid #2 that put the Legionnaire in opposition to Major Disaster, a 1960s nemesis of Green Lantern and the Flash who generated widescale catastrophes like floods and earthquakes. In an outrageous climax, Karate Kid stomped the ground so hard that he was able to reverse the directions of vibrations that the villain was using to cause a quake!

WHO IS BARRY JAMESON? Up-and-coming writer David Michelinie provided the dialogue for Levitz’s plot. The official script credit read “Barry Jameson,” a pseudonym that the duo intended to use on future collaborations but which wound up belonging to Michelinie alone. “My middle name is Barry, and my father’s name is James,” the writer elaborated in Best of the Legion Outpost (2004). “Hence, I am Barry, James’ son.” Despite the fact that he was writing the series solo from issue #3, Michelinie continued the charade, eventually using his alter ego on several horror stories in House of Mystery, as well.

While Levitz preferred to build on the past both to shape characterization and to draw in adversaries like Nemesis Kid and Major Disaster, Michelinie opted to create new villains for nearly all of his stories. In the case of the Gyro-Master in KK #7 (Mar.–Apr. 1977), that had been unintentional. The writer had meant the character to be the spinning rogue known as the Top, unaware that the character had just been killed in the pages of The Flash. Rather than junk the plot, Michelinie conceived a new criminal with a similar gimmick. In the view of some fans, Ric Estrada’s design for Gyro-Master left something to be desired, particularly a helmet that resembled a beanie with a propeller. Seeking villains motivated by more than just a desire for wealth, Michelinie developed a few characters who were victims of society. Issue #3’s Revenger was a scientist who went mad over the fact that the super-metal he developed was being used for munitions. The Japanese-born Master Hand (KK #4) waged a war against the encroaching influence of Western culture. He was augmented with a hook on one hand, a sword on the other—and a small army of Asian fighting men as backup. A few readers decried the cliché of using “Oriental adversaries” in every martial-arts comic book and Michelinie largely avoided that detail in subsequent issues. His greatest successes were probably Commander Blud (KK #5–6) and Pulsar (KK #7–9). Early in the series, the news media had reported on Karate Kid’s 30thCentury origins and Blud decided to take advantage of that. Obsessed with combat, the villain sought out Karate Kid in the hope of learning the participants in the next World War. Armed with that knowledge, he intended to ally himself with the losing side to prolong the conflict. Pulsar, notable as one of DC’s earliest African-American supervillains, was perhaps the most sympathetic of the Kid’s rogues’ gallery. Ostensibly a mild-mannered husband and father, Benjamin Day had been given an artificial atomic heart by mobsters who demanded that he act as a superassassin on their behalf. Learning the truth, Karate Kid successfully broke the mob’s hold on their victim and a grateful Pulsar surrendered to the authorities. Thanks to New York’s governor, the Legionnaire had been recognized as a special police officer in issue #4, a turn of events that infuriated local Police Commissioner Earl Banner. The lawman overcame his bias against vigilantes—Karate Kid, at least—in issue #8 after the hero prevented Pulsar from assassinating him.

Iris had helped Val get an apartment in a building owned by a dotty old woman named Emily Geichman, and that’s where trouble began to brew. Among the articles in hero’s new home was a floating “monitor globe” that spoke to Karate Kid of the tests that he was undertaking and how his ability to overcome obstacles would determine “the final verdict.” The globe was also rather protective of itself and appeared to have electrocuted Mrs. Geichman when she tried to watch her tenant’s “television” in issue #6. She wasn’t actually dead, of course, but she didn’t arise in the morgue until issue #8. Still, the incident raised questions in Iris’ mind, and she wasn’t alone. Princess Projectra showed up at the end of issue #8, determined to find out why some “primitive” redhead was beating her time. In the process, Jeckie got a good look at that monitor globe and was stunned to see her own father King Voxv peering back. As issue #9 closed, the ruler of Orando begged Karate Kid to return to the 30th Century and save his planet.

The Amazing Chan… …and the Swell Grell teamed up in 1977 for the cover of Karate Kid #5. Original art copy courtesy of Anthony Snyder (anthonyscomicbookart.com). TM & © DC Comics.

VAL’S GALS No supporting character in the book was of more interest to fans than Iris Jacobs. The red-haired, bespectacled schoolteacher was among the first people that Val Armorr met in the 20th Century in Karate Kid #1 and she quickly became smitten. For his part, Val appreciated her friendship and willingness to help him navigate the huge cultural differences between his era and hers. Still, every Legion fan knew that the hero had a girlfriend back in the 30th Century, and they were waiting impatiently for some development on that front. Heroes Out of Time Issue

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Topsy Turvy (top) Val vs. the Gyro-Master on the Mike Grell-drawn cover to Karate Kid #7 (Mar.–Apr. 1977). (bottom) Karate Kid and Princess Projectra kiss and make up on the last page of issue #10. By Jameson/ Estrada/Abel/Gafford. TM & © DC Comics.

The new crisis was a trap orchestrated by Sadaharu, a protégé of Val Armorr’s father who was willing to subjugate the entire kingdom on Orando for the sake of revenge against Karate Kid (who defeated him in Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes #210). Once again, the young Legionnaire proved he was the better man, helping save his opponent’s life when it appeared they were both going to die. Meanwhile, King Voxv explained to his daughter that Val’s exile to Earth’s “barbarous past” was an ongoing test of his courage and nobility to determine his worthiness to be her husband. Projectra was genuinely touched, but she was also concerned that Iris Jacobs may have compromised the deal. On the last page of issue #10, she pointedly asked Val, “Are you in love?” “Yes, Jeckie, I am,” he replied, as her face fell. And then Val kissed her. “With you!” That ought to have settled things, but it didn’t. Regardless of the fact that Karate Kid had saved his kingdom, Voxv expected his would-be son-in-law to return to the 1970s. “We had an agreement,” he sniffed. “Barry Jameson” wouldn’t be there to document it, though. David Michelinie left the series with Karate Kid #10 (Sept.–Oct. 1977) to launch his and Don Newton’s new Star Hunters feature in DC Super-Stars #16 that same month. [Editor’s note: See BI #34 to learn more about the Star Hunters.] For all intents and purposes, the departing writer was eulogized in an edition of the DC Profiles series in Secret Society of Super-Villains #12 (Jan. 1978). “Barry Jameson was created to write,” it began. “He almost has no other life besides his typewriter.” Crediting Levitz and Michelinie for getting him into the industry and citing Virgil North, Sergius O’Shaugnessy, Wesson Smith, and Bart Regan (pseudonyms of other DC writers) as his idols, Barry confessed a desire “to draw comics as well as script them. Those who have seen his artwork admit he is at least as good an artist as he is a writer.” In the short term, though, the 15-year-old prodigy was giving up comics to study molecular chemistry at “a major Nova Scotian university.”

FOREVER A LEGIONNAIRE During the first year of the solo title, a reader following only Superboy/ LSH would have had no inkling that Karate Kid had moved to the 20th Century at all. He continued to appear with the team at intervals— most prominently in issues #223–224—through the end of 1976, by which point his own title was a year old. With Jim Shooter moving on to Marvel Comics, Paul Levitz took the reins as Legion scripter effective with issue #225 and vowed that such inconsistencies would be a thing of the past, something helped by the fact that Superboy and Karate Kid now shared a common editor: Denny O’Neil. Consequently, Levitz could pick up where Karate Kid #10 left off and featured Val and Projectra prominently in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #231 that same month. Several months later, the writer used Karate Kid again in All-New Collectors’ Edition #C-56’s tabloid-sized Legion story, employing him as an expert on 1978 New York City when the team visited the past. Levitz was even announced as the new writer on Karate Kid, effective with issue #12, but those plans immediately changed. Issue #11 largely marked time, with Karate Kid being drawn into a testing ground of Major Disaster while traveling

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Superhero Team-Up (left) The tagline above the logo of Karate Kid #12 (Jan.–Feb. 1978) tried to slide this title away from its kung-fu roots. Cover by Rich Buckler and Jack Abel. (right) The Teen Wonder drops in for issue #14’s tango with Diamondeth, an altered Iris Jacobs. Art by Buckler and Frank Giacoia. TM & © DC Comics.

back to the 20th Century. Scripted by Jack C. Harris (“with additional material by Barry Jameson”), the story ended with Val’s reunion with Iris Jacobs, whom he unwittingly crushed emotionally by referring to her as just a friend. Karate Kid #12 (Jan.–Feb. 1978) went on sale with a new logo that letterer Todd Klein believes is by Gaspar Saladino. Inside, Ric Estrada was gone, replaced on the art by newcomers Juan Ortiz and Bob McLeod. Bob Rozakis, whose Teen Titans title had just been canceled, stepped in as the series’ latest writer under the supervision of new editor Al Milgrom. Among the new details were note card-shaped interludes spotlighting “Karate Kid’s Interplanetary Fighting Techniques.” They were, Rozakis explained in Best of the Legion Outpost, a way “to jazz [the book] up a little bit, as kind of a throwback to the little science fact things that they used to run in the books.”

KARATE KID, SUPERHERO Rather than alienate readers attracted to the martial-arts aspect of the comic book, the first 11 issues of the title had played down Karate Kid’s superhero background. Despite major or minor guest-appearances by other Legionnaires in most issues of the series, the team only appeared on the covers of KK #1 and 10. Rozakis certainly believed that his predecessors hadn’t exploited that connection to their advantage and penned a two-parter that ensured Superboy and the Legion would appear prominently on the covers of KK #12 and 13. The twist was that this wasn’t quite the group that Val Armorr was familiar with. Mysteriously tossed into the 1950s time period of Superboy, the disoriented Karate Kid assumed these guys were imposters because they didn’t recognize him. The fact that the Legionnaires were wearing the Silver Age versions of their costumes was a pretty big clue that they were from a time before Val joined the team, but it took a little while for everyone to catch on. Rozakis revealed in Best of the Legion Outpost that his directive “was basically, ‘Do whatever you can to turn it into a superhero book,’ which is why every issue had some kind of guest-star in it.” As the principal writer on Batman Family, he followed up the Legion story with a guest-shot by Robin the Teen Wonder, who joined Karate

Kid in fighting a rampaging crystalline woman called Diamondeth. The name was Milgrom’s variation on Rozakis’ preferred Diamondette, a designation that the writer was finally able to use for a Hero Hotline character in 1989. Whatever she was called, Diamondeth had a personal connection to Karate Kid: She was Iris Jacobs. Determined to prove she was as tough as Val’s alien princess, the schoolteacher had volunteered to be a test subject in a S.T.A.R. Labs experiment studying human adaptability. Unfortunately for her, a mysterious party tweaked the serum in her blood and transformed her into a mindless diamond woman. Once Val and Robin had immobilized her at the end of KK #14, the Kid took off for the 30th Century in the hope that its super-science could cure his friend. And that was precisely what the hero’s mysterious enemy wanted. Karate Kid was secretly being monitored by the Lord of Time, a Silver Age enemy of the Justice League who was collaborating with Major Disaster in a plot against the Legionnaire. The JLA nemesis regarded Val Armorr as “the key that will unlock a kingdom for me—a kingdom that will make me lord of all time!” The specifics of how that was going to happen would never be revealed, though, because Karate Kid #15 (July–Aug. 1978) was the final issue of the series. Through the Lord of Time’s intervention, Val and Diamondeth landed in an alternate timeline, one that was occupied by the mutated animals and strange denizens of another DC title, Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth. Ending on a cliffhanger that saw Karate Kid and Kamandi transformed into characters in a movie (fittingly, Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon), the story concluded in Kamandi #58. There, Kamandi’s alien friend Pyra revealed that she could tap the energy of a mysterious vortex to either cure Iris or send them on to his proper 30th-Century timeline. Val chose the latter and faded away. The Lord of Time, stymied in whatever his cryptic plan was, moved on to other things in Justice League of America #159–160 (Oct.–Nov. 1978). Rozakis added in Best of the Legion Outpost that Karate Kid would have stuck around in his native time period once he got there. The intent was to “play the triangle between Iris and Projectra and him, and see where it went from there. I think ultimately we had to Heroes Out of Time Issue

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Future Shocks (left) Divergent futures collide in Karate Kid #15. Original cover art by Rich Buckler and Jack Abel, courtesy of Anthony Snyder. (right) Kamandi #58, concluding the crossover. TM & © DC Comics.

bring him back to the Twentieth Century because that’s where the book was, but I don’t think anybody really expected the book was gonna go on that much longer.” The upside of being a canceled spin-off character was that there was still a home book to return to. Karate Kid materialized near the climax of the ambitious “Earthwar” saga in Superboy/LSH #244 and joined the team in defeating Mordru an issue later. Paul Levitz tied off the major loose end at the start of issue #246, when Val revealed that Iris had been successfully cured and would be returning home. After that, he continued, he’d be having “a nice long talk with Princess Projectra’s father.” Since Levitz left the series shortly thereafter, that talk was postponed until 1982 in a storyline that began with Voxv’s death and continued with an attempted overthrow of his kingdom. With the Legion’s help, the usurper was defeated and Queen Projectra took the throne. A royal wedding was in the offing and Val Armorr began to reflect on the path that brought him there.

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BAT-CHELOR PARTY Cut to 1983, where the venerable team-up Batman comic book The Brave and the Bold was winding down, soon to be replaced with Batman and the Outsiders. Slated to end with issue #200, B&B’s final issues featured an eclectic mix of guest-stars who’d never before appeared with the Dark Knight in those pages, and one of them—in B&B #198 (May 1983)—was Karate Kid. “Editor Len Wein and I decided to have some fun with B&B,” writer Mike W. Barr explains to BACK ISSUE, “to let readers experience the old girl in the role and purpose for which she had been created, as a book for experimentation, for the offbeat. The wedding of long-time paramours Princess Projectra and Karate Kid had been announced for Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #2 (1983). But I was wondering what would be done with the lingering plot threads from the Karate Kid title. “I had always liked Karate Kid, and his solo title as well. I even had a letter of comment published in KK #8, in which I called the title ‘the kind of book that made DC great.’ Speaking from the more mature perspective of over a third of a century later, KK was never a great comic, but compared to most of the DC titles of the late ’70s—arguably the company’s most lackluster period of its existence—it looked pretty good. “The title character spent most of his time trying to solve problems, a proactive attitude I always liked, rather than whining about them in imitation of the Marvel heroes of the day. Even so, Karate Kid came to the dance a bit late. Marvel had been flooding the stands with martial-arts books (Master of Kung Fu, Iron Fist, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, etc.) since 1973. By the time DC hopped into the pool the wave had nearly crested, giving new credence to the industry sentiment that by the time DC took heed of a trend, said trend was in hospice.

“So I queried Len about using an issue of B&B as a tie-in to the notice of B&B #198’s story to Legion penciler Keith Giffen when he Kid/Projectra nuptials, then I did my due diligence. I first asked Legion was on a panel devoted to the Legion at a New York convention. editor Karen Berger about the concept. She, understandably, wasn’t Keith dutifully read the notice word-for-word in a dead monotone, much concerned with tying up the KK series’ character arcs, but then extended his hand to arm’s length, crumpled my note into didn’t veto the idea, and referred me to LSH writer Paul a wad and pointedly let it drop to the floor. Hey, thanks for Levitz. Paul didn’t like anyone using the LSH without his the support. knowledge and had proscribed any such use of the “Even though royalties had begun to be paid by franchise without his permission ever since the team the time B&B #198 was printed, it was never anyone’s had appeared in World’s Finest #284 (Oct. 1982). thought to craft the story just to produce a royalty Paul okayed my idea and what became B&B #198 check (fortunately). The story was produced simply went into production. as a hopefully entertaining, certainly affectionate, “I supplied a plot which went to penciler and perhaps self-indulgent means of tying up some Chuck Patton (one of his first professional jobs) character business I thought needed resolving,” and inker Rick Hoberg, who both did swell work. Barr concludes. The story to ‘Terrorists of the Heart!’ is unusual for THE DEATH OF KARATE KID me in that it deals more with character motivation Karate Kid and Queen Projectra were wed in LSH and interaction rather than plot in a manner Annual #2, but Val Armorr’s days were already mike w. barr perhaps reminiscent of Robert Kanigher. This was numbered. “I told Paul Levitz that I wanted to kill probably deliberate; if you’re going to experiment, Karate Kid,” Legion co-plotter and penciler Keith go all the way. I had edited LSH a few years earlier and enjoyed my first time dealing with any of its continuity Giffen declared in Comics Interview #1 (May 1983), “and he told me to calm down.” But Giffen persisted and his dream came true in as a writer.” Legion of Super-Heroes #4 (Nov. 1984). Awakened from a sound sleep, Emily At the height of an attack by the Legion of Super-Villains, Geichman was stunned to find her former Val and Projectra squared off against Nemesis Kid, who very tenant standing over her and inquiring nearly beat Karate Kid to death. Aware that he was not going about the whereabouts of Iris Jacobs. The to survive, Val Armorr made his dying moments count and location in question was Gotham City and destroyed part of the alien technology that the LSV was using the wheels were in motion for a meeting to transport Orando into another dimension. In the following with the Batman. First, though, the Kid managed to touch base with his old friend, who kissed him warmly the moment they were reunited. Before they could speak further, Val caught a TV report that Pulsar was on the loose and felt obligated to track him down again. Oblivious to what was coming, the good-hearted Iris had just taken in a battered woman named Katy, unaware that the supposed mugging victim was actually a murderer simultaneously being sought by the Dark Knight and the remnants of the Black Heart terrorist cell that she’d just betrayed. Pulsar was also working for the killers, eventually revealing that the mob had murdered his family in retaliation for his 1977 betrayal. “Any decent feeling I ever had died with ’em,” he said. Inevitably, Batman and Karate Kid crossed paths, compared notes, and converged on Iris’ apartment just as the killers did. In the aftermath, Pulsar was dead—a victim of his atomic heart—and the other terrorists were captured … including Katy, pinned down by Iris herself. The conclusion, Barr recounts, was not entirely happy. “Iris thinks KK has returned to warm up what she believes is their romance, and is heartbroken when she realizes he has returned only to deliver an invitation to his wedding to Princess Projectra. This does not show KK in a very flattering light, but his totally oblivious attitude to Iris’ feelings was in its way realistic, neglectful without being deliberately cold. In two words, totally guy-like. “There was to be no extra promotion for this mini-prologue to LSH Annual’s wedding—can’t blame DC for that—but I did slip a

A Cowled Shoulder to Cry On Writer Mike Barr used a Batman team-up to tie up loose ends from KK’s solo series in The Brave and the Bold #198 (May 1983). Cover (above) by Jim Aparo; interior art (right) by Chuck Patton and Rick Hoberg. TM & © DC Comics.

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Happily Never After (left) Val and Jeckie got hitched in Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #2 (1983). Cover by Keith Giffen and Larry Mahlstedt. (right) This 1984 movie’s title raised the eyebrows of DC Comics’ lawyers. Legion of Super-Heroes TM & © DC Comics. The Karate Kid © 1984 Columbia Pictures; name used by permission of DC Comics.

issue, Projectra broke the neck of the man who killed her husband and said her goodbyes to the Legion. “We’d like to think [Karate Kid’s] death in battle was foreshadowed from the day they both joined the Legion in Adventure Comics #346,” Paul Levitz wrote in LSH #4. “In consequence, this story is affectionately dedicated to Jim Shooter, who scripted that story, creating not only the two of them, but Princess Projectra and Ferro Lad at the same time.” Giffen would later remark in BACK ISSUE #22 (June 2007) that “Karate Kid was the one character that rubbed me the wrong way,” even if he couldn’t fully articulate why. Paul Levitz conceded that the death sentence was “definitely [Giffen’s] vote,” adding “I was fond of Karate Kid, just on a nostalgic basis, but I was prepared to offer him up.” In a 2012 interview for BACK ISSUE, Levitz added, “In a good collaboration, you have to give things up to a collaborator … and the inherent potential in the Nemesis Kid-KK-Jeckie moment was good raw material. I think it was the first ‘justifiable homicide’ by a hero in the DCU.” If there’s an irony in the character’s death, it may be the fact that the fifth highest-grossing movie of 1984 was a crowdpleaser entitled The Karate Kid. Starring Ralph Macchio (in the title role) and Pat Morita, the film was entirely unrelated to the comic-book character, but it could have potentially cost DC their claim to the name. Future DC editor Robert Greenberger was working for Starlog magazine at the time “and reading Variety every morning,” he tells BACK ISSUE. “I noticed Columbia Pictures was putting a movie called Karate Kid into production, so I called Mike Flynn, then DC’s PR guy, and asked if there was a connection. It was the first they heard of it and did some digging.” Thanks to Greenberger’s tip, DC was able to work out a deal with the filmmakers and the closing credits included a thank-you for permission to use the name. Flynn no longer remembers the conversation but doesn’t doubt that it happened. “How it might have worked,” he says, “is that I might have mentioned it to Paul Levitz, to whom I reported (unless it was after DC hired Bruce Bristow, in which case I might have mentioned it to him first, though that’s the kind of thing I probably would have mentioned directly to Paul), who might have mentioned it to Warner’s attorneys. But I certainly wouldn’t have taken any more active a role than that. It would have been me mentioning it to someone, but there are a lot of someones I could have mentioned it to at the time.” 32 • BACK ISSUE • Heroes Out of Time Issue

Whoever that someone was, their case was made immeasurably stronger thanks to the character’s 1970s promotion to a leading man. The situation would have been quite different with, say, a movie called “Saturn Girl” that used a name of a figure who was only one of many members of the Legion of Super-Heroes. “The fact that there was a Karate Kid comic book and trademarked logo had everything to do with that deal,” Bob Rozakis tells BACK ISSUE. “I remember talking about it with someone at the time and I believe there was some small amount of money as well. There would not have been much of a case with a character who’d never had a series lead, like Saturn Girl.” In an odd way, the greatest legacy of Karate Kid may not have been its stories, but rather its mere existence! In the increasingly malleable fabric of comics continuity, few deaths are really permanent, and Karate Kid was no exception. Beyond an actual young successor named Myg who debuted in 1985, half a dozen other iterations of Val Armorr have appeared in the past three decades. However much each may have differed from one another, they all still adhered to the basic template articulated by Jim Shooter: “Karate Kid meant action.” JOHN WELLS is a comics historian specializing in DC Comics who has served as a resource for projects ranging from Kurt Busiek’s The Power Company to Greg Weisman’s Young Justice animated series. He is the author of the book American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960–1964 (TwoMorrows, 2012).

Neal Adams Fires Back in CBC #3! ™

A Tw o M o r r o w s P u b l i c a t i o n

No. 3, Fall 2013

Journey through the artist’s BATMAN: ODYSSEY with COMIC BOOK CREATOR! COMIC BOOK CREATOR #3 spotlights NEAL ADAMS’ BATMAN: ODYSSEY (the recent 13-issue DC Comics mini-series written and drawn by the comics legend), in a unique, comprehensive examination of an artist and his work. We grapple with the question: is the book a masterwork for the ages, or an epic fail of mythic proportions? CBC goes in deep with the creator to examine his intent, with Adams vigorously responding to critics, as we balance the successes and weaknesses of the quintessential Batman artist’s ultimate take on a beloved character — all behind a new Neal Adams Darknight Detective cover, and lushly illustrated throughout with a bodacious bevy of Batman art by the master illustrator! Plus we interview SEAN HOWE about his hit book, MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY; chat with DENYS COWAN about his work and much more; honor CARMINE INFANTINO; check in on Harbinger writer JOSHUA DYSART; take a wide look at the biggest comic book of them all, WHAM-O-GIANT COMICS; present the final installment of our LES DANIELS remembrance; and, as always, check out HEMBECK! Be here in October for CBC’s tremendous third ish! (And don’t miss next summer’s double-size Annual, featuring CBC editor JON B. COOKE and JORGE KHOURY’s long-awaited SWAMPMEN material, the definitive history of the most horrifying creatures of all! Subscribe now, and it’ll be included in your subscription, in all its murky goodness!)

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The X-Men were dead. The year was 1970 and, for all intents and purposes, the X-Men died. Issue #66 (Mar. 1970) marked the last original story in X-Men. The comic book continued with reprints from better days and members of the X-Men made guest appearances in other comics, but they had essentially ceased to be a team and a regular part of the Marvel Universe, largely languishing in obscurity over the next five years— —until August 1975, when writer Chris Claremont and artist Dave Cockrum breathed new life into the misspent mutants. Issue #94 of X-Men marked a new chapter, with the introduction of a new team. (Technically, the new team was introduced the month before in Giant-Size X-Men #1, written by Len Wein.) Cyclops was the only original member of the X-Men remaining, the rest of the team consisting of new recruits from across the globe, including a certain Canadian with claws who had first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #181. The “All New, All Different” X-Men were a hit. Cockrum remained on X-Men until issue #107 (Oct. 1977), when he was succeeded by artist John Byrne. While Wein, Claremont, and Cockrum gave birth to the new X-Men, Byrne helped give depth and breadth to the characters and further expanded the mutant Marvel universe. Claremont and Byrne were a powerful combination and the X-Men flourished under their combined creative talents. Chris Claremont comments on the strength of their collaboration: “When you’re working with someone like John, there’s no point in doing full scripts. It’s an inhibition to his creativity, to his imagination, and to his own ability to contribute to the story. That’s why a significant number of those issues labeled us as ‘co-plotters.’ The whole point was that we were a collaborative team, very much as Dave and I were before and were once again, when he came back following John’s departure. If I wrote out a plot, it was for the penciler so he’d have a reference of how the story was structured, but it was also for my benefit as well, because the notes I put in the plot were as much for me to write the script as it was for John or Dave to draw it. If you’re working with a brilliant collaborator, a brilliant partner, why shortchange his contribution in any way at all? You want to give him every chance he can to tell the story as powerfully and evocatively as he knows how. And that, in turn, hopefully, will give me more visual inspiration to finish the job with words as effectively or more so.”

