Back Issue #94

Exclusive Ms. Mystic interview with NEAL ADAMS!

Februa

ry 2017

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Ms. Mystic © Neal Adams. All Rights Reserved.

INDIE SUPERHEROES! Justice Machine • Mighty Crusaders & T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents in the ’80s Captain Paragon • Whisper Continuity’s Superheroes featuring Black, Breyfogle, Buckler, Grant, Gustovich, Isabella, Reinhold, Ordway & more

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Volume 1, Number 94 February 2017 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Neal Adams (from the collection of Shaun Clancy) COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Jason Adams Doug Murray Neal Adams Michael Netzer Brian Apthorp Luigi Novi Mark Beachum Jerry Ordway Bill Black George Pérez Jerry Boyd Bill Reinhold Norm Breyfogle Luke Ross Rich Buckler Steve Rude Shaun Clancy Walter Simonson Jon B. Cooke Daniel St. John Mike Deodato Peter Stone Mark Ellis Bryan D. Stroud Stephan Friedt Dann Thomas Grand Comics Roy Thomas Database Steven Thompson Steven Grant Aron Wiesenfeld Martin Greim Steven Wilber Tom Grindberg Jay Williams Greg Guler Marv Wolfman Mike Gustovich Heritage Comics Auctions Tony Isabella Andy Mangels Lou Manna Brian Martin Will Meugniot

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INTERVIEW: The Neal Adams Ms. Mystic Interview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The superstar storyteller discusses his cover-featured creation and more FLASHBACK: Continuity Comics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 An artist-packed profile of Neal Adams’ line of comic books FLASHBACK: Welcome to the (Justice) Machine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 This early indie super-team has become comics’ comeback crusaders INTERVIEW: The Bill Black/Captain Paragon Interview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 The esteemed and longtime artist/publisher looks back at his Sentinels of Justice (and DC’s, too) BACKSTAGE PASS: The Mighty Crusaders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Rich Buckler discusses the “Red Circle Comics” era of Archie’s superheroes FLASHBACK: Lightning Does Strike Twice!: T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 How the super-agents stormed back into comics in the 1980s ROUGH STUFF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 The glorious-graphite return of BACK ISSUE’s pencil art showcase PRO2PRO: The Whisper Interview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Steven Grant and Norm Breyfogle chat about their lady ninja BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Greg Guler and Dan St. John, on their AC Comics days

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.

Eight-issue subscriptions: $73 Economy US, $88 Expedited US, $116 International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Neal Adams. Ms. Mystic TM & © Neal Adams. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2017 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904.

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Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 1

TM

SHAUN CLANCY: Was Ms. Mystic a character you were trying to do with any publisher prior to Pacific, or did Pacific approach you?

NEAL ADAMS: No, the idea was that I was doing a portfolio of characters for Sal Quartuccio and I was sort of creating characters as I went along. Once a month, Sal would come over to my studio, and one day I basically told him, “I can sit down and create a character a month and he would have a history, he would have a background, he would be a full-blown-up character.” He said, “Would you do that, and we’ll do a portfolio?” I said, “I can’t dedicate six days in a row to creating a portfolio for you.” So he said, “What if I come by, like, once a month?” And I said, “Sure! Let’s do that.”

Now, maybe it wasn’t once a month. Maybe it was every couple of weeks. My memory isn’t that great. But it was something like that.

So each time he came, I sat for a few minutes and I created a history, created a concept, created it in my head, and then I started to delineate it on paper so that each time I created a character, I created her background, I created what she or he was and what they were all about. Because that was the idea.

The idea was not just to create a character but to give them a history, you know?

Ms. Mystic, as it turned out, was a Gaia-type character, a protector of the Earth, and she could be a god… or she could be an alien, from another planet. And I was kind of messing with her history there. Was she Mother Nature? No. There was another Mother Nature that was more part of the Earth. She was more a type of guide, a kind of a god-like creature that perhaps came from another planet and actually, maybe, intended to do wrong by Earth.

So there was some ambivalence there. So I thought, “Well… that’s kinda good. I like that. But what about a costume?”

And I thought, “Hmmm… You know, nobody’s ever used Zip-A-Tone as a costume… or gray as a costume.” So I thought, “That’s what we’ll do! We’ll just make her a graded gray like with Zip-A-Tone.” But I was doing it in pencil so I graded her in pencil. And she was sort of protector of the Earth.

Pacific was approaching me to do a comic book and I said, [laughs] basically, “Look, I really haven’t got time to do this. Maybe I’ll give it a shot.” But in the studio, there was a guy named Mike Netzer who kind of drew like me. Well, he drew exactly like me, or as much as he could. I said, “Look, y’know, I can have a guy in my studio work on this and maybe he can do it and I’ll do layouts, blocking out and all the rest of it.” I was trying to really support Pacific Comics, because I sort of had convinced Jack Kirby to work for them. [laughs] And also Sergio Aragonés to work for them. I had told them that they not only would pay them but they would let them keep the rights to their character.

Early Ms. Mystic Neal’s magnificent Ms. Mystic plate from Sal Q. Productions’ New Heroes Portfolio (1979, inset).

Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions.

TM & © Neal Adams.

2 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

by S h a u n

Clancy

conducted in July 2015 and transcribed by Steven Thompson

They could hardly believe that. At that time that was actually a phenomenon.

So, partially the reason I turned the thing into a character was I wanted to promote a company that would do the right thing by the creators. Although that may not have been the first time it was being done, it certainly was the first where you had three well-known, official people out there—myself, Jack Kirby [on Silver Star and Captain Victory], and Sergio Aragonés [on Groo the Wanderer]—doing characters for more than normal rates and also that they owned their characters. I was kind of killing about 80 birds with one stone there.

CLANCY: Who was your contact at Pacific? David Scroggy or who?

ADAMS: The brothers. The Schanes. [Editor’s note: Bill and Steve Schanes grew Pacific Comics, the publisher, out of their San Diego-based comic shop in the early 1980s.]

CLANCY: How did Ms. Mystic’s name came about?

Was it a working title that you just went with?

ADAMS: When you’re creating a character, it seems like if you don’t have a good name, you really haven’t got a good character.

Cross-Gen. They made one of, I guess, the biggest blunders that you could ever make in comic books. They used verbs as nouns. [both laugh] “Sojourn”? I’m sorry?

Sojourn? Really? As a title? Sounds like a journey to me.

Doesn’t sound like a character. All their books had verbs.

If you run down the list, you kinda go, “Who’s the hero?

I don’t know.” They even took “Mystic” as one of their titles. Now, I call my character “Ms. Mystic,” because it was a character. They called it “Mystic,” which was a thing.

Now, I guess I had a subliminal memory, because Will Eisner reminded me ten years into it that he had done a character called Mr. Mystic. I had no idea. I had really not been—actually, in all honesty—a fan of Will Eisner in the past. I became a fan of Will Eisner, the person, and his achievements, but I was never really a fan of what he did, The Spirit and all the rest of it. It just seemed a little cartoony to me. But as a person and as a professional… as a person who ran a business and the other things that he did, I really got to appreciate Will Eisner. I guess I must have seen Mr. Mystic somewhere along the line. It just never occurred to me that somebody else had used the name. And his was Mister Mystic and mine is Ms. Mystic.

CLANCY: And the Ms. Mystic supporting cast?

ADAMS: The other thing—since I was there—I was dealing with these… but they weren’t Thor and Hercules and all the rest of that, but they were more earth gods.

I thought, earth, air, fire, and water were great, and it turns out if you look ’em up, there are symbols… different cultures have different symbols for earth, air, fire, and water. I took the most common and put it on their chest and essentially personified earth, air, fire, and water into these four characters.

Defender of the Earth (top) Neal Adams holding the Ms. Mystic art that appears as this issue’s cover. Photo by the art’s owner, Shaun Clancy, taken at the Emerald City Comic-Con in Seattle in April 2016. (bottom) Ms. Mystic #1, from 1982 and Pacific Comics. Cover by Neal Adams. (Neal’s other Pacific Comics title, 1983’s Skateman, will be covered in a forthcoming issue.)

TM & © Neal Adams.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3

[An aside from WILL MEUGNIOT: Actually… I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t make the Ms. Mystic connection when I brought Neal into the Captain Planet mix. The secret origin of Neal’s animation connection was that in the pre-Bruce Timm era, I’d been approached by Warners to do Batman. Inspired by what the Japanese had done with Space Adventure Cobra, Crying Freeman, and Golgo 13, I thought that, given Batman’s lavish budget, we could attempt a more literal comic-bookstyled cartoon, and base its style on Neal’s work. So I contacted him on Planet to build a working relationship with him and see if we could work together well enough that I could put him at the core of a Batman

team. Obviously, that version of Batman didn’t happen, as it took Warners longer to get their action studio off the ground than planned.

Just another of many intriguing might-have-beens. That said, Neal has always been a delight to work with and I dearly value our acquaintance.

Also, that connection is what led to Neal doing the X-Men promo art for Saban when I was one of the show’s producers.]

[Editor’s note: The Batman cartoon that Warner Bros. ended up doing— Batman: The Animated Series—celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and BACK ISSUE will explore the landmark cartoon show in BI #99, coming this August.]

CLANCY: When drawing Ms. Mystic, did you just draw the silhouette and then Zip-A-Tone over the entire finished product?

ADAMS: Well, you know. After you get a little confident, you can… [laughs] do a silhouette, but, no. Better to draw it out fully. The idea was to draw it out fully. But you must remember, too, when you’re putting Zip-A-Tone on a figure, that if you leave in little pencil marks, you’ll see them through the Zip-A-Tone. They tend to accent the Zip-A-Tone, so any drawing that was done had to be done lightly.

CLANCY: Did you work in blue pencil?

ADAMS: No, no, no, no. Blue pencils are dangerous. Actually, I’m one of those people that hardly ever worked in blue pencil. It’s a sort of animator’s technique. People talk about it like it’s a comic-book technique but it’s really not. It’s an animator’s technique. And it’s good, because it sort of doesn’t reproduce if you’ve got the right pencil. But from a historical point of view, mostly it was animators who did their roughs in blue pencil, and then comic-book artists, I guess, picked it up.

“Ooo! It doesn’t reproduce! Let’s do it!” [Shaun laughs] “How ’bout using the eraser, fellas?”

“Really? I guess we could do that. It makes my arm tired.”

I don’t know. There’s these things that become popular so everybody does them, and everybody thinks that this is the way you do it, but usually it’s just a whole lot of baloney.

CLANCY: When writing a story, do you write the ending first and work your way back?

ADAMS: Never. I try to think of a goal I’m trying to achieve in a story.

I want people to like the character. I want the story to be a story that represents the character. In other words, you don’t want to put Superman in a Batman story or Batman in a Superman story. A little piece of advice for the guy who wrote the last Batman movie. [Shaun laughs] So anyway, you want to suit them to the character. Then you want to reach out and think about things that haven’t been played with by other people. And there’s a lot of that. The impression one has is that there’s nothing in the world that’s new, but that’s true only when you’re trying to say something clever to somebody.

“Nothing’s new. Everything’s so old. We’re just rehashing the same old…” If you take that attitude, you can really feel down about what you do. I don’t take the attitude. I take the attitude that anything I do is new and I want it to be new and I want it to be fresh and if I happen to stumble across some of the same old stuff, I’ll try to forgive myself.

So I look to do things that are new and to do things that other people aren’t necessarily doing or giving a darn about. For example, there’s an awful lot of philosophy that you can turn into a comic that actually turns into a real story.

I once did a Spectre story called “Stop That Kid Before He Wrecks the World,” and in the story, this entity—considering the

Big Wheel From Pacific’s Ms. Mystic #1, the supporting cast (top panel) gets their first glimpse of Ms. Mystic (bottom panel). Art by Adams, with Michael Nasser [Netzer].

TM & © Neal Adams.

4 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

TM & © DC Comics.

I felt earth was good for a black guy because I felt if we say that mankind began in Africa, well, I think that’s a good enough reason for us to do that. A redhead for fire… I just felt that the personification of these characters would be a good thing to put with Ms. Mystic. Then you’d get first conflict, then cooperation, then maybe conflict along the way so you get ’em to bounce off of each other.

It really is—to me—a great series of characters, and if I had to be perfectly honest, I would say that Captain Planet was based on Ms. Mystic.

In fact, the guys who did Captain Planet, never having done it before, came to me for a design for Captain Planet and somehow insisted that I work on it until I came up with a finished design. Almost as a thank-you, on a creative level. Not so much the executives but on a creative level, the guys over at wherever this company was—I forget the name of the company [DiC, with Turner Entertainment—ed.]—somehow felt I should do the final design, so I did! And I think it was a thank-you or a tip of the creative hat to Ms. Mystic, between you and me and the fencepost and… the… several thousand readers. [Shaun laughs] Will Meugniot was the creative director that I worked with on Captain Planet. He might have a little input for you if you want to check him out.

concept that you’re working with, the Spectre, who is something of a God-like ghost that can do things that you can’t even imagine that Superman can do—transports to different dimensions and enters your head and all kinds of weird stuff. A creature, a benevolent—not a benevolent! [laughs] The opposite of benevolent, thank you. An evil creature that goes to different planets and sucks the goodness and life out of the planet and then moves on to other planets… comes to Earth. He doesn’t reveal his plan, but basically what he does is, he enters this little boy because he feels that the most powerful force of good on the Earth is the Spectre. So he enters this little boy and he starts to do things like destroy bridges and all sorts of mischief. So the Spectre has to go after him and try to undo what he is doing and realizes, of course, what he really has to do is he has to get this thing out of the kid. So he, at one point in the story, tries to draw this creature out of the kid and as he does it, the kid starts to die. And he lets the thing go back into the kid and he realizes that if he removes the thing from the kid, the kid will die. Then that’s the problem that he has to deal with and he has to face throughout the story as we go through the story. So, [Jim] Corrigan—the [Spectre’s] alter ego, the cop that’s alive—talks to him and seemingly gets him to realize it’s a small sacrifice to let one kid die to save the Earth. He almost convinces him, and then as the action is taking place, the Spectre has decided that he will not allow the boy to die. That he will pursue this creature to eternity and never kill the kid and simply undo what this creature does. At that point, the creature tears itself from the little boy and goes screaming off into space to wither and die. His goal in the end was to get the Spectre to do one wrong or evil thing to allow a child to die as the sign that he could destroy the rest of the world by corrupting the rest of the world by giving them choices that would… you know… essentially the Earth would corrupt itself by doing the wrong thing. But Spectre refused to do that and said if it takes the remainder of eternity, he would not destroy the child but he would stop the evil deeds of this creature.

Philosophical little story there, and I think a very good story—a story that I think is not followed by so many writers where somebody has to make the right moral choice and by making the right moral choice, they’re sacrificing something of themselves but that is the idea, isn’t it?

CLANCY: Yes. ADAMS: And so that story—once that story was written— has been borrowed by a significant number of other people to be added to other stories. Not necessarily in that form and you can sort of track ’em down. The hero would not make the sacrifice. He would sacrifice himself.

CLANCY: Is your writing self-taught or did you actually take classes?

ADAMS: I don’t think writing is… taught. I guess there are classes where they teach you the simple things like, every story’s got to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

You should draw as much as you can, you should learn to structure your stories in certain ways. I guess I’m kind of a natural storyteller. I think I get it from my mother. I know why a story’s good, I know how to take a story that’s not good and turn it into a good story. If you ask me at the end of the day, tell me the funniest something that happened that day, I will never have a day when there isn’t something incredibly funny. [Shaun laughs] You know, laugh your sides off, because it really has to do with how you view the world and good stories and pathos and those sorts of things. And I find them everywhere. So, storytelling is really something that I do. People think that I’m a good artist. Okay… I’m a pretty good artist. But I’m a much better storyteller.

I think I can bring a tear to your eye at times. I can make you fall in love with a character. And that’s what I do. I do it on purpose, too. You know, five guys can

draw Talia, and then when I draw it, suddenly people fall in love with her. Dinah Drake, same thing. Or a new Green Arrow. Women fall in love with him. They love the character as if he were a person! I’ve drawn it in such a way that when they look at it, they go, “I’d like to know him.” It’s a comic-book character. It’s a drawing!

So, how does that happen? How does that take place?

The actor who plays Arrow on the TV show—he’s basically repeating what I’ve been saying for the last couple of years: Why don’t you put a smile on this guy’s face? Because Green Arrow smiles. He’s like Robin Hood, you know? Suddenly, at that very wrong moment there’ll be a big grin on his face, and that’s what you wanna see! Because he knows something that you don’t know.

He thinks it’s funny. He’s that kind of a character. And I like to see that. And I do that when I tell stories.

CLANCY: Do you continually jot down ideas?

ADAMS: Not ever. Not ever. That would be too much!

Oh, my God. I would have notebooks coming out of my ass. [Shaun laughs] Excuse the “ass.” Find another part of my anatomy that they might come out of— coming out of my ears. They would be everywhere.

There’s just so many… within the last half hour, something happened that was as funny as anything that happened three days ago. I would describe the character to you.

“Suddenly People Fall in Love with Her”… …says Neal Adams of his rendition of Talia, daughter of the demon (Ra’s al Ghul), and you can see why in this sexy, undated pinup

by Neal from the Heritage archives.

Talia and Batman TM & © DC Comics.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 5

I would tell you why, what happened, what is about to happen—it’s funny—and then I will tell you what happened and you will laugh. [Shaun laughs] Because it really was funny.

I sit here in my life and I chuckle at things that happen to me and they happen all the time.

This Batman: Odyssey 325-page [graphic] novel that I did that came out last year and I’ve been pumping it to everybody and getting back at the bad news that I got on the Internet about that story because people told me, “Don’t answer them, don’t answer them!” And I was not used to the Internet and that was a big mistake. So I took the flak and I didn’t answer it, which was really stupid because I feel this was probably one of the best books ever done.

Let’s say you’re walking along the road and you have all these Batman writers writing stories and every once in a while, they miss something or they drop something and I’ll pick it up and I’ll put it in my pocket and I’ll walk a while and I’ll pick something else up and I’ll pick something else up, until my pockets are loaded with all this stuff that people forgot or left behind or didn’t notice. But they should’ve. The relationship between the Sensei and Ra’s al Ghul is a very odd relationship, because Ra’s al Ghul looks younger than his son.

Obviously he’s not letting him use the Lazarus Pit, which would piss me off. [laughs] So, now I have a plot! The Sensei’s gonna kill Ra’s al Ghul! And how is Batman gonna stop it without actually liking the Sensei, who controls 6000 assassins around the world.

Uh-oh! Got a problem. It’s already a major plot concept and if I’ve got a whole book to play with it, I don’t even have to let people know in the first or second chapter what’s going on. I can just leave clues lying around for them to figure out… which is what I did. I love that stuff!

CLANCY: Would you start a long series like that not knowing the ending yourself?

ADAMS: No. Believe me, I will know the ending. I would never start without knowing the ending. The ending is nailed! And nailed a hundred percent. I would never start

without knowing where I was going. But I wouldn’t necessarily let you know!

CLANCY: [laughs] That’s what keeps us reading.

Ms. Mystic, though—the fan mail. How well was the character initially received?

ADAMS: Everybody likes Ms. Mystic. I’ve never had a problem with Ms. Mystic.

CLANCY: The Chris Miller backup on Ms. Mystic for Pacific—did you actually solicit him or did Pacific team you up with him?

ADAMS: What was it?

CLANCY: It was “Tales of Zed.” ADAMS: Naw, I didn’t pay any attention to it.

CLANCY: Okay, so you didn’t package the book? They actually supplied the backup feature?

ADAMS: Yeah.

CLANCY: I know it moved from Pacific to Continuity.

ADAMS: Yeah, it went because Pacific went out of business.

I had done a book called Echo of Futurepast, a compilation of short stories, which soon would be gathered together in graphic novels at the beginning of the first experiment to do that in America. I did Bucky O’Hare… Arthur Suydam’s Mudwog, some European stories, a thing called The City, a European series of stories and a thing called Hom, another kind of caveman on an odd planet, series of stories. Oh, and I did Dracula-Werewolf-Frankenstein—my book that I now have a collection of. I did that in that thing with Pacific. What happened was, the first Ms. Mystic story really just never got finished. The artist—I don’t wanna say much about it, but he just never got the thing done. It really fell to me to finish it and it just got delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed. By the time I got to the next one, I was doing it. It was just too… insane. But that took a lot of time.

Meantime, we had done Echo of Futurepast. After a time, whatever it was they were doing over at Pacific, they had to go out of business. But I had invested quite a bit of money in Echo of Futurepast, buying properties and paying people to do stuff. So I was into it for about $62,000. [laughs] The question was, what do I do with this investment?

And I figured, well, I’d better publish! Which basically was the choice I was forced to make. I didn’t intend to be a publisher at all. I just wanted to chug along. But you gotta make your $62,000 back, and I did.

CLANCY: Was Ms. Mystic the first Continuity title?

ADAMS: I think so. I did what I said I would do with Sal Quartuccio. I took several of those characters that I did in the portfolio and made them into comics. Toyboy was one of them. Shaman was one. I did not do King Tut. Basically I worked with my sons on Armor and Megalith.

They are sort of semi-co-creators of those two characters.

Samuree, I guess I created separately.

CLANCY: Was the Heckler one of those?

ADAMS: No, I did a character called Crazyman. [laughs] I’ll tell you where Crazyman came from. I was sitting around with a bunch of guys and a few were joking about the names of comic-book characters, like Garbageman and Mailman, and I said, “What about Crazyman? You have a character that’s just crazy!”

“Yeah, but you can’t have him crazy.”

I go, “No. We’ll make him crazy! He’ll be certifiably insane! That would be great!”

“No. That’s stupid!”

Fantastic Foursome Adams’ Urth 4, as teased in this Ms. Mystic #2 Pacific house ad. Scan courtesy of Andy Mangels.

TM & © Neal Adams.

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The Coming of Continuity’s Heroes Four plates from 1979’s New Heroes Portfolio revealing early versions of Adams-created heroes. Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Neal Adams.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 7

Powerful Pencils (top) Ms. Mystic pencil art from the 2007 Neal Adams Convention Sketch Book. Courtesy of Andy Mangels. (bottom) Courtesy of Heritage, an Adams Megalith illo from 2002.

TM & © Neal Adams.

And I walked away thinking, “That was a stupid idea!” And it actually became one of our most popular characters. [Shaun laughs] And Crazyman is, in fact, crazy! In fact, we’re going to be coming out with our characters again before long.

CLANCY: We haven’t seen Ms. Mystic in 20 years. What’re the plans for her?

ADAMS: Well, we haven’t seen Ms. Mystic in 20 years. We haven’t seen all those characters in 20 years. And you might like to know why.

CLANCY: [laughs] Yes, I would!

ADAMS: About 20 years ago, in the comic-book business, a phenomenon happened. The phenomenon was that there were all these collectors who thought, “This is a great business to invest in. We should buy craploads of comic books and store them away, wait for five or ten years and then sell ’em and make a ton of money. There are all these collectors who are doing this, so why don’t we start doing it? And so it got to be a buzz going through the collector market where these guys—and I don’t know how many there were, but there were a lot of them—were buying boxes of comic books and putting them in their garages. So books that might not have otherwise sold very well sold a million copies! Unbelievable! And this was also when Image was moving forward!

My stuff—I started a project called Deathwatch 2000, and it was headed to the year 2000. And it was a three-issue series that ran across nearly all the characters. So… [laughs] We did sales of 150,000 copies per character across the board. Continuity Comics had lost money up to there. There, we made money. 150,000 copies of each character for three months, or nearly three months.

The sales started to sink on the third month. But while this was going on—we were into the second month—those collectors out there decided… I dunno, one weekend… to call each other and say, “Hey. This isn’t working out. If we’re all buying all these comic books, how will they ever increase in value? The hell with it!” And they all stopped. The following Monday—I can’t tell you when it was—was a terrible time. They just stopped buying those comic books. And so these comic-book stores were left with a million comic books of a given title! [laughs] There were $2.00 comic books for 50 cents apiece out of boxes at the fronts of their stores just to get rid of ’em! 1500 stores—I am told—went out of business! Publishers went out of business. I think Comico… a whole bunch of publishers went out of business.

And my order numbers as I finished Deathwatch 2000—I was moving into The Rise of Magic. My numbers plummeted!

People would change and lower their numbers at the drop of a hat. Any excuse to lower their numbers. If you got a shipment?

Lower the numbers. You had a right to do that. So everybody just deserted the business and people went out of business. So I said, “To hell with this. I’m out.” So anybody I talked to of any note, I said to them, “I’ll be back when business is good. Right now, I’m outta here!” [laughs] So I went and I basically did advertising. And advertising is a very, very good business. I did advertising for almost 20 years and did very well. I sent my kids through college. Nobody has outstanding loans in my family, and that’s the kids and grandkids.

It was a very good business until the recession hit. Then, when the recession hit, advertising agencies started to pull this outside work back into the agency. And that hurt the business that we were doing, but I thought, “You know, the comic-book business is getting a little bit better.

Maybe it’s time to come back in.” And so that’s what I’ve been doing for the last couple of years. So there you have a little concise history of Neal Adams.

SHAUN CLANCY started collecting comics in 1975 at the age of eight, when his father brought home a Charlton horror comic for him to read. Today he owns a heating and air-conditioning company in the Seattle area and collects original comic art.

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Say the name “Neal Adams,” and it’s sure to inspire a multitude of memories and stories for any longtime comicbook collector. Adams is a legendary creator among the elite of icons who have worked in the mainstream comicbook industry with a distinctive grace, power, and emotion to each page he touches. Adams also stands out among those independent publishers with his own line called Continuity Comics. Adams’ company would unite staff and freelance artists from his Continuity Studios (see BACK ISSUE #88) and abroad to slowly begin making its own unique pantheon of heroes and villains that, to this day, remains fresh and exciting.

BACK ISSUE had the honor of speaking at length with Continuity Comics talent who gave us exclusive accounts of the ins and outs of the events that sculpted the Continuity Universe.

Presented here is a look at these wild and imaginative characters and the writers and artists behind their stories.

THE FATHER OF CONTINUITY COMICS

TM & © Neal Adams.

“In New York, Neal’s Continuity Associates was the vortex of an amazing movement where commercial artists, comic-book artists, and designers intersected. For many [perhaps most] of the generations of younger artists this was the place to be, and as so many of my peers/contemporaries, we made our way, one way or another, to enjoy the fruit of an innovator’s efforts.

Neal was generous enough to take many of us on under his wing and give us work as fledgling comic-book artists all the while holding down the fort of being an entrepreneur, father, professional commercial artist, and advocate for Photo by Elite Avni-Sharon. various artists’ issues.”

– Michael Netzer (Megalith, Samuree)

by S

teven Wilber

In the late ’70s/early ’80s, small-time independent publishers were cropping up across the United States.

First Comics, AC Comics, Eclipse Comics, Comico, and more were finding success with the newly established direct market of specialty comic-book stores. After a short stint at Pacific Comics with his own creation, Ms. Mystic, Neal Adams decided to branch out with his own comicbook company, aptly titled Continuity Comics, based out of his Continuity Studios, established years earlier with Dick Giordano, who went on to become a vice-president of DC Comics. Artist Brian Apthorp explains, “Nothing in the description of what they did at Continuity would indicate that I would have anything to do with comic books, but as a fan knowing Neal for all these years, he’s a tremendous influence on comic-book artists of the late ’60s through the ’70s. I just hoped, if maybe I worked for him, I’d somehow get some connections with the industry of comic books. That’s why I went for the job, and was pleased to have been hired, and proceeded to do all the stuff we’d been doing for commercial illustration, advertising, and movie posters and all that stuff.”

Continuity Comics would begin with Echo of Futurepast #1 (July 1984), an anthology series that would be published sporadically through 1984–1986. Zero Patrol, a team of intrepid explorers drafted beyond the stars by the mysterious being “Zero,” would follow. Zero Patrol was created, written, and drawn by Esteban Maroto. It was originally called “Cinco Por Infinito” in Spain, but received

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TALENT TALK – A SALUTE TO CONTINUITY COMICS’ PUBLISHER, NEAL ADAMS Neal Adams would accrue both fame and notoriety for his time as an artist and storyteller at DC and Marvel Comics. According to the artists who worked for him at Continuity Studios, it was a reputation well deserved.

• “Neal Adams, he’s my hero. He’s the biggest influence I have in comics.

He challenged me to bring my best.”

– Mike Deodato • “Working for Neal was like a day in Corps.

I remember one day he came into my room with his ex-wife, Cory (who I loved a lot), such a sweet woman. He came into the room and slapped down three pages of Toyboy on my table and said, ‘Look what I did last night.’ I looked up at him like a scorned son and just said, ‘Well, gee, Neal, that’s great!

But you also have like 25 more years of experience than I do.’ He makes it look simple and that’s to his credit.”

– Tom Grindberg • “I had a lot of reasons to be grateful to him and his influence in that time, and the opportunity he gave me.”

– Brian Apthorp • “It must be kept in mind that the times Neal exploded into included innovation across the arts from the dance world to music, from Bruce Lee, Hendrix, and Bob Fosse to alternative concepts of physics/ cosmology. Neal tried to bring all of that into comics, so that was where all of us [or at least this] young artists wanted to be.”

– Mark Beachum

additional writing and art from Adams, who bought the rights to rework the stories. While the series had nothing to do with what would become the Continuity Universe, Continuity’s first official superhero would debut in Zero Patrol #1 (Nov. 1984).

MEGALITH: THE ULTIMATE MAN

“The point of Megalith? He would always find a way to win.”

– Peter Stone (Megalith, Armor, Ms. Mystic, and so many more!)

Josef Majurac was a young Olympic hopeful raised on a farm in rural America. Joe’s Olympic sponsors were revealed to be part of a treacherous unnamed organization and, against his will, Joe was forced into a secret camp to train to become an agent-for-hire. For fear of retribution on his unsuspecting parents, Joe complied.

Without the knowledge of his superiors, Joe corresponded with his family, helping them to amass a fortune by forecasting stock trends and various business investments. What wasn’t known, except to the young Majurac, was that by continuing to train his mind, body, and spirit, Joe was able to develop an

Talent Talk – Brian Apthorp Brian Apthorp tells BACK ISSUE, “I was trying to draw over his [Neal Adams’] layout, which is extremely challenging for someone who is not as good a draftsman as he! I can’t work over other people’s layouts; I don’t know what my problem is.

I’ve tried before, but maybe I’m not as good a draftsman as I should be [laughs]. It’d be easier to draw whatever someone else composed, but the fact is, over time, I realized, I couldn’t stand it!” Image from Armor vol. 2 #6. Courtesy of Brian Apthorp.

TM & © Neal Adams.

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The Ultimate Men (left) Neal Adams’ cover to Megalith #1 (Apr. 1985). (right) It’s a Continuity hero team-up in Revengers #3 (Nov. 1986).

TM & © Neal Adams.

almost-superhuman “Mind-Body Link” that enhanced his strength, speed, stamina, and health, and provided him psychic abilities. When Joe finally escaped, he learned his parents were either dead or possibly in hiding. It became his life mission to find the truth. Majurac quickly caught the eye of the government and media and was given the codename “Megalith.”

“Megalith is really based on the Eastern philosophy of the match of the mind and body,” says Peter Stone.

“We didn’t make it up. They have complete control of their bodies. Megalith just really worked out [as a character]. Megalith was always intellectual, and I felt like we never really got the opportunity to explore him more than we did.”

Megalith would star in three Continuity Comics series.

The first was Revengers #1 (Apr. 1985) through #6 (Jan. 1989). Revengers would follow up with Megalith’s first solo title, Megalith #1 (Jan. 1989) through #9 (Mar. 1992). A second Megalith series would debut in April 1993 and be discontinued with its seventh issue in January 1994. BACK ISSUE readers will notice a trend of inconsistent publishing from Continuity Comics, going from monthly, to bimonthly, or sometimes several months in between issues. “I’m just purely guessing,” according to Brian Apthorp, “that it might’ve just been financial cost of printing, because it was pretty high-class printing.”

Longtime Continuity writer/editor Peter Stone explains, “[although] we realize it now, we never should have had monthly comic books, because it was too hard. We didn’t have Marvel over us, we didn’t have Disney, we didn’t have someone behind us who could say, ‘Oh, you lost money this month? Don’t worry about it.’ Because it was an independent company, there really wasn’t a trade entity on the premises; we were allowed a lot of freedom, and sometimes freedom stabs you.”

Megalith would remain one of the most prominent superheroes of the Continuity Universe, additionally appearing in other books like Armor, Samuree, and Hybrids.

Throughout his adventures, Joe would battle various foes including zealot rightwing militants, radiation-scarred mutants, sentient machines, and supernatural beasts, all the while trying to build a “normal” life for himself. Megalith wasn’t always successful, considering that his surrogate family consisted of characters like Armor and Silver Streak.

Band of Brothers Megalith, Armor, and Silver Streak in action in Revengers #5 (Mar. 1989). Story by Adams and Peter Stone, art by Adams, Ian Akin, and Brian Garvey.

TM & © Neal Adams.

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Talent Talk – Tom Grindberg Tom Grindberg tells BACK ISSUE, “Neal wanted all his books to have that Neal touch to it.

Neal was a hard guy to impress, and perhaps that’s a good thing for newcomers. All I knew was that he must have seen something in my work, which kept me working for him.”

Image from Armor #4 (July 1988).

TM & © Neal Adams.

BROTHERS IN ARMS: ARMOR AND SILVER STREAK

“Armor was a pain in the ass to draw. I used to call that character the human Cuisinart.”

– Tom Grindberg (Armor, Toyboy)

Ten-year-old Jason Kriter—“Toyboy”— would blast onto the scene in 1986.

Kriter was a technological genius, the inventor of extraordinary robots and machines, and son of the richest man in the world. His wild adventures would lead him to a chance encounter with Megalith, but for the most part, Toyboy remained separate from the rest of the Continuity Universe. (inset) Cover to Toyboy #5 (June 1988).

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TM & © Neal Adams.

MOVE OVER, RICHIE RICH, IT’S TOYBOY!

The Revengers was an unofficial team of orphans—Megalith, Armor, and Silver Streak—but they weren’t always allies.

Armor and Silver Streak were really teenage brothers Jack and Jacques Keaton, who had been kidnapped by the alien tyrant Rage and separated from one another. Jack is trained and conditioned as a “10,” an elite fighter and master of weapons, outfitted with a unique suit of armor that made him nearly invulnerable.

Jacques was rebuilt into a galactic miner, complete with artificial hands, super-speed, and the ability to absorb and redirect various forms of energy. Eventually, the two teamed up and led a revolt against Rage and his forces. By the sixth issue, Armor faced Rage one-onone but did not survive unscathed, losing an eye in the process. Directly after, Jack and his brother would manage to escape to Earth, where they are mistaken

by Megalith as enemies. It didn’t take long for the three heroes to unite and eventually set up residence in Joe’s mansion (bought with his inheritance that was procured through the financial advice he had given his parents). Like Megalith, Silver Streak was eager to return to everyday life, particularly high school. Armor, on the other hand, now a living weapon, was interested in anything but and often found himself embroiled in everything from local gangs, drug trafficking, and ninjas to stopping a TV megalomaniac. It was by issue #8 that the series took a noticeable shift in tone as Adams and team left the epic adventures in space for more attention on the dynamic of the Keaton Brothers, as a partnership and as individuals. Peter Stone reflects, “I liked writing Armor because he’s so simple—it’s something that’s very familiar. It’s kind of like Batman—he could just be angry all the time. But you have to temper it.

Underneath it all, Armor was really a caring person, but he just got screwed over. Because he is younger, it’s a lot of teenage angst.”

Eventually, through events described in Armor vol. 1 #11–13, the duo is lured back into outer space, where they discover their sister, Jackie, was also abducted and transformed into the assassin Scarlet Streak. Before Scarlet rejoined her brothers, the Revengers would aid another trained martial artist, one who would become one of the forefront heroines for what would become known as the “Bad Girl” movement.

That’s Right, She’s Bad As the illustrator of Continuity’s “Mistress of the Martial Arts,” Mark Beachum imprinted the medium with these and many other evocative images that helped fuel a “Bad Girl” craze. (right) An action page from Samuree vol. 1 #1 (May 1987). (left) Beachum’s cover to issue #4 (Jan. 1989).

TM & © Neal Adams.

CONTINUITY’S MISTRESS OF THE MARTIAL ARTS: SAMUREE “I will grant probably one the major motives for drawing comics, for me, is erotic aspects to the human figure.”

– Brian Apthorp (Armor)

The first six issues of Samuree, plotted

by Neal Adams and scripted by famed Superman writer Elliot S. Maggin, revealed the origin of Samuree as she embarked on a mission of revenge.

Darryl Sheppard was orphaned as an infant on a mysterious East Asian island called Midduce, inhabited with men and women who “—spent their days searching for and finding the summits of their minds’ and bodies’ potential” (Samuree #3, May 1989). The people of Midduce were led by Aunt Gracie Chu, who adopted, educated, and trained young Darryl. When Darryl was 14, the island was overrun by mercenaries and Darryl was kidnapped and subjected to experiments to enhance her physical prowess and longevity. When Darryl’s body failed to accept the conditioning she was returned home, only to see the

islanders slaughtered. Following her code of honor and retribution, Gracie Chu armed herself and led a one-woman assault against the assailants. Unfortunately, Chu was cut down, leaving Darryl alone. The teen continued to train and plan, and finally adopted her teacher’s uniform as her own. Samuree would make her way to the United States, allying herself with the Revengers, but always being just on the fringe due to her coldblooded view of dealing with her enemies.

Perhaps the most noticeable aspect of the first Samuree series was the suggestive art of Mark Beachum, later coined “Bad Girl Art,” following an explosion of similar (but weak) attempts to emulate the work by Beachum and artists like him. Beachum conjectures, “The Bad Girl craze came about as a direct result of the generation before us having created the tools for independent self- publishing, actually, being a proposition

TM & © Neal Adams.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 13

TM & © Neal Adams.

THE SAVAGE SHE-BAT! Valeria was a top fashion model, the “it” person among celebrities. What wasn’t known to the general public was that she had been rescued and adopted by the Werebreds, human/animal hybrids who used their powers as mercenaries. The Werebreds were more than a team—they were a family, united against Lilth-Kasti, Valeria’s former master and ruler of the Fire-Bats. “That cover for She-Bat, man, that cover,” gushes Mike Deodato over Neal Adams’ cover to Valeria the She-Bat #1 (May 1993). “The guy was still the man, after all those years!”

that someone with very little access to funds, a vision, some talent, and a willingness to do the work could go toe-to-toe with the mega-corporations.” Beachum adds, “It was Image that reduced it to ‘the Bad Girl’ craze, which I take to mean the estimation of insecure, immature people who are unable to deal with the fact that they are in fact using an idiom which is wholly erotic.

‘Superheroism’ is an erotic idiom: action/adventure featuring protagonists whose design reveals and revels in the magnificence of the human form in context with various approaches to using narrative to advocate, examine, and enjoy various philosophical/metaphysical/ ethical concepts.”

A rookie at the time and self-professed Neal Adams fan, Mike Deodato would become involved with the second Samuree series that picked up elements from the first, leading directly into a major companywide crossover (more on that soon). Deodato would combine elements of eroticism and Neal Adams with his own style during his brief experience with Continuity Comics and would soon be recognized as a major talent with his run on DC Comics’ Wonder Woman. Was that combination intentional? Deodato explains, “What I brought to Wonder Woman from my Samuree days was the way that Neal Adams built the faces. At the beginning, you can see that Wonder Woman was more… the faces weren’t too much like Jim Lee, it was more human, more realistic. Neal Adams is in my DNA. There’s no way I can get rid of this style—it will always be there. I can incorporate things, but it’s always part of it.”

Deodato would work on one other Continuity series before attaining mainstream fame, a book called Hybrids.

FROM A GALAXY NOT SO FAR AWAY

“We really liked the Hybrids concept, hybrid human beings, which now is commonplace. At the time, no one had heard of them.”

– Peter Stone

The Hybrids made a major splash in the Continuity Universe when this team of diverse aliens took over the United Nations building. The weather-manipulating Cyclone, the invulnerable Highperion, the cyborg Spanng Ting, the werebeast Horror, the sorcerer Gymcrack, master of gravity Sheath, and insectoid-warrior Mite held their own in a titanic battle against Megalith and later, the other Revengers. Eventually it was revealed the Hybrids’ motivation weren’t so malevolent and they were being manipulated by a fellow Hybrid, Devilspawn,

Talent Talk – Mike Deodato, Jr. “I didn’t know what he [Neal Adams] would think. I’d feel it wasn’t good enough, but to my relief, he loved it—according to my agents, because I didn’t speak English at that time. They said he loved the way I used the lettering on the sound effects, I drew everything by hand, incorporating it into the scene.” Shown here is the splash page to Samuree vol. 2 #3 (Dec. 1993).

TM & © Neal Adams.

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who ultimately proved to be the pawn of a greater force.

With their arrival on Earth, the Hybrids also subconsciously attracted their “gene parents,” humans whose DNA had been mixed with foreign DNA from different worlds. This strange reunion was ill-timed but provided clues to why each Hybrid was an outsider on their respective worlds and were drawn to one another. No sooner did the Hybrids release their hold on the UN than Devilspawn revealed the true purpose of their origin and their would-be conquest of Earth. The Hybrids were designed to become a new race of beings intended to survive an impending deathwatch of the destruction of life on Earth.

MS. MYSTIC, EARTH 4, AND PRELUDE TO DEATHWATCH 2000

“Ms. Mystic was delicious to draw. It was full of interesting characters, great action scenes, and fantastic settings.

I had opportunity to draw lost cities, Humpback whales, and supersonic fighter aircrafts, among many other mind-blowing subjects that I imagine any artist would love to draw and that made the experience much more fun to me.”

– Luke Ross (Ms. Mystic)

Earth, Wind, and…

Stone (top) Writer Peter Stone’s first Continuity effort, Ms. Mystic vol. 2 #4 (May 1989), co-written with Neal Adams.

Here we see the book’s former supporting cast in their Earth (Urth) 4 roles: Urth (Dwight Godd), Ayre (Baron Cotter), Fyre (Dr. Kelly Kane), and Watr (Dennis Swan). Art by Terry Shoemaker and Akin and Garvey. (bottom) Neal’s cover to Urth 4 #1 (May 1989).

One of Continuity Comics’ most powerful players was Ms. Mystic, the time-lost, energysword-wielding protector of Earth who was psychically connected to the planet’s spirit and through her aided in the transformation of her allies of the Science Investigation Agency (S.I.A.). Without their consent, Dwight Godd, Dr. Kelly “Tech” Kane, Baron Carter, and Dennis Swan become living avatars of the four elements, Urth, Fyre, Ayre, and Watr. Mystic would frequently team up with Earth 4 (originally named “Urth 4”), alongside their mentor Professor Raas and his assistant, Jake Rabinowitz. Earth 4 would (often unsuccessfully) try to acclimate the sensitive and hot-tempered Mystic to the present while adjusting to their roles of environmental superheroes. It didn’t take long before a change in the personalities of some the heroes was evident and suspicion began to arise around Ms. Mystic and how altruistic she was about her origin.

Peter Stone teases, “Mystic was a cold-hearted, lying bitch… but her heart was in the right place. Progress

TM & © Neal Adams.

SUPERNEAL’S PAL, PETER STONE When Neal Adams took a chance on a young intern from Boston, Massachusetts, he had no idea that he would end up hiring one of Continuity’s most profound writers and editors. Peter Stone’s long-lasting relationship with Continuity Comics can be felt in his dramatic characterization and his heart-pounding action. While sometimes overlooked by readers when compared to Continuity’s famous publisher, Stone had a hand in shaping every Continuity character after starting with the company in the late ’80s with Ms. Mystic vol. 2 #4.

He’s still brimming with ideas and untold stories for Megalith, Armor, Ms. Mystic, and the entire line of heroes and villains, and remains a part of Continuity Studios. Peter continues to write, having published his first novel, Shattered Krystal, and is currently working on its sequel.

“One of the problems with American comic books is that we don’t treat them with any respect,” Stone believes. “[Continuity’s] intention was, we wanted the retailer to make money— we just didn’t know how! It was just like, ‘We’re just going to do comics the best we could, and hope that people like them.’ ” Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 15

over imperfection… your struggle to do the right thing all the time because it’s the right thing to do!”

A regular nemesis for Ms. Mystic and Earth 4 was Darrow and his army of Titans, intent on making the surface their new home. “Darrow and the Titans were creatures who lived deep under the Earth,” says Stone. “Darrow is the evolutionary step forward of the Titans. The Titans were the Morlocks and he was the Eloi. Darrow may or may not physically be thousands of years old, but his memories might be passed down through the generations… from body to body. Neal created him, but I have to admit I pushed him all the time to be Mystic’s evil nemesis.

Continuity had a world under the surface where strange creatures roamed around: Darrow, Titans, Fire-Bats, dinosaurs, etc., like Pellucidar from Burroughs, a lost place where anything and everything lived.” It was from this world that enemies of the surface would attempt to hasten the deathwatch the Hybrids were trying to prevent. Ms. Mystic, on a mission of her own, would ally herself with Spanng Ting and Highperion, while Earth 4, under attack from the original elemental avatars now under Titans’ control, would receive much-needed aid from Gymcrack and Cyclone. Eventually, the Hybrids would pull together all the heroes of the Continuity Universe, finding themselves in conflict against a new force of evil greater than the Titans and the other denizens of the deep.

Continuity Crossover Original art by Michael Golden for Armor vol. 2 #2 (May 1993), Part 9 of the Deathwatch 2000 crossover. Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Neal Adams.

SHAMAN AND CYBERRAD The mysterious Shaman first appeared in Zero Patrol #3 (Apr. 1988). He was actually three men in one.

Well, sort of. Born at two intersecting points in time, two conceived in the past, another in the present, Shaman could call upon his doppelgangers to increase his mystic power.

Vehemently opposed to sorcery, Shaman would use his skills as a warrior and his talent for enchantment only to ensure no one else could take advantage of the evil that magic might elicit. In both Deathwatch 2000 and The Rise of Magic, the powerful mage would employ allies to defend our planet. Shaman wasn’t always the most cordial of team players, especially with the younger generation, as CyberRad would quickly learn.

Simon Peake only wanted to enjoy life with girlfriend and act as lead singer to his local rock band, but when he woke up one night in the middle of the street, his life was never the same again. Hunted by the corporation CyberCore, Simon was presented with the possibility that he may actually be an android copy of a teenager, internally made up of powerful weapons that could potentially turn the tide of good vs. evil.

Under the tutelage of Shaman, CyberRad found the resolve to take control of his robotic form and help turn the tide in Deathwatch 2000.

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Talent Talk – Luke Ross “Most memorable to me are the letters that Neal Adams himself used to send me on a regular basis, giving me directions in order to see my improvement as an artist,” says Ross.

“I was lucky to have a rare opportunity like that.” (left) Ms. Mystic vol. 3 #3 (Dec. 1993)

by Ross and Adams.

TM & © Neal Adams.

MEANWHILE – THE HELLBENDERS

“Everyone had their own agenda. It wasn’t like they woke up and said they wanted to be bad, bad, bad. There had to be motivation.”

– Peter Stone Prelude stories to Continuity Comics’ first major crossover event, Deathwatch 2000, were published in April 1993, but events leading to it had been established in March 1988. In Revengers #4, Megalith, Armor, and Silver Streak encountered a secluded town with no name ruled by the New Clear Warlock (“nuclear,” get it?), filled with radiation-infected townspeople. It seemed Megalith’s words had convinced the Warlock to forsake his “magic,” but months later, five teenagers found themselves dying from radiation poisoning. After the Warlock attempted to cure them, it seemed he forestalled the effects, which instilled them with powers, warping their appearance and making them crave radiation.

Dubbed the Hellbenders, Hellheart, REM, Leper, Hellfire, and Void were promised a cure by billionaire Mason Drake and left the sanctity of their home to follow a new master. Unknown to anyone at the time, Drake had been planning the conquest of Earth for years, all the while amassing allies.

With the Hellbenders at his beck and call, Darrow, with his Titans plus the aid of Lilth-Kasti the Fire-Bat, was ready to launch his ultimate attack.

CONTINUITY HEROES COME TOGETHER

After several battles with Mason Drake and his cohorts, the heroes of Continuity learned too late that Drake had been coordinating an immense stockpile of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), warehousing it below Mount Saint Helens, the volcano in Washington State. With his plan nearly accomplished, Drake, warped from radioactivity, finally revealed his true form, a 30-foot dragon. Adopting the nom de guerre “Dragon,” Drake had also collected five nuclear missiles

Talent Talk – Aron Wiesenfeld “I was sort of doing the ‘Image’ style, as it was known at the time,” says Wiesenfeld, “and I think that was something Neal wanted to introduce at Continuity Comics, but at the time I was just happy to be a professional comic-book artist.” Page from Earth 4 Deathwatch 2000 #2 (May 1993), with Richard Bennett’s inks over Aron’s pencils.

CRAZYMAN AND GIMMICKS Continuity Comics would try a number of cover options throughout its ten years, from holograms to die-cut, glow-in-thedark, and possibly the most well-known, Tyvek covers, described as “indestructible.”

One such series that took advantage of such gimmicks was Crazyman. Note that the cover and entire contents of Crazyman vol. 2 #1 (May 1993, with a cover

by Neal Adams) are die-cut.

Crazyman was a bizarre character that had trouble defining himself with “normal” people. Both incredibly intelligent and remarkably strong when enraged, Crazyman was the one character undisturbed by the bizarre events of The Rise of Magic—rather it was he who frightened a rampant demon loosed into our dimension. “We started to do more linear stories in Crazyman, and started to explore what he really was,” says Peter Stone. “We didn’t want to say he’s crazy, because he really wasn’t crazy.

But it took us a while to figure out, ‘Oh, I see. He’s just very extreme.’ ”

TM & © Neal Adams.

This Guy’s a Drag(on) Mason Drake, “Dragon,” launches his final assault on Earth! From Hybrids Deathwatch 2000 #3 (Aug. 1993).

Art by Wiesenfeld/ Adams/Rudy Nebres/ Andres Klacik.

TM & © Neal Adams.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 17

Enter… Knighthawk A new character that would spin out of The Rise of Magic was Knighthawk, a hero who actually replaced Image’s Spawn, scheduled to appear in Valeria the She-Bat #3–4. As Peter Stone explains, “What happened to Valeria the She-Bat was, we had made a deal with Todd MacFarlane to do SheBat/Spawn, and we were late, and Todd at the time was suffering mightily under him being great, so, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t be associated with that anymore.’ ” Nearly completed issues of Valeria the She-Bat were scrapped with Knighthawk filling in with a new and original story for #5.

Knighthawk and Valeria the She-Bat TM & © Neal Adams. Spawn TM & © Todd McFarlane.

and a particle accelerator. Using the volcano loaded with the CFC as his target, Dragon intended to create a titanic eruption with the missiles and accelerator that would create a blanket of debris filled with ozone-dissolving chemicals, irradiating Earth with solar energy. This would wipe out the majority of humanity, leaving the few survivors to live as mutants much like the Hellbenders or Titans, all under Drake’s control. Dragon would be king of the world.

“Dragon wanted one thing—he was going to conquer the planet, turn it into radioactive ash,” says Peter Stone. “The Earth would become like Apokolips from Jack Kirby’s Fourth World saga. The Dragon was like the Hellbenders… he was born from errant radiation, so he is really not very old at all. He’s also not that strong. If his Deathwatch 2000 plan had worked, Lith-Kasti and a couple of others would have killed him and taken over.” The heroes’ valiant efforts to stop the missiles were met with success, despite mental manipulation from REM. Ultimately it was revealed that the entire tableau provided Drake the time to fully prepare the particle accelerator and launch the eruption. Then, in a surprising turn of events aided by Mother Earth (the same who bestowed powers to Earth 4), Devilspawn and Ms. Mystic convinced REM that Dragon had been lying to the Hellbenders about a cure, and she agreed to revolt. Unfortunately, that’s it. The final chapter was to be published in CyberRad #3, but never released.