TRADING PLACES So, having taken the X-Men to new heights, introducing new characters like Kitty Pryde and storylines like the Hellfire Club and the Phoenix Saga, what did Claremont and Byrne do? They killed the X-Men. [Spoiler alert: If you have not read the X-Men story “Days of Future Past,” you owe it to yourself to do so. Stop now, and pick up a copy of the trade paperback or back issues before proceeding.]

No Mutants’ Land Detail from the startling cover to X-Men #141 (Jan. 1981), part one of “Days of Future Past.” Art by John Byrne and Terry Austin; colors by Glynis Wein. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

34 • BACK ISSUE • Heroes Out of Time Issue

Dewey Cassell

Grave Matters (top) Dead-hero headstones, from page 4, X-Men #141. (bottom) The death of Franklin Richards. Original Byrne/Austin art to page 19 of issue #141, courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

In issue #141 (Jan. 1981), the X-Men began a two-part story called “Days of Future Past,” which told of how the consciousness of an adult Kate Pryde was sent back in time to trade places with her younger self, so that she might persuade the X-Men to prevent the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly by the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, led by Mystique. History noted that the murder of Senator Kelly led to the reactivation of the Sentinel program. (Sentinels were giant robots used to hunt mutants, first created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in issue #14 of X-Men.) The Sentinels determined that the best way to protect the country was to take it over. They classified people into one of three categories— human (and therefore allowed to have children), anomalous (possessing mutant potential and therefore not allowed to have children), and mutant (hunted down and killed or interred and forced to wear collars that inhibited their mutant abilities). The mutant internment centers were reminiscent of World War II, reminding the reader at best of the Japanese internment camps in the US and at worst of the Nazi concentration camps. One of the most chilling images from the story was of Kate walking through the mutant internment center and passing by a graveyard filled with tombstones marking the final resting place of some of the greatest heroes of the Marvel Universe— Professor X, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Thing, Human Torch, Iceman, Angel, Beast, and others. The Sentinels took the lives of countless heroes and villains, not all of whom were mutant, and they buried them in a place the survivors would see every day. The story is told with great sensitivity and compassion, not dwelling on the precise means by which Kate is able to make the “timeswitch,” but rather on its implications for the people at both ends of the spectrum. The transference is accomplished with the aid of a mutant Rachel, who is a telepath, later revealed (though not in this story) to be the daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey. When Kate regains consciousness in the body of Kitty Pryde, she tells her story with earnest to the X-Men, persuading them of her sincerity and reacting emotionally at seeing old friends alive again. While Kate is accompanying the X-Men to Washington, D.C., to try to stop the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the friends she left behind in the future are trying to prevent Armageddon. The Sentinels are on the threshhold of expanding their dominance beyond North America, at which point the other nations of the world have vowed to retaliate with nuclear force. Wolverine, who has been helping the Canadian resistance, has freed the remaining members of the X-Men from their Bronx internment center, including Storm and Colossus (carrying the body of Kate, his wife, who remained unconscious while possessing the mind of Kitty), as well as Franklin Richards (son of Reed and Sue Richards) and Rachel. Magneto, confined to a wheelchair (in a twist of irony), remains behind to create a diversion, though it will mean his death. This motley mutant crew makes their way toward the Baxter Building, headquarters of the Sentinels, to attempt to destroy it. In the end, they are not successful. They manage to destroy a number of Sentinels along the way, but at a high price. As the story draws to a close, only Rachel and an unconscious Kate remain, hiding outside the Baxter Building. One of the most shocking images in the closing pages of the story is of Wolverine being vaporized by a Sentinel, leaving behind only his adamantium-laced skeleton.

Heroes Out of Time Issue

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That future was 2013. The date was chosen for a reason, as Claremont explains: “We were looking on the characters of the X-Men as real people, or [as if] they had a real lifespan. Therefore Kitty, who was 13 in the half of the story that was the present, was a woman of her 40s down the line. Ororo, for example, in 1980, was in her very late 20s, very early 30s. Logan was conceivably that, if not more. For all of them, we wanted a time when it was within the conceivable lifespan of the characters, but far enough in the future that there was an element of ‘maybe/maybe not.’” One of the interesting aspects of the story is that it was “ONLY TIME WILL TELL” told in only two parts. In the present age of the 12-part When asked what prompted Byrne and him to do a timecrossover limited series, it seems inconceivable that you travel story, Claremont replies, “I think John was pretty would tell such a compelling story with such brevity. much at the end of his run, or he felt he was, and Claremont elaborates, “Our feeling, creatively and we’d just come off ‘The Death of Phoenix,’ and I editorially at the time, was you get on, you say your think the attitude of both of us was, ‘How can we piece, you get off. If you look over that entire run of top this?’ We’d also just introduced Kitty and we stories, it is basically spinning off the same dynamic wanted to integrate her into the team and reveal a Stan would use with Jack Kirby on The Fantastic Four sense of significance to her presence. It wasn’t that or Thor. You have maybe an issue to suggest the she was just this new little kid that had suddenly coming story arc, you have an issue to introduce the hooked up with the X-Men, but that there were adversary and set up the crisis, and an issue to resolve consequences, potential consequences. And it was it. It was two issues, get in, say your piece, get out. also a really cool story.” None of this ‘Take five issues, fold up the trade Time-travel stories were not unique, but it was chris claremont paperback, and so on’ that seems to be so prevalent somewhat unusual at that time for one to paint such today. I also think that the practical result, in terms a dismal view of the future. As for the inspiration for of a story like ‘Days of Future Past,’ was it had an the story, Claremont recalls, “I think we were both interested, each of us in our own way, in the work of both Jules Verne impact and a dramatic and emotional power that stringing it out and the classic Time Machine and we were both playing on it. And we over three, four, five issues would have undercut considerably.” You might imagine that a story like this would meet some editorial wanted to build off what we’d just done on ‘Phoenix,’ create a sense resistance, especially given the reader response to the death of that the present is not so settled and the future of these characters as individuals, as a team, as a concept, is not something that Phoenix. Claremont remembers, “Killing Jean had a tremendous could be taken for granted; that they looked great, watching them impact. The reader mail on it was impassioned, extraordinary, defeat adversaries in the present day, but 20, 30, 40 years down vehement, pro and con. Nobody thought we were serious, and yet the line, there are all sorts of interesting and disturbing possibilities. every subsequent issue made it clearer that we were, that she wasn’t I mean, in a way, we’d killed off Phoenix—now we were killing off going to come back, that this was a done deal. I think one of the things that I wanted to make absolutely clear as part of the team’s everyone else.” In her afterword to the 1989 Marvel trade paperback collecting relationship with each other, and with the readers, is that death is the “Days of Future Past” stories, former editor Louise Simonson death. There is a risk. Kitty walking through the door is just not, wrote, “In January of 1981, Phoenix had recently died, and the ‘Hi, I’m a kid, I’m a superhero, and everything’s cool.’ It’s, ‘No, you’re readers of The Uncanny X-Men were aghast. It was then that Chris a kid, you’re a superhero, and you could die.’ I think it helped make Claremont and John Byrne gave us a vision of even greater disaster— the consequences of the X-Men’s actions, as well as the risks of their a bleak, apocalyptic future where mutants are pursued by robot adventures, that much more real.” That said, the fact that “Days of Sentinels and psychic ‘hounds,’ interned in concentration camps Future Past” was a time-travel story afforded them some leeway. As and, one by one, slaughtered. Chris and John have strong personal— Claremont notes, “It’s the future. In the future world, Magneto was sometimes disparate—visions and their synthesis on the X-Men a hero, and he ends up where he feared the most, in a concentration produced some of their finest work. But their dual vision, their ‘future camp. We killed off Franklin Richards, we killed off damn near everybody. history,’ remains. Its seeds are in the past. Its reality flavors the We established Rachel. It’s the beauty of a possibly [dystopian] future that all bets are off.” present. And its future is almost upon us.” In the “present day” of 1980, Kate and the X-Men did succeed in preventing the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants from killing Senator Kelly. Just as the assassination attempt fails, Kate Pryde is drawn back through time and the consciousness of Kitty Pryde returns, leaving the teenager bewildered, with no recollection of what has transpired. As the story draws to a close, the Angel ponders whether or not they succeed in changing the future. Wisely, Claremont and Byrne do not answer the question, but rather have Professor X simply say, “Only time will tell.”

Logan’s Last Stand A Sentinel fries Wolverine on page 17 of Uncanny X-Men #142 (Feb. 1981). Was this the end of future-Logan, or did his healing factor kick in? Chris Claremont ain’t sayin’. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Perfect Storm Courtesy of Heritage, another glimpse at the Byrne/Austin team’s wizardry in original art form, as “Days of Future Past” climaxes. Page 23 of issue #142. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

“Days of Future Past” is reminiscent of another great apocalyptic science-fiction story, the 1984 motion picture The Terminator, as Claremont points out: “I think ‘Days of Future Past’ was the first primal presentation of that consequence, that you had the team duking it out at two different ends of the timeline and they have no way of knowing, ‘Did it work or did it not?’ ‘Did we succeed or did we fail?’ Kitty’s back. Kitty’s herself again, but she was unconscious in the future so she doesn’t know, ‘Did we stop the Sentinels? Did we not?’ They’ll have to live for the next 20 or 30 years to find out. But even when they do, it’ll be too late. And, of course, the undercurrent punchline is that each step of the way, Senator Kelly becomes more and more the implacable foe of mutantkind that he started out as, that he was seen as in ‘Days of Future Past.’ So, you know, the idea was, ‘No matter what we do, can we change this? And no matter how we change it, does it really make a difference?’ In effect, it’s the John Connor conundrum.” Not that there weren’t positive moments in the story, certainly from the perspective of Kitty/Kate Pryde. Claremont recalls, “We needed a viewpoint character for whom this was all fresh, both the readers’ awareness of her and how she dealt with everything. And in a sense, it all comes through where she wakes up after the transition. Up to now, she had always been presented as nervous, anxious, scared of Kurt, and the first thing she does is give him a hug and a kiss, saying, ‘You’re alive.’ Ideally, it was a way of saying that over time, things change, that everyone grows, everyone changes, hopefully for the better.”

WITHSTANDING THE TEST OF TIME In 2001, fans voted X-Men #141 the 25th greatest Marvel comic book of all time. The story “Days of Future Past” has been revisited, expanded upon, and parodied numerous times since its original publication. The story has also been adapted multiple times for various iterations of the animated X-Men cartoons. Imitation, as they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. Asked about the prospects for a sequel, Claremont is thoughtful, but dubious: “Bear in mind, within the context of ‘Days of Future Past,’ the Sentinels were only dominant in the continental United States. One has no sense, other than the fact that everybody else is gearing up to defend themselves against the Sentinel onslaught, what Captain Britain and Excalibur are doing over in London. There are superheroes in Europe, there are superheroes in Russia—you never know who might be with the Black Widow gearing up for the forthcoming fight. And for all anyone knows, appeals have already gone out to extraterrestrial forces to come help. On the other side of it, just because we see Wolverine’s body seemingly reduced to claws and skeleton, it doesn’t mean if you came back six months later, he wouldn’t have healed. It’s an unsung story, I guess you could say. But then the story would lose a lot of its integrity, I think.” One thing is for certain: Come 2014, X-Men: Days of Future Past will be a major motion picture from 20th Century Fox, the sequel to the 2011 X-Men: First Class movie. It is being directed by Brian Singer, who helmed the first two X-Men movies. The extent to which the new movie will mirror its namesake comic-book story is not yet fully known. As of this writing, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen have signed on to reprise their roles as Professor X and Magneto, respectively, as have James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, who played the characters in First Class, suggesting that Singer will somehow marry the two X-Men movie incarnations, likely meaning a somewhat different interpretation of the story from the comic book. However, Mark Millar, comics creator and creative consultant for Fox, spoke to

SFX magazine in issue #228 (Oct. 2012) about the upcoming film with great optimism: “It’s X-Men meets The Terminator. You’ve got robots, you’ve got time travel, you’ve got superheroes—it’s got everything in one film.” The Uncanny X-Men comic book would go on to even more success over the years, surpassing many of the other Marvel titles and becoming a cornerstone of the company and the industry. But “Days of Future Past” was a perfect storm—a unique combination of creators at the peak of their talents, rendering a story that stands the test of time. Claremont puts it this way: “The extraordinary feeling for me is, over the last dozen issues of Uncanny X-Men that John and Terry [Austin], Tom Orzechowski, and Glynis Oliver and I worked on, it was like doing a really great ongoing jazz set, you know? We were all working at the top of our game and all the pieces just meshed. The threats that the mutants faced were primal and relentless; and that the stakes were about as high as you could want. The characters, the stories, the conflicts, all of them coalesced as wonderfully as any creator—and I would suspect any audience— could wish for.” Sincere thanks to Chris Claremont for his recollections of “Days of Future Past.” DEWEY CASSELL is a frequent contributor to BACK ISSUE and author of the book Marie Severin: The Mirthful Mistress of Comics, available from TwoMorrows Publishing. He is currently working on a book about Herb Trimpe.

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The New Mutants Special Edition #1 (1985) could well be THE comic book that captures the essence of the 1980s. With writing and trademark characterization by legendary X-Men scribe Chris Claremont and lavish, detailed art by up-and-comer Arthur Adams, this 64-page special edition was an experience no comic-book fan could forget. “Chris and I collaborated in the regular Marvel style,” explains Art Adams. “He gave me his normal plot which had a lot of stuff in it, and the way I draw, I added my own things in there. The next time Chris and I worked together, he was aware of that and kept adding in more and more things for me to draw. It was a lot of fun.” Together, Claremont and Adams captured the look and feel of Asgard through its landscape and characters, relying heavily on Thor visionary Walter Simonson’s revamp of this iconic setting. While the location made an interesting background, Claremont broke the New Mutants down to their core beings, challenged them, and changed them. This issue propelled Arthur Adams into the realm of superstar artists of the 1980s. His rich and detailed penciled art was breathtaking, and Adams put his own unique and memorable take on these teen heroes. The veteran inking of Terry Austin gave Adams’ penciled art much more depth and definition, creating some of comics’ best art of the 1980s. “I had spent time with Chris Claremont at various conventions,” says Adams, “and he knew that I was wrapping up the Longshot limited series with Ann Nocenti, who was the editor on The Uncanny X-Men and The New Mutants at the time, and they both thought that this might be a fun project for me to do.” Of Adams’ versatile art style, Claremont stated in the introduction to Modern Masters vol. 6: “He can give his writers the most majestic arthur adams and outrageous of wide-screen spectacles, be they in space or the realms of fabled Asgard. And yet focus in on moments so individual and personal, they can’t help but win your heart, or break it.” Along with Uncanny X-Men Annual #9 (1985), this two-issue story was the 1985 summer crossover event later called “The Asgardian Wars.” It was Claremont’s clever idea to throw the New Mutants into Walt Simonson’s Asgard. Underneath that epic fantasy storyline was genuine character growth and development and teen mutant angst. And Asgard provided a strange and fertile setting to foster that character development. Claremont was all about characters, and his characterization took center stage in this epic story. “I had a good idea of who the New Mutants were before I started,” recalls Adams. “Even though I was working the West Coast, I visited Marvel Comics semi-regularly in those days, so I was in the office at the beginning of the New Mutants. No one had been overly crazy about the name ‘New Mutants,’ but at that time, they didn’t want another book called ‘The X-Men.’ Little did they know what the future held? Eventually, they’re not new anymore.”

Dripping with Detail Cover to New Mutants Special Edition #1 (1985). Art by Arthur Adams and Terry Austin. Adams photo courtesy of Woolennium/Wikimedia Commons. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Jason Shayer

Mean Girls The Enchantress tortures Magik on page 32 of the Special Edition. Words by Claremont, art by Adams and Austin, and colors by Christie Scheele. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

“HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS”: NEW MUTANTS SPECIAL EDITION #1 “The New Mutants Special Edition was originally meant to be a New Mutants Annual,” says Adams. “Then Chris handed in a script and I quickly thumbnailed it to figure out how long it was going to be, and talked about it with editor Ann Nocenti. We realized that it was going to be too big for the one Annual.” After a humbling defeat in the X-Men and Alpha Flight miniseries, Loki’s pride demanded revenge, but he was bound by a vow not to harm the X-Men. Loki sidestepped his vow by dispatching the Enchantress to capture the X-Men: “Be inspired, Enchantress. I wish their agonies to be as long-lasting as they are exquisite.” Loki plotted to strike against the X-Men through their leader, Storm, who had recently lost her mutant abilities, and to offer to restore her weather powers: “I wonder what price she would pay to them back … to become a goddess in fact as well as name?” You know the saying, “If you want something done right…” The twist here was that Storm was vacationing with the New Mutants. As the story turned to the New Mutants, they were enjoying a quiet moment on a beach in Greece and lamenting over their place in a world that hated mutants. “It’s too bad we can’t find ourselves another world,” said Doug Ramsey, the New Mutant known as Cypher. As another saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for.” Cue the Enchantress and her demon warriors, who mistake the New Mutants for the X-Men. They defeated the New Mutants and dragged them back to Asgard. Illyana surprised an arrogant Enchantress and attempted to teleport the team, but the Enchantress disrupted her efforts and scattered the New Mutants throughout the nine realms of Asgard. While their placements were contrived, it was more strategic as Claremont craftily put them into environments that would best test them and allow them to grow. These developed plot points were so successful that they would echoed throughout the history of these characters, in particular with Dani Moonstar and Rahne Sinclair. Adams’ meticulously detailed art, complimented by the fine inking of Terry Austin, shined from the very beginning, particularly on the second page that depicted a contemplative and scheming Loki sitting upon Hlidskjalf, the High Seat of Asgard. “Loki’s costume was based on Jack Kirby’s and John Buscema’s designs,” mentions Adams. “For whatever reason at that time, no one really liked the Enchantress’ costume—I drew a whole bunch of different versions, none of which I was really crazy about. It was fun stuff. I looked into a couple of Viking history and Norse Gods books, and, of course, I had all of Walt Simonson’s Thor at the time and all of the Kirby Thor run.”

KARMA Xi’an Coy Manh, the New Mutant known as Karma, struggled with the after-effects of being mind-controlled by a psychic entity known as the Shadow King, who had left her body severely obese. She found herself in the middle of a desert, which only amplified her desire to end her life. However, her self-loathing was put aside after rescuing a young girl who was also lost in the desert. Xi’an stayed alive to care for the girl, and that selfless act allowed her to regain her confidence and to take responsibility for not only the girl, but for herself. Interestingly, when Xi’an was rescued, the young girl suddenly disappeared, and all Xi’an was left with was a white string, the sign of the three Norns, the fates of Asgard who obviously had their own interests in keeping her alive.

WARLOCK Both Adams and Claremont had a lot of fun playing with Warlock, using his alien abilities to change his shape and interact with the physical world around him in his unique and usually humorous way.

“Warlock was always a lot of fun,” says Adams. “Bill Sienkiewicz, who had co-created Warlock, described to me that Warlock was made of the black-hole material from the old Warner Bros. cartoon. And for some reason what stuck in my head was Warner Bros. cartoon, so I just tried to make him fun and silly and very emotive because he’s supposed to be new to being alive and new to being on Earth; I wanted all his reactions to be big. Warlock was complicated to draw, especially the way that I drew him. His reactions had to be big so that you could see what was going on with him.” [Editor’s note: The cartoon referenced above is “The Hole Idea,” released in 1955.] Warlock found himself in the realm of Hel, and faced with this perilous predicament he transformed himself in Ann Nocenti and Art Adams’ creation, Longshot. “I think that was probably my idea,” admits Adams, “and it’s one I kind of regret as it was a bit too silly, but it did help advertise our book.”

CYPHER The teleportation spell dropped Doug Ramsey near an Asgardian mead hall, and he quickly found that his physical shortcomings were enlarged as the typical Asgardian was super-strong by comparison. “I’ll never be good to them in a fight!” said Doug earlier in the issue, whining over his mutant power to understand and speak languages. Doug struggled with confidence issues as his power was far too passive when compared to those of his teammates. A defeated Doug was forced into a subservient role in the kitchen. Fortunately, Warlock, having escaped from Hel, found Doug and together they set out to find the others. Warlock joined with Doug by taking the form of a techno-organic exoskeleton that allowed Doug to take a more physical role in combat. Of course, that gave Doug a huge boost in confidence, allowing him to stand together with his teammates as one of them, and not from the sidelines. Heroes Out of Time Issue

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“I was buying a lot of Japanese robots at that time,” Adams tells BACK ISSUE readers, “so it helped me write them off on my taxes [chuckles], but I believe that was Chris’ idea to have Warlock surround Doug to become his armor.” It was a wonderful symbiotic relationship, with Doug providing the Earth-smarts that Warlock lacked as an alien, and with Warlock giving Doug the physical powers he had always desired. This new development changed their friendship, allowing Doug, who was an outsider due to the nature of his powers, a better understanding of his alien friend, and vice-versa.

WOLFSBANE Rahne Sinclair (Wolfsbane) found herself in the deep woods of Asgard, beset by giants. A wolf came to her rescue, and she was immediately attracted to him. Rahne’s strict religious nurturing, which was the source of a constant internal struggle to accept her werewolf-like mutant powers, initially reined in her feelings. However, when she discovered that Hrimhari was a Wolf Prince and that he too could change into a werewolf form, she cast aside her reservations and allowed herself to fall in love. It didn’t take long though for her guilt to return, though, as she feared she was enjoying herself while her teammates might be in trouble.

SUNSPOT Roberto DeCosta, a.k.a. Sunspot, was quite at home in Asgard as the atmosphere not only suited him from a social perspective, but the Asgardian sun enhanced his mutant power to channel solar power into strength. He fit in among warrior folk and even provoked an oldfashioned mead-hall fight. With his enhanced strength, it wasn’t much of a contest and the Asgardian women found him a rather attractive element of curiosity. Unlike Wolfsbane, Roberto got lost in all that attention and fell prey to its ego-feeding lure.

MIRAGE The disrupted teleportation spell deposited Dani (Mirage) Moonstar into the plains of Asgard, where she rescued a Pegasus from a group of hunters. Dani bonded with the freed Pegasus, named Brightwing, and followed Mist, a young woman who helped her drive off the hunters, to the home of the Valkyrie. Dani found herself strangely at home with the rest of the Valkyrie, as if she was part of their family. However, she eavesdropped on a conversation between her Valkyrie sisters and was overwhelmed by her new responsibilities. Fearing the worse, Dani fled, but she couldn’t escape her destiny as one of Odin’s choosers of the slain.

CANNONBALL Sam Guthrie, the mutant called Cannonball, was teleported to the realm of the dwarves, and despite an initial misunderstanding he earned the friendship of the Dwarf King. He helped defend the underground realm from an attack by the dark elves, led by a twisted and dark version of Magma. The exhilaration of their victory was short-lived as Sam worried about his teammates and was at a lost as to what to do now. “So much is at stake—only ah don’t know what to do! The kids look to me an’ Dani to lead ’em, but she ain’t here an’ ah … ah … ah want Professor Xavier … or anybody—to tell me what to do, to take the load off my shoulders.” Sam realized that as an adult, there wasn’t always someone to come to your rescue and that you had to solve your own problems.

REUNITED Magik was tortured by the Enchantress and turned into a demon thrall tasked with hunting down her teammates. Fortunately, her teammates had grown while they were apart and when they came together again, they were up to the challenge. An arrogant Enchantress once again underestimated these mortals and was defeated and captured. This issue ended with the New Mutants deciding to take the fight to Loki and rescue Storm. Building on all their character development, Dani’s words echoed the team’s sentiment: “Loki started this. But whatever it costs, whatever it takes—we’ll finish it!”

“THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME”: UNCANNY X-MEN ANNUAL #9 In Uncanny X-Men Annual #9, Magik got a message back to Earth to the X-Men about their predicament and the X-Men travelled to Asgard to rescue their wayward students. But nothing was ever that easy. Storm couldn’t resist the temptation of regaining her powers and took her place at Loki’s side as a goddess. This turn of events not only complicated things, but highlighted that even adults could make mistakes, even heroes could make the wrong decision. Claremont gave the spotlight over to the X-Men, which was understandable given that it was an X-Men Annual, but for a while, it seemed to water down all the character development he did in The New Mutants Special Edition. Adams continued to show his versatility as he adeptly handled the larger cast of characters as well as the lavish fantasy Asgard setting. “I know Ann and Chris and various others pointed out to me at the time, and I wasn’t aware of it because I was as young as I was, they were very amused that I had drawn everyone so young looking,” says Adams. “Looking at it now, they really are young-looking, and I’m not just talking about the New Mutants, even Wolverine and the other X-Men are bizarrely young-looking.” Kitty, as someone who was forced to grow up faster than most kids, gave Rahne a pep talk: “I guess this is the hardest part about being an X-Man or a New Mutant—we can’t live normal lives, we can’t run away

Awesome Arthur and Terrific Terry Wow! Look at the delicate linework on this original page from New Mutants Special Edition #1. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

40 • BACK ISSUE • Heroes Out of Time Issue

from problems or threats or bad guys, no matter how terrible they are. We have powers. We’re special. Because of that, people depend on us.” Kitty’s speech summarized the transformation of the New Mutants. While they changed, they didn’t realize how much they had changed and that once you change, you can’t go back. Roberto was a bit more hardheaded about it, refusing to acknowledge how things had changed and how much he and his teammates had changed. “I know the risks! I laugh at the danger! (…) Here, they know how to treat heroes,” he told Wolverine. Wolverine came in as a parental figure and put them in their place. He wasn’t condescending, but treated them as adults and held them to a higher standard. “That what you’re after, Bobby—the glory? No fun bein’ a star if there’s nobody to applaud? (…) I’m a man, doin’ my job! An you’re a boy, chasin’ a fool’s dream.” Even though they had matured, the New Mutants still had their weaknesses and issues, and had to realize that there wasn’t always a simple way to deal with a problem and that you had to take responsibility for it. Sometimes, solving those problems came with a cost that you had to deal with for the rest of your life. Claremont used Loki to drive home that point. The god of trickery was confused as to why the New Mutants didn’t take what he offered them: “Why can they not simply accept my gift without question?” It was simply not in their nature as human beings. The New Mutants weren’t children anymore, happy to take gifts and run off and play in the corner while adults dealt with problems. It took Wolverine, almost at death’s door, to make Storm realize what was really happening, and Dani to turn against her new master, Hela. Dani drove off Hela, who had come to claim Wolverine and lead the charge against Loki. And it was Kitty, a New Mutant before the New Mutants existed, who threatened a cornered Loki, who in turn wisely saw the wisdom of letting the mutants return to Earth. Of course, with Loki there’s always a catch. “Thee and thy companions, Shadowcat, may depart in peace. But all of you must leave. Should one stay … all must remain.” Sacrifice. Being an adult requires you to make decisions like this, to put others before yourself. That decision was particularly hard on Rahne, as she had found her true love and was forced to leave him behind. Fortunately, a few years later, they would be reunited.

GROWING UP IS HARD TO DO The story ended with an epilogue from Loki: “Much was gambled, and much lost, but the great game continues. I endure—and tomorrow is another day. An immortal has nothing if not time—to plot and scheme and try again.” That admission highlighted the nature of change and why Loki’s stagnant nature was the reason why he continually failed. Victory usually comes with cost and that cost is change, good or bad, and if you can’t change, you can’t win. “‘The Asgardian Wars’ was one of those funny jobs that I’m very glad that people like as much as they seem to like it,” says Adams, “but I also see it as being part of my formative years, and so there’s some degree of professional disappointment in what I did then and what I might have done now. Looking back at those costumes now, I wince a little bit just thinking about what my choices might be now.

“It was a long series with both issues being over a 100 pages; if I had to do it now, I wouldn’t mind having another 20–30 pages to expand on some of that content. There were some really neat locations to explore.” In his 1988 introduction to the Asgardian Wars trade paperback, Claremont wrote: “There’s a special, almost magical excitement that comes from the translation of ideas into words and pictures, as there is for the writer crafting his prose or the artist his images—and from the synthesis of simpatico creative minds, writer and artist (and editor) collaborating, combining their individual visions to craft a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts.”

If I Had a Hammer Storm cuts loose on page 39 of X-Men Annual #9 (1985). Al Gordon inks Art Adams here. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

JASON SHAYER’s addiction to comic books and his 12-year-old mindframe have caused more than a few people to raise an eyebrow. When he’s not writing or reading, he’s teaching his daughter the finer points of comicbook collecting.

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Stephan Friedt

Rama-Tut, Scarlet Centurion, Kang the Conqueror, Immortus, Nathaniel Richards, Living Pharaoh (?!) … villain or hero … descendant of Reed Richards or Victor von Doom … or another version of Dr. Doom himself. The character we know mostly as “Kang” has had all of those identities. Like Daniel Eakins, the subject of David Gerrold’s 1973 Hugo and Nebula Awards-nominated book, The Man Who Folded Himself, Nathaniel Richards of the 30th Century shifted backward and forward frequently enough with his time machine to “fold himself” and exist in separate identities, sometimes in alternate timelines or realities, often in the same time period. He also became a “catch-all” for Marvel writers. If the character time-traveled, he stood a chance of becoming a part of the Kang history. If you wanted to complicate your plotline or get yourself out of a corner … Kang was somehow connected. Bear in mind that each of these stories is not a long, thought-out novel, nor were the authors afforded the time to equate them to a well-crafted screenplay, building and strengthening the characters until we know them intimately. Instead, these are down-and-dirty adventure stories, often written on the fly and by the seat of the pants … rough … sometimes presenting contradictory actions by the players or containing glaring omissions and errors. But if we study each of his appearances chronologically, look at his motives, weapons, powers, and interactions with other Marvel Universe figures, perhaps we can “unfold” the origami known as Kang. SILVER AGE APPEARANCES FIRST FOLD: As Rama-Tut: Fantastic Four #19 (Oct. 1963) – Stan Lee and Jack Kirby “Prisoners of the Pharaoh” The Fantastic Four encounter Rama-Tut in ancient Egypt during a search for a cure for blindness. Motive: Boredom and desire for adventure Weapons: Ultra-diode ray, time machine satellite globe Reprinted in Giant-Size Avengers #2 This read more like Stan and Jack’s attempt to give a Marvel Universe explanation for the origins of the Sphinx. Other than the mention of being a descendant of Doom, there are no hints that Rama-Tut would become a major player. Later writers would add to the backstory and complicated history. As Rama-Tut: Fantastic Four Annual #2 (Sept. 1964) – Stan Lee and Jack Kirby “The Final Victory of Doctor Doom” Rama-Tut and Dr. Doom meet and discuss their kinship. Motive: Orbiting Earth and plotting the defeat of the Fantastic Four Weapons: Time machine, attractor ray Reprinted in Fantastic Four Annual #7 A vignette inserted into the middle of a Dr. Doom story, this story solidified Rama-Tut’s connections to Dr. Doom, but muddled the waters by inferring that Doom and Rama might be the same person rather than different members of the same lineage.

He’ll Take ’Em On, Any Time Kang threatening the early Avengers, in a 2000 painting by Alex Horley originally published as a lithograph by Dynamic Forces. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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A Villain Who Gets Around (left) Kang as Rama-Tut in Fantastic Four #19 (Oct. 1963). Cover by Jack Kirby and Paul Reinman. (right) And he’s back, as Immortus, in The Avengers #10 (Nov. 1964). Cover by Kirby and Chic Stone. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

SECOND FOLD: As Kang: Avengers #8 (Sept. 1964) – Stan Lee and Jack Kirby “Kang, the Conqueror!” Kang encounters the Avengers for the first time. Motive: To conqueror the 20th Century Weapons: Anti-gravity rays, anti-matter screen projector, attractor rays, paralysis rays, radiation, time machine Reprinted in Avengers Annual #5 (Jan. 1972) At this point Stan and Jack are developing him into a major Marvel villain, someone to equal Doom and cross series titles whenever necessary. THIRD FOLD: As Immortus: Avengers #10 (Nov. 1964) – Stan Lee and Don Heck “The Avengers Break Up” The first appearance of “Immortus.” Motive: Defeat the Avengers and conquer our time Weapons: Ability to manipulate people and time Reprinted in Marvel Triple Action #5 (Sept. 1972) It’s pretty obvious that Stan had no intention of tying this character to the Kang persona. There were neither hints, nor any telltale clues, that they were connected, other than their common goal of subjugating our century and their ability to move through time. Later writers would use their commonalities to create this fold. As Kang: Avengers #11 (Dec. 1964) – Stan Lee and Don Heck “The Mighty Avengers meet Spider-Man” Kang attacks the Avengers through the use of an android. Motive: Defeat the Avengers Weapons: Atomo-duplicator, iso-nuclear duplicator, Spider-Man robot, time machine, master control panel Reprinted in Avengers Annual #5 (Jan. 1972) How do you build the Marvel Universe? By having the heroes interact across multiple titles… How do you get heroes to battle heroes? Create a misunderstanding or come up with a contrivance that pits them against each other. This story seemed like filler that Stan came up with at the last minute.

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As Kang: Strange Tales #134 (July 1965) – Stan Lee and Bob Powell “The Challenge of … the Watcher!” The Watcher, concerned by Kang’s meddling with medieval England during King Arthur, sends the Human Torch and the Thing back to make corrections. Motive: To change the events of time to remove the very existence of the FF and the Avengers Weapons: Time machine, armor, energy deflector, power lance, energizer Reprinted in The Essential Human Torch #1 (2003) This was a pretty typical Human Torch/Thing story for their run in Strange Tales, but Thing makes a reference to knowing who Kang is and wanting another shot at him, when to this point they had only encountered him as Rama-Tut. I guess super-teams in New York brief each other on their battles. As Kang: Fantastic Four Annual #3 (Summer 1965) – Stan Lee and Jack Kirby “Bedlam at the Baxter Building!” Kang makes two cameo appearances among the many villains and heroes that populate the story of Reed and Sue’s wedding. No new information is revealed. Motive: To disrupt the Richards wedding Weapons: None revealed Reprinted in: Fantastic Four Annual #9 (Dec. 1971) with pages 7 and 8 missing Fantastic Four Annual #10 (Mar. 1973) with the pages returned but page 20 missing (one of Jack Kirby’s photo/ art collages) Marvel Visionaries: Stan Lee (2005) in its entirety A throwaway appearance. As Kang: Avengers #23 (Dec. 1965) – Stan Lee and Don Heck “Once an Avenger” Kang captures part of the Avengers and brings them to his own time. We also learn about Kang’s lost love Princess Ravonna. Motive: Defeat the Avengers and convince Princess Ravonna to be his bride.

Weapons: Time machine/ship, thermo-shocks, magnetic retaining wall, spectrum inverter, master control panel, energy beams, molecule expander, spectro wave This one had everything—tons of different weapons, a villain motivated by love, a defiant princess, and the Avengers trounced every time they fought Kang, which led to… As Kang: Avengers #24 (Jan. 1966) – Stan Lee and Don Heck “From the Ashes of Defeat!” The story continues, and we learn more about Kang’s personality … and Princess Ravonna’s fate. Motive: To make Princess Ravonna his bride Weapons: Trick armor, delta-ray launcher, force screen, time machine Reprinted in Marvel Triple Action #18 (May 1974) This was the second part of the two-part arc introducing Kang’s love, Princess Ravonna. It also established Stan Lee’s character development of Kang as a “villain with honor” and susceptible to love. As Kang: Thor #140 (May 1967) – Stan Lee and Jack Kirby “The Growing Man” We are introduced to one of Kang’s favorite creations, the “stimuloid” known as the Growing Man.

Motive: Setting things in place to conquer his century Weapons: Doom-style armor, time machine, de-energizer ray, stimuloid Reprinted in Marvel Spectacular #11 (Nov. 1974) This story provided Jack Kirby with some great battle panels, pitted Kang solo against Thor, and set up the premise that Kang may have hidden weapons throughout time.

Kang UK (right) Courtesy of Heritage, the original art to the Ron Wilson/ Frank Giacoia cover of Marvel UK’s The Avengers #5, from 1973, recreating the classic US Avengers #8 cover (inset) by Kirby and Dick Ayers. (left) A page from “The Growing Man,” from Thor #140 (May 1967), by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Vince Colletta.

FOURTH FOLD: As the Scarlet Centurion – Avengers Annual #2 (Sept. 1968) – Roy Thomas, Don Heck, and Werner Roth “And Time, the Rushing River” (Part 1), “The Avengers Must Die” (Part 2) A two-part story that takes place in an alternate timeline caused by Kang. Weapons: Super-scientific arsenal Motive: Conquer mankind Reprinted in part in Marvel Super Action #16 (Feb. 1980) Reprinted complete in Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers #6 (2006) With this story, Roy Thomas joins the squad of creators adding to Kang’s history, further cementing the connection between Rama-Tut, Dr. Doom, and Kang … with this added fold of the Scarlet Centurion.

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TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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The Things We Do for Love By the team of Roy Thomas, Sal Buscema, and Sam Grainger, Kang and heartthrob Ravonna, from Avengers #71 (Dec. 1969). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

ROY THOMAS comments (via email – Nov. 2012): I always liked writing Kang, because I enjoyed time-travel or otherdimensional stories. Kang proved a stimulus to creating the protoInvaders and Squadron Sinister (and thus Supreme) in The Avengers, and to do a Hulk issue with the Phantom Eagle that I enjoyed very much. I think his importance was inherent in the fact that the question of whether Rama-Tut was or was not Dr. Doom led naturally to the question of whether Kang was all three. When a good character is created, whether a hero or a villain or both, he naturally lends himself to stories and interpretations by various writers and even artists. I’d probably rather write a story with Kang than with at least 90% of Marvel’s villains.

As Kang: Avengers #69–71 (Oct.–Dec. 1969) – Roy Thomas and Sal Buscema Avengers #69: “Let the Game Begin” Kang uses the Growing Man to kidnap an unconscious Tony Stark in order to lure the Avengers to his time in the 30th Century. There he reveals the challenge of the Grandmaster to a game with both the fate of the Earth and the ability to restore Princess Ravonna to life at stake. He wants the Avengers to represent him in the game versus the Squadron Sinister! Avengers #70: “When Strikes the Squadron Sinister!” Four Avengers are sent back to our time to battle the four members of the Squadron Sinister. They end up in a stalemate due to the unexpected interference of the Black Knight. The Avengers are returned to Kang’s time along with Black Knight’s Ebony Blade that had been in the grasp of Goliath. Avengers #71: “Endgame” Dane (Black Knight) Whitman summons his ancestor’s spirit, who enlightens him to the game going on between Kang and the Grandmaster and how his interference may have doomed the planet. Using his psychic connection with the Ebony Blade, the Black Knight transports himself to the 40th Century, regains his sword, and frees the captured half of the Avengers, while the other half battles the Golden Age Captain America, Torch, and Sub-Mariner. The end result is Kang winning half the game and having to choose between the powers of life for Princess Ravonna or of death over the Avengers. Kang chooses death and brings the Avengers to the brink of death. The Black Knight takes out Kang because, as the Grandmaster explains, he’s not a member of the Avengers so Kang wasn’t given the power of death over him. When the Grandmaster revives the Avengers and returns them all to their own time, the Avengers invite the Black Knight to become their newest member to show their gratitude. With this arc, we learn that Kang is more intent on conquest and destroying the Avengers than anything else. Roy Thomas follows this up by and takes Kang into the Bronze Age with the Hulk story…

KANG’S BRONZE AGE APPEARANCES As Kang: Incredible Hulk #135 (Jan. 1971) – Roy Thomas and Herb Trimpe “Descent into the Time Stream” Kang captures the Hulk and convinces him that by stopping the Phantom Eagle from destroying a German cannon, an ancestor of Bruce Banner’s (his grandfather) will die—and the man that Hulk hates the most will never be … which, of course, for Kang means there will never be a Hulk, so in turn there will never be an original Avengers team. Kang transports him back to World War I, where the Hulk successfully stops the Phantom Eagle. But as fate would have it, Hulk ends up destroying the cannon, thereby assuring the existence of his grandfather. Kang vows to keep the Hulk forever in the past, but something in his existence causes him to snap back to his own time, and in the process pull Kang helplessly into the limbo of the Time Stream. Reprinted in Marvel Super-Heroes #87 (1980) This story offers the idea that some things in time “are meant to be” and may be beyond Kang’s control of time. As Kang: Marvel Team-Up #9–11 (May–July 1973) – Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Ross Andru, and Jim Mooney Marvel Team-Up #9: “The Tomorrow War” 46 • BACK ISSUE • Heroes Out of Time Issue

Happy New Year, Greenskin! Kang drops by The Incredible Hulk #135 (Jan. 1971), an issue guest-starring the Phantom Eagle. Cover by Herb Trimpe. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

We open with an attack on Avengers Mansion—a localized earthquake is followed in rapid succession by the mansion disappearing, then reappearing, then being surrounded by a force field. Iron Man comes to investigate and is stymied by the force field as Spidey shows up to help. No sooner does Spider-Man arrive than an opening appears in the force field. Iron Man and Spidey go through and find themselves in a weird dimension where two groups are battling with spaceships. They gain access to one of the ships and are enlisted by Zarrko, the Tomorrow Man, to aid him in removing a mutual enemy that has conquered Zarrko’s time of the 23rd Century and kidnapped their friends, the Avengers. Zarrko transports them to the 23rd Century, where they help him invade the enemy fortress. Inside they find not only the Avengers, but the “mutual enemy”: Kang! Kang zaps them both into unconsciousness and in the confusion, Zarrko gets the drop on Kang and reveals his true motives—that Kang is a rival and Zarrko’s goal is to conquer everything just like Kang. Marvel Team-Up #10: “Time Bomb” Iron Man and Spider-Man are unconscious … Zarrko has Kang at bay … and Zarrko reveals his plan to conquer all of time. Zarrko has come to the realization that his time was conquered by Kang so easily because of their lack of weapons, so he has created three “time bombs” that he has sent into Earth’s past (1973, to be exact) that will reverse the effects of progress and transform everything into a primitive forerunner. Ships become boats, guns become bows and arrows, etc. Once all achievements have been reduced to primitive counterparts, conquest will be simple. Spider-Man and Iron Man revive, but Kang’s blast has made Iron Man’s armor inoperable, so Spider-Man alone looks for a way to return to his own time of 1973 and thwart Zarrko. He finds a time portal and uses it to get back to his time. As it happens, Spider-Man reappears in the Fantastic Four’s headquarters. Spider-Man brings the only member at home—Johnny Storm, the Human Torch—up to date on what’s happened and the two of them decide the first thing to do is locate the three bombs and disable them. The Human Torch finds his in Japan, already doing its job of regression. He disables it and heads off to find Spider-Man. Spider-Man finds his in Venezuela and is trying to disable it when Johnny Storm arrives and blasts it. Johnny mentions that the radiation emanating from it feels very familiar to him. They head off to find the third and last one. They locate it in Greece, and once they’ve disabled it, Johnny remembers that it feels similar to the radiation that forms the Negative Zone around the Great Refuge, home of the Inhumans. Since Johnny doesn’t want to see his ex-girlfriend, Crystal, he gives Spider-Man directions on how to find the Inhumans and leaves him on his own. Marvel Team-Up #11: “Doomsday Gambit” Spider-Man takes the third and final time bomb to the Great Refuge, deep in the Himalayas. Once he gets past the ever-vigilant guards, he explains to the Inhumans what has transpired with Kang and Zarrko. He hopes the Inhumans can decipher the bomb and use it to return Spider-Man to the 23rd Century to free the Avengers and stop Zarrko. They turn the device over to Black Bolt’s insane brother, Maximus, who assures them he can convert it. He does, and Spider-Man and a team of Inhumans transport to the 23rd Century. They end up there a few moments “before” Spider-Man originally did and battle their way to Kang’s control room by a different path. They make it and with the power of the Inhumans they free the Avengers and capture Zarrko and Kang. But Kang proves elusive once again as they end up with only his uniform in their hands. The time bomb is used to return them all to their own time and the issue ends.

This arc was based on a plot by Gerry Conway, and the first twothirds were credited to him, but the final chapter was credited to Len Wein. We learn that Kang may have rivals, that he has succeeded in conquering different eras at different times, and that his time portals always seem to allow him to escape. THE FIRST DOUBLE-FOLD: As Kang and Rama-Tut: Avengers #128–129 (Oct.–Nov. 1974) Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema and Giant-Size Avengers #2 (Nov. 1974) – Steve Englehart and Dave Cockrum Avengers #128: “Bewitched, Bothered, and Dead” A “setup” issue…. Agatha Harkness becomes the Scarlet Witch’s mentor, Mantis distances herself from the Swordsman and professes her love for the Vision, and the issue ends with the return of Kang, due to the appearance of a special star foretelling a celestial event, who proclaims his intentions to conquer our era. Avengers #129: “Bid Tomorrow Goodbye!” Kang announces his intent to conquer our time (and all time) by mating with the “Celestial Madonna” and producing the “Godchild” who would have the power to hold dominion over everyone in every time. The appearance ot the new star over Avengers Mansion foretells that someone within their group is the “Celestial Madonna.” Using his newly upgraded “stimuloids,” now called “macrobots,” Kang quickly defeats the Avengers, capturing the three women, Scarlet Witch, Mantis, and Agatha Harkness, because he’s unsure which one is the Celestial Madonna. He also captures the three strongest Avengers, Iron Man, Thor, and the Vision, with the intent of turning them into limitless sources of energy for his macrobots. He ignores with disdain the weakest member of the team, the Swordsman, and transports the rest to his “secret lair” in our time. Heroes Out of Time Issue

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The Swordsman, still reeling from his emotional abandonment by Mantis, their easy defeat, and Kang’s total contempt, resolves to rescue the Avengers and his former love, Mantis. Agatha Harkness appears to him in a vision and reveals that Kang’s Earth-based lair is the tomb of Rama-Tut in Egypt, Kang’s first headquarters on Earth. Following Agatha’s guidance, Swordsman uses his ability as a pilot to fly an Avengers jet to Egypt, the site of Rama-Tut’s tomb. Kang finally realizes what Agatha has been up to and silences her. He also gives a good recap of his experiences on Earth, from his appearance as Rama-Tut, through his stumbling upon the 41st Century and conquering it. The Swordsman has arrived, but once again Kang considers him beneath his attention. The Swordsman, utilizing some old skills from his tomb-robbing days, gains access to Kang’s lair, and encounters the vampire, Amen-Hotep, who battles and then leaves Swordsman to attack the Egyptian soldiers pursuing Swordsman. Swordsman continues his quest to find Kang and does. As he’s about to blast Kang from behind with his power sword, he’s stopped by none other than Rama-Tut—and that ends the issue. Giant-Size Avengers #2: “A Blast from the Past!” The issue opens with Hawkeye hearing about the Avengers being kidnapped by Kang, so he rushes to the aid of his former teammates. Jarvis explains what happened at the mansion and the Swordsman arrives with Rama-Tut to further explain the situation including the fact that the most powerful Avengers are human batteries for Kang’s macrobots. Hawkeye is skeptical of Rama-Tut’s motives, having a better knowledge of his past record than the Swordsman does, but Rama-Tut assures him that he will do whatever is necessary to stop Kang from his current course of action. Meanwhile, Kang has moved everyone to his time sphere, as he sets out to unleash the three macrobots on killing sprees within the central

governments of the US, Russia, and China in order to start a global battle that will devastate the Earth and leave it an easy world to conquer. The first stop is to release the Vision-powered macrobot on the US government. Since Rama-Tut is actually a future version of Kang, he already knows what Kang will do, and transports the three of them to intercept him. Knowing that the Vision is the power source for this one, and as an Avenger having recently learned of the Vision’s source of power, Hawkeye makes short work of defeating this macrobot and frees the Vision to join their group. During all this, Kang is watching on his all-seeing viewer, giving no attention to the mysterious stranger with Hawkeye and Swordsman. At the same time, Rama-Tut is reflecting on what brought him to this point, how he reached a point in his life as the supreme ruler of the 41st Century, and realized how empty it all was, so he abandoned it and returned to ancient Egypt to become the benevolent Pharaoh. He destroyed his time sphere so he could no longer travel the time stream. After he had accomplished wonderful things, he felt obligated to stop himself in his quest for the Celestial Madonna. Without his time sphere, his only option was to have his body put into suspended animation to be revived when he came to Earth to seek the Madonna. The Swordsman’s entrance into the tomb of Rama-Tut was the trigger that brought him back. And Rama-Tut stopped him from attacking Kang to save himself. Now he would try to change the past. In anger, Kang heads to his next goal, China. Rama-Tut, knowing what Kang is going to do, takes the Avengers to meet him. This time, it’s the inclusion of the Vision that turns the tide their way, and the macrobot containing Iron Man is defeated and Iron Man is rescued. Kang becomes enraged and releases the third and final macrobot powered by Thor. Kang orders the macrobot to destroy Iron Man, which plays right into their hands, because the power bolts recharge Iron Man’s suit. The Vision enters Kang’s time sphere and releases the woman, and the Avengers united attack the last macrobot. While the rest of the Avengers pummel the macrobot, Scarlet Witch uses her new resolve to bring a meteor down from the heavens to strike the macrobot and disable it long enough for Rama-Tut to shut it off and free Thor. Kang blasts Rama-Tut’s disguise away and is startled to be looking at himself. Mantis is revealed as the Celestial Madonna and Rama-Tut reveals that his journey was to keep her from Kang. Kang vows that if he can’t have the Madonna, no one can, and attempts to shoot her. Swordsman jumps in the way and takes the killing power blast meant for Mantis. Rama-Tut, frustrated that he was not able to prevent the death he came to prevent, tackles Kang and in the struggle they hit the power switch that transports the two time lords and the time sphere off to “some time”… As the Avengers mourn the Swordsman and Mantis regrets her actions, the issue closes. With this arc we are introduced to the plotline of the “Celestial Madonna” and learn of Kang’s obsession with the idea of mating with the Madonna and producing an heir that would rule over everything. Princess Ravonna seems to be a thing of the past. The first of the “multiple Kangs” is also added to the plot mix. As Kang, Rama-Tut, and Immortus: Avengers #131–132 (Jan.–Feb. 1975) – Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema, and Joe Staton, and Giant-Size Avengers #3 (Feb. 1975) – Steve Englehart, Dave Cockrum Avengers #131: “A Quiet Half-Hour in Saigon” While the Avengers accompany Mantis to Saigon to help her find her roots on her way to becoming the “Celestial Madonna,” in the time stream, Kang and Rama-Tut battle forever in the time sphere until Immortus, the master of the time stream, plucks them from the time sphere, which renders Rama-Tut unconscious.