THE RISE OF MAGIC AND THE END OF CONTINUITY COMICS

A series of publishing delays and the market bottoming out in the early ’90s would force Continuity Comics to skip ahead to its already-announced follow-up crossover The Rise of Magic, with pages of the new storyline already written, drawn, and ready to be published. “The last chapter of Deathwatch 2000 was CyberRad #3… with layouts by Neal Adams and pencils and inks by Michael Golden,” says Peter Stone. “Oh, my... the eight pages Michael did were perhaps the best pages we ever produced. The Dragon spread was absolutely amazing. Unfortunately, Michael dropped out.

Neal waited and tried to get him back to finish the story. No luck.

So Neal started penciling the ending himself and was down to about six pages left when the crash of ’94 hit. We had moved on to The Rise of Magic in order to keep publishing going, but the sales figures dropped from hundreds of thousands to under 20,000.

We decided to regroup, but it took years for the industry to come back. By then, we were all off into advertising land where there was more money. If we ever put Deathwatch 2000 together as a trade, it would take very little to finish the story.”

Like Deathwatch 2000, Rise of Magic had been hinted at in previous issues, with Shaman’s first appearance in Zero Patrol #3 and the first Samuree series, opening up Continuity’s unique corner of mysticism. It should be noted that several of the Continuity characters claimed to be magic (Dragon, Hellheart, and New Clear Warlock, to name a few) but actually weren’t. “Ms. Mystic is not magical, but Shaman and Gymcrack are,” Stone says. “Mystic helps stop the Rise of Magic because magic is not a controllable weapon.

It’s weird and strange. Shaman believes magic holds society back… and Mystic agrees. Shaman uses magic and technology (like his sword) to destroy magic. Gymcrack comes from a planet of magic, so he sees nothing wrong with it. To him, there are good mages and bad witches. Magic is just a tool. The Hellbenders seem magical but are based in the science of radiation. Demons are real, like Ariman (from Samuree vol.1). Each character was a bit different.”

18 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

IN MEMORIAM: ERNESTO INFANTE 1957–2011 One of the many unsung heroes of comic books was Continuity’s own Ernesto Infante. Recommended by famed artist Romeo Tanghal, Sr., Infante was a Filipino cartoonist who began working for DC Comics in the 1980s.

The artist would make a mark for himself on titles like Megalith and Ms. Mystic. Unfortunately, some of his greatest work for Continuity still remains unpublished… until now. BACK ISSUE is grateful to Peter Stone and Continuity Studios for sharing these original pages by Infante from The Rise of Magic. “It was as close to a religious experience, opening those boxes, because when they came in from DHL, it was amazing,” beams Stone. “Infante understood everything! It had to be like Denny O’Neil working with Neal—he would just say something, he could ask for anything! In Samuree, I asked for the land of the Egyptian gods, and basically it’s an Egyptian city underground, and reversed on top of it is the same continuing city. So they live in this world where they can fly, and fly around and do all sort of crazy stuff, and I could ask for that, and he would give it to me!”

Before an attempt at rescuing Gymcrack, Ms. Mystic managed to track down Shaman, announcing Atlantis had risen, and with it the potential for magic to take over the world again, drowning in chaos. Unbeknownst to either Shaman or Ms. Mystic, magic had already begun to reappear in our reality at an alarming rate. Megalith, the Hybrids, and Samuree were trying to right the balance. While it seemed Shaman was pulling the pieces together of an assault on his unseen enemies, Rise of Magic brought upon new relationships between the characters, like Shaman and Armor.

According to Peter Stone, “I always liked that he [Shaman] would show up, and Armor was like, ‘Oh, God! Here you are again! I hate you! No, no, I hate you. I really hate you!’ ” The outcome of the crossover was never revealed, as publication of Continuity Comics ceased in January of 1994.

Stone explains what could have been: “The Rise of Magic was about the four corners of the Earth, and there were four virgins. So you’ve got to kill the virgins at the end, which you really haven’t seen, because I’m not going to tell you who it is. It was so focused on taking these characters and then angling them towards that final piece, which was 48 pages. I feel tremendously lucky that I was able to work with some of the guys that I worked with. The way Ernesto Infante drew the conclusion to Rise of Magic was staggering! It’s Neal inking, and Rudy Nebres inking. Marketing was constantly changing in the ’90s—it was all about the collector/investor, that’s what fueled that incredible surge of sales. Everyone was investing and speculating that this could be the next whatever. We sort of got swept up… it was like being in a wave.

There was that incredible surge of sales, and then when it dropped,

there were so many retailers that went out of business and a lot of people lost a lot of money.”

Across the country, several comic-book publishers, and many that opened around the same time, closed their doors during the infamous market drop of the mid-’90s. Samuree, Valeria, and Knighthawk (see sidebar) endured long enough for brief miniseries through Acclaim’s short-lived Windjammer imprint, but shortly thereafter Continuity Comics quickly vanished into the void, though not forgotten.

What set Continuity apart from other companies was the unique vision of its founder, Neal Adams, and the creative geniuses he amassed in Continuity’s ten years. While many of its creative staff moved on to more prolific projects, each artist interviewed for this article all contributed to Continuity at the start of their careers, giving them a firm foundation on which they now stand.

And for the dedicated fans of Continuity Comics, there is always hope that the unfinished chapters of Deathwatch 2000 and The Rise of Magic will finally see the light of day.

STEVEN WILBER is a storyteller on canvas and educator in the classroom, based in Boston, inspired by his growing 30-plus-year collection of comic books.

Steven would like to thank his aunt who helped start his love of Continuity Comics with frequent trips to the comic store at the mall.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 19

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There is an old adage in sports when a player moves from team to team throughout their career. Either everyone wants them, or no one does.

So what does it mean when a comic-book super-team has five different publishers throughout their Bronze Age career? This is the case with The Justice Machine, and this is their story.

THE FIRST INDIE SUPER-TEAM

by B r i a n

Martin

Break on Through The Justice Machine arrive on the scene with their first issue from Noble Comics (June 1981). Cover penciled by John Byrne and inked by series creator Mike Gustovich.

Justice Machine TM & © Mark Ellis.

The Justice Machine was created by veteran comic-book artist Mike Gustovich. According to the editorial in the JM’s first issue, it was an idea that had been percolating in Mike’s mind for five years or more and had undergone a number of revisions before finally making it into print. The name itself originated those five years earlier, but it only had one comic-book appearance, and that was in an advertisement!

Power Comics Company was a small independent publisher in the mid-1970s. They published five issues of Power Comics and one issue of Cobalt Blue. Issue #2 of Power Comics featured the origin story of the hero named Cobalt Blue. It was planned for him to be a member of the company’s first super-team—so much so that the issue included an offer for a poster entitled, “A dozen super heroes band together to save our galaxy!” The picture included a dozen members, and they were to be called the Justice Machine.

“The publishers of Power Comics wanted the team to comprise all of their characters,” reveals Mike Gustovich himself. “As I remember—could be wrong—I think all of the [Power] artists had a hand in the poster creation.”

That’s as far as it got, however. The company did not last long enough to take the idea any further. At the time, Gustovich did not even like the concept. “I thought it was a stupid idea. So when PC failed, [co-publisher] Ed Langham gave me the rights to the name.”

Obviously not one to throw away what he considered a good name, Mike Gustovich continued to refine the idea.

“I loved the name, but a characterless comic book would never pass the market muster, so I started thinking...”

Giving them the distinction of being the first superhero group published by an independent, the first issue (June 1981) of Justice Machine was published by Noble Comics, and it was a bit of a strange duck, to be sure. It certainly started off with a bang. The cover was penciled by comic superstar John Byrne and inked by Gustovich.

The first strange thing about the comic is its size. In an era when virtually no superhero starred in a magazinesized publication, save for a few already-established Marvel stalwarts, that is where the Machine began life.

“Those were the good ol’ days of experimentation, doing things in a non-traditional manner and letting the cookie crumble on deaf ears,” explains Gustovich. He further elaborates, “I really liked the old Marvel B&W mags but wanted a color comic. Presto, change-o, there it was.”

The comic’s coloring stands out immediately, as it has a sort of grainy, washed-out look to it. Gustovich describes the method they used: “During my years of studying comics and trying to figure out how they were made, I stumbled upon the process of color separation, which had to be done for any color piece to see print. You know, the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue—a separate plate for each color. And they only used four percentages of those colors: 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25%.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 23

Any Color You Like (left) The coloring in the early issues of Justice Machine was out of the ordinary, as this page from #2 (Winter 1981) of the Noble series shows.

Art by Charlie Wallace and Mike Gustovich. (right) Its cover, by Gustovich and Terry Austin.

TM & © Mark Ellis.

“In those days, comic-book seps were all done by hand by people who were not really artists, so that’s why a lot of coloring in comics looked sloppy.

“I opted for a different approach. We used PrismaColor pencils, using greater pressure to obtain each percentage. Crazy, yes. Unconventional, yes. Totally effective, no, but that’s beside the point. We tried something different and had fun doing it… if you can call doing color seps by hand fun.”

MEMBERS ONLY CLUB

Though it featured characters in bright costumes with superpowers, the Justice Machine was anything but a superhero team. Or maybe they were. It really depends on how you looked at it, and which side you were on.

The Machine operate on the unsubtly named planet of Georwell. The planet, as you may expect, is a totalitarian state for which the Justice Machine are the superpowered police force.

Why this fairly uncommon premise? Mike Gustovich tells BACK ISSUE, “I wanted a group that stood for something, an ideal. I wanted them to have a passion for what

24 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

they were doing. I wanted them, at least initially, to be true believers who would have no second thoughts about the righteousness of their motivations and actions.”

Mike continues with some details on the thinking that went into the creation of each member. “I really wanted a team that was unique but that would also spark people’s passions for other loved characters such as Captain America,” Gustovich says.

“Challenger was meant to be a combo of Captain America and of Tony Stark’s inventive genius, a born leader who never doubts his calling. I needed to have him have the ultimate authority within his troupe.

“Tell that to Demon, who thrives on discord and self-promotion. Demon encompassed Daredevil and Shang-Chi, along with Tony Stark’s earlier addiction to alcohol, only his was a drug that made his reflexes faster.

“Blazer was the Human Torch but with… well, you know. All those circular control disks on her costume might very well have had a purpose known only to the Georwellian Tech Support Team.” Those control discs Mike mentions are necessary because without them, Blazer is not able to control her powers.

“Diviner,” Gustovich continues, is the “true love of said leader, only with a few secrets, even from her hubby.

I’m not sure where she came from. Maybe she’s the most unique of the group for that.” When the series begins, Challenger and Diviner are separated, and rather antagonistic due to their sons being in training for Georwell’s military, something Diviner objects to. Diviner possesses greatly enhanced senses due to a full-body “sensory web” she wears. Without this web, she is blind.

Mike continues, “Titan is one part Giant-Man and three parts the Thing. Strength mixed with tragedy.

He is helpless before his own personal losses.

“And then there’s Talisman, whom I liken to Ham Brooks of the Doc Savage novels. Prim and proper, who doesn’t like to get his clothes dirty, but is not opposed to a little punching when absolutely needed—as long as it’s safe. Talisman never wears the same clothes twice in a row. He actually owns 52 suits of the exact same design.

“He is his own worst enemy, unless you count everyone else,” according to Gustovich. “It’s so sad

Deja vu All Over Again Titan’s reaction to tragedy in his life remains the same when the series is restarted at Comico. Pages from issue #2 of both the Noble series (Winter 1981) and the Comico series (Feb. 1987). Art for both by Mike Gustovich.

TM & © Mark Ellis.

that he garners so much disrespect from his teammates. But it’s well earned.”

Talisman can also influence situations with his extraordinary good luck.

Strangely, other than being referred to by other characters, we are given no introduction to these people, nor are we told exactly what superpowers any of the Machine possess until later in the series. Rather than an oversight, however, this was by design.

“That’s how it would be in real life: bits and pieces, nothing neat and tidy,” Gustovich elaborates to BACK ISSUE. “Actually, back then, I had really no idea what good writing entailed. I wrote ambiguous plots without thinking where they might lead. My characters weren’t as consistent as they would have been with a little more planning. Overall, I was flying by the seat of my pants without checking the fuel level or even considering where I might land.

“Though my stories had a lot of energy and fun instilled in them, I don’t think that they were particularly well done. So what? I love the characters and the stories. They were and still are, in many ways, my babies.”

Outside of the group itself, Maxinor is the rebel the Justice Machine are trying to track down as the story opens. As we discover in the course of the story, his mission, as with most rebels, is really a fight for the freedom of the people of Georwell. Mike Gustovich explains his character thusly: “And then there’s Georwell. George Orwell wrote 1984, a book of political dominance over any human rights. The government practically owns everyone. But the human soul cannot be owned, and so rose Maxinor, a genius and a radical, a leader with an unconquerable spirit who would bring together any and all who would oppose their oppression.”

Adding to Maxinor’s motivation is his son Robert, also known as Youthquake due to his earth-moving powers. Robert is a mute, “thanks” to the government of Georwell.

A NOBLE EXPERIMENT

Mike Gustovich writes and pencils the first two issues, with the assistance of friends from his Power Comics days which include Bill [William Messner-]Loebs, Kevin Siembieda, and Charles Wallace.

Justice Machine #3 (Apr. 1982) has the first contribution from a creator outside of that core group: Bill Reinhold is penciler of 16 pages. Bill remembers, “I was at the Chicago Con of 1980 showing my portfolio around to artists and editors to get critiques and possible work. By that time I had been published in many fanzines like The Comic Buyer’s Guide.

“I had just come from showing that work to Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter with little more than a ‘Keep up the good work’ when I saw Mike Gustovich sitting at a table promoting Justice Machine #1. I showed him my work and he liked it right away. It’s hard to remember all the details, but he first talked about me possibly inking him on Justice Machine, but soon changed his mind and asked me to pencil for his inks.” Bill would take over complete penciling duties as of the fourth issue.

With Justice Machine #4 (Fall 1982), the book makes a few major changes, the first change being noticeable before even opening the book. The size has shrunk to that of a standard comic book. Mike Gustovich’s editorial on the inside front cover indicates that market research had led Noble to believe that most fans preferred the standard comic-book size, but Mike offers a little different take: “I can’t remember why we went to the standard comic-book size. Maybe presto, change-os have some inherent weakness or a time limit or something.

Anyway, in the editorial, I opted for a more sane answer.”

A further significant change is explained by Gustovich: “When we switched to regular comic format we hand-painted each page, letting the printers do the seps. Better, but still not perfect. With so-so registration quality it turned out a bit fuzzy-looking. So what? We were still having fun.”

Gustovich details in the same editorial that he will be taking on greater editorial duties and employing different creators with the next issue. Being the creator and owner of the characters, you would think it would not have been easy to give up control of their destiny so early. Gustovich shares that opinion now, but feels things were a little different then. “I believe that was the time period where I started Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 25

getting work from Marvel and DC,” Mike recalls. “I took the carrot offered and ran with it. I pretty much let others do the JM with a little input from me. At the time it was pretty easy to give up command of the team. Now, I regret it. Do-over!”

Issue #5 establishes what was intended to be the norm for the book. Penciler Bill Reinhold is still around, but now it is Bill Loebs writing the script, with Mike Gustovich noting, “Bill and I had worked together already at Power Comics, so I trusted his skills and judgment and he never let me down. I told him basically what I wanted in the stories and he did a fantastic job. However, I’ve decided that you should never give up your children even if others can do a better job of raising them.”

Bill Reinhold, meanwhile, just a couple of issues in, is dealing with a different writer. When asked about any differences between the two he had this to say: “I always communicate a lot with anyone I work with, and that included them also. This is testing my memory, but I think Mike wrote a traditional script, where Bill liked to often thumbnail his scripts visually just as a description or suggestion.”

Plot-wise, the first two issues feature the Machine’s betrayal and exile by their own government. At one point they are forced into combat with their replacements, one of whom is Titan’s brother! Titan also suffers an immense loss that will affect him for a long time to come.

Issues #3–5 show the team siding with their rebel foe Maxinor and relocating to Earth, which exists in a different dimension, reached through a Georwellian device called a Dimensional Lock. There they take up residence within a high-tech underground facility known as New Haven.

Ain’t That a Kick in the Head (bottom right) An early action page (cropped) illustrated by incoming penciler Bill Reinhold from Noble issue #4 (1982) shows Titan and Demon meeting future ally Havok from New Haven’s resident heroes, the Free Force. Inks by Mike Gustovich and Deb Bauer.

TM & © Mark Ellis.

My Back Pages (top) New JM artist Bill Reinhold is touted in the inside back cover ad from Noble’s JM #2, with art by Bob Berry and Gustovich. (bottom left) From the sketchbook of Bill Reinhold, warm-up images of some of the Machine members provided by the artist himself.

(For more Reinhold pencil art, see this issue’s “Rough Stuff” feature.)

Justice Machine TM & © Mark Ellis.

26 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

They meet New Haven’s resident heroes, the Free Force, and do battle with a vicious barbarian known as Killgore.

Killgore is one of a number of prisoners housed in New Haven. Mike Gustovich remarks that had the series continued at Noble, the Machine’s new home might have turned out to be not much better than their old one. “When you take it upon yourself to imprison those with whom you’ve had physical altercations you definitely are setting up an environment for potential abuse despite your moral intentions and values.”

Subplots and interactions are introduced in these issues that could have carried the series on for quite some time. Alas, this was not to be. This Noble endeavor was unfortunately short-lived. Issue #5 was the last publication Noble produced all on their own. The busy schedule of Mike Gustovich is cited as the main reason for this, and Mike himself concurs. “[I was getting] more work from Marvel, DC, etc. They were my edge, my pill to make me better, faster, richer (relatively speaking).”

of their many revivals [as chronicled in this issue!— ed.], so there was probably a fair bit of optimism regarding their potential. Gustovich laments, “I just wish I’d had more to do with its production.

I’ve always loved the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.”

Echoing those feelings, Bill Reinhold recalls, “Being a huge fan of the artist and co-creator of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents—Wally Wood—I was at least visually very familiar with the characters.

I thought it was a thrill to draw them!”

FROM TEXAS TO COMICO

The next place the team appeared, Justice Machine Annual #1 (1983), was the one and only comic book ever published by Texas Comics and was done in collaboration with Noble Comics. The fact that the title group appears nowhere on the Michael Golden-penciled wraparound cover seems strange. You just wonder why someone did not make the decision to add in at least one or two Justice Machine members somewhere, but Mike Gustovich adamantly contends, “I would never have altered Mike Golden’s pencils. They were too beautiful and it wasn’t my place. As a penciler myself, I would have been rather upset to see this done to my work. And actually, it didn’t bother me at all [that the JM heroes were omitted].

I didn’t commission Mike, so I didn’t relay any specific details for it. Fantastic cover! Of course, my inks didn’t hurt at all.”

Featured on the front cover instead: the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. The Agents were, at that time, in the midst of one

Days of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. (left) Reinhold and Gustovich’s cover for Noble’s 1982 Justice Machine Portfolio, which was packed with plates by superstar artists, including (above) George Pérez and Romeo Tanghal. (bottom) Mikes Golden and Gustovich collaborated on the wraparound cover artwork for Texas Comics’ only publication, Justice Machine Annual #1 (1983), with the title group nowhere to be seen. This stat was originally prepared for an ad.

Justice Machine TM & © Mark Ellis. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC. Elementals TM & © Dynamite Entertainment.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 27

Head-on Collision Courtesy of Heritage (www.ha.com), original Mike Gustovich art for the wraparound cover of 1986’s Comico Checklist #1, spotlighting the Justice Machine featuring the Elementals four-issue miniseries, which featured a clash between the two groups. Checklist was a promo publication which was renamed Comico Coming Attractions with its sixth issue. (inset) Some old superhero tropes die hard. Cover to JM/ Elementals #2 (June 1986) by Gustovich.

Justice Machine TM & © Mark Ellis.

Elementals TM & © Dynamite Entertainment.

Bill worked double duty as the colorist for the Annual.

“Keith Wilson offered to let me help color the Justice Machine Annual and I jumped at the chance,” Bill reveals.

“I’m a painter, too, so getting to do that was a plus.

Keith gets credit for doing all the color coding for the printer on my work.” Future pro Keith Wilson was one of the principals involved with Texas Comics.

As for the story itself, the Justice Machine team up with the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents to stop a Nazi, Von Geist by name, from using his army of super-soldiers to take over the United Nations.

The Annual holds a special place in alternative superhero history, as its latter pages carried the first appearance of Bill Willingham’s Elementals, who would shortly become a very hot commodity. The Elementals were also spotlighted on the comic’s back cover.

Texas Comics was to begin publishing both Justice Machine and The Elementals. Each title was to be published bimonthly, alternating with each other. The inside back cover of Justice Machine Annual #1 actually shows the covers of the first issues of both. Alas, Texas Comics never published another comic.

From there, it would be a couple of years before the Machine resurfaced. This time it was under the banner of Comico the Comic Company, a company at the time seemingly poised to take its place among the first tier of alternative comics publishers. The highlights of this Norristown, Pennsylvania-based publisher’s rise and decline were detailed in BACK ISSUE #2.

The Justice Machine arrived at Comico in 1986. By then, their protégés, the Elementals, were on their eighth issue at Comico. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #24 for our look at Comico’s Elementals series.] Fans remembering where that group had received their start were responsible for convincing Comico to restart the Machine, as they constantly asked Comico co-publisher Phil Lasorda when the company was going to begin publishing the title where the Elementals debuted. The latter team’s success probably had a lot to do with The Justice Machine returning to print in a four-issue miniseries that was subtitled “featuring The Elementals.” The four-issue series also featured the writer of Elementals, Bill Willingham. He was the first to suggest having the group guest-star in the

28 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

series, wanting to pay back Gustovich for the favor he had done of giving Willingham his first break.

Comico’s Justice Machine featuring the Elementals #1’s (May 1986) editorial states that its tale takes place before the Noble issues, so at this point the Machine are still installed in the position of government enforcers.

This would allow those who had read the Noble series to enjoy it as well as the hoped-for newcomers.

The story, both penciled and inked by Mike Gustovich, details the Machine’s battle with an armored villain named the Dark Force. Like Maxinor before (or chronologically after, as the case may be), this adversary is intent on freeing Georwell from its totalitarian government. The Elementals are initially recruited by the Dark Force to aid him but switch sides when they discover his methodology.

A regular Justice Machine series debuted just a few months later, with a January 1987 cover date. Gustovich remained the artist while industry veteran Tony Isabella was installed as writer, although as the text page in the first issue states, the two creators would co-plot the issues based on Isabella’s story ideas.

“The first three issues were co-plotted by Mike and myself in what we imagined was the old Stan Lee/Jack Kirby model,” relates Isabella. “Instead of being in an office, Mike came to my house in Medina and we plotted what I thought would be a three-issue arc. We didn’t look at the Noble issues during this plotting session.

We just cherry-picked things we liked from memory.”

What about Isabella’s feelings regarding his new charges?

“As I saw them, the Justice Machine were political refugees from a totalitarian regime,” he begins. “During my Comico run, I was trying to decide if I wanted them to become full-blown freedom fighters and return to Georwell… or if I wanted them to find purpose on Earth. One thing I was sure of is that they were easily duped. They fell for the lies told them by their Georwellian masters, and, though suspicious, they were repeating that pattern with Maxinor and their new Earth ‘allies.’ They weren’t your standard superhero team, but I never wanted to write the same kind of comic books over and over again.”

Isabella admits in his first issue editorial that he took the job more to work with Mike Gustovich than because of any love for or knowledge of the characters. But he

In My Midnight Confessions…

Tony Isabella confesses to his lack of prior knowledge of the team and gives his initial impressions of the team members inside the front cover to Comico’s first issue of the regular series (Jan. 1987). Artwork by Mike Gustovich.

TM & © Mark Ellis.

did his research and came up with some first impressions that are detailed in the editorial. Two of the most interesting are Demon and Talisman. Demon is “a jerk, I don’t like him very much.” Talisman, meanwhile, “He’s a jerk. I like him a lot.”

Did Isabella’s first impressions change at all once he began writing the series? “Challenger and Titan were said to have their acts together, but that would change quickly as I knew it would once their lives on Georwell unraveled.

“Diviner became more complex and nastier during my first run, making her a richer character. When I wrote her the second time around, I had to adjust to the positive changes she had undergone during my absence. Her nastiness became sarcasm.

“I never really found an original take in Blazer; she was just this sweet kid with a big heart and so much trust in those around her.

“Demon just became a bigger jerk, though I always intended to redeem him at some point in the future… and even knew how that redemption would happen.

“Talisman turned out to be the most fun to write and to have other characters react to.”

Right from the start, it is also stated that, “If it wasn’t published

by Comico, it didn’t happen.” This made perfect sense at the time. In those pre-Internet days, back issues of The Justice Machine were very hard to find, and quite expensive if you did come across them. Expecting readers to be familiar with the previous incarnation would certainly have turned off a lot of people right from the start.

“I’m not sure of the details,” mentions Mike Gustovich, “but I believe the plan to discard the Noble comics continuity was part of the agreement.” As for another option, “We’d never talked about reprinting the Noble issues.”

Issues #1–3 of the Comico run retell the story told in Noble’s first two issues, but, as mentioned, it is not a straightforward retelling. There are a lot of extra details added in or elements tweaked. Tony Isabella remembers, “Mike Gustovich and I realized we had to cover some of the same ground that was covered in the Noble issues,” with Mike reiterating, “We more or less just started from scratch, utilizing the best concepts and characters.”

IT’S COMIC-CON TIME!