Time for a Team-Up Part of a multi-part storyline in Marvel Team-Up, Kang vs. Spidey and Torch in issue #10 (June 1973). Cover by John Romita, Sr. and Mike Esposito. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Back in Saigon, the Avengers run into Steve Rogers, formerly Captain America, now in his “Nomad” phase. Rogers agrees to rejoin their ranks as soon as he completes his current mission. Immortus enlists Kang as his partner to defeat the Avengers, both understanding that with Kang’s desire to conquer and Immortus’ abilities to control people— alive or dead, taken from the time stream—they should prove to be invincible. Using Immortus’ equipment to pluck a team of characters to battle the Avengers, Kang opts for beings stronger than the “common” villains Immortus had used in his previous encounter with the Avengers. He chooses the Frankenstein Monster, the original Wonder Man for his link to the Vision (his mind patterns were used for the Vision’s original circuitry), and the original Human Torch, because he’s an android like the Vision—all to counter Mantis, a master of the martial arts; Midnight, a dead foe of Shang-Chi; to add to Frankenstein Monster’s fear factor, the Ghost, a.k.a. Captain van Straaten, the Flying Dutchman, who battled Silver Surfer; and Captain America’s old foe, Baron Zemo, to create the Legion of the Unliving. Kang turns on Immortus and imprisons him next to Rama-Tut. He then transports the Avengers and the Legion of the Living to the labyrinth of tunnels beneath his castle in 1974 and the issue ends. Avengers #132: “Kang War II” Kang sends his Legion of the Unliving into the tunnels beneath his castle in 1974 to do battle with the Avengers. However, the Frankenstein Monster does not participate. Not being technically one of the “dead” characters like the rest of the group, the commands do not register to his mind and he wanders off. He soon finds himself in the corridor that houses Thor, who has transformed into his alter ego, Dr. Don Blake. Once attacked by the Monster, Thor transforms back and quickly recognizes that the Monster is as much a

prisoner as he, so he releases the Monster and decides to follow him on the chance it’s a way out. Kang and the rest of his Legion seek and find the Vision. Sending Wonder Man and the Human Torch against him proves to be less successful than Kang had anticipated, so he also sends Baron Zemo and the Ghost into combat. But the Vision decides it would be best if he left to regroup and battle them of his own choice, so he fades through a wall. The Ghost takes off after him in pursuit. Mantis soon encounters Midnight. She quickly notices that he responds to blows as if he were dead— which he is—and she flees down a tunnel. At the same time Iron Man encounters Hawkeye, and they are soon attacked by Kang and the rest of his Legion. Iron Man sends Hawkeye to find the rest of the Avengers and is quickly overcome by the Human Torch and is killed. The Ghost catches up with the Vision and quickly disables him, at almost the same time that Mantis crosses their path and sees the Vision in a near state of death. And the issue ends. Giant-Size Avengers #3: “Kang War II: What Time Hath Put Asunder!”

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“Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye”… …you’ve gotta love Steve Englehart’s story title! (right) Kang steps in on the cliffhanger of Avengers #128, then (left) wages war in #129 (Nov. 1974). Original art above courtesy of Heritage and illo’ed by Sal Buscema and Joe Staton; cover art by Ron Wilson and Al Milgrom. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Too Much Time on His Hands Englehart had Kang (and co.) fold in and out of Avengers tales, including (left) this Kang vs. Rama-Tut tussle in Avengers #131 (Jan. 1975, art by Sal B. and Staton) and (right) the Don Heck/John Tartaglione-drawn Giant-Size Avengers #4 (June 1975). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

We open with Mantis comforting a dying Vision, but she is soon interrupted by Midnight, who has finally caught up with her. He quickly pulls martial-arts weapons against Mantis, which goes against his instructions not to harm her, for it seems the longer they are in our time sphere away from death, the less they are under Kang’s control. Mantis battles Midnight and actually overcomes him, only to discover that the Vision’s body has disappeared. The Vision’s body is taken by the Frankenstein Monster, who felt some sort of kinship to the android. Hawkeye comes across them wandering down one of the endless tunnels and decides it would be more prudent to regroup with the other Avengers than try to rescue the android’s seemingly lifeless body. Meanwhile, Kang is starting to notice the members of the Legion are beginning to question his commands— Baron Zemo even briefly defies him. Back in the tunnels, Thor comes upon Iron Man’s lifeless body. The Human Torch and Wonder Man bump into Frankenstein’s Monster carrying the nearly lifeless Vision. When Wonder Man attempts to complete their task, the Monster stops him, and Wonder Man heads off to tell Kang. After he leaves, the Human Torch attempts to aid his fellow android when he discovers they are more alike then imagined. Vision is using the body that housed the original Human Torch. In another tunnel, Kang, weary of arguing with Baron Zemo, sends him back to watch over Immortus and Rama-Tut, and once

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he’s alone, has the misfortune to run into Thor, now outraged over Iron Man’s death. They are locked in battle when Wonder Man joins the fray, bringing the tunnel down on Thor long enough for he and Kang to escape to join the rest of the Legion. As this transpires, Hawkeye has located the control room, and as he’s about to free Immortus and Rama-Tut, Baron Zemo arrives. They battle and Baron Zemo ends up sticking Hawkeye to the floor with his Adhesive X. The Human Torch has managed to nearly restore the Vision, and as they take him back in the direction of the control room, they encounter Kang and Wonder Man, just as Thor catches up to them. Wonder Man attacks the Vision, Thor attacks Kang, and the Human Torch and the Monster stay out of it. Vision beats Wonder Man, and as Thor is about to do the same to his adversary, Kang escapes in the time stream. At that point, all of our characters vanish. In the control room, Hawkeye has just enough limbs free to manage a shot at the control that holds Immortus and Rama-Tut; he frees them, and Immortus makes short work of Baron Zemo. He then transports all of the participants to the control room. Immortus restores Iron Man, since they are in “limbo.” What seemed like hours has only been a second. He restores the Vision to full capacity and returns the Legion of the Unliving (except the Human Torch) back to their rightful times. Rama-Tut then bids them farewell and vanishes. Immortus reveals that he is another version

of Kang (a triple-fold!) and the issue ends with the Vision and Human Torch agreeing to travel with Immortus to learn of their origin. In this story arc we learn a lot: that the Vision and the original Human Torch share the same android body and that Immortus is just another manifestation of Kang. As Immortus: Avengers #133 (Mar. 1975) – Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema, and Joe Staton “Yesterday and Beyond…” A setup issue. In order to atone for his use of the Avengers in his battle with Kang, Immortus agrees to send both the Vision and Mantis on journeys through their pasts to understand who they are. Vision must go alone, but Mantis is accompanied by the rest of the Avengers. Immortus makes a cryptic comment in this short appearance: “Five lives have I known…” That’s Rama-Tut, Kang, Immortus, ???, and ???. As Immortus, and Kang several times over: Giant-Size Avengers #4 (June 1975) – Steve Englehart, and Don Heck This one can get confusing. In previous issues, we’ve learned that the Vision was built from the body of the original Human Torch, and that Mantis is the daughter of the Zodiac villain, Libra, journeys of discovery that were made possible by the incarnation of Kang we know as Immortus. In this issue, Mantis and the Avengers are with Immortus in the Temple of the Kree to learn more about the origin of Mantis and how it relates to her becoming the “Celestial Madonna,” her connection to the now-ethereal Swordsman, and how her existence relates to Moondragon. They are gathered here for her final transformation. Meanwhile, we see the Vision save the Scarlet Witch from the Dreaded Dormammu in time to be transported to the same place. Wanda accepts the Vision’s marriage proposal, and Mantis decides to marry the Swordsman. Thor, Iron Man, and Hawkeye are sure that Kang is going to interfere in his quest to possess the Madonna. They each set out to check the area and each in turn encounters and defeats Kang. They drag all three back to the ceremony at the same time that a fourth Kang appears in his time sphere. This one encompasses Mantis in his time sphere force field and takes her away. The Avengers get ready to take chase when Immortus bids them to stay. Seems Immortus knew Kang was going to try this and had substituted the Space Phantom, disguised as Mantis, as a decoy for Kang. The real Mantis is hidden by Immortus in the temple. The heroes all gather and Immortus performs a ceremony uniting Wanda and the Vision, and Mantis and the Swordsman. Mantis and the Swordsman transform into beings of pure energy, and the rest of the group heads home. This issue attempted to tie together a lot of loose plot threads that had been scattered across the Marvel Universe. It again established the Immortus persona as a benevolent one, and left the Kang persona once again thwarted and no doubt angry. It also established that several different copies of Kang could exist in the same time and place.

Avengers #142: “Go West, Young Gods!” We open with Thor, Moondragon, and Immortus facing Two-Gun Kid, Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt, Ringo Kid, and Night Rider. The Western heroes take them to Tombstone and reunite them with Hawkeye. Hawkeye had been toying with Dr. Doom’s time machine and had encountered Kang in the time stream. Their battle had resulted in them landing in 1873. Kang has decided that to conquer the 20th Century, he just needs to conquer the 19th Century. Hawkeye has gathered the Western heroes to help him stop that conquest. Moondragon, Thor, and Immortus are now a part of that assault team. They figure out that Kang will want what’s pulled from the nearby uranium mine. So they watch the local train for his first attack. It comes in the form of outlaws and our Western heroes stop them in their tracks. The issue ends with the heroes getting the information of where the outlaws were supposed to deliver the uranium and begin their assault on Kang. Avengers #143: “Right Between the Eons” Thor, Moondragon, Hawkeye, and Two-Gun Kid attack Kang’s new citadel in 1973. While most of the group battle the terrors Kang throws at them, Thor makes his way to the control center to his avowed final battle with Kang. They battle until Kang, striving to beat Thor, draws too much power and overloads his battle suit until it explodes—and Kang ceases to exist. Immortus then reveals that he is the final evolution of Kang. He had learned the futility of his ways as Rama-Tut, but Rama-Tut’s attempts to thwart his Kang identity only further cemented Kang’s resolve to conquer all. Immortus was the result of Rama-Tut striving to gain all knowledge of time to change Kang. And he had come to the conclusion that only the end of their existence would fix things, so he set in motion the events that would do that. Now that Kang no longer existed, neither did Rama-Tut, and Immortus then faded from sight … and the issue ends.

As Immortus and Kang: Avengers #141–143 (Nov. 1975–Jan. 1976) – Steve Englehart and George Pérez Avengers #141: “The Phantom Empire” Hawkeye has been captured and trapped in time to lure the Avengers. The Avengers split up. Moondragon and Thor take off with the help of Immortus to confront Kang in limbo. Kang, angry at the Avengers for stopping his quest for the Celestial Madonna, vows once again to use all his efforts to destroy them. He battles Thor and is knocked through a portal of time. Immortus takes them to follow Kang and they find themselves in 1973. At the same time, the rest of the team comes face-to-face with the new “Squadron Supreme.”

Thunder God vs. Time Traveler Really, they don’t call him the “Mighty” Thor for nothing! Thor vs. Kang in Avengers #143 (Jan. 1976). Art by George Pérez and Sam Grainger. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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This would have us believe that the saga of Kang is done, but nobody in comics stays dead forever. Kang then makes two cameos in flashback: Avengers #150 (Aug. 1976), which recounts much of the Avengers’ history; and Invaders Annual #1 (Summer 1977), which recounts the events of Avengers #71, but from the perspective of the Invaders. As Immortus: Thor #282 (Apr. 1979) – Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio, Keith Pollard, and Pablo Marcos “Rites of Passage” While locked in limbo with the Space Phantom and searching for Thor’s mystic hammer Mjolnir, the Space Phantom reveals that Immortus is still alive and living in limbo. He offers to take Thor to him in return for Thor’s help in freeing the Space Phantom’s planet from limbo. At Immortus’ castle, Thor battles the frost giant-like creature Tempus. Thor defeats him and they continue through a labyrinth of tunnels (some which prove to be the same “limbo tunnels” that were part of Kang’s castle on Earth) until they reach Immortus. Immortus explains that he can’t really die, that his life is more like a tree than a circle, that his previous existence was merely a limb that was removed. He returns Mjolnir to Thor so that Thor can keep his part of the bargain with the Space Phantom, but he warns him that the task will deplete all time-travel powers of his hammer. Thor agrees to it anyway and saves the Space Phantom’s planet, and Immortus returns him to his own time.

Now we learn that the multiple timelines of existence for Kang and all his identities are a factor which will come into play to a greater degree later in his history. As Kang: Marvel Novel Series #10 – The Avengers: “The Man Who Stole Tomorrow” (Oct. 1979) Novel by David Michelinie, cover by Dave Cockrum An Eskimo shaman shows up at Avengers Mansion in search of his tribe’s god—a god that had been stolen by a “wing-footed defiler.” Using amazing powers that manifest from a stone necklace he wears, the shaman beats Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, the Scarlet Witch and Vision, the Beast, and Quicksilver. He then entraps Captain America in a block of ice and disappears. The Avengers split up. Vision and Iron Man take off for Atlantis to talk to Namor, the Sub-Mariner. The rest of the team travels by Quinjet to Alaska in search of the shaman and Captain America. Vision and Iron Man join Sub-Mariner to battle an animal manifestation the shaman sent to destroy Namor. Namor was the target for his original role in removing the ice-encased body of Captain America from the Eskimo village where it had come to rest (see Avengers #4 for the full story). Meanwhile, in the Alaskan pipeline town that has sprung up where the Eskimo village formerly stood, the rest of the Avengers are battled to a standstill and the town is nearly leveled by the shaman and his necklace of “magic” stones. Iron Man, Vision, and Sub-Mariner manage to bury the animaltotem manifestation long enough to escape and travel to Alaska, where they join in the battle with the shaman. Distracted by the presence of Sub-Mariner now in the battle, Iron Man and Vision work out a plan that gets Vision close enough to grab and break the necklace. Immediately, all of the shaman’s manifestations evaporate— except the block of artificial ice encasing Captain America! Investigation of the stones of the necklace, and an interview with the shaman, reveal that the necklace was a gift from Kang! With the destruction of the shaman’s necklace, his manifestations all disappear … except for the ice encasement of Captain America. Regrouping, the Avengers take the encapsulated Captain America, and utilizing Thor’s time-travelling abilities with his mystic hammer, Mjolnir, set off to confront Kang! Arriving in the 40th Century, the Avengers find a bizarre world more like a worldwide shopping mall or the Emerald City of Oz than anything else. Working their way through the city, they find Kang’s headquarters. They break up into two teams and maneuver through a series of bizarre doorways and paths, finding that all paths lead to Kang—only this time, it’s a Kang that seems “mad as the Hatter.” Intent on his view screens, he brushes the Avengers off at first, and then reveals that the “stones” he gave to the shaman were not a deliberate attempt to destroy the Avengers but merely a whim—an act done on a lark. He releases Captain America, and the bewildered Avengers go outside to return home. Once they’ve left, the befuddled Kang sheds his pretense and concludes that the Avengers had actually come to his era because they had discovered his new plan—that he had conquered the 41st Century era and was working his way back, an era at a time, until he would reach our 20th Century. No sooner are they outside then the Avengers are attacked by a suddenly-appearing Tyrannosaurus Rex, shortly followed by gangs and groups from various time periods. In the process of defeating them, the Avengers learn from a citizen how easily Kang had defeated this peaceful era and figure out that he’s not as befuddled as he

Fanboy Book Club Pick of the Month Marvel Novel Series #10 (1979), The Man Who Stole Tomorrow, by David Michelinie. Cover painting by Dave Cockrum. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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It’s Toy Time! Mattel’s 1984 Secret Wars action figure line included the time conqueror Kang, with a Secret Shield accessory. Kang and Secret Wars TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

appeared. They race back to his stronghold, where he battles them all to a standstill, pretty much ignoring the weakest of the group, the Beast, a.k.a. Hank McCoy, who appears more interested in the machines lining the room than in Kang. As the battle looks like it has completely gone in Kang’s favor and he is about to finally destroy the team, the Beast, a gifted scientist in his own right, has studied the mechanics of Kang’s master device, discovered the “kill switch,” and pushed the button. Kang’s powers are shut off and the Beast manipulates a few more buttons and turns Kang’s time portals against him, sending Kang off somewhere in time. The Avengers then return to their own time, triumphant. DAVID MICHELINIE comments (via email – Dec. 2012): There are a number of characters in the Marvel Universe who can travel through time, but the only one who truly embodies time is Kang the Conqueror. If you want a villain who not only travels through time, but uses time as a weapon and wants to own, control, and rule time, Kang’s your man. As for what Kang brings to the writer’s table—time is always a tricky plot device. Things can get confusing and contradictory real fast. Having a fixed central hub, like Kang, on which to ground your story can be a big help in keeping things straight in both the writer’s mind and the reader’s. As Marcus Immortus, son of Immortus: Avengers #200 (Oct. 1980) – David Michelinie (from a plot by Jim Shooter, George Pérez, Bob Layton, and David Michelinie) and George Pérez “The Child is Father to…?” Carol Danvers, Ms. Marvel, gives birth to an Immaculate Conception baby that then grows to manhood in a day. In the process, the time “flux” is disrupted and things begin appearing out of sync and out of proper time. It turns out that Immortus had created a son in Limbo who grew to manhood just as his mother was whisked back to her time, and Immortus ceased to be from the destruction of Kang (continuity error: the Immortus in Limbo supposedly did not perish). All alone in Limbo, Marcus determines to again be born, but this time on Earth. He transports Ms. Marvel to Limbo, woos her, mates with her, and sends her back to her own time with no memory of their time together. She then gives birth, Marcus grows, and the time stream is distorted. Marcus attempts to make a machine that will set everything right, but Hawkeye destroys it, thinking it is the cause of the distortions. Marcus reveals all to the Avengers and sets to return to limbo so the time stream will return to normal. Ms. Marvel decides to relinquish her role as a superheroine and return with him. Thor uses Mjolnir to return them to limbo (another continuity error: Mjolnir lost that ability the last time Thor encountered Immortus). This story now establishes a progeny of the being known as Rama-Tut/Kang/Immortus. In Avengers Annual #10 (Summer 1981), writer Chris Claremont and Michael Golden add a different fold to the Marcus Immortus page. In this one, Carol Danvers has returned to Earth after the death of Marcus. Seems he didn’t realize that the rapid aging would continue even in Limbo, and within a week he had grown old and died. Carol figured out how to use the machinery to return to Earth, and avoided the Avengers because she felt they had not supported her through the entire incident and had instead leaned toward what Marcus had wanted out of it all.

Kang again makes a cameo of sorts in Incredible Hulk #286 (Aug. 1983), when Hulk is transported to the 41st Century and encounters Kang’s armies being controlled by a large statue of Kang that directs them through their helmet communicators. Hulk destroys the statue and is whisked back to his own time. Kang also makes cameos in the Jim Shooter moshpit called Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1–12 (May 1984–Apr. 1985) and its sequel Secret Wars II (July 1985–Mar. 1986). Nothing of significance is revealed about his history. And with that, Kang’s history is complete for the Bronze Age of Comics—but that is by no means the end of his story. Roger Stern would take us into the Modern Age of Comics and bring us the “Council of Kangs”… ROGER STERN comments (via email – Jan. 2013): Kang was arguably the Avengers’ first major villain that originated with their title. Yes, they had fought the Space Phantom in Avengers #2, and the first Baron Zemo in issue #6, but the Space Phantom was more of a plot device than a villain, and Zemo was set up to be Captain America’s villain, with ties to Cap’s past. When Kang showed up in Avengers #8, he was really the team’s first major villain who was clearly an “Avengers villain.” And he did nearly defeat them that first time out. Heroes Out of Time Issue

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having your heroes look powerless or inept. That’s what I don’t like about [Kang]. It’s not easy to find ways for the Avengers to defeat him. But, overall, he’s a great villain. I’d say that Kang is to the Avengers as Dr. Doom is the Fantastic Four, or Magneto is to the X-Men. Kurt Busiek would pick up the mantle starting in the late 1990s and carry it even further…

Kang was to appear in the original Justice League/Avengers DC/Marvel crossover of the 1980s. Here’s a penciled page by Pérez featuring our spotlighted villain. Courtesy of Heritage. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Perhaps we’ll be able to continue our look at Kang and cover those later stories in a future article. Only time will tell… STEPHAN “SHADOW” FRIEDT can be found online at comicspriceguide.com.

Photo by Carla Friedt.

Crossing Over

The other villains who showed up in the first dozen issues—Loki, the Sub-Mariner, the Lava Men, the Mole Man, and rest of the original Masters of Evil— had all originated outside of the Avengers book. Well, okay, there was Immortus, but he didn’t return for years, and when he did finally reappear, it was revealed that he was another incarnation of Kang. So, Kang was the Avengers’ first new, recurring villain powerful enough to take on the whole team by himself. He’s one tough customer. Kang is a conquering warlord who has ruled over whole star systems in several different centuries. He has huge armies and the resources of whole worlds that he can call upon if he needs them. And he can travel through time. Kang can be stymied by the Avengers, go off and lick his wounds, and then return not long after his “defeat” to attack them again … which is more or less what Steve Englehart had him do. That’s a great advantage. That’s what I like about Kang. He’s almost impossible to stop. Being a time traveler, he’s caused so many divergent realities, that—even if you do stop him— another one of him may pop up to fight again. Of course, that can also be a disadvantage to the writer. You can’t go to that well too often, without

KURT BUSIEK comments (via email – Dec. 2012): What I like about Kang is that he’s essentially a romantic. He became what he is because he was bored, in a safe, automated future, and he dreamed of adventure, of daring, of carving out a legend that could rock the galaxies. So he set out to do it, and he did. That’s great. It’s nice and simple and primal. This is a guy who could, if he wanted to, travel back in time and strangle the Avengers in their cribs. But he doesn’t, because what he wants isn’t an easy victory. What he wants is a challenge. He wants to face the Avengers at their strongest, at their most formidable, and beat them anyway, not because he’s sneaky, but because he’s just that much of a badass. Can’t help but like a guy like that. The long-lasting Ravonna storyline, where he fell in love with her and then she sacrificed herself for him, so he kept her in suspended animation until he could find a way to bring her back—that fed into the idea of him as a romantic dreamer, too, as a guy who had the vision and passion to do big, big things, and who was driven by his heart more than his head. Doing Avengers Forever with Carlos Pacheco one of the real treats was that Carlos wanted to make Kang feel like that kind of romantic, grand-scale badass warrior without actually changing his costume. So he set out to imagine a world in which macho, conquering badass warlords wore pinstriped magenta hip boots—and he delivered on it, by making him a kind of SF spin on a Louis IV world—his weapons had insets and filigree, his world was rich and textured and rococo. By creating a visual world in which his costume made sense, Carlos made Kang all the more convincing, all the more emotionally compelling, without actually changing him, just giving him the proper setting.

Christopher Larochelle

People just can’t seem to get enough of celebrities. Magazines and TV shows try to unravel every detail of their lives, and often it’s amazing that we care. From basketball stars toting the latest and greatest cell phone to the actress endorsing the newest beauty product, corporations know that these famous people will motivate others to spend their hard-earned cash. In a world with superheroes, wouldn’t this be the role that the costumed crusaders would be filling? Booster Gold is just that kind of hero. He is a hero who might not always be likable, but he sure knows how to play the game. He has his fingers in every pie he can see, with deals to make everything from movies to cars and sugar-filled breakfast cereals that bear his trademark. Like many celebrities, people seem to love him despite his many publicly revealed faults. There is really only one person who can be credited with creating Booster Gold from the ground up: dan jurgens Dan Jurgens. Prior to breaking out with Booster Gold, Jurgens had just a few credits to his name at DC Comics. He had done some work on Mike Grell’s Warlord before landing a gig on the Sun Devils maxiseries. Jurgens’ work over the course of those 12 issues proved to be an invaluable stepping stone toward the existence of the Booster Gold series. Gerry Conway started the maxiseries as writer with Jurgens penciling, but by Sun Devils’ midpoint, it was entirely Jurgens’ project, writing and art. “After issue #6, I stepped in as writer,” Jurgens says. “That became instrumental in me deciding that I could do this, both write and draw a series.” Booster has gone down in history as the first postCrisis original character in the DC Universe. He certainly made his mark as a fresh and new face among the many characters populating DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths-based relaunch of the mid-1980s. The fact that Booster was introduced at that particular time proved serendipitous for a young creator with his own idea. “The editors were looking for some new ideas and approaches in general,” says Jurgens. “I was a guest at a convention in Dallas, and happened to have a breakfast meeting with [then-DC editorial director] Dick Giordano. We were discussing various books and projects I might move on to at DC. In the course of all this, I mentioned Booster. I said, ‘Look, I have this idea, and here it is. This is how it can work, this is who it is, this is how it fits in with the DC Universe … I can write it and draw it.’ And Dick thought about it and said, ‘Get me something on paper.’ And it was a go!” The first Booster Gold ongoing series was something that went wherever Jurgens wanted it to go. “It was

Booster Buzz This DC house ad from late 1985 pitched a new kind of hero, Booster Gold. Art by Dan Jurgens and Mike DeCarlo. TM & © DC Comics.

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Future Fighter Jurgens’ original cover art to Booster Gold #1 (courtesy of the artist), with the color, published version in the inset. TM & © DC Comics.

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definitely born from the bottom up,” says Jurgens. “Janice Race was assigned as editor and we just went from there.” Creatively, the upand-coming writer/artist was working things out as he went along. “I still have all the original art from the first issue and the amount of word balloons pasted over existing lettering is incredible,” Jurgens remembers. “That’s because we went through multiple rewrites even after the book was inked. Such is the fate of a new writer.” Over the course of the series’ 25 issues, the protagonist sees his public image get built up and knocked down, interacts with the larger DC Universe, and suffers injuries, losses, and betrayals. There is no shortage of material in this series that only lasted for two years. Booster is surrounded by a fantastic supporting cast throughout the series. Dirk Davis and Trixie Collins are the two employees of Goldstar, Inc. who are constantly at his side. They work with Booster to help him with strengthening his public image and growing his company. They are also pretty much polar opposites. “The general idea was to place Booster in the middle, with a bit of a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other,” says Jurgens. “The devil, of course, was his agent, Dirk Davis. Dirk was there to appeal to Booster’s commercial, less heroic side. Trixie was on the other side of the ledger. She represented the brighter, more heroic approach … they were there to pull Booster in different directions.” When fans think of Booster Gold, they are probably also quick to remember Skeets, his hovering robot sidekick. Jurgens’ explanation of Skeets shows that a lot of thought went into the mechanical companion: “Skeets was first conceived as a writer’s tool. In other words, the problem of writing a character who’s always in solitary action can be a bit of a struggle. Thought balloons? First-person captions? Nothing? If nothing else, sidekicks can be handy because their dialogue exchanges can solve those problems and cover the action. So, from a simple structure standpoint, Skeets was useful. “Skeets was fun to write for obvious reasons,” Dan continues. “Without being humorous, his presence added a sense of levity to book, as he was always available to reprimand Booster. But it became even more important to plug in some notion of guidance, which Skeets supplied. In many ways, he was the Jiminy Cricket to Booster’s Pinocchio. Pinocchio wanted to be a boy, Booster wanted to be a hero.”

HOW TO BE A SUPERHERO Booster Gold #1 (Feb. 1986) is a great introduction to a brand-new character. Right from his first line of dialogue, it’s obvious that this is a superhero from a different generation than those around which the DC Universe was built. In Metropolis, Booster Gold is haggling with a movie executive about how much he should be paid to appear in action movies bearing his name. Millions of dollars are discussed, as are percentage points from merchandising profits. This doesn’t sound like many other superheroes… Booster obviously has a lot to learn. He doesn’t even know what it means when someone tells him to “shake a leg,” and he has to rely on Skeets to clue him in on just what his driver is talking about. It’s a good thing that he leaves the behind-the-scenes work at his company Goldstar, Inc. to people like Dirk and Trixie. He simply doesn’t have the time to focus on the details, and a call between he and Trixie is interrupted when costumed villains show up. Booster saves a woman and her son from being hit by the villains’ vehicle. The woman somehow confuses her rescuer with Metropolis’ other famous hero, exclaiming nothing more than a “Superman!” The kid knows better: “No, Mom! Even better! It’s that Booster Gold guy!” The problem that Booster has to deal with is a villain who goes by the name of Blackguard. A S.T.A.R. Labs satellite-guidance system has fallen into Blackguard’s hands and Booster pretty easily defeats him. Before Booster can even wrap up his TV interview recapping his battle with the villain, a costumed woman descends and knocks out the hero in blue and gold. Booster Gold #2 picks up right where the debut left off—a prone Booster is surrounded by reporters, all of whom are looking for their own soundbite for the evening news. Batman or Superman never get this tied up with the media, and it’s refreshing that Jurgens wanted to emphasize this aspect of superheroics. The costumed woman who appeared on the last page of #1 is called Mindancer. She is working for a group called the 1000, which will certainly be a menace for Booster to deal with in time. In between wondering just who this Mindancer is and wanting a rematch battle with Blackguard, B.G. finds the time to work on a commercial for Flakies breakfast cereal, which he declares “Boosterrific!”

Designing a Hero (above and opposite) Courtesy of Dan Jurgens, the (writer/)artist’s earliest costume sketches for his Corporate Crusader, Booster Gold. “The black and whites were all done first, then I went to color,” Jurgens says. “By then I’d settled on a theme that was clearly the basis for the final figure.”

Issue #3 is notable for two things. First, Booster makes a very big mistake in ignoring US Senator Henry Ballard. The senator approaches him asking for a celebrity endorsement for his campaign and finds his words falling on deaf ears, starting an enmity that will increase in future issues. The other point of focus is a very humorous scene in which the superhero goes out on a well-publicized date with a TV star named Monica Lake. Lake knows how to work the reporters who show up at the restaurant, but Booster is clearly still learning about this kind of thing. He shows up in his standard spandex suit with a purple tuxedo slapped on top and has nothing to say to the media. Monica isn’t impressed, and the night is quite awkward until Skeets alerts him to the lair of the 1000. The conflict with the 1000 comes to a temporary stop in the next issue. Booster finds an ally in Thorn, a heroine with a personal mission to stop the criminal organization in its tracks. Thanks to Skeets’ memory banks, B.G. learns about how Thorn’s father (a Metropolis police officer) was gunned down by members of the 100, a group which over time grew in number to become known as the present-day 1000. While Booster thinks that they did a great job and that the 1000 will be silenced for some time to come, Thorn doesn’t see things as going so easily. She knows they will be back. Booster gets onto the airwaves in a TV interview and puffs himself up a bit. When the interviewer expresses surprise at how a large criminal Heroes Out of Time Issue

Booster Gold TM & © DC Comics.

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THE “REAL” BOOSTER GOLD

Twisted Mister (left) Courtesy of the artist, Dan Jurgens’ original cover art for Booster Gold #5 (June 1986). (right) Booster’s origin told, in issue #6. Cover by Jurgens and DeCarlo. TM & © DC Comics.

organization could just pop up in Metropolis, of all places, Booster Gold explains how this happened by doing some finger-pointing: “I should mention that the complex was lined with lead, thereby preventing the Man of Steel from detecting it! Clearly, Metropolis needs more superheroes such as myself on her team!” Booster Gold #5 (June 1986) gears up for the next leg of the journey for the Corporate Crusader. This story sheds the first light upon Booster Gold’s past. He looks at a hologram of his mother and sister and remarks about how precarious everything that he is doing now is—he has already lost everything in his life once before. Dirk Davis is able to help smooth things with the IRS over with some problems that Booster had been running into. Senator Ballard is incensed about the way that the court decided in favor of Booster’s superheroic nemesis. Finally, the Boostermobile makes its first appearance, and if a gimmicky superhero car ever made sense sharing a name with the person who drives it, it’s this one. The Brysler Booster Mark IV is offered in exchange for endorsement, and is just another sign of Booster living the celebrity highlife.

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Booster Gold #6 is a pivotal episode in the series’ early day, revealing the origin of Booster Gold. Also, Booster finds himself crossing paths with Superman. Neither the release of his many secrets nor his meeting with Metropolis’ top dog are particularly pleasant for Booster. For Dan Jurgens, part of the fun of this story was how it got him to do something that wasn’t common for DC Comics at the time. “One of the things that is cool about Marvel is that almost everyone is in New York,” he says. So with Booster being another hero sharing the same city as Superman, it was only logical that the two would eventually wind up in the same place at the same time. Issue #6’s “To Cross the Rubicon” begins when a kid named Jason Redfern finds a pint-sized alien that is trying to locate Superman. Jason doesn’t know how to get ahold of Supes but has seen the commercials Booster makes and figures that Metropolis’ “other” hero will be able to point the alien in the right direction of Superman. Since Booster is such a public grandstander, it is easy for Jason to find him at Reilleau Towers. It’s something of a surprise to Jason when he learns that Booster has never met Superman either. Booster resolves to help the kid and announces that he will be waiting at the Baker Dam to tell Superman about how the Earth faces a cosmic threat. Superman arrives and is hardly pleased to learn about Booster’s “slight” exaggeration. “I’ve seen your billboards and commercials, Gold, and believe me when I say I don’t like your style,” says Superman before he demands that Skeets explain just who Booster Gold really is. Superman’s opinion of Booster Gold only gets worse as Skeets relates the story of his alter ego, Michael Jon Carter. In the 25th Century, Carter was a star quarterback for the Gotham University football team until his penchant for gambling on games

(including some he played in) was revealed to the public. With his football career ruined, Carter found work as a nightwatchman at the Space Museum in Metropolis. He was amazed at the stories of the superheroes and decided that he wanted to become one himself. Luckily for him, the museum provided him with everything he would need, from a Legion of Super-Heroes flight ring to a power suit, energy rods, and most importantly, Rip Hunter’s time machine. With the time machine, Carter realized that he could escape into the past and find a time where he would be safe from his terrible 25th-Century reputation. Skeets didn’t like the idea, but when the robot put up a fuss Carter deactivated him and initiated his plan. “Incredible! Booster Gold is nothing more than a 25th Century crook!” exclaims Superman. Before things get too heated between the two costumed heroes, a spaceship descends and scoops them away. The problem that the little alien warned about has arrived. Booster and Superman have to try to set aside their differences and work together in Booster Gold #7. Ranzee, the alien who came to Earth, is trying to overthrow the ruler of his people, saying that his family was put to death and that he has been struggling his whole life to make things right. Booster’s approach to solving the problem is a little too hotheaded for Supes, and the two start battling. Skeets weakens Booster’s force field and Superman is able to take down Booster. The robot knew that it had to be done because Booster was very wrong. Superman teaches Booster a valuable lesson when it is revealed that Ranzee is really the stepbrother of the ruler. Ranzee lied to the heroes to get them on his side to overthrow the government and put himself in place. Booster played right into his hands and very nearly got him what he wanted. “You mean I was wrong?” asks Booster. “Yes, you were,” says Superman. “There are many sides to any conflict. It’s seldom as simple as ‘good vs. evil!’ I think you learned that today.” When they get back to Earth, Superman talks with Skeets a little more. Ultimately he tells the robot to keep Booster out of his way. He glares at Booster, who is already surrounded by a throng of reporters. He gives another look of disapproval, spreads his arms, and flies high into the Metropolis sky. Booster knows that he didn’t get a very good performance review, but seems to have no grasp of just how badly he bothered Metropolis’ other hero. Superman seems to think of Booster as being nothing more than an anti-hero. To Dan Jurgens, such a description isn’t fitting. “Booster is a character in search of redemption … he’s not Superman,” he says. “He’s not out there trying to be the shining paragon of virtue. He might have the interest in the money and the endorsements, but he is still trying to do the right thing. He is motivated by his own screw-ups.” In Booster Gold #8 (Sept. 1986), Jurgens takes the chance to continue Booster’s adventures by delving a little more into the past: only now do we find out just what it was like on Michael Jon Carter’s first day in the 20th Century. The stolen time machine is in rough shape after making the leap from 500 years in the future. The world is a strange place for Booster and Skeets: Booster doesn’t understand what cash is (having only the Visa credit card he took with him from the Space Museum), he doesn’t recognize the “rules of the road” in Metropolis, and is oblivious to how his skintight 25th-Century attire might be a little out of fashion. He checks into a hotel and the career of Booster Gold soon begins. It’s a good thing that Booster will soon be prowling the streets of Metropolis, because the 1000 is planning to assassinate US President Ronald Reagan. In this “tale from the past,” Jurgens cleverly ties up a plot thread that he had left dangling for awhile: The Director of the 1000 is revealed to be none other than Senator Ballard, the man who has been unrelenting in his attacks on Booster.

Booster arrives to provide some extra security for the president, but gets caught up in a tangle with a few members of the Legion of Super-Heroes. The Legion found the very time machine that Carter had used to escape the 25th Century and are on a mission to see that the thief is taken to justice. Ultra Boy, Chameleon Boy, and Brainiac 5 already thought pretty poorly of Booster Gold, but then they come to think that he might be the person trying to assassinate President Reagan (the running tally shows that Booster so far has no allies among other superheroes). Booster proves his worth by standing up to the hit man dispatched by the 1000. After they see how Booster truly intends to be a hero, the Legionnaires return to the 30th Century. Issue #10 gets things rolling toward Booster’s final confrontation with the 1000. The Director sends people to threaten Dirk. Booster arrives at the scene of a burning building and is soon greeted by a host of robots (also sent by the 1000’s revenge-driven leader). One issue later, the Director is pulling out all the stops to get Booster’s attention: he has Trixie and Dirk’s daughter kidnapped and also has the men working on a Booster Gold comic book murdered. A superhuman strong guy by the name of Shockwave gets to work pummeling Reilleau Towers until it all comes crashing down. The 1000 tap into Skeets and program him to display a hologram of the Director, taunting Booster with knowledge he gained from interrogating Trixie and demanding that he meet at his location. Booster’s response? “I’ll be there, fella. And I swear to God … only one of us is going to walk out alive!” Booster Gold #12 wraps up the first year of the series in a ramped-up finale to the saga of the 1000. The Director leads Booster through a maze of henchmen and traps and winds up sending him right to the rescue of Dirk’s daughter and Trixie. Trixie tells Booster that before he leaves the warehouse there is just one person whom he needs to

Metropolis Marvels The boys in blue mix it up on page 13 of Booster Gold #7 (Aug. 1986). By Jurgens and DeCarlo. TM & © DC Comics.

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save: Senator Ballard. Even though the senator has done so much to get in his way, Booster still agrees to help. Ballard shocks Booster by once again remotely controlling Skeets. The robot blasts Booster in the chest and then falls to the ground, his energy depleted. Tearing away at his suit to reveal his Director costume, Ballard threatens to kill Booster with a simple revolver: “You will not die like a superhero ... just a common bullet to the head, and a body found in a dark alley.” Booster gets up and takes on his arch-nemesis, hardly even stopping to register the pain of his broken arm when the Director twists it. With the building about to explode, Booster escapes just in time, but falls to the ground in a crumpled mess in front of those whom he just saved.

BACK TO THE FUTURE The battle with the 1000 leaves Booster with some significant problems to deal with. In issue #13, 20th-Century doctors are having a tough time finding out what is wrong with the man from 500 years in the future. He has broken bones and is obviously weakened, but there is more wrong with him. Besides that, nobody has a clue as to how to get Skeets back up and running. It’s decided that the only thing to do is to visit Rip Hunter, Time Master, and head into the future so everything can get taken care of. There is no holding back on the impact that the battle with the 1000 had on Booster. All too often in superhero comics the mending takes place between issues. Dan Jurgens remarks that Booster’s injuries and recovery was a conscious effort: “Booster does not have superpowers. He has the tools: the flight ring, the power suit, etc., but once you take that stuff away he is human. In a way there has always been a subtext to Booster that he is the most human of superheroes. When you show that physically, it makes it more credible that Booster is a fallible character.” The Man in Blue and Gold certainly goes through the ringer in this issue. While in the hospital room, Booster notices an angry mob that is protesting him in particular and superheroes in general. His nurse chews him out for doing everything for the fame and glory that TV cameras bring to his name. He realizes that some people really do hate him and disapprove of the activities of superheroes. Booster finally tells Dirk and Trixie about his past and how he came to land in the year 1986. They aren’t very impressed, but they still support the man they now know as Michael Carter. With the help of Rip Hunter, Booster and company are flung into the future, something that is not very easy for Michael Carter to deal with. In this time, Carter is the only name he is known by, and he is recognized and threatened right away by his old landlord when he arrives to try and find his family. He gets bent out of shape when he finds out about his mother’s death and sister’s disappearance. A final note about Booster Gold #13: This issue also features the debut of Trixie as a superheroine, showing up in the power suit that scientist Jack Soo created for her and going by the name of Goldstar. A federal agent named Broderick finds Booster in police custody and makes it very clear that the punishment for his escapades in time can only be death. A daring escape is made as Booster is being led to the execution, and a woman in a 25th-Century school bus is the rescuer. The woman is none other

Extreme Makeover For the cover of Booster Gold #11 (Dec. 1986), Dan Jurgens (inked by Jerry Ordway) had intended to riff Clark Kent’s shirt-opening stance; however, the Miami Vice-inspired Don Johnson look trumped the Super-fashion-statement and the cover was altered, as shown. Dan, who kindly contributed the scans, explains the reason for the change: “Everything was fine until it was killed by DC’s lawyers. They felt it intruded too far on Superman’s recognizable image of change, which they were trying to protect at the time. With that in mind, they asked us to alter the cover. So we did a new figure, with Booster assuming the Don Johnson pose. This figure replaced the first one, in front of the Boostermobile.” TM & © DC Comics.

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than Michelle Carter, sister of Booster. “Michelle came in because I felt a need for Booster to have some kind of family connection,” says Jurgens of this important supporting character. “He wasn’t ever supposed to be like Batman—a character who’d lost everything. Booster was trying to make up for the mistakes of his past, not avenge the loss of family.” Now considered a criminal, Michelle needs an escape plan. Of course, Booster has an easy plan to take her back to the past with him. The dynamics between the two characters are there right away: “…tell me one thing—will I like it there?” asks Michelle. “You’ll be the sister of the most famous, handsome, and eligible guy in Metropolis! That’s a pretty good way to start!” replies Booster. “Really? You found me a new brother?” The 25th-Century story arc ends with a truck driver unloading a huge shipment of goods to a food pantry. The driver’s flimsy disguise beard, big sunglasses, and Legion flight ring show that the words of the nurse didn’t go unheeded. Booster Gold has realized another thing about being a superhero: sometimes just doing good for the sake of doing good is enough of a reward.

FRESH START Following the journey into the future, there is an awful lot of rebuilding to be done in Booster Gold #16 (May 1987). Dirk Davis found a new place for Booster to set up shop, in a mansion on the outskirts of Metropolis. Goldstar, Inc. is now to be referred to as Booster Gold International, reflecting a plan to become even bigger as a corporate entity. A bloated press conference is held to show off the new Goldstar Tower to be built where Reilleau Towers once stood. Clark Kent is among the reporters, and his opinion of Booster has hardly improved. Shortly, there is a break-in at Booster’s mansion. There, Booster finds walking in the shadows a man with an interesting proposition: his name is Maxwell Lord, and he extends an invitation for the hero to join his newly formed version of the Justice League. Booster eagerly accepts … despite the fact that there is no money involved whatsoever. Jurgens was also pretty excited that Booster got to be a part of the JLI (Justice League International): “The [DC] office gave me a call: ‘Hey, we’re putting together this new Justice League book and they want to

do something different. They’re putting the roster together. What do you think of Booster being a part of this team?’ Of course, I was thinking, ‘Hey, that sounds great to me!’ Then they said back: ‘Now, Dan, before you say yes … this is going to be pretty different.’ I saw some black-and-white copies of the first couple of issues and liked it, and everybody else did—it was great stuff.” Creative team Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, and company took the baton and turned Booster into one of the most beloved JLA members of his day. Broderick, the tough cop who ran into Booster in the future, finds himself in 1987 and looking to bring Booster to justice in issue #18, determined to arrest the man he once knew as Michael Carter for his various crimes. The perspectives of Booster that Broderick brings make for a great read. The cop was one of many people who idolized Carter the football player, and wanted to see the kid win it all. When Carter’s gambling schemes were revealed, Broderick felt betrayed, just like every other citizen of Metropolis must have. Broderick is dismayed that the first he sees of Carter in 1987 is on a TV screen as he pushes a bottle of aftershave in a commercial. Broderick tries to shoot Booster as he leaves a restaurant. The two tussle and Broderick lets Booster escape the confrontation, only because a robbery is taking place nearby. They meet up again as a convenience store is being held up. Broderick is held at gunpoint by a robber and thinks that he is a goner—until Booster saves his life. Even though he wants to, Broderick can’t bring himself to execute a man who is obviously doing some good with the new life that he’s made for himself. “I really do want to pull the trigger … but I can’t,” Broderick thinks. “Maybe he is supposed to be here. A hero.” Booster Gold #19 (Aug. 1987) begins an offbeat arc featuring the Flash villain Rainbow Raider, the alter ego of a man curiously named Roy G. Bivolo. The Raider wants revenge against a man whom he claims has stolen many ideas from Bivolo’s paintings. The bad guy is hardly taken seriously, but he winds up causing problems for Booster. Lois Lane publishes a nasty exposé of the Corporate Crusader when she sees how he fails to apprehend the Rainbow Raider. When the two costumes meet again, Booster winds up blinded (and drained of all color) from the Raider’s white-light beam. This Silver Age-esque quirkiness continues into the next issue as Booster’s colors are restored. Still blinded, Booster battles the Rainbow Raider, relying on Skeets to be his eyes.

Vulnerable Hero Jurgens’ Booster Gold took his lumps, physically and emotionally, as the series progressed. Two dynamite covers penciled by Dan: (left) #13 (Feb. 1987), with Bob Lewis cover inks; and (right) #16 (May 1987), with Bruce Patterson cover inks. TM & © DC Comics.

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Everybody Wants Him Courtesy of Dan Jurgens, two original covers: (left) Booster Gold #18 (July 1987), inked by Jerry Ordway, with Booster squaring off against a time-tracking enemy; and (right) doubling your Booster pleasure in another Supersquabble—this time with John Byrne inks—for BG #23 (Dec. 1987). TM & © DC Comics.

The conflict ends when the multicolored villain gets to make his accusations against the man whom he claims ripped off his art. While her brother is dealing with all of his Rainbow Raider-induced problems, Michelle Carter dons the Goldstar costume briefly used by Trixie Collins. She wants to do the kinds of things that Michael does, but unfortunately her inaugural flight gets cut short by some aliens who find and capture her. The first tie-in to an overarching DC Comics storyline begins in Booster Gold #21. The “Invasion” storyline featured aliens from a place known only as Dimension X coming to Earth to stop its inhabitants from being a threat to their race in the future. Booster finds out that his sister has been taken by the aliens and Skeets fills him in on their location inside a dimensional gate tucked away inside Minneapolis’ Metrodome stadium. The aliens give him an ultimatum: He can save either the life of his sister or the 38,000 people attending the Twins game. Booster calls in some help from his friends in the Justice League in issue #22 (Nov. 1987). When Michelle is finally found, the dimensional gateway is crumbling. Michelle’s final act sends Booster through the gateway and back to safety. All he has left of his twin sister is the star symbol from her costume. He clings to it and sobs in the darkest hour he has yet faced in his brief career as a superhero of the 20th Century. The Justice Leaguers all gather together for Michelle Carter’s funeral. Michael remarks that it is just wrong for her gravestone to be sitting in a cemetery in the year

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1987 when she lived most of her life 500 years later. Dr. Fate sends Michelle’s headstone to a realm where it will be safe and unnoticed. Michael is devastated. He took his sister with him from the future in order to give her a better life, and she winds up dead. “Looks like I screwed up again,” Booster thinks. “Only this time someone else had to pay the price. First Ma … now you. Maybe that’s what I get for letting people get close to me. Maybe I deserve to be alone … forever!” The “other” Metropolis-based superhero crosses paths with Booster Gold once again in issue #23, a story that directly spins out of the events of Action Comics #594 (Nov. 1987) by John Byrne. The idea for an Action/Booster Gold crossover came about when plans for a return of the Legion of Super-Heroes fell through. While the shift in gears was somewhat of an inconvenience for Dan Jurgens, he is quick to add, “John offered to do a Booster/Superman crossover type of project, which was all sorts of fun. It was great to see Booster in Action.” Jurgens’ issue begins with Booster finding Superman in battle with a doppelganger of Booster himself. The fake Booster had just publicly called out Superman for his involvement in conflict with the country of Qurac. When Booster begins battling his “twin,” it doesn’t take long to discover that he is really just fighting a sophisticated robot. Superman is having a tough time dealing with the robot because of the kryptonite hidden away inside it, which Booster promptly uses to taunt Superman with.