Firmly ensconced on Earth, issue #4 (Apr. 1987) has the Justice Machine awaiting transport to Portrait by Michael Netzer. the home of their Earth allies, so they end up… going to a comic-book convention! Tony Isabella explains the reasoning behind this offbeat story: “We’d done some pretty dark stuff in the first three issues, so I wanted to lighten things up a little. But just a little, since one member of the team would nearly commit suicide before the end of the issue. I think the Wolverine gag on the opening pages sets the tone for the jokes to follow.

“The convention setting wasn’t just a device. It gave me a chance to explore the concept of superheroes as it related to the Machine.”

Issues #5 and 6 detail the team arriving at their new home on Earth and again battling the creature Killgore. Another little tweak is that in this series, the group Maxinor is allied with is based in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, with the place now called New Atlantis and led by a man named Douglas Hamilton.

Mother’s Little Helper Hope they were at least cherry flavor…!

The Justice Machine find a radical way to defeat the creature Killgore in Comico issue #6 (June 1987), unaware that it will have immediate and significant consequences. Art

by Mike Gustovich.

TM & © Mark Ellis.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 29

Why the change in venue from the Noble issues?

Isabella states, “It was to increase the team’s dependence on Hamilton, the better to increase the drama when he would turn out to be less benevolent than he’d made himself and his organization out to be. The island setting also allowed me to focus on the characters as they became more acclimated to their new lives on Earth.”

The setup for the characterization of these new allies reaches back to issue #4 where, Tony states, “The team’s accommodations not being ready was also more than just a device. It was meant to be ‘delayed ominous’ that would pay off when we revealed New Atlantis wasn’t as wonderful as it seemed to be. Those accommodations would have included various death-traps, installed in case the Machine ever turned on Hamilton.”

Of course, nothing is ever that cut and dried with a well-defined character. When we are first introduced to Hamilton, we also meet his young daughter, even though the Machine never does. According to Isabella, “She was there to humanize Hamilton because I like villains who have some good qualities. I could see Diviner wanting

to rescue a child she thought was in peril, even if she perceived that peril as coming from the child’s father.”

Issue #7 (July 1987) is a fill-in/flashback issue guest-written

by Bob Ingersoll that takes place between the miniseries and the regular series. It gives us more details on the rift that had developed between Georwell and the Machine.

Then comes Justice Machine #8. The issue carries a “Parental Guidance Suggested” banner at the request of author Tony Isabella. He requested it due to the subject matter of the story, and remembers, “The only feedback I ever received was from the publishers and they were upset with me for requesting the advisory, though I never made it a ‘my way or the highway’ situation. I felt that the depiction of drug use and sex in the issue, as well as the multiple occurrences of more extreme than usual for a superhero profanities, required the advisory.”

The issue focuses on Demon. Since the series started, he had been using a drug called Edge to enhance his speed and agility. Unfortunately, the team used the last of his supply to defeat Killgore in issue #6.

Issue #8 is a frank depiction of Demon’s withdrawal from the use of the drug and ends with him, unknown to anyone, setting off to prove to his teammates that he no longer needs chemical assistance by swimming the 2,000 miles from New Atlantis to New York City.

He doesn’t get very far before his body fails him and he sinks beneath the waves. Here the issue ends.

As we will see, the character would take a very convoluted path from here. But did Tony Isabella mean this to be the finale for Demon when he wrote the story?

“No,” says Isabella. “I knew Gustovich liked the character, so it was always my intention to bring him back.”

He also feels that “Demon was cut from the same vicious cloth as the bullies I have dealt with my entire life. It was easy to write him and joyful to abuse him. The only difficulty in writing him was figuring out how to turn him into a good man and redeem him. I had a long-range plan for that, though I was never able to follow through on it.”

Issues #9 and 10 deal with the fallout from this event and relate a little of the family history of two of the team by revealing to them that Challenger is Blazer’s father, a fact the reader has known since issue #1. Isabella ends issue #10 by dedicating it to the Isabella and Gustovich families and relates his feelings on the matter this way: “Fantastic Four was the classic family superhero team and I wanted to create something like that with the Justice Machine. The Machine was never going to be the perfect family, but how many families are perfect? As I wrote it, the title was full of personal journeys wrapped in a group journey. This was always my intention.”

Snowblind Friend (top) Cover to issue #8 (Aug. 1987) by Gustovich featuring the parental guidance banner Tony Isabella requested for the story detailing Demon’s withdrawal from his drug addiction. The cover image gives an indication of how he’s handling it. (bottom) Not nearly as recovered as he thinks, Demon suffers the consequences of his arrogance as issue #8 ends. Take heart, though. This is a comic book, so he would be back before long. Art by Gustovich and Bill Anderson.

TM & © Mark Ellis.

30 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

The editorial in the following issue tells us that the Machine is in for a major change. That change being the departure of Tony Isabella.

No reason is given for his leaving, but issue #10 was his last full script, while he supplied the plot for #11.

In his 11 issues, Isabella introduced a number of ideas that were never followed through with, Hamilton’s daughter being one example. Rather than having specific plans for them, though, he reveals, “If I was ever stuck for a plot, I planned to turn to these plot elements in waiting.”

As it is, issues #11 through 13 deal with the clean-up of some of the major plot points plus a flashback to an earlier tale of the team from their security force days on Georwell.

ENTER THE MAN FROM THE ’NAM

With the 14th issue (Feb. 1988), Justice Machine moves into a significant new phase. Arriving as writer is Doug Murray. A logical choice for a still-evolving young company, Murray was at the time the recipient of critical acclaim for his work on Marvel’s The ’Nam. His arrival at Comico also had some to do with the old adage “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” As Murray reveals, “Bob Schreck (who was administrative director at Comico) and I were old and dear friends. He wanted me to do a book for his company and I was happy to have the extra work.

However, there was another reason for bringing me aboard. For whatever reason (and I really don’t know why), the book was way behind schedule. Bob knew (as I said, we’re old friends) that I was a very fast writer and would make it my business to get the book back on schedule as quickly as I could—which I proceeded to do.”

Did the co-plotting between writer and artist continue with Murray’s arrival? “It was planned that I would talk to Mike Gustovich to set up plots and the like—but these were the days before cellphones and the Internet (remember them?) and Mike was in the process of moving, thus I spoke to him far less often than I would have liked, but, as I needed to turn in a lot of scripts quickly, I had to move ahead with or without those talks. It’s a shame, because I would have preferred having some kind of relationship with Mike and would have preferred even more to be going in a direction he was pleased with (which I am still not sure was the case).”

On the letters page of a subsequent issue, Doug Murray revealed that Mike Gustovich’s only instruction to him when he came on board was that he had to bring Demon back.

Murray welcomed the challenge of finding a way to do just that.

(However, the best-laid plans….)

Finally, since Tony Isabella was not familiar with the group before beginning to write them, what was Murray’s situation? “I knew nothing whatsoever about the Justice Machine before getting the job. Once I knew I’d be doing the book, I read every issue that Comico had, including the Elementals crossover.” Seems to be a common theme doesn’t it?

Doug Murray’s tenure on the title encompasses two long-running storylines, the first of which begins with Blazer receiving an operation to help her control her powers.

After the operation, she begins a relationship with Maxinor’s son, Youthquake.

This plotline had begun in issue #10 (Oct. 1987), so Tony Isabella had some definite ideas on how it would have progressed had he continued writing the book. Tony comments to BACK ISSUE, “The operation would have been a success. I would have done my best to redesign her costume without the big circles where her boobs were.

“As for her relationship with Youthquake, it would have been doomed to end badly. Perhaps not quite Romeo and Juliet badly, but badly.”

The fact that Isabella had begun this plotline worked well for Doug Murray, as one of his priorities was to increase the roles of the Machine’s female members. As well as freeing Blazer from the confines of her costume, Murray also eliminated Diviner’s dependence on her sensory web. When asked the reasons for these changes, Murray tells BACK ISSUE, “I have always been a believer in the power of women—even before the feminist revolution. I have felt that way (probably due to the fact that I had a strong mother and an even stronger wife). I always wanted to show that strength in my writing. It was pretty much impossible in The ’Nam, but worked well with Justice Machine. I especially wanted to do things with Blazer because I felt that a woman with real feelings who couldn’t even touch someone she loved was a very sad thing indeed, and although I know that making the hero unhappy is a big part of this sort of writing, I wanted to at least make her more than a background character.”

Murray’s first story details Douglas Hamilton’s change of thinking regarding the Justice Machine. Feeling they will not be able to help him with his goal of building a new world order, he decides to replace them with his own custom-made duplicates. This process begins with the seeming return of Demon, though he is later revealed as a simulacrum.

Hamilton is revealed to have a lot of experience with this sort of thing as we discover his major lieutenants are themselves created beings, injected with aspects of his own personality!

Quite an interesting concept!

Were there any stories from the past that sparked this? “I’m pretty sure that was nearly all me,” comments Murray. “I’m sure I was influenced by any number of science-fiction stories, although I can’t give you a specific one. I know there are several where someone removed part of their personality to try to make themselves a better person. I think Gordon Dickson’s stories came into play—he had mankind broken into several groups. I probably used some of that because he had a new book out around that time.”

Welcome to the Machine Ad from issue #13 (Jan. 1988), trumpeting the arrival of Doug Murray as the new writer of the series with the next issue while highlighting why people should get excited. Artwork is a detail from the next issue’s Gustovich cover.

TM & © Mark Ellis.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 31

Coming Back to Life Demon returns. Or does he? Then he returns. For sure this time? Images from Justice Machine (left) #14 and (right) 17.

As mentioned in the text, this situation was to remain unexplained for quite some time.

Artwork from #14 (Feb. 1988) by Mike Gustovich, and from #17 (May 1988) by Rik Levins and Gustovich.

TM & © Mark Ellis.

As for the storyline of New Atlantis itself, Murray feels, “It’s no fun to take over someone else’s plotlines— especially when you don’t really know where they were going. I accelerated things on New Atlantis because I had no feeling for that storyline and just wanted to get rid of it.”

THE EARTH/GEORWELL WAR

The real Demon soon returns and helps save the team and force Hamilton into hiding. Given no respite, the Justice Machine are trying to decide what to do next when Maxinor, absent since Murray took over, arrives with the alarming news that Georwell is invading the Earth!

With that, the first storyline of Doug Murray’s ends in issue #18 and the second begins. In an early example of the miniseries-within-a-series concept, the covers for issues #19 through 25 would carry the sub-logo, “The Earth/ Georwell War” and the appropriate part number. According to Doug Murray, “As I said earlier, I was tasked with getting the series back on schedule. I’m pretty sure that I had the entire story of the war plotted and scripted by the time we actually got the first issue done.”

When Challenger learns of the invading force, he reasons that there is no way the team can combat an entire army. This is an idea that was probably a long time coming when you actually consider the size of a planet’s army compared with your average superhero group.

Murray remembers there was a little more behind this reasoning than just the forces involved. “That’s a result of my experiences in Vietnam,” he says. “I’ve seen what happens to innocents when two sides fight around (and

32 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

through) them. It seemed obvious to me that this would be the case in a battle of superheroes and super-science, hence that discussion. I would have liked to take it further, but there were constraints—especially with scheduling.”

The team therefore decides to separate and combat the invaders with different methods and from different angles. Their missions would continue to be separate for the remainder of the story—so separate, in fact, that Diviner and Challenger’s mission would be presented as a separate story in the back of the book, showing the same format as would be used if it were a backup feature.

Murray mentions, “I believe that was an attempt by me to show the ‘war’ from two different perspectives. I really don’t like to do things from one POV (see some of my ’Nam issues); this was an experiment in splitting the story into multiple POVs. I would do it differently now.”

This division began with the 20th issue, the very same issue that BACK ISSUE’s own Michael Eury took over as editor of the title. So, asking the age-old question again, how much knowledge of the team did Michael have when he came aboard? “I remember seeing Justice Machine at my comic shop but passed it over, my interests at the time being mainly DC and Marvel titles.” Yes, another arrival in that same situation.

Continuing in that vein, Eury remembers, “Right when I started at Comico I took home stacks of Comico books (Justice Machine and Elementals in particular) to read, to get up to speed.”

After that by-now-familiar crash course on the Machine, how quickly did Michael “get up to speed”?

“Even though ‘The Earth/Georwell War’ started just before my first issue to bear my credit, I was indirectly involved—Comico’s books were produced with lead time (thanks to editor-in-chief Diana Schutz’s schedule coordination) to ward off the ‘Dreaded Deadline Doom’ that so plagued Marvel and DC titles. So I, with Diana, had been doing some editorial mop-up of a few issues prior to my first actual, credited issue. (Those issues carried Maggie Brenner’s editorial credit, but she had actually left staff before my arrival.)

“If memory serves, I actually suggested the ‘Earth/ Georwell War’ title, playing off of the ‘miniseries-withina-series’ angle that DC had recently introduced to Batman with ‘Batman: Year One’ and ‘Ten Nights of the Beast.’ (Of course, today, virtually every superhero comic features this type of serial, to be collected in a trade.)”

Murray details the war in those seven issues, showing the ebb and flow of the conflict. Doug says, “War always sucks, that’s the only thing that came into play with the Earth/Georwell storyline. I wanted to show that people get hurt—people you care about, people you don’t. Superpowers made that harder—but certainly not impossible.”

THE DEMON WITHIN

As mentioned, this storyline runs until issue #25 (Jan. 1989), and there are actually two major endings in the issue, the war being the first. It was also the last issue written by Doug Murray.

“I had no idea I was leaving the book when I wrote that stuff,” Doug reveals. “I was eventually told that Comico was not going to publish another issue for some time and that I wasn’t needed. It’s kind of a shame, but things like that happen and the fact that I still had no relationship with Mike Gustovich certainly came into play.”

The major reason Murray was replaced was that Mike Gustovich had expressed the desire to have much more say in the evolution of his characters and so had decided to take over the plotting of the series. With a degree of self-depreciation that comes with hindsight, Gustovich believes, “Back then I don’t think I was the easiest person to work with. You’d have to ask others about that. Sometimes I wanted more control, probably because I wasn’t thrilled with what other writers were doing. Looking back I can see that they were doing a very good job, especially with the input I was giving them. There was, I believe, a bit of an undeserved ego thing on my part.

I thought I was better than I was and others were not.

Age has given me a better perspective on the matter.”

You will notice that nowhere is there any mention of the circumstances regarding Demon’s return from the dead. Doug Murray believes, “If I said Mike wanted him

Dark Side of the Moon (top) The second issue of the “miniseries within a series,” “The Earth/Georwell War,” and the first issue edited by BACK ISSUE’s own Michael Eury. Issue #20 (Aug. 1988) cover

by Mike Gustovich and Dell Barras. (bottom) Veteran writer Len Wein joined as new scripter with issue #27 (Mar. 1989). And no, Titan is not reacting to Len taking the job.

TM & © Mark Ellis.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 33

brought back, then Mike certainly wanted him brought back. In my experience, it’s not that unusual for a creator to kill a character off and later have second thoughts and decide to bring him back. I did have plans to explain Demon’s return—but I never got into that for a number of reasons, the biggest being that the Earth/Georwell War was mandated to come next, and afterwards, I was off the series pretty quickly.”

Issue #27’s letters page does finally answer a query regarding the mystery by stating that Mike Gustovich was working on a miniseries to provide the details.

Those details are provided by Gustovich himself. “Demon’s return was going to be totally my own story and art,” Mike tells BI, “a fourissue miniseries. He would be found by a steamer ship and brought back to the New York ports. There he would basically be homeless for a short time, and without his Edge and demoralized he became easy prey for a street gang, until they were run off by an elderly homeless woman whom they all seemed terrified of.

“Demon wakes in her abandoned warehouse abode to find out first hand that she doesn’t put up with disrespect. She was a master of the martial arts before he was born. From there she teaches him the better path to martial superiority that is not based on drugs or arrogance but serenity, study, and practice.

“Together they defeat a ganglord and his hold over the community.

Then he goes back to find his teammates in a huge mess. He saves them, and so on and so on.

“The miniseries was nixed, I think due to Comico’s financial woes.”

Thus, the story behind the return of Demon remained untold.

And what about the man responsible for Demon’s death originally?

As mentioned, Tony Isabella knew Demon would return. His plans were, “Some issues down the line, Demon, who had supposedly committed suicide by walking into the ocean, would’ve emerged from another

ocean. The story of how he survived that would come next, followed by the story of his side trip to rescue Challenger’s and Diviner’s sons.

“There would have been a Demon/Diviner romance, but it was based on Demon wanting to prove himself better than Daddy Challenger and Diviner still wanting to hurt Challenger,” says Isabella. “Demon would not be truly redeemed until he faced and beat his dangerous ego. Diviner would not have been able to get past her hatred until she stopped blaming Challenger for everything that went wrong.”

Mike Gustovich does take over the plotting with issue #26 (Feb. 1989), while this issue is also scripted by editor Michael Eury. Eury recalls, “That was my first scripting work post-Spider-Ham (earlier I had written Spider-Ham short stories for editor Jim Salicrup’s Marvel Tales), and I was filling in until our new scripter was on board.”

THE COMICO ERA ENDS

As it turned out, issue #27 introduces that new scripter, industry veteran Len Wein. How did someone with no previous connection to Comico come aboard? “I called and asked him!” reveals Eury. “I remember meeting with Diana Schutz about a new Justice Machine dialogue writer, and she asked whose work I liked on superhero books. I always found Len’s dialogue to be crisp and realistic and I thought he could help make the JM characters more relatable to readers.

“I recall that working with Len was fun, and my first contacts with him solidified the fact that I was a ‘pro,’ since I was working with someone whose comics I had enjoyed as a fan.”

Wein’s first issue introduces the team to Ms. Liberty, a circus performer. Mike Gustovich recalls, “The Ms. Liberty concept came much earlier to me and I would have added her to the JM lineup. The storyline didn’t evolve as well as I’d initially thought.”

The reason it did not might be because, unfortunately, this creative team was only together for a very short time. Issue #29 marks the end of the regular Comico series, followed by Annual #1, which would be the last Justice Machine comic the company published.

“In retrospect, Justice Machine might not have been the best fit for Comico the Comic Company,” opines Michael Eury. “Originally, Comico’s output was scattershot, essentially unrelated titles generated by a handful of founders. Once Diana Schutz and Bob Schreck came on board, they successfully reshaped Comico from its roots as an amateurish black-and-white comics house to a publisher of quality and cutting-edge graphic arts. A superhero series was an odd fit for Comico (Bill Willingham’s Elementals was certainly not a traditional superhero book). As I recall the situation, Mike Gustovich had a certain vision for Justice Machine and the Comico crew had other ideas, so the title ended at Comico and went elsewhere.”

Issues #26 to 29 clear up some of Murray’s leftover plotlines, while introducing the fairly major development that Blazer is pregnant. The Annual follows immediately after and involves Blazer and Youthquake marrying, and Challenger and Diviner remarrying, with all of the complications of a usual superhero wedding.

Interestingly, one of the complications involves the US Army, and in a welcome show of character consistency, the Machine again formulate their plans based on the feeling that they are not powerful enough to take on an army!

Going to the Chapel…

Craig Brasfield and Mike Gustovich depict the blushing brides and smiling grooms on the cover to Comico’s Justice Machine Annual #1 (June 1989), the last JM comic the company would publish. (inset) Justice Machine #27.

TM & © Mark Ellis.

34 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

AN INNOVATIVE TWIST

That Annual is dated June 1989. With a first issue dated November 1989, Justice Machine is now published by Innovation. Innovation was a shortlived publisher in the early 1990s that specialized in licensed titles and “good girl” art. Regarding the move, Mike Gustovich offers, “I believe that Comico dropped the book due to poor sales.

I didn’t want the book/characters to end, so there you have it.”

A three-issue miniseries heralds the Machine’s arrival at Innovation with a prominently displayed “NEW” on the cover, and the major changes begin right away.

Artistically, Darryl Banks is the new penciler, with Mike Gustovich remaining as inker. David Lawrence is the new writer—for about half an issue. Mark Ellis takes over from there. But it wasn’t easy. “I took over on page ten,” Ellis reveals. “There was absolutely no plotline at the time I stepped in, no ideas for a new direction for the series, no nothin’. It was a completely blank slate.

At the time I came aboard the title, Mike [Gustovich] had disengaged from hands-on plotting… however, when I came up with a different direction from the Comico run, I definitely presented my ideas to him for a thumbs up or down.”

On the official Justice Machine website, Mark Ellis comments that he felt the series had become “needlessly complicated” and that he wanted to begin by “scaling away some of the barnacles.” A few of the dangling plot threads from Comico are swept away very quickly.

“I felt it was best to hit the ground running by getting rid of New Atlantis and all of its convoluted baggage and introducing a new cast of supporting characters as well as a new setting,” reveals Ellis. “My attitude was: ‘Why call it the NEW Justice Machine if it’s just a continuation of the old?’ ”

This new direction involves removing our heroes from New Atlantis and placing them under the care of millionaire legal dilettante Jubal Woolcott. He runs an organization called the Justice Institute, where the Machine begin to learn about Earth and to try to become a superhero group worthy of their name.

One of the people employed at the Institute is a lady by the name of Krista Klay. She is a personal trainer who becomes involved with the team, and would become much more involved as things progressed.

A regular Justice Machine series from the publisher had already been announced and would arrive one month after the miniseries, launching with an April 1990 cover-dated first issue. Why a miniseries and then a regular series? “Mainly, it was what I call ‘First Issue Fever,’ ” Ellis explains. “In the late ’80s, the perception was that comics with #1 plastered on the cover sold better than an ongoing series. It was catering to the direct market and the direct market was catering—or pandering—to the collector mentality.”

The first three issues involve the Machine battling an eco-terrorist named Deveroux who was intended to be a recurring problem for the team. Ellis tells BACK ISSUE, “Deveroux was created to be the ‘Machineverse’s’ Lex Luthor. I was simply trying to come up with a new rogues gallery of adversaries… something that hadn’t really been done with the Justice Machine before.”

In keeping with the “New” theme, the first issue also treats us to new costumes for most of the team.

The stated reason for this is to make the team “more marketable.” This reflects their position within the story, but could also be thought of as referring to the status of the comic book as well.

Though Darryl Banks begins the regular series as penciler, with issue #3 Mike Gustovich returns to full art chores, while the fourth issue continues the creator merry-go-round, this time on the writing side. “Part of the way through the production of that issue, my conflicts with Innovation’s then-publisher reached such a level of hostility that I decided it was best to move on,” Ellis contends. “Besides, Darryl Banks had already had

Everything Old is New Again (left) With the word “new” prominently displayed, the Justice Machine begin life with a three-issue miniseries from Innovation. Cover to that series’ third issue (Mar. 1990) by Darryl Banks and Mike Gustovich. And by the way, the arm-wrestling match was interrupted before a winner could be declared. (right) Darryl Banks, Rik Levins, and Mike Gustovich show off the members of the team who received new costumes in issue #1 (Apr. 1990) of the regular Innovation series. Talisman, of course, continued to wear one of his many matching suits.

TM & © Mark Ellis.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 35

Do You Feel Like We Do? The Machine’s newest nemesis exerts his control over the lives of his employees in this page from Innovation’s issue #2 (May 1990). Even Lex Luthor never starved his staff!

TM & © Mark Ellis.

enough and left. I was involved with Millennium Publications as both writer and editor. I just didn’t need the distraction and the stress.” So, Ellis departs, and readers are informed that with issue #5, Tony Isabella will return to once again take on the writing chores.

As we were to find out very soon, The Justice Machine was not selling very well at this time. So, in the timehonored comic-book tradition, the solution was to involve them in a crossover with another successful group. In this case it was Innovation’s super-team book, Hero Alliance.

And so we had Hero Alliance & Justice Machine: Identity Crisis (inset). This story involved the Machine crossing over to the other group’s universe due to the intervention of a creature named Leech, and the trials of the two groups to locate it to return them home.

Just before the regular series began, a similar cost-cutting measure was used when Innovation published the Justice Machine Summer Spectacular. This book used the pages meant for Texas Comics issue #1 way back when. This probably served to confuse rather than attract people since it took place in a different continuity. No one I spoke to knows exactly how or why this comic came about.

36 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

Back at issue #5 (Nov. 1990) of the regular series, in the issue’s editorial, Isabella mentions how he was a little surprised at how much had changed since he left the series. Admitting he had not kept up with the series since leaving, Isabella was nevertheless looking forward to the challenge. He specifically mentions the issue of Demon’s return lacking any sort of explanation and proceeds to make his first priority to clear that up. He elaborates further saying, “If my returning to the series could have a positive effect on its low sales, I figured I had to make it ‘my’ book right away and not waste time trying to follow what had been done since I left the series.

“The lack of explanation of how Demon had survived tied in with my own feeling that I had unfinished business with the character. With Demon as my focus, the plan was to use the first three issues to strip away everything but the core team.”

The stripping away happens right away as the team returns from their adventure with the Hero Alliance to find the Justice Institute closed and abandoned. If this seems like a familiar scenario, it is just another of those recurring themes in the series.

Once again, we have an incoming writer clearing away most of what came before so that he can start anew with a mostly clean slate.

Regarding Demon’s path to redemption, it is described

by Tony this way: “Demon was a brutal and dangerous jerk before I sent him on his watery walkabout. He was still a brutal and dangerous jerk, but now he was a brutal, dangerous, and servile jerk. I don’t think he ever had a positive relationship with the Oyabun. He just found a new master even worse than his drug addiction. Demon’s real victory in my Innovation run is that he overcomes his addiction to his new master and chooses the Justice Machine over the Oyabun.”

The Oyabun Isabella mentions was his way of resolving the issue of Demon’s survival way back when. Discovering him in the ocean, this Japanese master made a slave of Demon and tries to use him to force the Justice Machine to serve him as well.

The characters survive that encounter, but there was one foe they could not defeat. “I learned the series would be ending about midway through my writing of issue #7,” Isabella tells BACK ISSUE. “I had always intended the Demon/Oyabun plot to run three issues.

The only change I made was to condense some of the scenes I had planned to buy me a couple of pages for the epilogue.

“I thought the chances of the Justice Machine returning were remote. I wanted to leave the readers knowing that the heroes had changed our world for the better.

It was closure for the fans and closure for me.” He does this by using the pages he freed up to add an epilogue set a fair way into the future.