Steel vs. Gold (left) John Byrne’s cover to the Superman/Booster “team-up” in Action Comics #594 (Nov. 1987). (right) The Dan Jurgens/Norm Rapmund cover to the 52 spin-off, the new Booster Gold #1 (Oct. 2007). TM & © DC Comics.

The robot’s builder is none other than Lex Luthor, who has always felt threatened by Superman and now feels threatened by the corporate competition of Metropolis’ newer superhero. The robot was made to ruin things for both of Lex’s enemies, and the whole fiasco certainly puts a dent in Booster’s reputation. Superman and Booster remain on unfriendly terms and Booster gets the sense that he will never be approved of by Metropolis’ favorite son.

THE END It’s somewhat unfortunate that another of DC’s linewide crossovers dictates the last couple of issues of Booster Gold’s first series. The “Millennium” storyline features the Manhunters infiltrating the lives of every superhero. The Manhunters are attempting to counteract alien interference that will bring about the next step in human evolution. Booster’s Manhunter reveals himself after booby-trapping the mansion’s security systems. Dirk Davis explains how he has been working against Booster for quite some time. When everyone else was on their timetravel adventure, Dirk was the one who remained behind and found the new mansion so he could best know its secrets. Dirk has left Booster without any remaining assets. Full of faults as he is, Booster shockingly agrees to aid the Manhunters if he can get his material wealth back. Booster holds a press conference in which he calls attention to how the Justice League might be being used by aliens and how humanity’s progress is being toyed with. Booster goes from one extreme to another in issue #25 (Feb. 1988). Things didn’t turn out very well with his alliance with the Manhunters. For the most part, he sounds willing to give up as a superhero, even going so far as to get rid of his costume. He tries to escape everything by visiting Rip Hunter and hoping that he can send him back into the future, but the man with the time machine declines. The members of the Justice League find Booster and eventually get him to agree that giving up altogether is not the answer. Martian Manhunter presents Booster Gold with a fresh costume, and the hero seems to have a complete about-face. He visits Trixie one last time and kisses her. Determined to find a new home outside of Metropolis, Booster Gold proclaims that he is here to stay. “If you start at issue #1 and go all

the way through to the end, certainly we see the growth of the character and the interest on his part in redemption,” says Jurgens. “He becomes a more likable character. At first he is crass and commercially driven. By the end, he is concerned about what is right and is taking a different path to get there.” It wasn’t easy for Jurgens to close the curtain on a series that he had invested so much of himself in, from writing, drawing, and creating new chunks of the DC Universe. “On a personal level, I was really bummed by the fact that the book was coming to an end,” he says. “I felt we still had legs and the potential to move forward. I didn’t see it as a failure, as 25 issues can be a good run. But, at the time, I didn’t appreciate the success of having gotten that far either.” When asked if he felt that the series had ended too soon, Jurgens replies, “Very much so … but sad as I was to see it go, I was very appreciative to have had the chance. Over the course of those 25 issues I became a much better writer and artist. If you look at those books you can pretty clearly see not only the growth of Booster as a character, but me as a creator. The pain of a writer trying to figure things out is quite evident in the early issues.” Booster Gold’s series was a victim of low sales, but Jurgens is quick to point out that the numbers that the title was doing in 1988 would look pretty stellar by today’s standards. After the inaugural series wrapped up, the story of Booster Gold was hardly finished. He remained a fixture in the Justice League for years and had a surge in popularity with DC’s ambitious weekly series 52. Booster appeared semi-regularly on the Cartoon Network’s Batman: The Brave and the Bold animated series. Dan Jurgens got to work on a second ongoing Booster Gold series that ran for 47 issues between 2007 and 2011. Booster even played a key role in DC’s “New 52” launch as team leader in Justice League International. At age five, CHRISTOPHER LAROCHELLE discovered superheroes on the small screen in cartoons like Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men ... a lifelong collection was born. Take a look at his comics-related scrawlings over at http://clarocomics.blogspot.com.

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It seemed like a good idea at the time. In the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, there would be consistent rules for how the DC Universe would work. And rather than tell, we’d show readers (and our peers) how things worked, starting with Time Masters, a miniseries that would make Rip Hunter, a B-list Silver Age hero, relevant once more. The project came my way in part because I was the company’s acknowledged continuity cop and because direct sales’ Bob Wayne approached me with an enticing idea. He would partner with Lewis Shiner, a fellow author and Texan, and spin an exciting yarn. Both gents had done prose work, contributing to George R. R. Martin’s Wild Cards series of anthology novels in addition to Lewis’ own, cutting-edge prose work. It also gave me a chance to further develop a young artist I had grown fond of, Art Thibert, who was just making a name for himself in the field. Well, the best of intentions got us started, but it also quickly became apparent the rules lacked the support among the editors and writers so they were quickly ignored, relegating the series to obscurity. That is, until Rip Hunter became a key player in 52 and the waning days of the original DC Universe. Then the miniseries was collected for the first time, reminding everyone of its potential. Now, the writers sat down at Lewis’ North Carolina home and chatted amiably about what it was like once upon a time…. – Bob Greenberger BOB GREENBERGER: Long before either of you began your professional careers, you read comics. What was your first encounter with Rip Hunter? BOB WAYNE: One of the earliest issues in the monthly series, bought off the rack. LEWIS SHINER: One of those first Showcase issues with the Joe Kubert art—I’m talking off the newsstand rack here, not second-hand. GREENBERGER: What was the appeal of the character, or was it just that you liked time travel? WAYNE: The time travel. My favorite SF books I read as a kid were all time-travel books. SHINER: All of the above. I was already a sucker for time travel, and no doubt the Kubert art grabbed me hard. I also liked the fact that it was ordinary folks in plain clothes. When they got the green costumes, something went out of the experience for me.

Time is On My Side Detail from Art Thibert’s cover to Time Masters #1 (Feb. 1990). (inset) Bill Ely’s cover to 1964’s Rip Hunter … Time Master #23 features George Washington gone bad. TM & © DC Comics.

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Robert Grenberger

GREENBERGER: I was late in discovering Rip, reading GREENBERGER: What happened next? mostly the Julie Schwartz and Mort Weisinger books of WAYNE: In 1986, I was considering leaving [comics] retail the time. Jack Schiff, though, was off editing heroic, and taking a job in publishing. I set up some appointnot superheroic, comics, first with Challengers of the ments in New York, and then I figured I might as well pitch Unknown and its thematic successors, Rip and Cave for some freelance work as well. So I contacted Lewis… Carson. Was that of more interest to you? GREENBERGER: Lewis, when did you first hear about WAYNE: I was more interested in the Superman titles as this and get involved? a kid, because of the television show. And the SHINER: It was a phone call from Bob. My Batman titles, because I had the same last memory is that he had a pretty good idea of name and first initial as Batman. Never what this would be before he pitched it to cared for Robin. I eventually moved on me, but as we’re sitting talking about it to any comics I could find, and that’s here, he reminds me that he gently led when I added Justice League, Flash, me to it by asking, “What DC character Green Lantern ... and Rip Hunter. that hasn’t been redone yet would SHINER: I have interrogated myself a be you interested in my pitching lot about why I liked the stuff I liked as while I’m in New York?” …Knowing, a kid. Mostly it was the non-powered of course, what I would say. characters—Sea Devils and Rip Hunter GREENBERGER: I recall at the time, being at the top of the list, but also you were living, I think, in New including Challengers and Cave Jersey, but we dealt mainly by phone. Carson. But I also liked Green Lantern I seem to remember a fair amount of bob wayne and The Atom, so some of it was enthusiasm and quick work on your clearly related to the art. But why, then, collective part. wouldn’t I have gone for Hawkman as well? It’s a mystery. WAYNE: At the start, Lew and I were both living in GREENBERGER: Now, Time Masters came about to Texas, just in two different cities. I was in Fort Worth show the new post–Crisis rules. As the dust was settling where some of my retail stores were located, and Lew in having one universe, there was a series of editorial was in Austin. When I took the staff job at DC, I moved meetings that tried to define the new rules. Among them up to Connecticut, based in part on Dick Giordano’s was a rule regarding restrictions on time travel, which in the advice about the relative cost of living and state taxes! early 1980s was used with regularity. Paul Levitz really SHINER: At that point I was doing part-time freelance wanted to make that far tougher. At what point, Bob, programming from home, so I was able to move did you hear this and think, “There’s a story to be told”? quickly. Bob, of course, has always been a human WAYNE: The first time I heard the new time-travel dynamo. rules, I knew there was a story to be told. It was only a GREENBERGER: Who conceived of using the Illuminati matter of who told it first. conspiracy as a thread? Heroes Out of Time Issue

A Little Help, Please (left) Co-writer Lewis Shiner’s breakdowns helped (right) then-newbie artist Art Thibert lay out Time Masters’ stories. From issue #1, page 13—once again featuring George Washington! Courtesy of Bob Greenberger. TM & © DC Comics.

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Savage Land An example of Thibert’s pencil art, splash page of Time Masters #3 (Apr. 1990). Courtesy of Bob Greenberger. TM & © DC Comics.

WAYNE: That was already part of the seed of the idea when I called Lewis. SHINER: I think Bob included that in his pitch to me, knowing I couldn’t resist it. GREENBERGER: What about using the immortal villain, Vandal Savage? SHINER: Definitely Bob on that one—I didn’t know who he was. WAYNE: That was me. I thought Vandal Savage as an immortal was a good hook for a time-travel story, and would also more closely tie the project in to DC’s continuity. GREENBERGER: So, how long did it take you two to go from initial concept to formal proposal? WAYNE: We would never have told our editor at the time, but it was only a couple of weeks. GREENBERGER: I don’t remember any particular enthusiasm or concern over the project when it was first proposed. After all, it served an editorial need. I believe it was approved without much delay, and then we had to find someone to draw it.

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WAYNE: Bob, I think you were disappointed that you hadn’t made the connection between Dan Hunter in Tomahawk to Rip Hunter’s family tree, but other than that… GREENBERGER: I had begun working with Art Thibert, who was at the very beginning of his career. He had done a thing or two for Marvel before I had him doing pieces for Who’s Who in Star Trek, and we got along fairly well. It was my idea, then, to use him for our book. Do you recall your thoughts on the art? WAYNE: My first thought was of surprise. They’re going to take two comic scripting novices and team them with a relatively new artist? Thankfully, [inker] Jose Marzan, Jr. was going to be part of this to clean up after all of us. SHINER: I remember being very impressed with the samples you showed me. Art was still a bit raw, but had a lot of potential. When we started working on the book, however, it turned out that he was not comfortable yet with doing breakdowns. He was taking a really unrealistic amount of time trying to do that, so we finally gave up and I did extremely rough breakdown sketches for him, just to get him over that hump. GREENBERGER: This was Art’s first major storytelling assignment and as it turned out, he was not quite a booklewis shiner a-month guy. As a result, even though we began work circa 1987, the book itself didn’t come out until late 1989. Did that cause you, as writers, much concern, given the universe continued to move ahead while we were still defining the rules? WAYNE: We knew that time travel was a very attractive story element, and we weren’t surprised that the rules and the universe both continued to evolve. SHINER: I was reading some of the other DC titles, and I have to say, I was a bit disappointed that there had been an initiative to clean up this aspect of the DC Universe, but that not everyone was interested in the post–Crisis rules. GREENBERGER: How’d you two collaborate on the script? SHINER: We divvied them up, basically, for first drafts, then went back and forth. By the time we got to the script stage, of course, we’d worked out the plot details pretty thoroughly. I don’t remember any real question about who would take the lead on which issue—we each had our favorite characters or eras that we wanted to write. I know I wanted Jonah Hex and ancient Egypt, and Bob was hot to do Tomahawk and the Viking Prince. WAYNE: And we were mailing the scripts back and forth on floppy disks, all pre–Internet. GREENBERGER: Issue #5 credits Geo. W. Proctor for help with research. What exactly did he do? WAYNE: George helped with some of the medieval stuff. He was a local writer who had worked for newspapers, and he was very supportive of aspiring writers. He also taught me how to write a press release. SHINER: George was only a couple of years older than us, but he’d been publishing for a much longer time, and so he was kind of a father figure to us younger guys. He was extremely generous with his time and a good friend. He also introduced me to Joe Lansdale, who continues to be one of my best friends. GREENBERGER: A later issue thanked Paul Kupperberg, creator of that issue’s guest star, Arion. Did he help in a significant way? WAYNE: He looked over the story and gave his feedback on how we were using Arion.

Man of Ego Rip Hunter’s reaction to his encounter with Superman was softened editorially. In this interview the writers reveal what Rip really thought about the Action Ace. Page 13 from issue #2. TM & © DC Comics.

GREENBERGER: And when you saw the artwork, do you recall your thoughts? SHINER: I’d just echo what Bob said earlier, that I was especially pleased with the sophistication that Jose brought to the inking. GREENBERGER: As the supporting characters came to life, did either of you have a favorite, or change your opinion once you saw the art? WAYNE: Cave Carson was my favorite, and that didn’t change. Luckily I had the opportunity to write a backstory for him in Secret Origins, with great art by Tim Truman. SHINER: We were writing pretty detailed scripts, and between that and the breakdowns, I would say I had a pretty clear idea of that the art would look like. The fact that there weren’t any real surprises for me was a good thing—it means our ideas were being realized very much the way we’d imagined them. GREENBERGER: The book benefitted from all eight covers working with the clock face motif as an element. It was certainly an early example of such design elements being used for such a project; do you think that helped the miniseries? WAYNE: Well, we had seen Watchmen by that point, so we certainly had seen how running motifs could benefit a project… SHINER: The truth is, people do judge a book by its cover, so I think we were lucky to have really strong covers on the entire run. GREENBERGER: I think we hit every time period we wanted. Do you recall any we planned on and missed? WAYNE: No. I think the only ones we missed were the ones we had skipped on purpose, reserved for the possible sequel. SHINER: Yeah, like Bob said, we skipped King Arthur and the Kennedy assassination because we were hoping to do a sequel that worked with that whole “Camelot” motif. GREENBERGER: This also allowed us to use guest stars. Did you guys work up a wish list from Anthro to Bat Lash and see what worked? WAYNE: It was a mix of picking different characters and different eras. SHINER: I remember that the Viking Prince and Jonah Hex were definitely on our wish list. But we also needed to get some kind of representative coverage of the various eras of Western Civilization. GREENBERGER: We finally connected Tomahawk’s Dan Hunter to Rip Hunter. Was that a fanboy moment for you? WAYNE: Actually, the fanboy moment for me on that was when you and Mike Gold realized that we had done it. GREENBERGER: Other guest stars included Booster Gold and the Justice League, grounding the series in the contemporary DCU. That certainly helped with reader identification. SHINER: It also included Superman, which taught me an important lesson about writing for DC. In the original script, after Rip meets Supes, he is badly let down, and his thought balloon was supposed to say something like, “What an arrogant jerk.” When the comic came out, Rip was thinking, “Wow, he’s a little colder than I thought.” You don’t mess with Superman at DC. WAYNE: If I could have figured out a way to get the Batman office to approve it, I had an idea for how to use him in it as well. GREENBERGER: Given the rules—that you could move through time no more than three one-way trips—was the goal always to strand Rip in the past? SHINER: Yep. GREENBERGER: When crafting the overall story, did the rules prove problematic? WAYNE: Somewhat. We had to keep track of which characters had already time traveled—and by which methods. SHINER: It was tricky. We had some head-scratching moments to make it all work out.

GREENBERGER: Marketing gave us that nice in-store poster for the miniseries and it was also supported with the Cave Carson story in Secret Origins. Was it fun writing Cave? WAYNE: Great fun, especially working with Tim. GREENBERGER: You were blessed with nice Tim Truman artwork. How’d he get tapped for the gig? WAYNE: I called him and asked him if we would do it, knowing that he was a fan. And after he said yes, I pitched the idea to Secret Origins editor Mark Waid as a hypothetical: “Hey, Mark, if I can get Timothy Truman to draw it, would you buy a Cave Carson story?” Mark said something like, “Oh, sure, if Truman will draw it.” “Great, I’ll have the script for you tomorrow.” GREENBERGER: Did you have much contact with the other writers or editors while working on the project, or did everything flow from you through me to them? SHINER: Bob mentioned a couple of exceptions earlier, like Paul Kupperberg, but for my part, all the contact was through you. GREENBERGER: Do you recall the fan reaction to the miniseries as it rolled out through 1990? WAYNE: Longtime DC fans showed some enthusiasm over the series. Even now, over 20 years later, I still get stopped at conventions and asked to sign the comics or the collected edition. SHINER: My memory is that the fans were pretty excited. There were a lot of people out there with fond memories of the character. GREENBERGER: Lewis, you were the sole voice on the text pages. Was that a conscious choice at the outset? SHINER: I don’t remember how that decision got made. Trying to second-guess the past, I would say the main reasons were that I was Heroes Out of Time Issue

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V for Vindictive The miniseries’ villain, the immortal Vandal Savage. Page 1 of the last issue of Time Masters, #8 (Sept. 1990), by Wayne, Shiner, Thibert, and Marzan, Jr. (opposite page) Time Master Bonnie and Dr. Fate. TM & © DC Comics.

better known as a writer because of my prose publications, and I think since Bob was a DC employee, we were keeping his profile a bit lower. But I expect Bob can tell you the real reason… WAYNE: I was busy enough with the fulltime staff job at DC and co-writing the series that I was glad that Lew handled the text pages solo! GREENBERGER: They certainly made for good reading. SHINER: Thanks! GREENBERGER: After years of development and eight months of publication, it was suddenly all over. Do you remember your feelings about that time? A job well done, a missed opportunity, or something else? WAYNE: I was pleased that we had completed Time Masters, and I was very glad that I would now be able to spend my weekends doing something else! SHINER: Well, after Time Masters, you pretty quickly contacted me about wanting to do something with computers in the DC Universe, which led to The Hacker Files. So I was already moving on to the next thing. [Editor’s note: The Hacker Files was a forward-thinking project ahead of its time—and a story worth telling in another issue.]

GREENBERGER: Since then, the rules were completely ignored and the miniseries itself seemed relegated to a neglected corner of the continuity. Rip went on to become one of the Linear Men and the others were never seen again. Did that hurt? WAYNE: I’ve been reading comics for more than a few years, so I didn’t expect the post–Crisis time-travel rules to remain in place forever. So no, it didn’t hurt. SHINER: Despite the fact that a lot of comics now get collected as “graphic novels” (whether they’re really “novels” or not), the monthly comic book is still very much a reflection of its time. Contemporary cultural references, reboots of the universe, all these things tend to date certain aspects of the story. So I think you have to focus on the characters and the larger thematic concerns rather than the details of time-travel rules or that kind of stuff. GREENBERGER: Suddenly, after 20 years or so, the Time Masters project became relevant again via the DC event 52. What did you think? WAYNE: I was at a plotting meeting for the weekly 52 series as the sales guy, and editor Steve Wacker asked me the same thing. As I told him, I thought it was pretty damn cool. GREENBERGER: Better yet, it finally gave collected editions an excuse to finally collect the miniseries. Were either of you involved in that? WAYNE: As you know, Bob, part of my job is to provide sales feedback on potential collected editions. So I was in the room when the collected editions team pitched a Time Masters trade paperback. I said that it was a great idea, acknowledged that I had a conflict of interest, and then recused myself from the rest of the decision process. SHINER: I happily cashed the check. GREENBERGER: Looking back at the miniseries, has your opinion changed since you initially worked on it. WAYNE: Nope! SHINER: Rereading the trade paperback, I was pleasantly surprised by it. There was more action and suspense than I remembered, and I thought it read pretty well. GREENBERGER: Given all that has happened through the years, are these characters you would like to revisit should the opportunity present itself? SHINER: I think the characters have changed so drastically because of 52 and the search for Bruce Wayne and so forth that it would be, to put it mildly, a real challenge to try and do something with them in the present continuity. WAYNE: With the New 52, the slate is relatively clean now for Rip Hunter, but I think it would still be a challenge to tell the next story we had planned over two decades ago. SHINER: Sure. The slate is clean, but people have very recent memories of the bearded Rip in the green suit and all that went with it, so you would have to contend with that. WAYNE: We’re used to that disconnect! Robert Greenberger is a longtime comics historian and former staffer at DC Comics and Marvel Comics. A fulltime freelance writer and editor, he has written and contributed to numerous comics history books. He continues to write reviews for ComicMix.com, and more about Bob can be found at BobGreenberger.com.

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A Chat with Art Thibert Considered one of the finest inkers in comics over the last 25 years, Art Thibert’s fans may have easily overlooked his earliest work, when he was also a penciler. He got his start in the late 1980s with covers and pinups before being asked to pencil the Time Masters miniseries, which was a labor of love in every sense of the word. He reminisced with his editor over the summer of 2012.

GREENBERGER: How much contact did you have with Bob and Lewis from outset through the production of the miniseries? THIBERT: I don’t remember having the pleasure of meeting Lewis, but early on Bob Wayne was very nice to me. During the early startup of the miniseries, I remember talking a great deal to Bob. I even stayed for a weekend at his home in Connecticut going over ideas. GREENBERGER: Do you recall suggesting anything that BOB GREENBERGER: We first met when you were just was or was not used? getting started and you were looking to pencil. I used THIBERT: Yes, and here’s the frustrating part: I had a you on Who’s Who in Star Trek; what else had you sketchbook filled with concepts and ideas. I remember done by then? being so eager to share these ideas with the creative ART THIBERT: I got work from you on the Star Trek team. I think I started getting so overzealous with Who’s Who (which, by the way, thank you very much it that I remember you, Bob, telling me, “Enough! for), and I got work with Ralph Macchio at Marvel. Just start drawing the book. I need pages.” What Nothing really glamorous there; I was working on can I say, I was young and enthusiastic. I do wish their Star Comics line, which were books designed for I still had that sketchbook, because it would be fun younger readers—mostly licensed stuff from cartoons, to have those ideas and drawings be part of this etc. My book there was the Inhumanoids, which I interview. inked over Jose Delbo. Also, before Time Masters, GREENBERGER: It must have been daunting going art thibert you gave me work penciling Warlord, issue #120. from pinups and covers to 24–26 pages a month. GREENBERGER: Do you remember when I first What are your memories of that time? raised the issue of Time Masters? THIBERT: Hell, sheer hell! There were those three issues I had penciled THIBERT: Yeah, I do. It was a day that was to change my life! Besides the of Warlord (and I think I had done pencils and inks on a Teen Titans short run penciling Warlord for you, this was my big, big break, penciling Spotlight), but that was not enough to prepare me for such a referencean entire miniseries. Whew, it’s intimidating thinking about it even now! heavy story like Time Masters. I remember it taking me awhile to finish GREENBERGER: How familiar were you with the DC Universe and its the series, so in this interview I would like to thank you guys for your characters? Did Rip Hunter mean anything to you? patience and belief in me! THIBERT: Enough; I knew all the Batman, Superman type of stuff, but GREENBERGER: I forget, but were you involved with our decision to to be honest, Rip Hunter…Time Master had flown under my radar use Jose Marzan as the inker? How well do you think you two meshed? when I was growing up. So I had no knowledge of this universe and THIBERT: No, I wasn’t involved in that decision. To this day, I still wish its characters. But I was a quick learner, thanks to you and the writers I could have had input on who inked me. Jose did a fine job, but it sending me reference. I was also lucky to find copies of the earlier Rip really wasn’t the look I was going for on the series. Hunter series in the local comic-book shop. GREENBERGER: The covers had the timepiece motif, which was a GREENBERGER: Once you signed on, you had to design the cast from nice element. Did you enjoy designing notes Bob and Lewis prepared. How difficult those covers? was that for you as a newcomer? THIBERT: You bet! I’m carrying over the THIBERT: If I remember correctly, the time motif in my creator-owned series, notes were pretty detailed, so it wasn’t Chrono Mechanics. I use a lot of clock hard at all. It was more fun than difficult. faces and time motifs in that as well. Bob I like coming up with original character and Lewis really planted a seed way back designs and also, I really liked coming then. I now really love time-travel stories! up with the visuals for the tech, the GREENBERGER: Looking back, especially machines, and the world that these now that the mini is a collection, are you characters inhabited. My favorite character happy with the work? to design was Corky. Why … why … Bob THIBERT: Yeah, I think it was the best my and Lewis … why did he have to die? skills had to offer at that time. I look back Oops, was that a spoiler alert? now and see how I would do things GREENBERGER: The miniseries also used differently if I were penciling Time a lot of established DC characters. Was it Masters today, but I try not to dwell too fun hopping through time and drawing much in the past. …That’s my one and them all? only “time travel” joke. [laughs] THIBERT: That was my favorite part of GREENBERGER: These days you’re a the entire series! Among other characters, premier inker/embellisher. How many fans I got to draw Booster Gold and the Justice recall you actually started as a penciler? League. Also, there were a lot of historical THIBERT: A fair amount, actually. I still characters that I got to draw which was have people come up to me at cons also fun. One of my favorite historical with books that I’ve penciled in the past. character run-ins was George I’ve penciled X-Men and Cable for Washington. But my all-time favorite Marvel. Then there’s Black & White and cameo, which I thought was genius, was Chrono Mechanics, which are two of my the use of the immortal villain, Vandal creator-owned series that Image published. Savage and the way Bob and Lewis used And, of course, there’s always Time that character to orchestrate his villainous Masters! Thanks, guys!! plots throughout time.

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Nearly 25 years ago, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, directed by Stephen Herek and co-created/co-written by Ed Solomon (Men in Black) and Chris Matheson (Imagine That), proved to be a totally awesome movie that made stars out of Alex Winter (Bill) and Keanu Reeves (Ted). A fan favorite and a box-office sleeper which cost nearly $10,000,000 to make, it grossed nearly $40,500,000 in 1989 dollars. But don’t tell that to Evan Dorkin—he doesn’t want to hear it. To this day, Dorkin, who adapted the movie as an ongoing comic-book series for Marvel Comics Group, has never seen the cult hit. “Some people on the Internet are unhappy about that,” Dorkin, known for his frankness and unvarnished honesty, admits to BACK ISSUE. Okay, Dorkin does cop to reading an advance copy of the script for (and eventually seeing) Peter Hewitt’s 1991 sequel Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, which reunited Winter and Reeves and co-starred the Grim Reaper and an alien who made a feel-good catchphrase out of the word “Station.” But Dorkin wrote and penciled Bill & Ted’s Excellent Comic Book by the seat of his pants, often on short deadlines. So, just how the alternative evan dorkin cartoonist, best known for his early ’90s indie hit Milk & Cheese, wind up © Luigi Novi/Wikimedia Commons. helming a Marvel Comics series, anyway? The answer, as Excellent Adventure’s Socrates would say, is blowing in the wind … but BACK ISSUE attempted to travel back through time and get to the bottom of it anyway.

SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES! Don’t laugh, but the cult hit Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure turned out to be one of the most influential movies on comedies of the ’90s and ’00s. Frankly, there would be no Wayne’s World movies, the Harold & Kumar franchise, Dumb & Dumber, Dude, Where’s My Car?, Pineapple Express, and 30 Minutes or Less (among myriad other buddy flicks) were it not for the sci-fi comedy. Released in 1989, Excellent Adventure arrived at the tail end of the metal decade, which started on a high note with California party bands such as Van Halen and Motley Crue. Although there were no explicit references to drugs, the reason millions of moviegoers connected with the de facto stoner comedy was because Winter and Reeves nailed the quintessential Cali stoner-dude ethos in their portrayal. To many attending Southern Californa public schools in the epoch, Bill and Ted were not so much caricatures as accurate representations of a certain surfer/skater type writ large on the silver screen. Excellent Adventure saw its titular heroes led by Rufus (iconic counterculture comedian George Carlin),

…Station! Evan Dorkin’s dork duo, and Death, raising you-know-what. Detail from the cover of Slave Labor Graphics’ Bill & Ted collection vol. 1. TM & © Nelson Entertainment.

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Michael Aushenker

Marvel Movie Comic (left) Dorkin’s cover to the Bogus Journey adaptation. (right) Bogus interior page 60, featuring a scene that was cut from the movie. TM & © Nelson Entertainment.

a man from the future, through time via a space-traveling telephone Unfortunately, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey underperformed at the booth. Rufus’ mission was to get the best buds to pass a history-class box office. oral presentation and hence graduate from San Dimas High School— “We thought the movie would do better than it did,” Nicieza continues, an event upon which the fate of the future (and the world) hinges on. “but that didn’t really affect our commitment to publish at least one Since this good-hearted fried pair of burnouts are too dimwitted to year’s worth of issues.” DeFalco signed off on a team for the series that pass their exams on their own, Rufus decides that they must meet a would include Dorkin as writer/penciler, Nicieza as editor, yet another gaggle of historical personages in person in order for the subject matter Evan—Evan Skolnick—as assistant editor, and Stephen DeStefano on inks, to stick. Via their magic phone booth, Bill and Ted cross paths with with Dorkin-esque lettering provided by Kurt Hathaway (award-winning Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Napoleon, Socrates, Genghis letterer Tom Orzechowski also lent a hand to the film adaptation). Khan, and Billy the Kid. Complications arise as the Given some context, it might seem anomalous that a idiot teens disrupt the time-space continuum and lose person such as Dorkin would be entrusted with a Marvel assorted famous dead people in the process. comic in the early ’90s, at a time when the company After adapting Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey in his was turning more corporate than ever (and was, in signature Milk & Cheese style, Dorkin embarked upon fact, headed for bankruptcy), and when the direct the ongoing series Bill & Ted’s Excellent Comic Book, market’s speculative superhero craze was at its which picked up from where the second movie left off, peak, led by the artists who would defect to form as the Bill and Ted characters planned a party to Image. However, Dorkin was well-liked with the celebrate their recent double wedding to their former higher-ups, and anyone today familiar with his medieval princess brides. Things go awry after their pal blog, “Big Mouth Rides Again,” knows the native Death (the Grim Reaper, whom they befriended in New Yorker, despite his professional leanings, grew the Bogus Journey movie) steals the phone-booth time up weaned on mainstream superhero comics. machine and drags the boys, again with the assistance Nicieza became gung-ho about getting Dorkin fabian nicieza of Rufus, into a time-travel adventure as they must stop on board based on his indie cred. Death before he ruins the time-space continuum. © Luigi Novi/Wikimedia Commons. “I became familiar with his Milk & Cheese book A pair of Bill and Ted rivals, jealous of their recent nuptials, is on a collision and loved his work,” he says. “I thought anyone willing to live on course to stop them. Meanwhile, characters from both movies, including Staten Island had to be cool enough to handle the look and tone we the Bill and Ted robots and the alien Station, along with some new were going for, plus I knew he was a closeted superhero geek, a triedcharacters, trample their way into Dorkin’s busy, punk-rock-fueled frames. and-true fanboy who got his letters published in Spider-Man and that Fabian Nicieza, the book’s editor, remembers how his involvement he’d be able to bring some wild ideas to the table.” with Bill & Ted’s Excellent Comic came about. “I was the editor for Indeed, a clear valentine to Jack Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur appears in Marvel’s former Star line of young-reader titles and licensed titles,” he a Bill & Ted #2 (Jan. 1992) splash page. In fact, Dorkin’s first-ever tells BACK ISSUE. “Publisher Mike Hobson approached Tom DeFalco published art appeared in 1982 (when Dorkin was just 17) in the letters and I about the opportunity to license Bill & Ted, first adapting the column of ROM: Spaceknight #37. second movie, then doing a monthly series. We all thought it would “I was sending dopey fan mail to various Marvel comics, mostly be fun and could possibly grab an audience of teen boys and girls to complain about stuff,” Dorkin recalls. “A few of the letters saw who weren’t interested in superheroes.” print, along with a Get Well card I drew for the character Avalanche Heroes Out of Time Issue

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It’s About Time! (top) Evan’s cover to Marvel’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Comic Book #1 (Dec. 1991). (below) It’s no Jurassic lark on this Dorkin-penciled page from issue #2. TM & © Nelson Entertainment.

from The Incredible Hulk; [Hulk] had broken Avalanche’s arms in a previous crossover story.” A sincere ROM reader, Dorkin had no idea his piece had been published until “my friend Rob Beck told me it was in the letters page, so I ran off to track it down at a couple of newsstands and grocery stores that still carried comics.” The thrill he received upon locating the issue factored into his desire to enter the comics business. “It was pretty exciting to see it,” he says today, “and that someone at Marvel spent time coloring my dumb drawing. It was also depressing because it was a terrible drawing, and it had an intentional misspelling in it as a joke. I was afraid readers would think I was a moron. Still, seeing it in print was pretty wild. After it ran, I sent editor Al Milgrom a thank-you note and I continued to send drawings in the hopes they’d use them. That didn’t happen, but I figured it was worth a shot.” In truth, ground zero for the way this crazy book came together turned out to be San Diego Comic-Con International. “I met Evan during a wonderful drunken convention dinner where he did an entire riff on lychee nuts that had the entire table rolling in laughter!” Nicieza recalls. “And no more on that should be spoken.” A colorful character on the convention circuit throughout the late ’80s and ’90s, Dorkin confirms he most likely did not land the Marvel gig based on any of his actual work but via good ol’ fashioned (and perhaps unwitting) networking. “I think my reputation was the wild, drunk guy at San Diego [Comic-Con],” Dorkin says, blithely. A Staten Island native (he still lives there with wife and cartoonist Sarah Dyer and daughter Emily), Dorkin had once worked at Jim Hanley’s Universe, a popular comic-book store on the borough. “Jim [Hanley] paid my way, paid my hotel,” says Dorkin, who, at the time, had put out Pirate Corp$. “I went out there and we went to dinner with people from marketing. I guess I was funny.” At the time the Bill & Ted comics got rolling, Nicieza lived in New Jersey, from where he’d commute to Manhattan’s Marvel offices. A freelance editor, “that was the year I was doing Alpha Flight, the Avengers’ biweekly issues, New Warriors, and the Nomad limited series,” he says. “He offered me the job and I took it,” says Dorkin, who had his humor comics Instant Piano and Welcome to Eltingville at the time that he took on the Wyld Stallyns. “I knew it was going to die,” Dorkin quips, looking back on what turned into a brief, 12-issue run. “It was one of those ill-conceived, half-assed, ‘Let’s try to do something for kids and let’s not do any marketing on it.’ At the time, Marvel was pumping out comics based on hot properties: Kid ’N Play, Ren & Stimpy, etc. “The Barbie book went for quite a while,” Dorkin recalls. “The reason I got the job is because people like me and Dan Slott would take anything.” The closest gig Dorkin had tackled to a mainstream comic took place under the auspices of Dark Horse Comics. “I penciled a Predator issue that someone dropped,” he recalls. Ultimately, that gig, which had a 200,000-per-month circulation, brought him the single-highest paycheck tally he had ever received for an assignment. “I bought furniture,” Dorkin says. “By the time I got to issue #2, I was enjoying myself. By the next year, I got medical coverage. That was the first time I had medical coverage since before seven or eight years ago.”

DEALING WITH DEATH From a professional POV, Dorkin looks back fondly on 1991. “It was a nice year,” he recalls. “I was meeting people through comic shops and at conventions. I never pitched. I’m still not good at pitching. Enough stuff happened and work creates work. So I was doing Bill & Ted.”

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Most Excellent Triple-Shot Detail-drippin’ covers to three Bill & Ted’s Excellent Comic Book issues: (left) #4 (Mar. 1992), (center) #6 (June 1992), and #9 (Aug. 1992). TM & © Nelson Entertainment.

All of this happened as Dorkin began receiving praise for his other book, the notorious Slave Labor Graphics creator-owned series Milk & Cheese. At about this time, Dorkin was also getting serious with Dyer, his wife to be. “I was putting a lot into every issue of Bill & Ted, and a three-part story I did just knocked me out,” he says. “I was young and enthusiastic. I was working on the series when she moved to Staten Island.” Ironically, for a cartoonist assigned to a time-travel series, Dorkin confesses that he is horrible with dates. When pressed to place events in time, Dorkin admits, “Bill and Ted and I are all bad at dealing with time. People have to tell me what happens to me in my own life.” Dorkin professes he still does not want to see Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. “It’s not something I’m fond of seeing,” he says. With Bogus, Dorkin “put in every scene from the movie. I didn’t leave anything out. Since it’s not War and Peace, I was able to do it.” Going on revised scripts and stills from Bogus Journey, Dorkin pieced together an adaptation in the dark, since the movie was still being made while he was adapting it. Working blind, Dorkin’s design for Death strayed quite far (more cartoony … yet more literal) than the pudgy “Seventh Seal” parody played by William Sadler in the movie Bogus. “I didn’t know they were doing a [Ingmar] Bergman death,” he says. “Fabian was like, ‘Screw it, we gotta get this done.’ I had 20 pages penciled. We were really rushing it. I like the way [Death] looked in the comic.” Dorkin’s version ultimately won. “When they made the toy, they made the toy look like a skeleton,” Dorkin says. Nicieza recalls not being overly concerned with having the comic-book version stick to model or stay slavishly faithful to the source movies. “We knew we had to go off in a few different directions and Evan brought a great science-fiction sensibility to the entire series,” the book’s editor remembers. “It really was a sci-fi adventure book that happened to feature two dumb California teenagers, but the concepts being thrown about would have worked just as well in an issue of Fantastic Four.” Nicieza also had no problem with Dorkin’s refusal to see the original Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure movie for research purposes. “It’s not my personal approach,” Nicieza admits, “but I have no problem with it so long as the creators get the tone of the material right and the cadence of the character’s dialogue, which Evan certainly did.” Dorkin stresses that if any problems came about, it wasn’t from Marvel’s top brass but from Nelson Entertainment, which owned the movie property. “Marvel was cool,” Dorkin reveals. “Nelson were the ones who had the complaints [about some of Dorkin’s jokes]. They were just

jokes, even if they were extremely slight. I couldn’t mention religious Jews. They also thought something was meant as a joke about L.A. gangs, and it was completely about young people versus old. I had a guy behind the desk saying something about rap, gangs.” Dorkin says he somewhat mocked “superhero continuity, which has gotten even worse today. I got to do these goofy comics about these goofy characters.” Sometimes, Dorkin slipped in name-checks to his favorite bands. “They also made me white-out some bands, but not other bands,” he recalls. “Just really weird. I guess it meant that someone [over at Nelson] feels as if they were doing their job.” This benign censorship tickled Dorkin, who did not set out to overturn police cars and loot appliance stores with his interpretation of Bill & Ted. “I knew I had young kids reading it,” he says. “I put in adult jokes, but they weren’t the pornographic kind. They were asides, like what they did on The Bullwinkle Show. Nothing dirty, but references for the parents so they would have something to read. Adults were invited and kids were invited. I didn’t want to prove I was edgy or superior.” Nevertheless, Dorkin pushed some of his sillier jokes through because of the seat-of-the-pants deadline pace. “I was churning some of this work out the last minute, which helps bring jokes past [Nelson], but I wasn’t going to play games or get me in trouble or [Fabian] in trouble,” he says. Adds Nicieza, “I only remember the colossal headaches certain licensors would give me, not the minor ones. Overall, I’d say Bill & Ted went surprisingly smooth for a licensed title that was taking as many chances as we were.”

THE MAZZUCCHELLI EFFECT The entire time Dorkin worked on the Bill & Ted series, he operated out of his native Staten Island. “I would physically take the work,” he recalls. “Take it on the ferry, finish details on the ferry, and I’d get $40 parking fees because I had to get the work in on time. Pretty crazy. If you look at the books, there’s a lot of detail.” Among Dorkin’s personal highlights of doing Bill & Ted—working with the great artist and Marvel Bullpenner Marie Severin. “She had a good style,” he says. “She liked the way I drew mouths. She got a kick out of my not-very-good forms. There wasn’t a lot of musculature. She got to draw a lot.” Dorkin never actually met Severin in person on the pages they collaborated on. She would communicate with him via tiny notes and doodles in the margins of his original art. “We had a running dialogue about the paper at Marvel,” he says. “John Romita got notified that we were complaining about the paper.” Then-art director John Romita, Sr. called Dorkin for a conversation.

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DMazzlin’ (left) Yep, David Mazzucchelli of Batman and Daredevil acclaim inked Evan Dorkin on this page from Bill & Ted #2. Scan courtesy of Mr. Dorkin. (center) Detail from the cover of Slave Labor’s second volume. (right inset) The final issue. TM & © Nelson Entertainment.

Harkening back to when he got his start in the letters pages of ROM: Spaceknight, Dorkin enjoyed the feedback he was getting on his own Marvel book: “The coolest letters, they would send me!” Perpetually up against deadlines, Dorkin credits DeStefano as an unsung hero of the title. “I like it because he ended up inking three issues of the series,” Dorkin says. “He’s fulltime in the animation industry. He really has fallen out of comics. He started doing things at DC when he was very young. He created ’Mazing Man [with writer Bob Rozakis]. I was just starting out a lot; of my stuff was amateurish and he really tightened it.” Dorkin’s former editor recalls how “deadlines were always a nightmare. I think Evan handed his scripts in on looseleaf paper with maniacally fine printing and his hand was always on the verge of falling off for a year,” Nicieza says. “He exhausted himself working on that book, but I also think he was incredibly professional and did wonderful work. I wish more people had read it.”

BILL & TED & … PHIL?

“We talked an hour, talking about everything about it,” Evan says, but the discussion with the avuncular Romita never grew hostile. Dorkin says the whole thing with Severin was akin to “kids writing on the desk in school, and you never meet the guy because you’re in different periods.” In issue #11 (Oct. 1992), the one in which the boys try to save Lincoln, Dorkin reveals that “the art was inked by a group of people, including Marie [Severin] and Jimmy Palmiotti.” On Dorkin’s detailed style, the inking can be crucial. “I inked the last two pages of the last issue,” he says. “I inked the covers; after a while, Stephen [DeStefano] inked them.” Another guy, by happenstance, wound up doing some Bill & Ted embellishment. Ever heard of some chap named David Mazzucchelli? “I didn’t know David at the time,” Dorkin says. “I got to be friends with David after I adopted one of [his] cats.” Dorkin got along famously with the artist, world famous for illustrating Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One and, most recently, the critically acclaimed graphic novel epic Asterios Polyp. Dorkin happened to be sitting around Mazzucchelli’s apartment, working on Bill & Ted’s pages for issue #2 (“Death Takes a Most Heinous Holiday”). “David said, ‘Let me ink one of those pages, so he grabbed a page and inked it,” Dorkin recalls. “He put a reference in it to Rubber Blanket [Mazzucchelli’s critically acclaimed indie series at the time] and it was written inside the phone booth. Marvel’s art department took that out. Marvel had a pettiness in those days when they had a problem with people working for someone else. They would never say Evan Dorkin, creator of Milk & Cheese, they would always give you your Marvel credits if you had any. DC would give all your credits—they were much cooler. They were much more open about that. That’s what drove me nuts about Marvel. But now that’s not a problem anymore.” 74 • BACK ISSUE • Heroes Out of Time Issue

Bill & Ted #3, “Wyld Stallyns: The Disaster Tour ’91,” introduces a new character to the comic series not from the movies. “I’m Philip, but call me ‘B.G.’ or ‘Phil,’” he says, standing with his stickered-up bass guitar. What style are ya lookin’ for? Metal, funk, reggae … I can slap fast as anyone, carry any tune. So?” Indeed, Phil, with his Living Colour look and the P-Funk graffiti on his bass, appears to be a “glamour boy” of the funk-ska-punk variety popularized by then-college bands Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fishbone, and Thelonious Monster. “I put him in there because the Bill & Ted universe is extremely white,” Dorkin says with trademark blunt candor. “I needed someone in there who wasn’t a surfer dude or a monster. I could justify a lot of the punkska-New Wave music and he was also the voice of reason. I wanted someone in there who wasn’t dumb. The princesses were the smartest. I wanted someone in there who was not neurotic.” Dorkin clearly gets passionate when talking about bands such as funk-punk pioneers Fishbone, references of whom made it into Bill & Ted. “They had a kitchen-sink approach to stuff and they were black,” Dorkin says of the L.A.-based outfit. “It held them back [while BFF band Red Hot Chili Peppers went global]. It’s a shame. Black people making punk music. Certain people don’t care. They’d play a ska song, a punk song, a hardcore song, a ballad. With [the 1988 album] Reality of My Surroundings, they tried really hard to go for broke. They tried to throw in metal, some extra production.

BEYOND THE BOOTH… During his Marvel stint, Dorkin admits, “I never really socialized outside of who I was friends with— [artist] Kevin Maguire [was a good friend]. I’d crash in Fabian’s office. Tom DeFalco and Mark Gruenwald, they were incredibly nice to me.” Unfortunately, Dorkin’s rocket ride into the Marvel Universe didn’t last long, as Bill & Ted’s Excellent Comic Book got the axe after a dozen issues. In 2005, Slave Labor Graphics, Dorkin’s home base for which he created Pirate Corp$, Dork, and his most famous creation, the irreverent Milk & Cheese, reprinted Dorkin’s entire Bill & Ted run as black-and-white trade-paperback digests. But it was those original color books that bonded Nicieza and Dorkin. “I loved editing it,” Nicieza says. “In a sea of annoying licensed books that I didn’t like or books that I did like that had to endure annoying licensors, Bill & Ted was always a breath of fresh air. Smart, funny, exciting. It had terrific concepts, character designs, pace and humor. It had epic conflict and real cliffhangers.” When asked where he ranks Bill & Ted’s Excellent Comic Book among his eclectic, acerbic oeuvre of high-energy sequential art, Dorkin says, in all honesty, “I’m a very ambivalent person when it comes to my work. The Bill & Ted stuff, I really like it. It’s not Carl Barks. It’s not genius kids’ stuff. My art at the time was very amateurish.”

He does allow: “But I think it’s a good, honest comic book. It’s probably the most positive, uncynical thing I’ve done. Most of my stories tend to lead to entropy. Things fall apart.” Speaking of which, he continues, “I always wished it could be re-colored and collected in a nice format because the Slave Labor Graphics collection, it just didn’t really work. It’s probably my fault. I didn’t think the line work would hold up. It didn’t register well so I thought we should do grey shades, and it turned into a big nightmare.” To add insult to injury, after much time and energy invested by the Dorkins, the collected Bill & Ted trades failed to score Dorkin’s Marvel series many new fans. “I feel sorry that it bombed,” he says of the Slave Labor Graphic editions. “It did not do well. I think I’m the only one who made money on it. Sarah and I did a lot of work in some parts of it. We had computers and she was coloring the covers and assembling it. She did all the pre-press on all the books. She cleaned up the artwork and she was fixing stuff and effects and does all the coloring.” “[The late Marvel Comics editor] Mark Gruenwald loved the book,” confirms Nicieza. “He called it the best Marvel Universe title that wasn’t in the Marvel Universe. And coming from Mark, that was a high compliment.” Gruenwald and DeFalco tried to rope Dorkin into doing superhero comics, and Dorkin actually came up with proposals for stuff such as “Black Panther 2099” and “X-Men 2099.” “However, I bailed on that!” he says. “I didn’t want to create characters in those books that I wouldn’t have owned. I segued to Fight Man, a 48-page one-shot. That was a lot of fun. I screwed up that schedule, the coloring was awful, we were trying out papers. About 15 people really liked it.” (The book sold a then-disappointing 30,000 copies—a decent tally in today’s market.) At that point, Dorkin’s path and any overtures from Marvel Comics Group diverged. “I started my work for Dork,” he says, regarding returning to his humor comics. “I had a lot on my plate. I wasn’t starving. I didn’t want to work on the main superhero stuff. I didn’t want to be edited that much. I was more interesting in doing more creator-owned stuff.” Ultimately, Dorkin says, he tried his best to attack the brand books with gusto and not mock the properties or condescend to its readers. “I like to give the fans a full experience,” he reveals. “To have more Bill & Ted, more Simpsons. I’m not trying to force my agenda on these [commercial brand] comics. I always try to capture the voice of the characters. Bill & Ted was not at all a mean-spirited book, even if it made jabs at Marvel Comics and Nine Inch Nails.” With new work for MAD magazine, the animated cartoon Yo Gabba Gabba, and a new edition of a Dork-esque comic on the way, not to mention writing Beasts of Burden with artist Jill Thompson at Dark Horse, the self-deprecating humor cartoonist continues to along on his own flying phone booth-journey through the comics industry well into the future. Party on, Dude! MICHAEL AUSHENKER is the associate editor of Comic Book Creator (TwoMorrows.com). He is also the writer/cartoonist behind humor comics such as Those Unstoppable Rogues and Silly Goose (CartoonFlophouse.com) and he has written Bart Simpson (Bongo Comics) and Gumby’s Gang Starring Pokey (Gumby Comics). The first article he ever wrote for BACK ISSUE was on The Human Fly (#20), and he is the cartoonist and editor of The New Adventures of the Human Fly. A Human Fly movie is also in development. Visit thehumanflymovie.com.