THE END OF THE JUSTICE MACHINE?

Where would the series have gone had it continued at Innovation? Tony Isabella reveals, “Issue #8 would have been set a year later. The Justice Machine would be not unlike what I had wanted to do with Marvel’s Champions.

With considerable funding from grateful governments for taking out the Oyabun and the tacit consent/support of the United States, the Machine would have become

independent superheroes for the people of the world.”

That purpose would not have been that far different from what Mark Ellis had intended for the team with their residence at the Justice Institute.

And that was it for Innovation, and seemingly, the Justice Machine. Proving harder to dispose of than just about any super-team in history, however, they would rise from the ashes yet again—with one very significant change.

Ellis relates, “About a year after we left the book, Mike Gustovich phoned to inform me that Innovation’s license on the Justice Machine was about to expire and he was casting about for a different deal. However, the deal he had in mind really was different—instead of licensing the series out to publishers as he had done in the past, Mike wanted to sell all rights to the characters and the concepts. He felt that I had the deepest understanding and appreciation of both so he gave me first right of refusal. The price was right, my enthusiasm high, and a deal was quickly struck. Within a week of that phone call, I was the sole owner of The Justice Machine.”

Gustovich has only this to add: “I’d sort of run out of steam on the book. Better to hand it over to someone who obviously loved the characters.”

By the time The Justice Machine #1 was released from Millennium Publishing in 1992, you could be forgiven if you thought it was an entirely new group. Each member had been given a new costume, they were missing one old member, and had gained a new one. And that’s just on the cover!

Inside, time has passed at pretty much the same rate it had in the real world, and so the action begins about a year after issue #4 of the Innovation series.

Yes, issue #4. Due to a variety of circumstances detailed in the text feature of the issue, Ellis and returning artist Darryl Banks decided to bypass the last three issues of the previous series. Thankfully, rather than just pretend they never existed, they humorously consign

them to an unauthorized comic book that had been produced featuring the group.

“Since a year or more was supposed to have elapsed between my last script for Innovation and the first issue of the Millennium series,” Ellis states, “I shook up the status quo, intending to go back and explain in more detail what happened between Blazer and Youthquake as well as the off-screen birth of their baby.”

That shake-up of the status quo involved the departures of Youthquake, Maxinor, and Talisman.

Talisman hasn’t gone far, however, and the second issue reveals what he is up to now. The new member is Krista Klay, the personal trainer introduced during the Innovation run. She is now a superpowered character with the sobriquet Chain.

When asked if Krista Clay was originally introduced with her eventual superpowered role in mind, Ellis comments, “Krista, like the other faculty members of the Justice Institute, was initially intended to be part of a new supporting cast. Once I purchased the Justice Machine property and the title moved to Millennium, Darryl Banks expressed a desire to include a person of color as part of the team, and since Krista had already appeared a couple of times, she seemed tailor made for that role.

The Boy in the Bubble (below) A reimagining of the cover of issue #5 from Noble done as a commission

by Mike Gustovich for the author of this article. (left) The original cover,

by Keith Pollard and Gustovich.

TM & © Mark Ellis.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 37

A New Machine (left) Eddy Newell cover for issue #2 (1992) of the short-lived Millennium series shows how the team looked in their 1990s incarnation. (right) The 2014 JM graphic novel Object of Power, with a painted cover

by Jeff Slemons.

TM & © Mark Ellis.

“Darryl came up with Krista’s powers and her ‘Chain’ codename,” continues Ellis. “But with the addition of Krista, the team was too unwieldy, so Darryl and I decided to write Talisman out for the time being, alluding to a trauma that caused him to become a clergyman.” Yes, the Justice Machine’s resident smartaleck had found religion.

Since their storyline invalidated Tony Isabella’s explanation of how Demon returned from the dead, Ellis feels, “Perhaps in the future there will be a story where Demon and Talisman are trapped in a situation with apparently no chance of survival and they confide to each other their darkest secrets—how Demon survived his 3000-mile swim, and what trauma made Talisman turn to religion instead of relying on his luck.”

While we are on the subject of apparently no chance for survival, according to Mark Ellis, “At the time the first issue was ready to come out, the direct market was in full crash and burn. Darryl was getting regular work from DC and I just didn’t feel like going forward with the series without him… particularly under the desperate circumstances of the time. So we just ended it with the second issue.” That second issue ends with the Justice Machine heading out to stop a threat to world security.

And so, that is where the saga of the Justice Machine ends, with a cliffhanger.

Thankfully, everyone with a passion for the group did finally receive satisfaction. Ideas Mark Ellis had for the team, and a novel one regarding the genesis

38 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

of Georwell, did not go unrealized. In the graphic novel Object of Power, published in 2014 by Bluewater Publishing, by using the story device of parallel universes and having the villains utilizing a “reality nexus” to try and overlay another reality onto the existing one, Ellis has done what he had long intended to do and, in his words, “Reset the whole ‘Machineverse’ and meld the Noble and Comico continuities into one.”

Where they will go from here is unknown. But if history is any indication, they are not likely to vanish from the comics firmament because, like any sleek machine, the Justice Machine just needs the occasional tune-up to keep on running like new.

The author wishes to thank Mark Ellis, Michael Eury, Mike Gustovich, Tony Isabella, Doug Murray, and Bill Reinhold for their cooperation and invaluable input, as well as acknowledge the research assistance provided by comics.org and Robert Ingersoll’s article in Amazing Heroes #113. A thank-you also goes to Mike Sangiacomo for invaluable assistance.

BRIAN MARTIN lives in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. He began reading comics even before he could read, and is told he learned to read from them. This has led to him reading just about everything, and he shows no signs of slowing down.

conducted by

Jay Williams

Introducing…

Captain Paragon From early fanzine efforts like (left top) Paragon Golden Age Greats, Bill Black matured into a storyteller with his first breakout character, (left bottom) Captain Paragon, seen in this 1970 issue. (right) CP takes on the Shroud on the cover of Captain Paragon #1 (1972).

Captain Paragon TM & © AC Comics. Batman, Superman, Hawkman, Spectre TM & © DC. Captain America TM & © Marvel.

Paragon Publishing, Americomics, and AC Comics are not household names in the comics world like DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, and others. They are all creations of one man—William Black, or to his friends, Bill or Wild Bill.

While Bill did some artwork for Marvel, Charlton, and Warren earlier in his career, he had another dream. Bill Black entered comic fandom near the end of its glory years and shares with BACK ISSUE, “I wanted to do something different, as my main goal was not to praise comics in a fannish manner but to create my own comic-book characters. In order to accomplish that, I decided not to stick with one sole title but to publish a ‘universe’ of titles.

That’s how Paragon differed from other zine publishers.”

For years, Bill was a one-man show, drawing, inking, lettering, handling layouts, and actually assembling magazines.

The following interview with Bill Black focuses on his favorite creation, Captain Paragon, which began in the title Paragon Golden Age Greats #2 (Summer 1969).

– Jay Williams

THE PARAGON PUBLISHING YEARS

JAY WILLIAMS: We need a little information on Paragon Golden Age Greats (PGAG) #2 (Summer 1969).

BILL BLACK: It was 40 pages, with a 17-page Captain Marvel story, a reprinted 1948 Golden Age story, “Captain Marvel Battles the God of Crime.” And in a nod to comics fandom, I filled out the book with a four-page Sub-Mariner story and pinups of Captain 3-D, Vigilante, Captain Midnight, and Captain Marvel, Jr. WILLIAMS: Did you script, pencil, and ink the entire issue?

BLACK: Yes and no. The Sub-Mariner story was supposedly drawn by “fellow Florida fan fanatic” Bill Schwartz. “Schwartz” is German for Black.

WILLIAMS: Did the cover of PGAG #2 also show up as the cover of Rocket’s Blast Comicollector #101 (Aug. 1973)?

BLACK: It didn’t. That was a similar drawing. I still have the cover art, and any art sent to RBCC was never returned.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 39

TM & © AC Comics.

40 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

Comics.

Shazam!/Original Captain Marvel TM & © DC

Dynamic Duo (top) Cap on the cover of Bill Black’s Fun Comics #4 (Mar. 1983), with Bill inking Pat Broderick’s cover pencils. In that issue, Bill’s Phantom Lady became Nightveil. (bottom) A pinup of Captain Paragon and Nightveil by Broderick and Nightveil’s artist, Jim Sanders III. Courtesy of Jay Williams.

WILLIAMS: How many copies did you print of this issue?

BLACK: Maybe 100?

WILLIAMS: I understand you destroyed almost the entire print run. Why? BLACK: Before I advertised or released any copies, I was advised by Marty Greim that I’d get in big trouble for copyright infringement. I destroyed them mostly at Marty’s insistence. I was a novice at fan publishing and bowed to his greater experience.

Only two copies were saved for my records.

WILLIAMS: Paragon Presents – Captain Paragon #1 (1970) is not in the Grand Comics Database (GCD). What can you tell us about it?

BLACK: Other than the front and back covers which were paintings, and a drawing of the Defender by his creator, Martin L. Greim, on the inside of the back cover, I wrote, penciled, inked, lettered, and typed the entire issue.

WILLIAMS: Can you give us a synopsis of PP #1?

BLACK: I changed [Captain Marvel’s] name to [Captain Paragon to] match my company, and though the backstory would not be fully disclosed until the AC Comics issues, in this book we know that he was a superhero back in 1954. There are three chapters, the first two being a reworking of the 17-page Captain Marvel story from GAG #2. Here, CP is revived by Proxima and again battles the Shroud. The third chapter, “Captain Paragon Turns On,” has Paragon being duped into taking LSD. The resulting hallucinations cause him to go berserk and destroy public property. That makes CP wanted by the police.

WILLIAMS: Your first two publications were standard comic-magazine size, but with Paragon Presents #2 – The Dark Continent (1970), you changed the format. What can you tell us about the format change?

BLACK: Most fanzine editors had one title and stuck to it throughout their fandom career. I wanted to do something different, as my main goal was to create my own comic-book characters. In order to accomplish this, I decided not to stick with one title but to publish a “universe” of titles. Paragon Illustrated would spotlight characters I created in their own comic stories and also feature articles on movies and Golden Age comics. Paragon Presents would be like a “Showcase” title featuring strips exclusively that would introduce new characters. In turn, the characters would move on to their own titles (Captain Paragon, Tara).

Fem Fantastique featured superheroines, and Macabre Western featured Western characters, which was my other great love. All these books were printed on offset presses and had a more polished look than other contemporary fan publications.

WILLIAMS: What were the reasons why Captain Paragon became a backup feature in this issue?

BLACK: As a showcase for new characters, this book is devoted to Tara. To extend the Captain Paragon storyline, I included a short story here, as it directly follows the Captain Paragon story in Paragon Presents – Captain Paragon #1.

WILLIAMS: In the summer of 1972 you published Captain Paragon #1 (1972). The GCD once again shows that you were a one-man show.

This is definitely was not the norm in the comic world. Which of these comic-book creative jobs do you like doing the most?

BLACK: I’m a better inker than I am a penciler. I like doing it all. I liked lettering the least, because my lettering was pretty bad in those days.

The zine editor would seek contributions from fan artists and writers and assemble an issue. There was no set publishing schedule. A guy would work on his zine until he had enough pages, then print it.

WILLIAMS: Would you give us a summary of the story?

BLACK: It is written in three chapters. Chapter 1 takes place in Latimer Labs, where Paragon’s old friend, Richard Latimer, is supposedly helping CP purge the LSD from his system. The Shroud is building Latimer’s resentment against the hero, and by chapter’s end has convinced the scientist that he should kill Paragon because he is his enemy. Chapter 2 is a brief incident showing that after the Rurian scientist Dr. Mara defied her leader, Proxima, she flies down to Earth as a costumed character who will become Stardust. Chapter 3 has Paragon recovering from the effects of Latimer’s machine and Nicola pleading with him to aid her father against some unseen menace in the lab. Most of the Captain Paragon stories I wrote deal with his psionic mental powers and villains that can fight him on his own level.

WILLIAMS: Your 17th Paragon Publications title was Paragon Super Heroes #1 (1973). Tell us about it.

BLACK: According to the editorial, fans wanted to see stories, especially the origins, from then out-of-print books. So I assembled origin stories of four main characters and created Paragon Super Heroes #1.

WILLIAMS: How did you go about using a mixture of reprinted Paragon material with new material?

BLACK: The Shade story was from Marty Greim’s Comic Crusader #9 (1970). The Girl From LSD was from Paragon Illustrated #2 (1970).

The Scarlet Scorpion was an old story originally drawn in 1965 but never published until Paragon Super Heroes #1. I added a new page linking Scorpion and Synnesthesia.

WILLIAMS: What can you tell us about this Captain Paragon story?

BLACK: This was from PP #1 (1970). The figure of Paragon on the splash was re-drawn, otherwise it is the same as before.

WILLIAMS: The next appearance of Captain Paragon is a backup story in Tara on the Dark Continent #2 (1979). This is a four-page story that does not appear to be one continued from any previous story.

What can you tell us about this CP story entitled “Blood Love”?

BLACK: It was originally to have appeared in another fanzine but was never used. This is an odd one. Since pages 2 and 3 contain ten panels each, the art was obviously reformatted to fit into the four pages available in Tara #2. It also appeared in AC’s Wild Women one-shot as a six-page story. It’s fun to compare the differences in the artwork.

The latter version is superior and contains a weird, organic design to the pages which is much more fitting to the subject matter. The story was an attempt to cross the horror with the superhero genre.

WILLIAMS: In Fun Comics #2 (1981), the story seems a little disjointed.

How does this story fit in the timeline of Captain Paragon?

BLACK: This is merely a recap of the Paragon saga so far, setting the stage for upcoming adventures.

WILLIAMS: The next appearance of CP is in Bill Black’s Fun Comics (BBFC) #3 (1982). Tell us about this story.

BLACK: At that time it had now been ten years since Captain Paragon #1 (1972) was published. This is a recap of earlier stories, but with mostly all new and much better art. The lettering is superior, too.

It shows for the first time how the Black Shroud possessed Richard Latimer back in the Korean War. The circulation on BBFC #2 and 3 was greatly expanded, and the stories were reaching a much larger audience.

Rain—in Hollywood, who wanted me to publish Black Diamond as publicity for a forthcoming movie. I had my own line of characters from the Paragon line. Bill Pearson, associate editor at Charlton, set me up to publish the Charlton superheroes [see sidebar] that would have appeared in the canceled [Charlton Comics-related fanzine] Charlton Bullseye.

WILLIAMS: The cover was penciled by Pat Broderick, who had by that time made a name for himself at Marvel and DC. Tell us about how you were able to get Pat to do this cover for you.

BLACK: Pat is an old friend and fellow Floridian who graciously helped me out with a few covers.

WILLIAMS: This Captain Paragon issue was inked by Jim Sanders III (Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, Sensational She-Hulk, Silver Surfer).

How did you meet Jim? BLACK: Jimmy actually penciled the story from my layouts. I inked. I found Jimmy first through Bob Stone’s comic shop in Jacksonville. He was just a kid, but very talented. He did a great deal of work for AC, mostly inking.

WILLIAMS: Does the title to the opening story “Everything You Wanted to Know About Captain Paragon But Didn’t Know Who to Ask!!” pretty much sum up this three-page story? For those don’t have a copy of this first issue, tell us about these three pages…

BLACK: Commando D, grousing about being bumped out of the lead strip for this debut issue, gives yet another CP recap for all the new readers. This time it’s in color. All-new art.

WILLIAMS: The main story is entitled “Stardust Descending!” and deals with the origin of one of what would become AC Comic’s main characters—Stardust.

BLACK: Just like I was not able to publish Captain Marvel stories and he was changed to Captain Paragon, well, I couldn’t use the name Miss Marvel, so in 1982 I created Stardust. It’s fitting, since her powers derive from stellar energy.

AMERICOMICS YEARS – THE WORLD TURNS TO COLOR

WILLIAMS: Give us a brief summary of how you started Americomics, your first full-color comics.

BLACK: Americomics was started in October 1982, after I received a phone call from David Scroggy of Pacific Comics, who urged me to jump into the color comics game. I got up with a local color web press and launched Americomics. Bill Black’s Fun Comics #4 (Mar. 1983) came out in January 1983. To do a line of comics I needed material, artists, and a production office, and I did it all with no capital. I had been working with film producer Mike Frankovich, Jr.—one of the producers of Prince’s Purple

Flying High CP and Stardust on the splash to AC Comics’ Captain Paragon #1 (Dec. 1983). Original Greg Guler/Bill Black art courtesy of Jay Williams.

TM & © AC Comics.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 41

WILLIAMS: By December 1983, Americomics added its third title, Captain Paragon #1 (Dec. 1983). Why Captain Paragon, and why then?

BLACK: I had run through the Charlton material and had taken on a lot of talent from that pool. So it was time to expand the line, and Captain Paragon was a favorite.

WILLIAMS: What can you tell us about the splash page penciled by Pat Broderick?

BLACK: Pat did it specifically for this issue. It was originally intended to be the cover, but once Greg Guler came on board as the artist, we changed to a cover by Greg.

WILLIAMS: This first issue opens with a story entitled “The Diamond Connection,” penciled by Don Secrease and inked Bill Neville. Why did you choose them?

BLACK: I just didn’t have time to draw anymore and realized I couldn’t do everything. Don Secrease was drawing the Black Diamond. This was a private detective story, not a superhero story. Don’s style fit the genre. Bill was a competent, reliable inker and a damn good letterer.

WILLIAMS: What was the purpose of this introductory story?

BLACK: I created Harry Diamond—modeled after David Janssen, who died three years earlier at age 48—as a more interesting plot device to introduce CP to a new readership. It’s disclosed that CP did not recognize his face behind the mask.

He hires detective Diamond to find out who he really is. At this time, the readers didn’t know either.

I just love this story. This is the direction I wanted to take Paragon. It was so full of promise. The lost identity adds another layer of complexity to Paragon.

It was the direction I wanted to use to pursue the established storyline.

WILLIAMS: The second story, “The Power of Proxima,” was written by Dan St. John and Greg Guler and drawn by Guler. They were your artists on Americomics Special #1 with the Charlton Action Heroes. How did you get them back involved with AC Comics and working on Captain Paragon?

BLACK: I believe they proposed to do a Captain Paragon series. They chose to follow the outer-space story thread.

WILLIAMS: When you began this book, you stated that it was “a 106-page epic adventure told in four exciting issues.” Was it always your intention to only publish four issues of Captain Paragon, or was this 106-page story just to be his first of the adventures?

BLACK: I suppose Guler and St. John committed to doing four issues. I had no plans at the beginning to end it after four issues.

WILLIAMS: What can you tell us about Captain Paragon #2 (Mar. 1984)?

BLACK: I remember that I wasn’t happy with the cover and reworked the art.

I drew the wing ship that Paragon punches. It was changed, I suppose, to make Paragon’s figure more dominant on the cover. Continuity-wise, this story picks up right where CP #1 ended.

WILLIAMS: Captain Paragon #3 (1984) is the third of four parts of the “106-page epic adventure.” What can you tell us about this issue?

BLACK: CP #2 ended with Paragon entering into battle with Kronon Klyness, yet CP #3 opens with Paragon and Stardust as prisoners. There is a big continuity gap between the last panel of CP #2 and the beginning of CP #3. The story does leave the space opera for nearly two pages to give readers an update of the Latimer/Black Shroud storyline back on Earth.

I’m scratching my head on this one. Shouldn’t there have been a big Paragon and Klyness fight? I’m the editor. Shouldn’t I know the answer?

Also, there were other changes made in AC Comics production between CP #2 and CP #3. The price gets hiked an additional 25 cents. We changed from an expensive web printer who printed our books on snazzy coated stock to a cheaper print house, and CP #3 is on newsprint. The cover for this issue was an oversized piece that Kevin Dzuban inked. I then painted it with watercolors, making it Paragon’s first and only painted cover. Back then, getting paintings scanned for printing was a very expensive process.

WILLIAMS: With Captain Paragon #4 (1985), there are three of notable changes in this issue: First, the cover inker was Jerry Ordway, best known as the illustrator of All-Star Squadron, co-creator of Infinity, Inc., and artist on the Superman titles from 1986–1993. When did you first work with Jerry?

BLACK: Jerry goes back to fanzine days. I employed him back in the late 1970s to do art for a film company I was working for as a freelance artist. At the end of the Paragon Publications run, Jerry drew a ten-page story in Star Fems #2 (1982).

Mortal Enemies (top) Painted cover art to AC’s CP #3 (1984), with Guler and Kevin Dzuban pitting Cap against Klyness. (bottom) From that issue, original art (courtesy of Jay Williams) to page 2.

TM & © AC Comics.

42 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

THE CHARLTON ACTION HEROES IN AMERICOMICS SPECIAL #1 WILLIAMS: Most think that Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, the Question, and Nightshade stories were only published by Charlton or DC. How were you were able to snag these Charlton Action Heroes?

BLACK: I was friends with Bill Pearson, who in the 1970s through the 1980s was assistant editor at Charlton Comics. After Wallace Wood died, Bill took over witzend magazine and he published the last issue through Paragon Publications. I had drawn a Nightshade story for [the anthology tryout comic book] Charlton Bullseye #7 (May 1982) and did many covers for Charlton’s Western titles.

One day Bill called me, explaining that Charlton Bullseye would be canceled, even though he had quite a backlog of completed stories for the title. He was shopping around for a publisher as he had promised the creators that they would be published. But it had to be a “color” publisher. “Hey,” I said, “I’m about to launch a color line.” I needed material to fill my books, so it was a perfect match. Editor George Wildman worked up a contract where AC Comics would have the rights to the Charlton superheroes for one year. I needed to publish this material within that time limit. As it turned out, many of the Bullseye artists stayed with me to work on AC titles.

WILLIAMS: Where did you come up with the name Sentinels of Justice?

BLACK: I came up with the title Sentinels of Justice and planned to launch an AC SOJ book from the very start. By coincidence, one of the Bullseye books was also titled Sentinels of Justice featuring Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, Nightshade, and the Question. In hindsight, I should have changed the title because this has always led to confusion, especially since the same creative team worked on both books. Some people assume incorrectly that Captain Atom became Captain Paragon and Blue Beetle became Scarlet Scorpion. This is not true. Actually, I drew my first homegrown Scarlet Scorpion story way back in 1959.

WILLIAMS: How many Charlton superhero stories were you able to publish?

BLACK: There was this team-up book, two Blue Beetle stories, an Atomic Mouse, and maybe others. Of course, there was supposed to be a concluding SOJ story as well as two Captain Atom stories, but the creative teams never turned them in before the contract ran out. I also picked up Nyoka the Jungle Girl, Billy the Kid, and other Charlton properties when the company folded in 1987.

WILLIAMS: Tell me about Dan St. John (writer) and Greg Guler (pencils and inks).

BLACK: I thought Greg was a great artist and loved how he drew Captain Paragon. Greg seemed to have control over Dan, though, and they worked on their own and were secretive about what they were doing with the book. Getting script information was like pulling teeth. Bill Fugate lived near them and he lettered the books usually before I’d even seen a script. They then mailed pages to inker Kevin Dzuban in New Jersey. Kevin is a fantastic talent and he added some realism to Greg’s somewhat cartoony style. Every book came in late and there was no time for me to make any editorial corrections.

WILLIAMS: Were you ever able to work with them again beyond these few Charlton Action Hero stores?

BLACK: Both continued on with Captain Paragon and then Captain Paragon and the Sentinels of Justice. Greg was a few pages into the second issue when suddenly he quit, leaving me in the lurch. So I never worked with Greg or Dan after that. Greg did his own comic, Captain Phil, which only lasted one issue. Later he worked on Hawk and Dove at DC then relocated to California to work for Disney, his life-long dream.

[Editor’s note: To learn more about the Bronze Age adventures of Charlton’s Action Heroes, see BACK ISSUE #79.]

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 43

Production stages of the issue’s Greg Guler/John Beatty cover. Courtesy of Jay Williams. Characters TM & © DC Comics.

And Mike Machlan, the inker on this issue and cover of CP #1 (Dec. 1983), worked with Jerry and Roy Thomas on Justice Society revivals and at Marvel doing covers for Amazing Spider-Man and West Coast Avengers.

WILLIAMS: The second notable change was in page length, from 32 pages in issues #1–3 to 52 pages. Was this planned, or did the “106-page epic” grow over time?

BLACK: As circulation decreased, the cover price increased. CP #4 was increased to $2, so I added more pages. Plus we needed to include a setup for Sentinels of Justice with the Commando D story.

WILLIAMS: The third change was a mix of color and black-and-white pages…

BLACK: It was a matter of survival. It’s cheaper to print in black and white. Possibly the art was so late there wasn’t time to color the entire book. I don’t remember. The whole market crashed in 1984, so by 1985 we were just limping along. In fact, I never thought we’d survive to 1985. At one time there were 14 comic-book distributors. One by one they went under. It was a massacre.

I had to let staff go and closed the AC offices.

I was forced to cut page rates. This was voluntary, as most were under contract.

Everybody understood that if rates weren’t lowered there would be no comics. Everybody complied and we all pulled together.

WILLIAMS: Why did you choose to continue with the name “Sentinels of Justice,” which you had used with the Charlton Action Heroes in Americomics Special #1 (Aug. 1983)?

BLACK: I had the super-team name Sentinels of Justice since 1982, before I saw or heard of the Charlton Bullseye version. SOJ was used in my earliest promotional material when I laid out what books I hoped to create in the future. If you look at the back cover of the Americomics Special #1 with the Charlton heroes on the front, you will find the AC Comics heroes, who are also called Sentinels of Justice. Had I changed it on that book, much confusion could have been avoided.

WILLIAMS: In Captain Paragon and the Sentinels of Justice #1 (Apr. 1985), what characters make up SOJ? BLACK: Paragon, Nightveil, Scorpion, and Commando D originated back in the Paragon Publications era and by 1985 were old friends. Stardust was now paired with Paragon and the Captain Paragon series dovetailed into SOJ. WILLIAMS: The story here in Captain Paragon and the Sentinels of Justice (CPATSOJ) picks up where CP #4 ended.

Was that planned?

BLACK: Ideally, both titles could have co-existed, but the market was a shambles.

I thought a group book would help solidify the AC Universe, and it did. For business reasons, a number-one issue sells better than a number five. For the most part, the highest circulation on an independent comic came with number one, then diminished with each consecutive issue.

WILLIAMS: I noticed that Kevin Dzuban was gone as inker. What happened there?

Words and Pictures Compare (left) the Dan St. John/Greg Guler script to page 30 of CPATSOJ #1 to (right) its execution in original art form. Courtesy of Jay Williams.

Greg and Dan share their AC Comics recollections in this issue’s Back Talk column.

TM & © AC Comics.

BLACK: We lost a lot of talent, and Kevin was sorely missed. If I remember correctly, he left comics and got a commercial art job that paid better. CPATSOJ #1 suffered without his talent, as he always added a layer of realism to Greg Guler’s pencils.

WILLIAMS: This is obviously an origin issue for the SOJ. Can you give us a quick synopsis of this issue?

BLACK: With the space opera behind him, writer Dan St. John got back on track at last to address plot threads I established in CP #1: namely, who is Paragon, and the fact that his powers are mental. The boys did a good job constructing a logical storyline that brings the heroes together.

WILLIAMS: In Captain Paragon and the Sentinels of Justice #2 (1985), you announce you have a new artist coming on with CPATSOJ #3. What happened with Dan St. John and Greg Guler?

BLACK: After drawing the first couple pages, Greg Guler up and quits with no advance warning and a deadline looming.

Fortunately, artist Gordon Purcell volunteered to pitch in to pencil the book, with Don Hillsman handling the inks.

WILLIAMS: In CPATSOJ #3 (1985), there is a wholesale turnover in your creative team beginning with this issue.

You bring on board Erik Larsen to do pencils. How did you get together with Erik and your new inker Emil Novak?

BLACK: I don’t remember for sure, but it was a lucky break for me. His work ethic was the opposite of Greg Guler’s. Erik turned in pages at lightning speed. He

44 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

must’ve penciled several pages a day. He’s an editor’s dream! He had CPATSOJ #3 completely penciled and was into CPATSOJ #4 before the previous crew had turned in CPATSOJ #2! Eric got our publishing schedule back on track. Prior to this, Erik had done stories for Gary Carlson’s Megaton book. Emil Novak was a good, solid, dependable artist who added much to the series as the inker.

WILLIAMS: Erik went on to work for Eclipse, DC, and Marvel, where he did more than 30 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, then went on to create Savage Dragon.

Did you realize that he had this much talent?

BLACK: Sure. Erik’s work is very dynamic. At this time, some of his figure work was stiff, but yet action-packed.

He does a great job interpreting a script and I loved what he did with my story. That opening splash is just great!

And it just gets better on page 2. See how he puts the heroes in the forefront of the action? And Stardust’s body position is just perfect for a horizontal panel.

Another perfect horizontal design is at the bottom of page 18. The last page is the kicker. Paragon’s face is so angry that the Vardax chooses suicide rather than face his wrath! And Erik does a spot-on David Janssen.

WILLIAMS: I noticed you returned as the writer on CPATSOJ #3. What was the reason for this?

BLACK: Dan St. John quit and I needed to get Paragon back on line with the original concept. Plus, I was also writing Femforce, so this solidified continuity.

WILLIAMS: Captain Paragon #1 (Dec. 1983) opens with a detective story featuring Harry Diamond. Early in CPATSOJ #3, Harry Diamond returns. What had Diamond been up to?

BLACK: As established in CP #1, Harry Diamond discovered that Paragon first appeared in Lake Warrick, Minnesota, so he went there in hopes of finding a lead to who he was before he put on the mask. While there, he passed a building plaque inscribed “Paragon Foundation,” so

he knew he’d struck gold. It was a research institute specializing in genetics and it was very old. He gets in and manages to get away with a file containing the secret of Captain Paragon.

WILLIAMS: What led you to the backstory on Captain Paragon alluded to in the story title?

BLACK: My childhood hero was the Durango Kid, who was played in 65 movies by Charles Starrett. My plan was to link Durango with Paragon. And this went beyond sharing the name. Paragon would be a man born in the 1800s who was a gunfighter in the Old West… a paranormal gunfighter. This is brought to the forefront in the Latigo Kid story in CPATSOJ #5.

WILLIAMS: You introduced Femforce in Femforce Special #1 (Fall 1984). What led you to have them guest-star in CPATSOJ #3?

BLACK: I developed storylines that take several issues to complete. In Femforce, I had established Dr. Jiminez and his Time Triangle machine. I wanted the SOJ to venture into the past, so I brought Femforce and Jimenez into the plot in CPATSOJ #4.

WILLIAMS: Can you give us a summary of Captain Paragon and the Sentinels of Justice #4 (1985)?

BLACK: This one is a hell of a good story, if I do say so myself. I love to come up with convoluted plots, and this one is a dandy. It takes several issues to complete Paragon’s origin story, and CPATSOJ #4 is but one piece of the puzzle. In doing so, I take the readers for a wild ride.

WILLIAMS: The cover of CPATSOJ #5 (1986) does not feature SOJ but instead features Femforce superimposed over the face of Captain Paragon. What’s the story behind this?

BLACK: To accomplish the telling of Paragon’s true origin, a time machine is needed. So Femforce delivers one to Latimer Labs in CPASOJ #3. Nightveil, of course, is a member of both teams and summons her teammates for the time-travel mission. The cover depicts Femforce hurtling through time to an unknown destination.

Paragon is missing in action and suffering greatly from an identity crisis, so he is represented as a shadow image in the background. I drew the first version of this cover myself but wasn’t happy with it, so I had Erik do a more dynamic version which I liked much better. This sets up the crossover with the Femforce title so that readers would follow the storyline over to the other book.

WILLIAMS: In the last issue, you threw everyone for a major loop with a complete change in the origin of the man we know as Captain Paragon. What did you have in store for us in CPATSOJ #5?

BLACK: Here the truth is revealed to everybody except poor Paragon. Chromo had manipulated all the characters by using Vardax chameleons in an effort to get Paragon out of the picture. He succeeded. Harry Diamond remains the only person aware of the true nature of his friend’s origin and bravely travels through time to complete his assignment.

WILLIAMS: You included a six-page Western story in this issue entitled “The Origin of the Latigo Kid.” What did this story have to do with our CPATSOJ story?

BLACK: The Latigo Kid story may seem out of place in CPATSOJ, but its importance will be revealed in Femforce #7. Rik and I, in an effort to pay a little homage to Lee and Kirby, named characters here and later after them: in this story, Dr. Marvel (Marvel Comics), who later becomes Samuel Lieber (Lieber is Stan’s real last name).

Lieber’s assistant is Kurtzberg (Jack Kirby’s real last name).

WILLIAMS: The story in this issue is continued in Femforce #7. What was the reasoning behind this?

BLACK: Crossovers strengthen continuity in the AC Universe. There were probably readers of CPATSOJ who did not read Femforce, so the crossover could bring on new readers to the companion book. This sales pattern ran true to form. CPATSOJ #5 had far lower circulation than SOJ #1.

THE AC COMICS YEARS (a.k.a. STEPPING STONE COMICS)

[Interviewer’s note: For a great number of artists, AC Comics was their “stepping stone” into the world of mainstream comics.]

WILLIAMS: The story begun in CPATSOJ #5 continues in Femforce #7 (May 1987). Most comics have a creative team of four or five… but 16? What’s the story behind this populous creative team?

BLACK: This is the Western Jam issue! Everybody at AC wanted to work on it, and pretty near everybody did. Many artists volunteered to do a page or two.

Don Secrease and I are both big Western fans. With his help, I pulled out all the stops, cramming most every masked Western character from the Golden Age into the story.

WILLIAMS: Tell us about the change in penciler.

BLACK: Erik Larsen had departed and the late Rik Levins [artist of Captain America #387–422] had come on as main SOJ penciler. Rik also began writing for AC. He had a far subtler writing style than I, but between Femforce #7 and Armageddon Factor: The Conclusion, great credit should be given to Rik as constructs the foundation for the entire AC Universe.

Early Erik Larsen Art from the creator of The Savage Dragon: page 2 of Nightveil #5 (1986), inked by Bills Black and Anderson.

Courtesy of Heritage (www.ha.com).

TM & © AC Comics.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 45

Draw… (top left) Dell Barras art on the high noon cover of Sentinels of Justice #6 (1987). (top right) That issue’s title page, featuring the work of Rik Levins. (left) Bill Black loves Westerns, and we love this undated illo by him! From the Heritage archives.

Sentinels of Justice TM & © AC Comics. Cowgirl art © Bill Black.

WILLIAMS: While the team of creators is noticeable, a subtle change took place beginning with Femforce #5: the indicia changes from Americomics to AC Comics. What brought about this change?

BLACK: In February 1984, my former business manager, whose idea it was to call the company Americomics, and I parted ways, and as far as I was concerned that was the end of Americomics.

But it took longer to wean the public, some of whom still refer to AC Comics as Americomics.

WILLIAMS: Mark Heike’s cover for Femforce #7 is absolutely beautiful. For those who are not familiar with Mark Heike, take a moment and tell us how you met him and a brief summary of his contributions to AC Comics.

BLACK: Mark was in fandom and sent me submissions, which I loved. He drew stories for the Paragon books, most notably the Blue Bulleteer/Phantom Lady features and later the Nightveil title. Teaming up with Mark on the first issues of Femforce was a dream. In 1990, he moved to Florida to become full-time associate editor at AC. WILLIAMS: Tell me more about this issue paying homage to a number of Western movie stars.

BLACK: Guilty pleasure. Okay, I had fun with Western Jam. With this plot we had to establish that the Latigo Kid was “the best of the best.” To do that he competed against a slew of B-Western movie stars and Golden Age Western comics characters mixed together.

Represented in this story are: Tim Holt, Charles Starrett, Johnny Mack Brown, Corporal Rusty of TV’s Rin Tin Tin, Buck Jones, Gabby Hayes, Marshal Dan Troop (John Russell of TV’s Lawman), Wild Bill Pecos, Rocky Lane, Palladin (Richard Boone), Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Tex Ritter (father of TV actor Jack Ritter of Three’s Company), Lee Van Cleef, Iron Eyes Cody, BullsEye, Old Sure Shot (Stewart Granger), the Hooded Horseman, Wild Bill Elliott, the Lone Rider, Lemonade Kid, Black Diamond, Smiley Burnette, Dub “Cannonball” Taylor, and the Durango Kid. Ms. Victory becomes Calamity Kate, Nightveil is the Black Phantom, Stardust is Frenchie King, and She-Cat is Cherokee from my Paragon Pubs’ All Girl Outlaw series. Harry Diamond has dressed as Clint Eastwood’s “Man with No Name.”

WILLIAMS: With issue #6 (1987), the title changes from CPATSOJ to Sentinels of Justice. What was the reasoning for this?

BLACK: The time had come. The SOJ were working as a team.

WILLIAMS: SOJ #6 continues the story from Femforce #7 (May 1987).

What can you tell us about the story in this issue?

BLACK: This is a key book for many reasons. It lays groundwork for the two AC Comics’ opposing paranormal entities: the Paragon 46 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

Foundation and the Colorado Complex. It explains at last the true origin of Paragon and it takes you step by step through the development of his paranormal powers. The Femforce demonstrates how teamwork gets the job done. We see why Paragon was a “Captain” how he joined in the war and meets the World War II building blocks for the AC Universe: Dr. Mark Benton, Joan Wayne, and Nathan Margold. In addition, more Golden Age Western characters are added to the Jam: the Haunted Horseman—originally known as Ghost Rider and created by Dick Ayers in Tim Holt #11 (Nov. 1949)— the Ghost of Zorro, the Presto Kid, the Dark Rider, Tex Mason, Bobby Benson, Straight Arrow, Packy McCloud, Muley Pike, and Bumper.

WILLIAMS: The four-part story was continued into Femforce #8 (May 1987). In the back of this issue you advertise for a new title The Armageddon Factor. Why a new title featuring the SOJ rather than just continuing this title?

BLACK: Again, a #1 issue book sells better than a #7 issue.

Marvel and DC are still employing this even today.

The story begins in 1874 in the Wild West. Nightveil learns that her cloak of darkness is the same that was worn by the Haunted Horseman. Because the one cloak is now two, its power is halved, thus causing Nightveil’s weakening. When their cloaks touch accidentally, the Haunted Horseman is killed, thereby creating a true ghostly being. Klyness is freed and comes back to town to kill Charlie Starrett, the Latigo Kid, whom Klyness knows as Captain Paragon. Doc Marvel removes his disguise, and as Lieber hypnotizes Starrett to get him to face the monster. In a gunfight the Latigo Kid fires a gun that doesn’t work and destroys Klyness by sheer force of mind. At the end of the story, Captain Paragon drops the Captain from his name and becomes known only as Paragon. He returns to Earth, where 16 AC Universe supercharacters have gathered for the upcoming Armageddon Factor.

WILLIAMS: In The Armageddon Factor #1, you never named the green-type creature in these comics. Why? BLACK: Of course, if his identity were revealed at the beginning of this story, it would spoil Rik Levins’ brilliantly constructed adventure.

WILLIAMS: Armageddon Factor was scheduled to run for three issues. Would you please give us the overarching storyline for these three issues?

BLACK: Simply stated, it is the conclusion of the SOJ/Vardax conflict. But Rik never states anything simply. This three-part adventure is a testament to the genius of Rik Levins. It begins at a time in the far-flung future when planet Earth is nothing but a burnt-out husk, devoid of life. A highly evolved sentient being arrives and, curious as to the fate of this world, revives a long-dead human from skeletal remains.

The story then picks up from where it left off in SOJ #6 and Femforce #8 by using the clever plot devise of animated corpses relating the dire history. The US Government has formed an alliance with the Vardax and has issued an ultimatum for all paranormals to be registered with the State. Paragon and the Sentinels don’t want this, but he complies because there is a 30-day grace period before they fall under military control. General Gordon, who is in charge of Femforce and the paranormals at the Colorado Project, sends another super-group, the Ravagers, to eliminate the Sentinels. Nikki Latimer, who is jealous of Stardust, is shocked when Mara tells her that she is more physically attracted to her than to Paragon. Commando D is MIA, but another dimensional policeman, Astron, joins with the Sentinels to find him. Paragon’s intellect expands, putting stress on his relationship with Nikki.

He is aware of her feelings towards him and uses her callously.

The bulk of AF #1 concerns the Sentinels’ (which now includes Dragonfly, Tara, and Colt) battle against the Ravagers, which is broken up into chapters like an old Justice Society story.

WILLIAMS: The Armageddon Factor #2 is an excellent story.

Do you know where Rik Levins got this idea?

BLACK: Another brilliant idea from the brain of Rik Levins! Rather than repeat himself, Rik uses the attacking sphere to continue the story as its computer banks recorded the last few days of Earth’s existence. In AF #2, Paragon continues to use Nikki, Diamond digs into the Vardax conspiracy, and the Shade learns the fate of Commando D and Denny.

The Haunting (top) Black’s sexy Ms. Victory pose, on the cover of Femforce #8 (July 1987). (bottom) In that issue, Nightveil learns she has something in common with the Haunted Horseman.

TM & © AC Comics.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 47

All Together, Now Wraparound cover to The Armageddon Factor: The Conclusion #3 (1990). Cover art by Bill Marimon and Ralph Cabrera.

TM & © AC Comics.

WILLIAMS: There is a two- to three-year gap between Armageddon Factor #2 and The Armageddon Factor: The Conclusion (1990).

What was the big delay in getting this issue out?

BLACK: I don’t remember for sure. Sales slipped so that I had to cancel Dragonfly, and Rik had to seek other employment. Maybe this is when he started his long run on Captain America.

WILLIAMS: The cover is a beautiful wraparound featuring 13 AC Comics superheroes. What can you tell us about Bill Marimon and Ralph Cabrera, who illustrated it?

BLACK: That wraparound cover is terrific. Bill Marimon is another Florida artist who was a close friend of Rik’s. Bill brought in Frank Turner to help with art on AF: The Conclusion.

WILLIAMS: The interior pages of Armageddon Factor #1–2 are in full color, but the interior pages of Armageddon Factor #3 you return to glorious black and white. For what reason?

BLACK: It was a tradeoff. I could have gone with color, but it would have had to be printed on newsprint. I thought this book was very special so I had it printed on a sheet-fed press, not a web press. That is more expensive, but the reproduction is fantastic. I thought the printing in color on AF #1 and 2 was weak. So AF #3 is on nice paper but in B&W. WILLIAMS: Armageddon Factor #3 is not actually numbered as #3.

It is titled Armageddon Factor: The Conclusion. Why? BLACK: It is #3, but it was released as a one-shot because of the time lag and because of the special handling.

WILLIAMS: AF #1 was a 30-page story and AF #2 dropped to a 24-page story, but you come back with a bang with a 41-page story. What was the reasoning for the longer story?

BLACK: AF: Conclusion was an epic. It took that many pages to complete it. The cover price jumped to $3.95, because production was more costly. There are no ads or fillers, just 44 pages [of content].

WILLIAMS: This book opens with a couple of pages, the usual art and word. At the end of the second page, the green (okay, now black-andwhite) character picks up a file from the Paragon Foundation. The next four pages of this comic are like you are looking at and reading directly from pages in that file. Whose idea was this concept?

BLACK: Again, all Rik Levins. It had to be text, as the book would have had to have been three times as long if it was done as comics.

WILLIAMS: What was the main purpose of four pages of text?

48 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

BLACK: This is very, very important. Here Rik lays out the foundation of the entire AC Universe. This becomes our bible upon which future stories were based. In fact, the storyline in Femforce #175 is based on concepts from this bible. If you establish solid, well-conceived characters, you can go on forever. This bible is also a scorecard. You can use it to tell who’s who and who plays for which team. ProSec Publishing is about to launch a line of prose novels based on AC characters, and they used this bible as a blueprint.

WILLIAMS: Anything else you would like to share about the story in this issue or AC Comics?

BLACK: Much has happened in the 26 years since this book was released.

There is far too much to touch on here. The biggest changes were Mark Heike came in as associate editor in 1990 and then took over as publisher in 2014. Thanks, Mark, I could not have done it without you!

WILLIAMS: I sure hope this interview stirs up some interest in Captain Paragon, Sentinels of Justice, and Femforce. Where can a reader go to get these? Also, would you and Mark be willing to autograph these copies?

BLACK: I know I would be willing to autograph them and I am sure Mark would also. Almost all of the Americomics and AC Comics and a few Paragon Publications are available at www.accomic.com.

WILLIAMS: What you have been up to since stepping away from the day-to-day operations at AC Comics?

BLACK: I have returned to my other love, making movies. My first movie after starting in comics was one about the Blue Bulleteer. Then I did The Amazing Colossal Woman. I have just completed a reworking of that movie and it and other movies starring Femforce characters, plus old remastered cliffhanger serials are available either at my website (www.cultretro.com), on Amazon, or in my eBay store (http://stores. ebay.com/redmaskemporium/).

JAY WILLIAMS is a national sales manager for a healthcare software company with a great love of history (his college major) and comics. Occasionally, his day job affords him the opportunity to visit comic-book shops as he travels all of the USA, as he searches for interesting comics and talks to store owners and managers about the “good old days.”

Don’t miss TwoMorrows’ latest book release, The MLJ Companion, featuring the complete history of Archie Comics’ “Mighty Crusaders” characters, from the Golden Age to today. This full-color book is now available at comics shops and from www.twomorrows.com.

It wasn’t exactly an original idea, bringing together a stable of superheroes into a team unit. After all, the Justice Society of America first pulled off the distinction of being the original superhero super-group in All-Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940–1941).

GOLDEN AGE ROOTS FOR A SILVER AGE SUPER-TEAM

by B

ryan D. Stroud

Fast forward nearly a quarter century, and the seeds were spread to do something similar in the pages of Archie Comics’ Adventures of the Fly #31 (May 1965) when the hero in question, actually known as Fly-Man at the time, got a little help from his friends in facing off against (naturally) the Spider. These allies came from some other classic hero titles from Archie’s stable, though, of course, the publisher was known as MLJ in those early days.

First up is the Shield, the very first superhero to wear the red, white, and blue, way back in Pep Comics #1 (Jan. 1940). Next we have the Comet, in a redesigned costume and with a different backstory than the original incarnation, who also appeared in that first issue of Pep and, incidentally, was also an early creation of the great Jack Cole of Plastic Man fame. One could not help but wonder if the character was an inspiration for another hero with a visor that fired beams, in the form of the X-Men’s Cyclops. Another interesting fact is that the original Comet was likely the first superhero to be killed off and was replaced by the Comet’s brother, who took to fighting crime as the Hangman. Rounding out this ’60s supergroup is the Black Hood, who originally debuted in Top Notch Comics #9 (Oct. 1940).

It soon becomes evident that the writer, yet another founding father of the Golden Age of comics, one Jerry Siegel, using the pen name Jerry Ess, is taking a few cues from the highly popular contemporary line of heroes from Marvel. The dialogue exhibits the characters bickering among themselves and even including lines like, “…‘The Mighty Crusaders’ is corny, like something dreamed up in a comic book!”

Speaking of their team name, it was speculated

by Michael Uslan, who wrote the foreword to the reprinted book with the origin stories, that the Mighty Crusaders might just be the first team named by a supervillain, specifically the Spider, yet it’s noteworthy that on page 7 of the tale, the Comet, addressing Fly-Man, refers to himself as “…the Comet, mighty crusader from the planet Altrox!” In any case, after two more stories in the pages of the Fly’s book, a new title emerges with The Mighty Crusaders #1 (Nov. 1965).

THE MIGHTY CRUSADERS COME FULL RED CIRCLE

Archie’s Super Pals ’n’ Gals The Mighty Crusaders #1 (Mar. 1983), from Archie’s Red Circle Comics imprint, under the creative direction of artist Rich Buckler.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Unfortunately, the series only made it to issue #7 and was then abandoned… until resurgence came about in 1983, when Rich Buckler was tagged to function as virtually a one-man-band, serving as editor, writer, and artist for the return of The Mighty Crusaders under Archie’s “Red Circle Comics Group” imprint.

Rich offers BACK ISSUE a great deal of information about his work on the title and begins, logically enough, with how he first became acquainted with this super-team: “That would be when Archie first attempted to revive the Mighty Crusaders back in the ’60s. I was just a teenage comic-book fanatic and I bought these superhero books off the newsstand when they first came out. I had mixed reactions. I liked it okay. As a comics fan, though, I got really curious about the characters when I learned about their Golden Age history. Once I did that I realized that the company and the creative people involved did not even know these characters at all. I remember also wondering why Archie Comics called their superheroes ‘mighty’ and not once referred to them as ‘super.’ I remember picking up back Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 49

Back in Action House ad from 1982 announcing the Mighty Crusaders’ return.

TM & © Archie Publications, Inc.

franchise—all of their ‘mighty heroes.’ But neither of them had an inkling of how to make that happen!

“So they gave me my own office and phone and I started calling people I knew. I created all of the freelance assignments and did all the hiring of the creative talent and I also edited the first few titles. With absolutely no editorial or publisher input I designed all of their promotions and I even designed the Red Circle logo.

“So Mighty Crusaders was Archie/Red Circle’s flagship title. And that is where I undertook the task of reviving the old MLJ characters that the company owned. That included all of my character designs plus the capsule origins I ran in this book and others. That work set the tone for the emerging ‘Red Circle Universe’ of the ’80s.

“I created an updated look for all of the characters and I did all of the research necessary to present to new and older readers versions that were fresh and new but at the same time true to their past incarnations. That was not an easy undertaking.

“There was no Internet back then. And at Archie there was no extensive archive— only a few file copies of the ’60s Mighty Crusaders and one or two other titles

by Siegel and Reinman. I had to rely mostly on what I had in my own comics collection. So I laid most of the groundwork that made it possible for there to be a new incarnation of Red Circle.

Unfortunately, later on, as things were © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. building up steam and rolling along rather nicely, this proved to be a rather thankless job.”

Rich Buckler had accepted this assignment with marked excitement and enthusiasm and felt qualified for the challenge. He shares some of his planning and thought processes, only a few of which came to fruition during his limited tenure: “I never do anything with an empty head. I came up from the early days of comic-book fandom. As an artist and comic creator, I am self-taught. That is my background. As a fan and amateur artist in my teens, I was privy to a tremendous amount of source material from all of the Golden Age and Silver Age books.

“Back in those days, I devoured Jim Steranko’s History of the Comics, both volumes. And I was mentored early issues of The Fly and The Jaguar for my comics collection on by comic historian Jerry Bails. So in the ’80s, as the before I encountered Siegel and Reinman’s Mighty man creatively in charge of Red Circle, I knew what Crusaders… also, Simon and Kirby’s Fly and Double Life of I wanted, and thanks to Professor Bails’ archives and Private Strong, which really made an impression on me.” mentoring back in my Detroit days I already had a When queried about how the assignment came to familiarity with the history of these particular characters him, Buckler recollects: that very few comics professionals at that time had. I wasn’t “If you mean how did my working for Archie Comics on top of everything, like Roy Thomas or E. Nelson come about, well, for me it wasn’t a freelance assignment. Bridwell—but I wasn’t far behind those guys either!

Nothing like that, actually. At that time they didn’t have any books to hire me for. They had Archie (teen humor) MIGHTY CRUSADERS #1 books and that’s it.