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They tried so hard and the band began imploding.” Dorkin can perhaps relate, as the cartoonist applies an everythingand-the-kitchen-sink approach to his comics, cramming his panels with a chaotic punk-energy clutter and layering his work with sight gags and inside jokes. Nowhere is that more evident than in books such as Bill & Ted. “I was trying to entertain,” he says. “I tried to create a fun read for kids and a fun read for anyone who picked it up. I wasn’t trying to act like I was above the material, so it was recognizable. I tried to be true to that stuff and resemble the movies. I plugged my friends’ bands. I made fun of some other comics here and there. “[Phil’s] a composite of people in bands,” Dorkin reveals. “Fishbone is in issue one and Chili Peppers.” Keep in mind that L.A.’s Fairfax High School-spawned Chili Peppers were a completely different band until their turning-point release, Blood Sugar Sex Magic, in 1991. The original Peppers melded punk and funk for a souped-up aggressive, hyper-sexual style captured by their famous phase of wearing a sock on their … well, dear reader, we’ll let you fill in the blank. Cockamamie as Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure appeared to be to Dorkin, his Excellent Comic nevertheless simulated a compatible energy that captured the essence of those loopy, absurdist films. And despite a disinterest in the source movie, the alternative cartoonist walked away from the book with a tear in his eye. “I found them endearing after working with them for so long,” Dorkin says. “Hey, they weren’t mine, but I feel these characters were mine.” Famously candid and self-deprecating (as evinced on his blog), Dorkin tries his best to be true to his punk spirit without burning too many bridges. “I haven’t been very closed-mouthed about the two main companies,” he says. “There’s a lot of talent, there’s a lot of crap. It offends me where they’ve gone with the superhero and adventure stuff.”

AN ISSUE TO TREASURE

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

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“SPIDER-MAN” SPEAKS! I’m a little behind in my BACK ISSUE reading, but I wanted to comment on the Rutland Halloween Parade article in BI #60. I had the pleasure of meeting Tom Fagan at the 1986 gathering for that great tradition. It was my first appearance as Spider-Man for Marvel Comics. I had just landed the job as an official character actor for the company the day before. As a longtime comics geek, primarily Marvel, I knew of the parade from Avengers #83 and #119, so was beside myself when offered the opportunity to meet Tom and participate. And the next day, my picture was on the front page of The Boston Globe! As a native Bostonian, it was an additional thrill. I worked for Marvel for ten years, portraying Spider-Man, Green Goblin, the Hulk, the Thing, among others, experiences I recount on my blog www.heroesinmycloset.com. My Rutland experience, a tale I call “You Never Forget Your First Time,” is one of the first I posted. Keep up the great work! – Stephen Vrattos P.S. Here’s the link to the story: www.heroesinmycloset.com/2009/ 02/you-never-forget-your-first-time.html. P.P.S. Tom’s the Batman in the photo! Stephen, I believe this is the first time we’ve received a letter from Spidey, so thank you for writing! And we sincerely appreciate the comments, your sharing of your recollections, and the photo, which we’ve shared below. – M.E.

I just finished reading issue #61 and wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed it. As a youth I couldn’t wait to go to the downtown drugstore, as it would carry all the Treasury Edition-sized comics from both companies (where as the other places I went to just carried comics on the spinner rack). I couldn’t wait to pick up the next Treasury Edition, even though it cost substantially more then my other monthly comics. I liked them because they were much larger physically and seemed to have as much content as the four or five books that I would pass on for that week and because I thought the Treasuries were cool (what can you expect from a tento-12-year-old of the ’70s?). I did miss many of the later [Treasury] issues, as my parents deemed I was too old to buy comics (thank God for getting a driver’s license and finding a little shop in town when I was 19 to get me hooked all over again). First of all, I wanted to compliment you on the great Alex Ross cover. I have seen this both on the Facebook page and in the back of other BACK ISSUE magazines. It is even cooler in person as you can see it in its full size. I sat down on the Saturday after Thanksgiving after all my work around the house was completed and the two afternoon football games I wanted to see were over, and devoured the issue from cover to cover. My favorite stories were Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, “Flashback”: Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, and finally, “When World Collide: Superman vs. Shazam.” These stories were well written and very informative, as well as stories on three of my favorite TEs from my youth (the Marvel Christmas and Conan issues were also tops on my list and hope we will see a future article on these). I liked the Legion wedding issue so much that I bought a second one a few years ago at an antique show (I have seen these other places but the antique dealer had a price I couldn’t pass up) and finally was able to get Mike Grell to sign it at Wizard World Chicago 2011. Now, if I can just see Paul Levitz at show I am going to, I would be able to get it signed by two of my favorite Legion creators. Again, the interesting BI articles have added a couple of new items to my search list. In the “Beyond Capes” article by Eddy Zeno, The Bible, I got to see inside one of the TEs that I have never really paid attention to. It opened my eyes to a very well-written book with some very great artwork. I look forward to getting this and adding it to my collection. I have the Wizard of Oz edition, but after reading Jack Abramowitz’s “The Secret of Oz Revealed” I will not only grab a copy of The Land of Oz but pull out my copy of The Wizard of Oz and re-read it after over 30 years as I feel I will appreciate it much more than I did as a youth 30 years ago. Finally, I will pull out my Captain America Bicentennial TE because the article by the same name written by Tom Powers opened my eyes to what a great issue this was. As a kid I did not appreciate Jack Kirby as much as I should have, and know that I will enjoy this book very much now that I have read his insightful article. Thank you for another great BI. I look forward to issues #62 and #63 now that I have seen the descriptions in the back of issue #61. – Matt Hamilton

BI IS EDUCATIONAL READING!

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I’ve been reading BI issue #61, and I have to say I’m having a blast with it. I’m finding out things about the tabloids that I never knew, which is the point of BI, I know. This is turning out to be one of my top fave issues ever. BI is still the best magazine out there. Kudos to you, Michael Eury. You’re my favorite editor. – Scott Farmer Thank you, Scott! – M.E.

STORAGE WOES Hail, Myk-El of Krypton! I wanted to write to congratulate everyone involved in the publication of the recent issue of BACK ISSUE, #61. This was a fantastic read, and an amazing trip down memory lane. I really appreciate

Brian, re your (and Matt Hamilton’s) remarks about Alex Ross’ extraordinary Superboy and the Legion cover, it was probably our biggest crowd-pleaser to date—even from non-Legion fans! Instead of only revisiting the lineup depicted by Mike Grell on the original LSH tabloid, Alex opted to include every Legionnaire up to that era— and Night Girl came along due to her relationship with Cosmic Boy. You’re probably aware by now that Superman vs. Wonder Woman was included in the April 2013 collected edition Adventures of Superman: José Luis García-López, even earning the cover spot! Hopefully the Legion tabloid tale will similarly be reprinted one day. (And please allow me to offer a thank-you shout-out to DC Comics’ collected editions team for its growing collection of Bronze Age volumes. Please consider Plop! and Rima the Jungle Girl as future editions.) While we normally focus on comics content and creators and not on collectability, you comment about an article on storing tabloids gave me pause. Do any readers have any suggestions? My tabloids are standing, on a bookshelf, which is good for easy access but bad for collectability. And incidentally, the only negative comment I heard about BACK ISSUE #61 was, “How am I supposed to store this @#*% thing?” – M.E.

companies’ HOTTEST and bestselling teams at the time. I guess maybe it was easy to overlook. It was published in the treasurysized format, I believe, at the time. Ever the fanboy, – Christopher Krieg Actually, Chris, Glenn Greenberg was correct. He wrote that there wouldn’t be another crossover published in the tabloid-sized format for 18 years. X-Men/New Teen Titans, published in 1982, wasn’t a tabloid comic, but instead a traditional-sized comic book. That’s why it was omitted from Glenn’s “Tabloids and Treasuries” article. But as you’re now aware, X-Men/Titans was examined last month in BACK ISSUE #66, the “Team-Ups” issue. – M.E.

REPRINTING TABLOID COMICS I really enjoyed the Tabloid/Treasury issue. The theme, coupled with the large format, was a brilliant idea, and made the whole experience that much more fun. Great job to all involved! While reading Mark Arnold’s article on the Rudolph tabloids, I recalled an odd item I have that may be of interest to BACK ISSUE readers. It is a tiny Rudolph book/ornament that reprints pages from DC’s Rudolph series, and even credits DC! The short story even features DC creations Winky and Blinky. The publishing date reads 1981, but I found it at retail sometime in the early ’90s. The publisher/manufacturer, Kurt S. Adler, Inc., still manufactures Christmas ornaments today. Another small reprinting of existing tabloid material is probably more widely known, but still bears mentioning: Warner Books’ paperback edition of Batman vs. the Incredible Hulk, published in April of 1982, just a few short months after the initial tabloid edition. Unlike some of the other DC paperback reprints from that time, the contents are in color, but as you can imagine, the panels are rearranged for maximum size on the small pages. I’ve had my copy since its first release, and in fact, I never knew about the tabloid edition until years later! Imagine my surprise to find out I had somehow missed this giant comic featuring my favorite hero (Batman), with art by one of my favorite artists (García-López), at the tender age of six. Attached are scans of both books. – Chris Franklin Chris, I was aware of the Batman vs. the Incredible Hulk paperback—a rarity which is now fetching a hefty price in the collectors’ market—but appreciate your bringing it up for our readers’ benefit. Here’s the cover, plus an interior scan Chris provided:

the inclusion of the reference material your authors use, along with directions to the various websites discussing the material featured. If I may, there are a number of comments I wish to make: Let’s start with that cover, which was the reason I picked it up at the shop (www.thecomicroom.com in Scarborough, Ontario). I don’t think I’ve ever seen any Alex Ross Legion material before, and this was great! If there was one question I would ask him, though, it’s why he included Night Girl, and no other Sub? I had fun trying to identify everyone, though I confused Chemical Kid and Matter-Eater Lad on the first go. Part of me wants every tabloid featuring new material to be reprinted somewhere, #C-54 [Superman vs. Wonder Woman] and #C-55 [Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes] especially. A lot of the Legion material between 1976 and 1981 is not reprinted anywhere. I agree this material is better in a larger format, but I was pretty happy with the Deluxe Edition of the Ali/Superman book, and would happily purchase more printed that way. The Oz article was my favorite. I’m enjoying the Eric Shanower Oz books Marvel is currently producing, but now my curiosity is piqued, especially for the Ozma book. During the Kirby article, there is mention that the reason 2001 isn’t being discussed is that there will be future issue on the topic. I hope you’ll be including more information about the other movie adaptions Marvel did, including the Star Wars treasuries. I’m a little confused why they did three books, with the first two being half of the movie. I’m fortunate enough to have a copy of #3, and wonder if there is story behind Jabba’s appearance, when he wasn’t in the film? If there was one article I wish you had included, it would be about storage. Tabloids are a pain in the butt to keep. One website I found offered tabloid-size bags, at $17 for 100. I only need four or five. I’d particularly love one just for this magazine! But maybe one the sites mentioned in the course of the magazine will give me some tips. I’ve taken up way too much of your time, but I want to say thanks again for a great book. Maybe this will encourage the publishers to get this material back into the hands of the readers, so we can enjoy the products all over again. To you and your authors, thanks! – Brian Scott

X-MEN/TITANS? I was just reading about the DC/Marvel Comics crossover article by Glenn Greenberg. He stated in his article that there wouldn’t be another company crossover until 18 years later after the Batman/Hulk crossover. Wrong. There was an X-Men/Teen Titans crossover in the early 1980s. I believe it was 1982? The two villains were Darkseid and Phoenix. This was a crossover by two of the Heroes Out of Time Issue

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The Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer reprint is news to me, though, and I suspect most readers who recall the Rudolph Limited Collectors’ Editions may be unaware of this repackaging. Below, courtesy of Chris Franklin, you’ll note the Rudolph ornament/ book cover and a size-comparing quarter, the book’s credit page, and an interior spread showing how the artwork was redistributed in this tiny presentation. – M.E.

BRONZE AGE BABIES LOVE THE TABLOID ISSUE! Thanks so much to you and all of the contributors who made BACK ISSUE #61 a wonderful trip down memory lane. I thought you guys had peaked with the “1970s Time Capsule” issue [#49], but this extravaganza may have topped it. It was a cover-to-cover read; admittedly, I don’t always read articles about subjects I was not interested in when a kid in the Bronze Age. But I have to say that the Rudolph article was one of my favorites in this issue, and I have no doubt that I would not have purchased any of those treasuries off the shelf. The research and passion with which each author made their presentation was appreciated and really made the entire magazine a lot of fun! Your continued mixing of four-color and original art is a great touch as well. – Doug Wadley bronzeagebabies.blogspot.com

CGC-GRADED TABLOID COMICS? I have enjoyed the BACK ISSUE series since the first issue. Your team has done great work with the time and research of various runs, issues, and art. I enjoyed issue #8, which has been influential to my work in researching African-American heroes. I also was a big Comico fan and glad you spotlighted their work in issue #2. All of the issues have been great, but the reason I’m writing is that I found an irony with the Treasury Editions. I was (and still am) a big fan of the oversized books at the time. The reprints of Limited Collectors’ Edition and Marvel Treasury Editions were easily found in magazine shops and were sold cheaply in comic stores. I knew that they would be valuable over time, even though they were reprints. These editions have grown in collectors’ value and they are getting scarce as time continues. The irony has been that the CGC [Certified Guaranty Company, LLC] has not come to grading these books or creating treasury-sized edition holders for them. The later treasury editions had the most famous original stories and art (Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, Batman vs. Hulk, Superman vs. Ali) and these should be part of their grading process as well. I was wondering if you know why that hasn’t happened yet. If you haven’t seen it, check out the website, treasurycomics.com. It’s a great site with all the covers for Marvel and DC editions and lots of liner notes, comments, and interviews. – T. J. Armstead

Don’t know why CGC doesn’t accommodate tabloids, T. J. Are any of our regular readers CGC graders, and if so, might you (or anyone else who knows the reason) answer this question? We’ve recommended the Treasury Comics site in the past, but are happy to plug it again through your letter. It’s the brainchild of Rob Kelly, an occasional BI contributor—who’s got an article about DC’s Dick Tracy Limited Collectors’ Edition coming in BACK ISSUE #71. – M.E.

78 • BACK ISSUE • Heroes Out of Time Issue

FEELING BYRNED I enjoyed your all-out Superman issue [BACK ISSUE #62]. It said “Bronze Age and Beyond,” and yet, there was zero mention of John Byrne’s more realistic portrayal of the Man of Steel in 1986. If it was about the Bronze Age and beyond, doesn’t that count the 1986 era? I think John Byrne’s revival of Superman in 1986 was the best, most realistic treatment ever. In fact, Byrne’s realistic treatment was loosely based on the Superman movies. No shrunken city of Kandor, no Supergirl, no Krypto, no Superboy, no Comet the Super-Horse, no Supermobiles, no parallel Earths, no nothing. It worked, but they have slowly brought back all that stuff again, which is why I stopped reading Superman comics back in the 1990s. Also, about that comic [“Prince Street News”] by Karl Heitmueller, Jr. in which he questioned the 1978 Superman movie: He said the interview scene between Lois and Superman was the highlight and questioned how Luthor found out about Krypton and the Man of Steel’s vulnerability. He said it was an example of sloppy writing. Did Heitmueller even watch the movie? Superman told Lois he was from Krypton, which was located in another galaxy, and that he had problems seeing through lead. Moreover, Heitmueller said that Gene Hackman’s portrayal of Luthor was more like a villain from the Batman TV series. Miss Techsmacher was Luthor’s girlfriend and Otis was the comedy relief the movie needed. Heitmueller said the part where Lois and Superman were flying around Metropolis was sappy. I totally disagree. It was a magical moment in movie history. Maybe Heitmueller should stop reading the idiotic posts by AintItCoolNews… Also, should Superman really have gotten Lois gas for her car? He was right about the movie being the standard-setter for the superhero comic-book movie, though. Too bad that Tim Burton didn’t follow through his ghastly Batman movies of the late 1980s with a realistic treatment of Batman. I would really like to see for the movies a realistic portrayal of Wonder Woman like the late-1970s’ TV series starring Lynda Carter. I think DC Comics over-markets Superman. No one will ever be able to top Christopher Reeve or the Richard Donner 1978 movie. They can’t capture that same kind of magic anymore that worked in the 1970s. – Christopher Krieg

“friend.” We rooted for Superman. Whenever he appeared, we saw a friend. The fact that he was an “alien” meant nothing (actually, it added to his cool factor). All we saw was a humble man who truly cherished life and had the coolest powers ever. Back then, the phrase “This is a job for Superman!” carried a lot of weight. It was very cool to look up in the sky. So thank you, Mr. Eury, Mr. Swan, Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Bates, Mr. Schaffenberger, Mr. Wein, Mr. Adkins, Mr. Maggin, Mr. Anderson, Mr. Oksner, Mr. Reeve, Mr. Pasko, Mr. Rozakis, and all the others who helped to show the utter coolness of Superman in the Bronze Age. Now THAT’s Superman! – Wayne C. Brooks

WHAT’S EHAPA-NING? The Bronze Age Superman issue was a delight. I knew that Len Wein had introduced most of Clark Kent’s 1970s neighbors in Superman #246 (an issue before “The Private Life of Clark Kent” began), but not that they were based on Len’s real neighbors or (according to Elliot S! Maggin) that he also created the laterintroduced Marigold twins. The fact that Alan Kupperberg ghosted World of Krypton was also a revelation to me. In looking at the art pages used here, I noticed for the first time that they paid homage to the then-definitive Superman origin that had appeared in 1972’s Amazing World of Superman. Note how Jor-El’s deathbed scene with his father parallels Clark Kent’s last moments with Jonathan Kent, for instance. I thought that the Supermobile was the silliest thing ever back in 1978, although I actually liked the Amazo story surrounding it very much. In retrospect, it could’ve looked like the more mundane original Supermobile from World’s Finest Comics #77, back in 1955 (see image below). Incidentally, editor Julie Schwartz was obligated to feature the 1978 model in Superman, as well. A month after the Action arc ended, the Supermobile

Christopher, since we’re playing catch-up with letters this issue, we get to feature your comments twice! John Byrne’s Man of Steel reboot was much too big a subject to sandwich into an already-jammed issue. Eventually we plan to cover-feature it, plus the work of Marv Wolfman, Jerry Ordway, and other talented folks that followed. Karl Heitmueller admitted to “Kryptonitpicking” at Superman: The Movie, for which he also expressed his deepest admiration and affection. I agree that Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman is a top-flight classic (it’s my all-time favorite movie). As I write this, director Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel is less than three weeks away from its premiere— did it match Donner’s epic, surpass it, or fall short? By the time you folks read this, you’ll have seen it: Your thoughts? – M.E.

BRONZE AGE SUPER “FRIEND”

You guys have done it again! BACK ISSUE #62 was a Superman’s fan dream. I am a diehard Superman fan (mullets, Superman-Blue Electric Boogaloo, and New 52 not withstanding), but it is the Bronze Age that created my most cherished Superman comic-book reading experiences. In fact, when reading the issue, Filmation’s The New Adventures of Superman theme popped in my head. Superman has been my hero since day one (I’ll be turning 50 this year). But to me no era, before or since, has truly showcased his heroism better than the Bronze Age. Unlike today (where angst and doubt have replaced professionalism), Superman always had a plan. We truly thrilled to his adventures (which were resolved in no more than one to four issues—tops!). He was many things: champion, protector, crusader, big brother, guardian, occasional detective, explorer, and hero. But while all of those titles applied, the one the Bronze Age gave us best was Heroes Out of Time Issue

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BACK ISSUE • 79

returned in Superman #324 and 325, though not on the covers this time. And just a couple months ago, it resurfaced once more in Superman Family Adventures #6. That mystery Ehapa page that you ran was inked by Dennis Jensen and is one of my favorites of the Superman stories produced for Germany. Entitled “The Life of a Rock,” the episode took place in Smallville and had a nice sense of humor courtesy of Bob Rozakis (who has no recollection of writing it). – John Wells

LOVE THE FORMAT Wanted to say how much I enjoy reading your magazine; the efforts, time, and dedication shows in each issue. Here are a few honorable mentions: 1) The New Format: LOVE IT!! The extra $1 is well worth it. They are sturdy and durable enough to fit in my bookshelves … not an easy task! (If only the Spider-Man Bronze Age issue had been done this way—a Spidey Bronze Age part deux, maybe? hint-hint.) 2) Power Man and Iron Fist: Sadly, not enough is written about these characters. The article in BI #45 was classic … very insightful; for that matter, that entire issue was great! Most anytime that a Neal Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow cover graces a fanzine, without a doubt, you are going to get your money’s worth. 3) Last, but not least: Just picked up BI #62 (Superman Bronze Age retrospective). Already, I’m foaming at the mouth, ready to dig in. Your editorial was very inspiring—thank you for the personal insight! My only caveat is that a Christopher Reeve image did not grace the cover for this issue—without a doubt, a true Man of Steel who demonstrated with his life … that all of us can fly! Until the HULK Bronze Age ish comes out—MAKE MINE BACK ISSUE!! – Tony Lomeli Great letter, Tony; thanks! Like with the aforementioned John Byrne Superman, eventually I’d like to feature a Christopher Reeve Superman cover. And I appreciate your support of our full-color format. I wish I could magically convert those earlier black-and-white issues, but in the meantime you can get their digital editions from twomorrows.com and read them in color. – M.E.

PLEASED TO PLAY A PART Dear Myk-El, Thank you again for allowing me to be part of “Superman in the Bronze Age.” BACK ISSUE is a stunner from cover to cover. “The Private Life of Curt Swan” turned out great, thanks in part to the wonderful art design and the tremendous guest contributors’ comments. That being said, your editing made it immeasurably better. Thank you for the fine captions and for fitting everything in, including “the ultimate fan letter.” I’m thrilled that you gave the letter its own box and dedicated one of Curt’s color images to the ultimate fan. Haven’t read the whole issue yet but your kick-off piece on Superman editors is terrific. Yet before closing, I must back up even further to “Back Seat Driver.” Your editorial is inspiring. In a few eloquent paragraphs you pay one of the nicest tributes to Christopher Reeve I’ve ever read, humbly relating how his struggles to overcome great hardships have inspired you to do the same. Heartfelt, my friend. Thank you for sharing. It’s worth repeating to say what an honor it is to be included in your latest mag. With gratitude, Eddy Zeno Legion of Super-Heroes TM & © DC Comics. BACK ISSUE TM & © TwoMorrows.

80 • BACK ISSUE • Heroes Out of Time Issue

How kind of you! I sincerely appreciate that feedback, Eddy. I thought it would be difficult topping BI #61, but believe we may have with the Superman issue. Of course, your Swan article was a crucial component. Thank you for your contribution. – M. E.

LET ME BE PERFECTLY CURT… I just had to write and tell you how much I enjoyed this issue, which had everything a dyed-in-the-wool Superman fan could hope for and more. The highlight was the feature on Curt Swan, an artist cruelly neglected nowadays. As a child I looked forward to Swan-drawn stories, purely for the pleasure of seeing his work, and that feeling is still with me. Congratulations on a superb edition of BACK ISSUE. – Denis Parry, via TwoMorrows.com Store

LOVES PRINCE STREET NEWS Another fine BACK ISSUE! If you visited my house, you’d notice a lot of Superman-related images scattered around. The big blue guy has been a part of my life for decades. I always tell kids, Superman is a hero, not because he has all those cool powers, but because he does the right thing with them. The Silver and Bronze Age Man of Steel personified that quality for me, so it was nice to see your coverage and to bask in the memories your magazine always seems to bring to the surface. The piece on Curt Swan was enjoyable. I met him at a convention years ago and was impressed with his gentlemanly nature. Apparently I wasn’t the only one. “Prince Street News” is a relatively new feature to BI, and I hope you plan on keeping it. Karl Heitmueller writes about his topics with affectionate humor, and his caricature renderings are right on-target. “Prince Street News” is a perfect fit for this magazine. A feature on the final Superman story was the second-best way to end the issue (the first way would have been with the letters column—love the letters columns). I’ve always felt that “Whatever Happened…” remains the finest Silver/Bronze Age Superman story ever published; upon reading this article, I immediately went to my collection to dig that story out to read it again for the hundredth time. And you know, in all those readings, I never caught the Jordan Ellis thing. The things you learn in BI… Finally, I loved the observation made by Chris Franklin in his biography (the Earth-Two Superman is George Reeves, the Earth-One Superman is Christopher Reeve). Well put! – Michal Jacot Michal, “Prince Street News” will continue to appear semi-regularly in BACK ISSUE, and we’re happy it’s a part of the magazine. (And I hope you’re happy that our lettercol is back— with a vengeance—this issue!) Next issue: Legion of Super-Heroes in the 1970 and 1980s! The Legion’s rise to prominence in the ’70s; the fan-favorite Legion of the ’80s; a PAUL LEVITZ interview; the Legion’s Honored Dead; the Cosmic Boy miniseries; a Time Trapper history; The New Adventures of Superboy; and a Legion fantasy cover gallery by JOHN WATSON. With futuristic faves CARY BATES, DAVE COCKRUM, GERRY CONWAY, ERNIE COLÓN, KEITH GIFFEN, MIKE GRELL, JIM JANES, PAUL KUPPERBERG, GREG LaROCQUE, STEVE LIGHTLE, KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, JAMES SHERMAN, JOE STATON, CURT SWAN, MARK WAID, and more! With a classic Dave Cockrum cover reimagining Amazing World of DC Comics #9. Don’t ask—just BI it! See you in thirty! Michael Eury, editor-in-chief

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