Issue #1 (Mar. 1983) did seem to be a portent of great things “So there were no assignments involved—that’s how to come. The cover, including a somewhat pricey $1.00 it all started. I think that most fans are not aware that price tag, displayed a Rich Buckler rendition of both the at the beginning of things I was hired by Archie as original Shield and Lancelot Strong Shield, along with the managing editor to create their entire Red Circle line of Fly, Fly-Girl, the Comet, the Black Hood, the Jaguar, and the books. So if you check out the inside cover of Red Circle’s Web. Inside the front cover, just as Rich described, was a debut title, Mighty Crusaders #1, you will find a photo two-column editorial under the banner of Red Circle News of me and a letter of greeting to the readers. I started titled, “We’re Back!” The text, credited to David Singer, went out at the company as an editor, writer, and artist. on to greet and welcome readers and to give a history of “Even less known is the fact that I taught the publishers, these classic characters while also promising accompanying Richard Goldwater and Michael Silberkleit, how the titles with solo adventures of The Fly, The Comet, The Web, comics direct market worked and then I functioned as The Shield, and The Black Hood. Heady days, indeed, for the liaison for the company with the independent a full-court press involving this heroic roster.

Rich Buckler explains that he had a very free hand in distributors back then. That was a big deal, really. They had ambition, yes—but plain and simple, the publishers this effort. As far as any sort of game plan on how to wanted to revive what they perceived to be a viable proceed, there wasn’t one:

50 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

Malevolent Legion of Juggernauts Buckler’s cover pencils for the action-packed super-brawl on the wraparound cover of Mighty Crusaders #2 (May 1983).

TM & © Archie Publications, Inc.

“You mean, like some kind of master plan? Nope. Not from the publishers, anyway. Like I said, nobody at Archie Comics had a clue where to start. Superheroes was a genre they were not set up for.

So no charter. No instructions. Just a mandate to take on the writing and drawing chores initially.

“From the get-go as managing editor I was the idea man, and I set the course. And for a short while I was a happy camper. The first characters to get their own solo books were Simon and Kirby’s The Fly and Lancelot Strong, the Shield.”

Of further interest, there were no advertisements throughout the 32-page book aside from house ads. Five pages in the back were also devoted to the origins of each hero depicted in the story “Atlantis Rising!” With the exception of Frank Giacoia inks, Victor Gorelick lettering, and Barry Grossman coloring, it was all Rich Buckler as the Mighty Crusaders dealt with an uneasy alliance of classic foes in the Brain Emperor and the undersea tyrant known as Eterno, the latter of whom had last been seen at the bottom of the ocean in a sunken Atlantis in Fly-Man #32 (July 1965).

Regarding the lack of ads and the cover price, Buckler offers, “No ads and a $1.00 cover price—that was my call. And raising the cover price actually did not hurt sales. It was my idea too to run back covers on every book instead of ads. So ad revenue was lost, but these books were being produced for the direct market. I felt strongly that this feature also helped make the Red Circle books special and gave them more fan appeal. Actually, I recall that the direct market orders (non-returnable) came in on Mighty Crusaders #1 and exceeded ten thousand.”

The old teammates come together as if they’d never been apart as they begin to come to grips with a menace from space. The Brain Emperor has launched energy beams from a satellite onto the North American continent to spur a crime wave that will be the demise of the Mighty Crusaders.

Long gone are the campy storylines and corny dialogue, which was a deliberate move by our editor/writer/artist: “That was Jerry Siegel’s approach. What I did was go back to the roots of each of those characters. I threw out everything that was corny, silly, campy—or whatever. If you recall, the campy Batman television series was hot back in the ’60s. So that’s obviously what they were going for originally. But I like to point out that even back then, the popular understanding of ‘camp’ meant something like, ‘so bad that it’s good.’ Quite a monumental oxymoron there!

“Of course, I knew that kind of ‘campy’ approach would never fly for the marketplace we were targeting. The idea from the get-go was to create comics that were as good as it gets! As fans, John [Carbonaro] and I were out to please the readers who were already fans and were familiar with the original versions of the heroes, while at the same time being mindful that we were re-introducing the characters to what was in the ’80s an entirely new audience.”

The threats from the underworld inevitably draw the teammates toward a spot in the Atlantic where they battle huge robot sentinels guarding the headquarters of Eterno. Despite the efforts of these members on hand, including the Fly, Fly-Girl, Jaguar, Lancelot Strong, and the Web, Atlantis rises to the surface, leaving things on a cliffhanger. Also, in a nice touch, the last few pages give the readers a short introductory origin story for each Crusader.

MIGHTY CRUSADERS #2

Issue #2 (May 1983) has a beautiful wraparound Rich Buckler/Frank Giacoia cover that depicts our heroes facing off with the Malevolent Legion of Juggernauts, whose roster includes Captain Flag, Hangman, Steel Sterling, the Fox, Jack Firefly, and Bob Phantom. Weren’t all these guys heroes? Well, that will be explained shortly. Meanwhile, Rich describes the play on MLJ (MLJ Magazines was, of course, the original name of Archie Comics, taken from the first initial of each partner, Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit, and John L. Goldwater) when I asked how long it took to come up with a name from the acronym: “How long? About two seconds, actually. That was me being a real fanboy. I couldn’t resist. My idea for the inclusion of the Malevolent Legion of Juggernauts was to bring back as many characters as possible, even if they were not the real thing. It opened up a lot of possibilities for future stories and titles. For issue #2 of the Crusaders I did a wraparound cover and on the inside front cover there is a diagram mapping out and identifying each of the characters.”

Rich further describes how he and John were originally going about things with this new/old series: “At the beginning, it was just me and John Carbonaro. John had wrangled me into a meeting with the publishers (originally he approached them with the idea of just hiring me to draw something that he could show them). So that went well enough. But unfortunately, nothing was put in writing. We had what is commonly known as a Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 51

‘gentleman’s agreement.’ And you know, that only works well when all the parties involved are truly gentlemen.

“So on a handshake and going by a handful of lofty promises from Richard Goldwater, he and Michael Silberkleit made me managing editor of the new Red Circle line of books aimed at the comics direct market. Gray Morrow had spearheaded an earlier incarnation of Red Circle with mostly non-superhero titles a few years earlier. So I was sort of following in Gray’s footsteps, but starting everything fresh and new.

“Meanwhile, John Carbonaro had a good deal of input and helped a lot with the research. At the same time he was mostly focusing on his own efforts to get Archie Comics to help him continue the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents [see article elsewhere in this issue—ed.]. With John they made a lot of promises too in the beginning, but very soon afterward they fell short in their follow-through.

Anyhow, it all looked so positive and promising at first to both of us.

“I look back at that now and I can’t help feeling that the publishers were shrewd, seasoned businessmen who knew how to take advantage of a young and dedicated (and naïve!) professional. And John was just a lovable, creative, super-fanboy whose enthusiasm and dedication eclipsed his limited business savvy. So we were both rather ruthlessly exploited.

“The deal they offered was paid freelance writing and drawing on a work-for-hire basis, and money later in the form of a modest royalty. There was absolutely no upfront pay for my editorial duties. I guess I was as guilty as John of being an overly enthusiastic fanboy. But despite the drawbacks in that arrangement, I was determined to grab this unique (if somewhat flawed) opportunity to build up something for a major publisher that I viewed as important and that would hopefully have some longevity. All too soon afterward, though, the publishers unfairly sidelined John.

“So, to summarize, it was John and I who knew all of the characters and did all the grunt work. You don’t read about that on Wikipedia, folks. I was given carte blanche (which didn’t last long, by the way), mostly because, and I know this sounds hard to believe, Goldwater and Silberkleit did not even know anything about their own characters! So really they were relying on John and me to set the stage and do a proper revival of their super—I mean (ahem!)—mighty heroes.

“You know, to be honest about it, even back when I was a fan and Mighty Crusaders and Fly-Man first came out [in the ’60s], I was enthralled and at the same time disappointed. Cool characters, yes—but they weren’t even given a proper chance then. Even at that age I couldn’t help noticing that house books were crude and silly and just downright poorly done, which is somewhat surprising to me still, because the writer [Jerry Siegel] was the co-creator of Superman!”

FLY ON THE WALL

Even a talent as formidable as Rich Buckler couldn’t be expected to continue to crank out wraparound covers and interior pages for book-length stories along with scripts and editorial duties on a bimonthly basis. Bear in mind also that as if he didn’t have enough on his plate, Rich was concurrently scripting and sometimes illustrating features in The Fly for Red Circle. These issues, of course, contained solo adventures of the winged hero, but also sometimes contained backup tales of the Jaguar.

When asked about the renaming of Fly-Man to simply the Fly again, and whether Joe Simon still had any possible claim on the character, Rich explains: “Well, the Fly for me was always the Simon & Kirby version. ‘Fly-Man’ just sounded clunky. I wonder, rather, how the Fly ever became ‘Fly-Man’! As far as the legal side of things, Archie Comics owned the rights to the Fly, so that never became an issue. “[My favorite character] would be the Fly. For Red Circle’s first issue of The Fly I penciled and inked the front cover. I wanted to draw the interior stories, but I had my hands full with writing, editing, and drawing the Crusaders. One day John Carbonaro suggested calling up Jim Steranko. He said, ‘Jim is a fan of the Fly big-time.’ So I did [call him]. And I hired Jim to do two covers—actually, Jim did both the drawing and the coloring on those, and he also designed the book’s logo—and what he sent was virtually all of the necessary ‘pre-press.’

Blowing His Top (top) Original art to the splash page of MC #2, signed by its writer/penciler/editor. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). (bottom) Courtesy of Heritage, original art to the splash for the Original Shield story commencing in Mighty Heroes #3. The Shield serial continued through issue #6.

TM & © Archie Publications, Inc.

52 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

Archie’s Here (left) With issue #6 (Mar. 1984), Mighty Crusaders now bore the “Archie Adventures Series” brand. (right) Its sister title, Blue Ribbon Comics, which originally ran solo tales of the Archie superheroes, concurrently abandoned the “Red Circle” seal with issue #5 (Feb. 1984).

TM & © Archie Publications, Inc.

When that cover art (plus an original cover for #2) came in, I decided to bump my original cover to the back cover of issue #1.”

Ultimately, beginning with issue #2 of The Mighty Crusaders, almost certainly due to Rich’s overwhelming workload, backup tales began to be included in the books, though the overworked Buckler somehow still managed to script the backup nine-page “Mister Midnight” in the second issue.

The primary premise for the lead tale, Chapter Two of “The Genesis Conspiracy,” was the appearance of former heroic allies, or so it seemed.

In actuality, Eterno had animated duplicates of the Hangman, the Fox, et al. as agents for him to manipulate from afar and battle the Mighty Crusaders, who didn’t seem to be equal to the threat, once again leaving our heroes on a suspense-filled ending until next issue.

AGENTS OF THE SHIELD

The third and final installment in the story arc brought some new things to the table, including exceptional, moody inking by Ricardo Villagran, who had replaced Frank Giacoia as inker. Also, the Comet has returned to his original costume from the ’40s.

“I had carte blanche,” Buckler tells BI. “So everything that went into those books was my call while I was managing editor. There were no meetings and no editorial directives from on high. Richard Goldwater had some kind of infatuation with the Web and Steel Sterling, as I recall, but aside from that, input or direction from either of the publishers was non-existent.”

As part of that “carte blanche,” Rich introduced a new character into the mix in the form of Darkling, a superpowered woman with the ability to teleport, which served to aid the team as they continued to deal with the rapidly fracturing alliance between Eterno and the Brain Emperor.

The battle was an epic one and each member proved their mettle, with particularly impressive turns from each man bearing the name of the Shield. One other new element was the kickoff of a series of backup stories featuring the original Shield that took him back to his roots as a “G-man” with the FBI. These stories were written by Martin Greim.

When asked if having two Shields was a bit on the confusing side, Buckler offers this observation: “Bringing back the original Shield was my idea. I didn’t see any conflict or confusion there. They were both completely different characters from

different eras. I remember discussing this with writer Marty Greim and he was thrilled with the possibility of giving the original Shield his own stories.

“With that in mind, I decided to call up Dick Ayers and I asked him if he was available for freelance work. Amazingly, Dick told me no one was hiring him and he couldn’t get work from any of the publishers for the longest time. So I put him and Marty together as a team and created a backup feature for them to do. I loved the art team of Ayers and [Tony] DeZuniga on Jonah Hex, so I wrangled Tony into teaming up with Dick again.”

Marty Greim was pretty pleased to be involved with the original Shield. “I was very familiar with the Mighty Crusaders as a team,” Greim tells BACK ISSUE. “Red Circle/Archie contacted me about doing some work for them, so I went to New York to check out some of their comic-book files. The Shield was always a favorite of mine.”

The addition of the new character Darkling sparked my inevitable question of how the team lineup came about, and Buckler elaborated: “They were my own personal choices. The Fly and the Shield (Lancelot Strong) were obvious choices. The Comet needed a strong presence (and I favored his original costume). The original Shield I added because I love that character and because I have a special affection for Golden Age heroes.

“Okay, Fly-Girl was a bit redundant. And I wanted one new character on the team, so I added Darkling (my creation). Besides, with Fly-Girl being the only female member, I felt adding another strong female would help to balance things a bit.”

It seemed some of the lettercol writers were also calling for a roster change with another female character, and when queried about how much influence those had, Rich offered the following: “Adding Darkling was my idea. That was my plan almost from the start.

But there was a concerted effort (at least on my part) to listen to our readers.

“Also, since there was no ethnic diversity I added the genius and superpowered Dr. Malcolm Reeves (a black man based on two friends of mine—Malcolm Davis and Dr. Richard Reeves).

“It just felt right to make Dr. Reeves best buddies with the Web (also a brilliant science guy). I played that up somewhat. But I also wanted to develop the Web’s character further. And I always favored the Gray Morrow version of the Black Hood.”

A final twist in issue #3 was when the Comet announced at the end that he would be leaving, new/old costume and all. Ultimately, he states that due to an encounter with the Brain Emperor, he underwent Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 53

some physical and psychological changes that had to be dealt with, so the Comet has decided to do so in his own time and place, putting the wraps on this first three-part storyline.

Issue #4 (Nov. 1983) boldly proclaims on the cover that it contains the beginning of “The Elimination Trilogy,” indicating that the threestory arc will be a continuing concept.

Buckler answers the question of whether there was a reason for that format: “Not really. Maybe that was following my lead with the three-issue [“Atlantis Rising!”] story arc I wrote and drew for The Mighty Crusaders.

Or maybe not.”

Rich’s reference to following his lead refers to the fact that a new writer had been brought in with issue #4, Cary Burkett. “Once I hired Cary Burkett as the new writer for the Crusaders—well, Cary had big plans and great ideas,” Buckler says.

Buckler continued to edit and contribute artwork, but was now relieved of scripting duties as “Elimination Game” kicks off. In issue #4.

Our heroes are now facing off against the Eliminators, a new super-team led by the eerie Druid. The Web, Jaguar, and the Fly, along with Fly-Girl, are more prominently featured. The only Shield involved is Lancelot Strong, as the original Shield had been relegated to the backup stories provided by Marty Greim.

The Eliminators include Rogue Star, Demon Dream, Lodestone, and Brontosaurus, and once again the Crusaders seem to be handily outmatched.

The melee finally gets down to the non-superpowered Black Hood, which, of course, crosses right into the next issue. Using a handy gas pellet and his wits and motorcycle, Black Hood is able to extricate himself from harm, but his defeated teammates are still in the clutches of the Eliminators, so he doesn’t venture far as he tries to figure out how to help them.

Elsewhere, the Druid is using the unconscious Lancelot Strong, Fly-Girl, and the Jaguar to create a triangle of transference. A particular focus is placed upon Ralph Hardy, otherwise known as the Jaguar.

His dreams reveal elements of how he came to bear the jaguar belt and obtain the animal powers that come with it. Soon, however, the dream becomes much more when a being with the head of a lion calling itself Varigon appears. Under Varigon’s warning, direction, and shared power, astral versions of the Jaguar, Fly-Girl, and Lancelot Strong are doing battle with the threat of the un-beings on some otherworldly plane.

It turns out the battle is directly connected to the spell being cast by the Druid and their efforts break it, disrupting his nefarious efforts.

Elsewhere, the other members of the Crusaders are going toe-to-toe with the Eliminators until finally triumphing, but it’s a bit of a hollow victory, as they still do not know the fate of their comrades. The caption in the final panel informs readers that next up will be the untold origin of the Jaguar. Strangely, though, that didn’t come to pass when The Mighty Crusaders #6 (Mar. 1984) hit the outlets with a special “All-Shield Issue” written by Martin L. Greim. To add a little further confusion, the Red Circle logo is nowhere to be found and the trade dress now displays “Archie Adventure Series.” The price has dropped from $1.00 to 75¢, and now there are advertisements within the book and on the back cover.

A JAGUAR DECLAWED

What happened to the promised untold Jaguar origin? Was there a hiccup in the production schedule? Was the creative team abruptly spirited away into the unknown?

Rich Buckler offers his viewpoint of these changes: “There was, at this point, burgeoning internal conflict and downright sabotage going on in the editorial department with deadline and scheduling problems, over-budget spending (not by me, but by the other editors, by the way), and me just doing my best to handle all of that.

“I was overworked and underpaid, a bit stressed out, and we did run into inevitable deadline problems. So I agreed to skip one month of the Crusaders and gather my resources and my sanity.

“Plus, Richard Goldwater (now the self-appointed editor-in-chief) divided up the editorial chores on the books, so I went from managing editor on all of the books to just editor on Mighty Crusaders. There was some in-fighting at first, and it was around this time that he threatened to bring down the hammer. He already asserted that he would now take charge of everything, which was probably the plan all along.

“So Goldwater made it clear that, ‘If this stops being fun, I’m pulling the plug on the whole thing!’ That was a rather high-handed and deceptive maneuver, I thought—so I didn’t take it all that seriously.

Besides, it already had ceased to be fun for me at that point.

“So on the one hand he was saying that he would not tolerate any in-fighting with his editors—but at the same time he was actually encouraging editors to compete with each other! I’m talking here about Bill DuBay and Robin Snyder (both brought to Archie Comics by me and on my recommendation). These two were both operating quite independently and pursing their own rather dark creative agenda on their respective books. And both of them were actively competing against me.”

As to the change in logos, advertising, and pricing, Rich Buckler poses a rhetorical question: “Could it be that the publishers had no creative vision and were unabashedly profit-driven? That’s a distinct possibility, I think. At that stage I was put on the sidelines, with no say in anything except for Mighty Crusaders.”

It seems that, at least for this “All-Shield Issue,” Marty Greim was given a deadline headache as writer, but he assured me that wasn’t really the case when he stated quite simply that he’s a fast writer and his scripts were already in stock.

“Featuring Mighty Action Punch” Meanwhile, toy manufacturer Remco produced a line of Mighty Crusaders action figures, with good guys and bad, to compete with Kenner’s Super Powers (DC) and Mattel’s Secret Wars (Marvel) lines.

TM & © Archie Publications, Inc.

54 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

Will the Red Circle Be Unbroken?

Bucker’s Mighty Crusaders started with a bang, but as the series progressed, post-Rich, it began to wither, under a quarterly publication schedule. Stalwarts Dick Ayers and Frank Giacoia produced this cover for issue #11 (Mar. 1985). The title ended with its unlucky 13th issue.

TM & © Archie Publications, Inc.

After this one-issue hiatus, the next edition contains the promised Jaguar origin story and further battles and conflicts for our heroes to include encounters with zombies and even prehistoric reptiles with both the Brain Emperor and the Druid calling the shots from the shadows. Also of note, the backup story in issue #7 is out of the regular mold in that it’s an adventure of Thunder Bunny, the original creation of Martin L. Greim. “I had an agreement with Red Circle that I could use my Thunder Bunny character and keep the ownership of it,” Greim says.

By issue #9 (Sept. 1984), things are back on their usual track, but Cary Burkett had moved on after only four issues. This issue offers a story scripted by David Singer featuring the original Shield as he faces criminal charges for suspicion of murder, breaking and entering, and assault based on a crime he stopped clear back in the first issue. A huge controversy ensues as he undergoes a full-blown jury trial, with public opinion seeming to weigh against the star-spangled hero, deeming him a vigilante.

In an effort to help exonerate their teammate, other members of the Mighty Crusaders comb the underworld for evidence that will help to acquit him. By now the genuine Fox and Hangman have joined the group and the Comet has made his return. Ultimately the Shield is found not guilty, but the entire process has taken its emotional toll and he is uncertain if he wants to continue in his role as a hero. Rich Buckler had some things in mind with this storyline, as he explained: “I planted the idea in the beginning pages of Mighty Crusaders #1. My plan was to pick up on it later with the original Shield, old-fashioned hero that he was, not realizing at first the full consequences of his actions when he killed one of the bad guys and just figured he did a good job.

David Singer came up with a provocative story for issue #9 that brought the Shield to trial for his reckless actions.

It was pretty heavy material back then.

“David and I hashed out the general idea together and he wrote the final script. It was our attempt at relevance.

For an Archie comic, that was a big and bold step!”

Issue #10, interestingly enough, brings Marty Greim to the forefront as scripter, but also marks the swan song for both his and Rich Buckler’s involvement in this series.

Issue #11 contains yet another new writer in Rich Margopoulos, along with a new art team consisting of Alan Kupperberg on pencils and Frank Giacoia making a return on inking duties. The differences are jarringly apparent, and while the Shield is back among his comrades, the Black Hood has reverted to his old costume. The changes in the series continue to roll forth at a breakneck pace until it finally grinds to a halt with issue #13 (Sept. 1985).

This final effort, whether consciously or by coincidence, shows the elements of camp creeping back in to the book, exhibited partly with the team’s occasionally bantering dialogue. Furthermore, the villain facing off against the Crusaders seems more caricature than viable

threat. The creature is called Redstone and is literally an anthropomorphized being composed of red rock with a block head and white trunks. How far the mighty had fallen. One cannot help but speculate that the relentless changeups in the creative team over the history of the series contributed to its cancellation.

Despite more than one hiatus during their existence and a difficulty for this mighty team in finding their footing over the years, good heroes never really die.

In the ’90s, DC Comics published titles featuring Archie’s superheroes under its !mpact Comics imprint. Recent versions of some of these classic characters have been reintroduced in Archie’s “Dark Circle” imprint, the successor to the Red Circle line. Offerings include a new, grittier version of the Black Hood, a somewhat whimsical take on the Fox, and a female interpretation of the Shield, ensuring that the spirit of these characters endures.

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 has been fortunate enough to conduct over 80 to date at www.thesilverlantern.com. Bryan also co-authored the book Nick Cardy: Wit-Lash.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 55

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

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“Christmas in the Bronze Age!” Go behind the scenes of comics’ best holiday tales of the 1970s through the early 1990s! And we revisit Superhero Merchandise Catalogs of the late ‘70s! Featuring work by SIMON BISLEY, CHRIS CLAREMONT, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍALÓPEZ, KEITH GIFFEN, the KUBERT STUDIO, DENNY O’NEIL, STEVE PURCELL, JOHN ROMITA, JR., and more. Cover by MARIE SEVERIN and MIKE ESPOSITO!

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“Eighties Ladies!” MILLER & SIENKIEWICZ’s Elektra: Assassin, Dazzler, Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau), Lady Quark, DAN MISHKIN’s Wonder Woman, WILLIAM MESSNER-LOEBS and ADAM KUBERT’s Jezebel Jade, Somerset Holmes, and a look back at Marvel’s Dakota North! Featuring the work of BRUCE JONES, JOHN ROMITA JR., ROGER STERN, and many more, plus a previously unpublished cover by SIENKIEWICZ.

“All-Jerks Issue!” Guy Gardner, Namor in the Bronze Age, J. Jonah Jameson, Flash Thompson, DC’s Biggest Blowhards, the Heckler, Obnoxio the Clown, and Archie’s “pal” Reggie Mantle! Featuring the work of (non-jerks) RICH BUCKLER, KURT BUSIEK, JOHN BYRNE, STEVE ENGLEHART, KEITH GIFFEN, ALAN KUPPERBERG, and many more. Cover-featuring KEVIN MAGUIRE’s iconic Batman/Guy Gardner “One Punch”!

“Bronze Age Halloween!” The Swamp Thing revival of 1982, Swamp Thing in Hollywood, Phantom Stranger team-ups, KUPPERBERG & MIGNOLA’s Phantom Stranger miniseries, DC’s The Witching Hour, the Living Mummy, and an index of Marvel’s 1970s’ horror anthologies! Featuring the work of RICH BUCKLER, ANDY MANGELS, VAL MAYERIK, MARTIN PASKO, MICHAEL USLAN, TOM YEATES, and many more. Cover by YEATES.

“All-Captains Issue!” Bronze Age histories of Shazam! (Captain Marvel) and Captain MarVell, Captain Carrot, Captain Storm and the Losers, Captain Universe, and Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers. Featuring C. C. BECK, PAT BRODERICK, JACK KIRBY, ELLIOT S. MAGGIN, BILL MANTLO, DON NEWTON, BOB OKSNER, SCOTT SHAW!, JIM STARLIN, ROY THOMAS, and more.

Cover painting by DAVE COCKRUM!

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by J e r r y

Boyd

In the 1960s, pop culture spawned few characters that were cooler than secret agents. Ian Fleming’s James Bond was wildly popular in the movie theaters, and animation companies, TV networks, film studios, and yes, comic-book companies, looked for ways to cash in on this exciting new trend. “Spymania,” it was called, and at the fledgling Tower Comics, the nation’s newest delight got a novel approach—super-spies with superpowers.

Why not? Superpowered people were all the rage. At Mighty Marvel, they all came with angst and neuroses for a more adult appeal. Archie Comics retooled its old MLJ superheroes and introduced new characters, as did Charlton Comics with its Action Heroes line. In addition, “the New Look Batman” and “Marvelmania” invigorated the costumed crowd and their readers.

Wallace Wood was a proven talent by 1965. He’d done exemplary work in many arenas, and baby boomers of my generation will always love him for the superb compositions he gave Topps bubble-gum cards, lunchboxes, game boards, fanzines, monster magazines, album jackets—he was everywhere, and we loved it! Before that, he stunned comic fans with his brilliant EC Comics work. So, it was only natural for Woody to be there for the next big thing, and he wisely combined two big new things— spy guys and gals with superpowers.

CREATORS AND CAST

At Tower Comics, Wood would be an editor as well as the chief artist and chief writer. He called in old friends: Reed Crandall and Al Williamson from Woody’s EC days shared page space with Paul Reinman (who also did the main art chores for Archie’s superhero lineup), Mike Sekowsky (from DC’s Justice League of America), Chic Stone, Steve Ditko, and George Tuska, among others.

Leonard Brown, who’d be the most prominent of the T-Agents (as I’ll call the super-team in abbreviation), was named after Len Brown, a friend of Woody’s from the Topps Cards days earlier on.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. stood for The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves and had its main headquarters at the U.N. building in New York City. (All heroes must report to NYC or some variation on it, right?) Brown’s promotion included a waist-cinching device scientists called the Thunderbelt, and this device gave Len super-strength, invulnerability, and super-stamina that would enable him to keep up with the ne’er-do-wells who peopled the ranks of S.P.I.D.E.R. and the Warlords, as well as various Communists, mad scientists, and colorful supervillains. His new codename was Dynamo—appropriate for his incredible energy and bolt of lightning that always accompanied his activation of the T-belt.

Dr. Anthony Dunn was a brilliant scientist faced with death.

Before he passed on, he found a way to transfer his brain patterns to an android body he created along with another doctor. NoMan was his new name, and Woody may have been proudest of this original creation. No man (pun intended) in comics was like him.

NoMan had many android bodies at his disposal, and could move his brain patterns from one to another in case of emergencies or a seeming death to one of them. A cloak of invisibility earned him the nickname of “the Invisible Agent.”

Lightning was Tower’s fast-moving equivalent of the Flash or Quicksilver. Guy Gilbert began as one of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad,

Woody’s Wonders “Spied on” by perennial nemesis the Iron Maiden stand four of the T-Agents, Lightning, NoMan, Dynamo, and Menthor. Thanks to Jerry Ordway for doing the art (circa ’13) and providing the scan!

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 57

Men of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. (top left) Wallace Wood in a photo taken in 1977. (top right) One of Woody’s assistants, Bill Pearson, did this great commission for this article’s author a few years ago. Dynamo busts through walls like nobody else! Thanks again, Bill! (bottom) Dan Adkins’ 2000 portrait of the man with the Thunderbelt.

Dynamo TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.

a strike force I’ll talk about later, but his training and heroism stood out and he got the super-speed suit that gave him his quickness.

John Janus was a former criminal who decided crime really didn’t pay. He became an Agent and later got a cybernetic helmet which emitted mindblowing emanations (it was the 1960s, right?). With the ability to gain temporary control of his enemies’ minds, a new Agent was added: Menthor.

Non-powered but just as heroic as the T-Agents was the aforementioned T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad. Gilbert was their leader before he got his colorful outfit and powers, but Egghead was the smartest, Weed was the safecracker, and Kitten was the lovely blonde Wood loved to draw, but just as resourceful and engaged in her job as her male companions. Big “Dynamite” Dan Adkins (named after Woody’s young protégé) handled the explosives and the roughest human customers the team had to face, being the biggest member of the team. He’d later get a name change to John.

Raven was a late addition.

He got mechanical wings from the U.N. chiefs after Menthor was killed (in an unforgettable shocker) by the dastardly subterraneans and one of their hooded Warlord leaders.

Traveling the world, backed by the United Nations and local law enforcement, the T-Agents bowed in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (Nov. 1965) and 58 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

had a respectable 20-issue run, the last publication composed of mostly reprints as the 1960s closed (#20, Nov. 1969). Dynamo got four beautifully drawn issues, NoMan earned two, and an unrelated Undersea Agent title, with hero Davey Jones (!!), lasted for six issues.

SPY SHUTDOWN

1969 ended and the T-Agents shuffled off this (im-)mortal coil. In the 1970s, Wood and his former co-workers had moved on. Aside from a stunning illo Wally used in a later publication with Dynamo typically plowing his way through a pack of determined but hapless space aliens, the super-spies had gone into that comic limbo we’re all familiar with. Artist Dan Adkins told me by letter circa ’01, “I had fun with those [Tower] books. Wood really came up with something there—spies with superpowers.

I killed Menthor and it caused a problem with some readers, but that story is really appreciated now. Overall, it was a lot of fun working at Tower.” Woody checked on the sales of his canceled comics line. He took some pride, from some accounts, that it was poor distribution and not poor sales that ended his Thunderers.

JOLTED INTO THE 1980s!!

Students of pop culture may recall that the early 1980s was not a good time for television. Somehow, the networks’ trusted producers and new ones had forgotten how to make a sitcom, drama, etc. work for mass consumption.

In desperation, they turned back to tested/beloved stars —Dick van Dyke and Lucille Ball, among others. Nostalgia for the 1960s, following the 1970s’ love for “happy days” (both the Ike era and the show), had come around.

John Carbonaro was a publisher at one of those interesting new companies that would captivate comicdom.

First Comics, Pacific Comics, Eclipse Comics, and others would offer their takes on romance, super-doers, science fiction, and the like. John C. tested the waters with JCP Features #1 (1981), with his initials as part of the banner.

He had Archie Comics as a backer; Archie was testing the waters, also—they retooled their old MLJ heroes (some

last used in the 1960s, with little effect on Marvel and DC) and wanted to see if they’d be picked up by readers [see related story elsewhere in this issue—ed.].

This B&W effort was one large slugfest and not very notable. Even John C. was somewhat disappointed with the results. The T-Agents came out in six big chapters and punched it out with their old villains. Sales weren’t good and even the two backups, one a truncated reprint of the Fly by Simon & Kirby and a Neal Adams Black Hood yarn, overshadowed the passionate but uninspiring return of the super-spies.

Undaunted, the ambitious Carbonaro returned in 1983. This time the company was still under his name and called JC Comics, though Archie was still a financier. Testing the waters still, Archie Comics and the young publisher started off with Hall of Fame featuring the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (May 1983).

Would nostalgia work? Sadly, Wood and Crandall were dead by the time this issue appeared. Would reprints of their old stories attract new readers? In the ’80s, Tower Comics back issues were still very cheap, but… could you find them?

Carbonaro explained in #2’s text introduction, “For fans who’ve entered the field since 1970 and wondered what all the fuss was about, here’s a brand-new package of exciting stories and art equal to anything ever presented by any other publisher!” Behind a Lou Manna/Rich Buckler cover, sales on this opening gambit were apparently encouraging enough to warrant more. The second entry showcased a masterpiece by Steve Ditko, the only major artist from the scintillating 1960s to return to the saga of the spies. Inside the back cover for this one, a house ad proudly proclaimed that a NEW T-Agents #1 was on its way! A third reprint issue with a nice cover by Bob Layton, who was wowing them with Iron Man over at Marvel, saw print.

However, all was not… totally well. In HOFFTTA #2, an irate Brian C. Boehner blasted the two-years-old JCP (John Carbonaro Presents #1) one-shot, commenting, “I’ve seen the first ‘JCP Features’ and frankly, the concept is good but the execution is weak. I won’t comment on the script, since that’s not my forte. My gripe is about the art and its reproduction.” As the editor/art director of Movie Special Series, Brian’s missive got a special page.

He went on to offer JCP his services on the production end. Clearly, some readers were fired up about seeing the T-Agents done right! His help was accepted. Later, Carbonaro admitted that the new story was “a dumb storyline” that was coupled with a number of Jack Kirby action pose re-dos by penciler Pat Gabriele. Pat was talented, but everyone involved was young and green and the old masters in the backups’ materials unfortunately overshadowed the efforts of the youngsters.

A Thunderous Return (top) 1981’s JCP Features #1—the boys are back in town, folks! Cover art by Mark Texiera. (bottom) The first two issues of JC’s reprint series, Hall of Fame featuring the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. Cover for #1 (May 1983) by Lou Manna and Rich Buckler; cover for #2 (Aug. 1983) by Steve Ditko.

TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 59

Dynamoic Return (top) The first issue of JC Comics’ short-lived T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents series. This impressive cover by Lou Manna and Will Blyberg cover has a nod to Steranko. (inset) Agent Vulcan takes center stage on this extremely nice Blyberg cover for T-Agents #2 (Jan. 1984). (bottom) Vulcan kills a lot of bugs on this page from issue #2.

TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.

60 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

MORE THUNDERSTORMS ON THE WAY

JCP Features #1 had heart, but without the styles of vision of the old professionals Wood, Gil Kane, Mike Sekowsky, George Tuska, Crandall, Ditko, Stone, John Guinta, Manny Stallman, etc., it wasn’t up to being a real competitor. In 1983, John C. would try, try again. This time, a new T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (vol. 2 #1, May 1983) would hit the shelves of the direct-sales stores.

Publishing giant Archie Comics was still with him, but with interest waning. Their attempts to bring back the Fly failed, even though two of their issues had outstanding covers by Jim Steranko.

A 28-pager called “The Invasion Begins” brought back the agentswho-wouldn’t-die against some of their old enemies-whowouldn’t-quit and were still thirsting for world domination. There were some interesting new developments here added to the old and familiar—a new agent, Vulcan, was added, for example.

Carbonaro again wrote a text feature to open and writer Chris Adames saw his writing visualized by the cover artists. The invasion is overseen by a mysterious, unseen menace (continued stories would dominate the ’80s books, unlike the ’60s material) who’d be revealed later. He (or it?) orchestrates an attack on Soviet Russia in Red Square, no less (Woody and Len Brown wouldn’t have dared!), hoping the Reds would blame the US (and the U.N., which gave the Agents their marching orders). The idea was to goad the Super Powers into war. To keep those meddling superAgents out of the way, an army of powerful robots (resembling Wood’s good ol’ Dynavac from T-Agents #2) attack a number of do-gooders on a tropical island post and “slaughter” them!!

Dynamo is sent there and returns the favor, wiping out a small army. But the U.N. cannot pinpoint the source of the attack, and the Soviets demand answers the NYC brass cannot provide … but there’d be more to come this time around!

The comics world had been “Marvel-ized” to a large degree in writing styles by ’83, so an up-and-down relationship between Guy Gilbert/Lightning and Kitten Kane was included.

Raven is more dynamic and lethal in this revamp. He has stun beams and laser claws added to his power of flight. Travis Riley is the new agent on the block and is codenamed Vulcan.

Agent Vulcan can create shockwaves and throw blasts through his hands. He can fly, as well. However, like the unfortunate Lightning, who ages when he has to run at hyper-speed, Riley suffers pain when he delivers the goods and his hearing is soon to suffer.

The nurturing Kitten suffers with him, and Guy suffers on the side—a romantic triangle is on the way. In short, the soap-opera leanings of Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, and Gary Friedrich, nurtured slowly at first and brought to fruition in the ’60s, was adopted by all by the ’80s. Wally Wood and his writers had taken some of that, but relied on action and concepts more in their storytelling. Over the long haul, the Marvel way had won.

In T-Agents #2 (Jan. 1984), the invasion continues stateside in “Battle in D.C.!,” a book-length epic tucked under a beautiful Will Blyberg cover which spotlights Vulcan center-stage flanked by NoMan and Dynamo. A welcome addition would be a Murphy Anderson two-page pinup/centerfold with the two moreestablished agents with the Iron Maiden. The IM showed up on the first page, however, lounging seductively on a large rock as Dynamo looks over his fallen foes. Len Brown had named the stunning redhead “Rusty,” and she was his Catwoman to his Batman. Bad girl and sometimes heartless mercenary she could be, but she couldn’t resist risking life and limb for Dynamo at times, and he was there to do the same for her, risking his rep with his agency and bosses. Star-crossed lovers, their relationship would reach more adult heights in new comics that… ahem, didn’t have the Comics Code seal on them.

Up Against the Wall (inset) A playful illo by Rich Maurizio from the letters page in T-Agents #2 poked fun at Brown’s penchant for smashing through walls. (right) On the back cover of that same issue, Iron Maiden was less playful… as were the police!

TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.

The last big purple, featureless robot attacks Len, and Rusty chirps, “I enjoy watching you fight!” Len wins. The tension is building at the U.N. offices as the Russians’ anger grows and no answers are forthcoming for them. But another swarm is taking place, this one outside the US Capitol and edging closer to the Reagan White House! Large insects (Woody and friends had used large creatures in a large way in years past) are moving past the White House guards, and though President Reagan isn’t named, artists Manna, Bonanno, and Blyberg put together a nice likeness. Gigantic, clicking mandibles crash through the windows of the Oval Office and the president is about to be crushed by them, but Raven swoops in and flies him to safety. In a brief interlude, a shadowy female figure looks at a familiar, largely forgotten helmet. The T-Squad is above Washington in fighter planes and are blasting bugs to bits. The IM dumps Dynamo into the area where the insects are hatching.

Vulcan gains greater control over his powers and asks for his costume. After he gets it, he, Kitten, Lightning, NoMan, and Raven (in different war zones) go about crushing a lot of bugs.

However, our conniving ne’er-do-well mastermind has a scrambler to keep NoMan from switching bodies.

Is this the end? No, somehow… our hero manages it—and next issue, “Counterattack!” Lou Manna spoke to editor Jon B. Cooke for The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Companion (TwoMorrows, 2005) and recalled, “I think he [Blyberg] was just semi-pro at the time. I said, ‘Boy, this guy has a nice Wally Wood inking style. He’d be good.’

John [Carbonaro] listened to my suggestion, went out and got Willie, and I thought he did a great job on the first one that I did I really was impressed with his inks.” With Paul Bonanno adding to the art chores on the second issue, the team scored again.

That same year saw the Justice Machine Annual #1 (1983) put out by Texas Comics. This one-shot pit the new superhero team called the Justice Machine in the obligatory battle against and then with the T-Agents. New talents Bill [William Messner-] Loebs wrote it and the artwork was

by Bill Reinhold/Jeff Dee and Bill Anderson. The Iron Maiden horned in and ended up in the hospital for her trouble. Michael Golden provided a beautiful cover, inked by Mike Gustovich.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 61

T-AGENTS WIN THE BLUE RIBBON

Prime Rib(bon) (left) Ditko and Blyberg were a perfect blend, as seen in this NoMan solo tale in Blue Ribbon Comics #12. (inset) Its Blyberg-drawn cover. (right) The new Menthor wants to join the club.

From Blue Ribbon Comics #13 by Paul Bonanno and Blyberg.

TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.

And then, somebody turned off the lights… er, thunder.

The continuing story simply stopped and the concluding chapter didn’t show up until Blue Ribbon Comics vol. 2 #12 (Sept. 1984). The “Archie Adventure Series” square appeared near the top of the cover’s left side. What had happened?

It seemed the Archie editors and publisher were still willing to give John C. and his project another chance, but only to keep their revived title going. Blue Ribbon Comics had tried to resuscitate the Shield, Flyman or the Fly, the Web, and Private Strong, but failing that, the Agents got to go on.

Most of the same creators were back and “Counterattack!” began where the last adventure left off—with an emotional NoMan having just transferred his consciousness to one of his android bodies at headquarters but now he knew where the attack was coming from! The moon! Blyberg’s cover had been a nice reminder of Woody’s Dynamo #3—a stunning swoop through outer space by our hero!

In the hatchery caverns outside of D.C., Dynamo, the Iron Maiden, and a few of her men meet… the new Menthor! It appears that the unseen young woman from the last installment owns John Janus’ helmet and can even talk to his spirit (no one else can hear him). She wants to officially be the new Menthor (with a costume close to the slain Agent’s in design), but Len doesn’t like it, even when she utilizes her mental energy bolts to bring overhanging rocks down onto the threatening insects. Heading off into space, four of the Agents meet the aliens and the aforementioned mastermind, who turns out to be an alien-engineered derivative of NoMan! (Don’t tell Ultron or

62 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

the Vision about this “father-son” mishap….) Backup comes in the form of space-suited U.N. commandos, and the threat is ended. However, the James Bond-like ending was always on the way, right, and when a weary Brown returns to his apartment, the seductive Rusty is waiting… out of costume. Len smiles as he nears her and cuts off the lights.

Charlie Boatner, Steve Ditko, and Willie Blyberg produced a solid backup solo of NoMan (he doesn’t get tired, okay?), co-plotted by Carbonaro. John C. put together worthy efforts; he and his writers and co-plotters put in a good amount of the humorous touches the original team implemented, and some of the concepts were noteworthy.

Still, his time as a creator/editor/publisher would end here.

Vulcan had just started but his role as an agent wouldn’t be continued. The Deluxe Comics era was about to begin…

THUNDER—WRAPPED IN A DELUXE PACKAGE!

The T-Agents arguably had their biggest moments in the ’80s in five four-color outings under the David Singer-produced title Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.

Unlike Carbonaro, Singer had more connections with professionals and more cash. And though he’d worked with John C. for a short time on the earlier titles, he felt and said, “The characters themselves are public domain.”

Singer did not believe Carbonaro had exclusive rights.

So, for a time, Singer contented himself with a license to use the T-Agents. Later, legal problems would arise between him and John C. WWTA #1 (Nov. 1984) hit the stores like a lightning flash with a powerful, yet wonderfully understated, cover

The Other DC (Deluxe Comics) (left) Pérez cover for Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (Nov. 1984). (right) A glamour shot, circa 1985, of Dannette Thomas, from a shoot arranged by a friend as a gift.

“Dann felt it might be thought of as being too ‘coquettish,’ [but] I have that picture over my desk,” says Roy. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.

by George Pérez. Team books in the Reagan era would see stellar penciling by two emerging titans, John Byrne and George Pérez—Justice League of America, Fantastic Four, X-Men, The New Teen Titans, and The Avengers would see increased sales because of their stellar artistry. “Gorgeous” George was an excellent choice for the Thunderers and would do four covers for Singer. Other artists on the lineup would include Keith Giffen, Ditko, Dave Cockrum, Murphy Anderson, Jerry Ordway, and Rich Buckler.

Writing assignments would be given to Tom and Mary Bierbaum, Brian Thomas, Singer, Roger McKenzie (white-hot from excellent scripting on Daredevil)… and Dann Thomas.

I asked Dann if she’d read comics before her work on the Agents. Her response: “I never actually purchased comics, but would read them at the homes of friends and relatives. I wasn’t selective, but read whatever was available—Superman of the 1950s, with all the weirdness was especially memorable. I was never a comics fan, but have always been, and still am, an avid reader of newspaper strips, especially humor.” Ms. Thomas was no newcomer to comics. From the late 1970s up to the mid-1990s, she’d worked with her husband Roy on a variety of titles, mostly DC characters. On some, she provided captions, co-plotting, and research.

Why didn’t Deluxe Comics contact the more established Roy Thomas to write for them, you may be wondering? Dann explains, “David Singer contacted Roy and asked him about writing for the proposed new T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents for $100 a page… at a time when the top rate in comics was under $50 a page. Roy was interested, but he was still under contract to DC. But Roy mentioned to David that I was available, and by then the two of us had done many stories together for DC—Arak, Infinity, Inc., Jonni Thunder, All-Star Squadron, Captain Carrot, et al. David hired me at the top rate, probably under the assumption that Roy would be at least co-writing my stories. However, that was not the case.” Roy confirms this. I asked if he helped out and his reply was, “No, her stories were entirely hers. I may have suggested a word change or two, but that’s about it.”

Dann’s “Code Name: The Raven” in the first issue brought the high-soaring hero swooping about Bahrain in the Middle East. Later, inside a posh casino, the tuxedoed Craig Lawson matches wits with Phoenicia, a beautiful but heartless jewel thief who once gave the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. agency a try. Lawson met her there and an attraction was begun. Pérez did the artwork.

“George Pérez was the penciler of all three stories I wrote,” Ms. Thomas notes. “He was justifiably popular, for his storytelling, his draftsmanship, and the incredible detail of his drawing. All three inkers (Dave Cockrum, Bill Wray, and Dan Adkins) did a superb job, as well. And Paty Cockrum was the colorist. I couldn’t have wanted better artists to realize those stories.”

And as far as crafting the stories the stories, she tells us, “In each case, I wrote a synopsis and it was sent to George. We worked Marvel-style, with me adding the dialogue after he had penciled the story. George did a masterful job laying out stories that were probably over-plotted, with me trying to cram too much story into ten pages. In one story, I wrote Phoenicia masquerading as a belly-dancer, because George’s wife Carol is an accomplished belly-dancer.”

Pérez told the editor of the aforementioned T-Agents Companion, “It was great [working with Dann]! It was nice because I know that she was catering some of the material for me.” Ms. Thomas goes on to add, “I only did three stories, and I like them all equally. I started a story about the non-powered T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, but then was told to stop work on it because the book had been canceled.”

Dann and George’s stunning collaborations were the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Stephen Perry and Keith Giffen were taking Menthor (the new female incarnation would still be around) in new directions. Consuela (or Connie) still talked to the disembodied voice of John Janus, sometimes arguing about the boundaries he’s stepped over in her head. In an impressive ten-pager, the pair stops a dangerous psychotic street thug and dissects his tragic, violent past mentally, bringing him peace.

Steve Englehart and Dave Cockrum brought a number of the Agents together in a trap set by Psychosis, who was once one of their own— Egghead! Egghead, thought dead after he sacrificed himself to save the T-Squad back in ’66, is now consumed with vengeance. Psychosis knows his fellow teammates and manipulates Raven into a trap. Dynamo investigates.

Another trap is sprung and when NoMan is lured into the same area, following Len, Egghead announces himself. He’s got an impressive armored suit, the kind Lex Luthor would get in a few years. Knowing the secret wavelength the Chief employs, the seemingly victorious Psychosis shows the Chief, Kitten, Lightning, and an ambitious young recruit called China (an Asian who has designs on earning a super-suit himself) his captives, Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 63

challenging his once-friend, Guy, to rescue them. With Englehart at the helm, this one provided a tension-filled cliffhanger that would be wrapped up in the next issue.

This kind of thing probably would’ve made Woody proud.

THE DELUXE ADVENTURES CONTINUE

Flying High Courtesy of the Thomas family, original George Pérez art to the splash from Dann’s first Raven story, from WWTA #1.

TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.

The second issue saw Raven take on Phoenicia again, this time in a London jewel company. Their past is revealed— Craig Lawson’s got a Rusty of his own, seemingly, but Dann and George make it more realistic! In the end, the bird of prey blasts her aircraft to bits after a battle in the sky.

I’ve long appreciated Bill Wray’s artwork, also, and he did nice finishes to Pérez’s pencils. A solo tale with Guy Gilbert saw the sad agent facing death as he recounted past triumphs to a female news reporter. His wizened face was striking in the Bierbaums/Giffen yarn. As the reporter leaves, a silent figure notices her. He’s stalking Guy and for revenge.

Despite his age and exhaustion, Gilbert got a plastic mask from Englehart in the mag’s third and final adventure to hide that heavily wrinkled countenance and bravely went out to stop Egghead/Psychosis. To Guy, this was a challenge that couldn’t be ignored. Egghead had once been a member of the original T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad,

and the old team leader felt he had to be the one to end his threat. Kitten tried to talk him out of it, but he dashed off. Despite heart problems as he got closer to his enemy, he bravely gave his all, and with the combined efforts of the super-agents, he got to be the one to put down the armored Psychosis, still proving his worth.

WWTA #3 (Nov. 1985) opened with a script/pencil job

by Cockrum and solid inks by the always-dependable Murphy Anderson. This would be the first story in the T-Agents’ long history to feature a villain—the Iron Maiden! Rusty accepted an assignment from masked bad men to get the magnetic wristbands from Davey Corrigan (“Davey Jones” didn’t make it for the ’80s), a.k.a. the Undersea Agent. She set a trap for the T-Agents, and ended up capturing Dynamo and Corrigan. She tells her henchmen that the fallen, bulletriddled NoMan would be along in another body shortly, but her thoughts and private motives seem to conflict with her telegraphed actions. She almost seems to want to be stopped, and have the T-Agents be the ones, Dynamo in particular, to get the credit. And she doesn’t want his death.

She wants his… (I’ll get to that later). Lightning was still understandably depressed, his insecurities about his worth as an Agent and a man plaguing his every move. Kitten, somewhat desperate, turns to Raven in their training room (you couldn’t help but think of “Dauntless” Dave Cockrum’s time delineating the Danger Room for Marvel’s X-Men as you read this passage), for advice regarding Gilbert. Raven was getting some added personality traits outside of Dann’s writing; he wasn’t the nicest fellow in the group. “Gilbert’s

Dance of the Seven Veils Phoenicia makes her sultry first appearance in this page from the Dann-and-George Raven adventure from the first issue of WWTA. TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.

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crazy, lady. He’s certifiable,” he tells Kitten, who angrily slaps his face for his cold-heartedness. The Iron Maiden does her mercenary work well and takes Corrigan captive. As Brown regains consciousness, Rusty, irresistible in a slinky green evening gown, informs Len that she wants some intimate time (!!) with him.

If he fails to comply, Davey dies. This was on a Bond-ian level, but I guess all concerned forgot Rusty got some quality Len Brown time when Carbonaro ran the books. It didn’t matter, really, and I wonder sometimes how Alan Moore would’ve handled that! No, scratch that. I know how Alan would’ve handled that!

The title for the next issue’s chapter was perfect: “I Guess I Am That Kind of Boy…” Solo outings with a Lightning still quietly stalked by an unseen enemy and NoMan completed the issue. Perry, Ditko, and Theakston’s offering hit all the right notes for readers who wanted the old formula mixed nicely into the new. The tireless NoMan works on improving his android bodies and a billionaire nutcase, Cyrano de Klopps (Cy Klopps), is the Chief’s focus for Anthony Dunn’s latest assignment. Klopps owns a private atoll and wants it to be recognized by the U.N. for nationhood. It doesn’t take the U.N. officials long to deny his request. Furious, he leaves, shadowed by the Invisible Agent, under his cloak. But Cy Klopps is a scientist, and mad though he may be, he traps NoMan inside strong metal clamps and burns his body with the heat properties within them. He escapes and Dunn goes back to work on his bodies. However, Klopps has found “a true believer,” a young nutcase he met shortly before entering the U.N. and this man has tampered with NoMan’s bodies after quickly getting a job at T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Headquarters!

Yeah, you’d think there’d be a long screening process before you could get into NoMan’s department, but this is comics, folks. As Prof. Dunn works, works, works, Klopps, a cyborg in one of his personas, takes over one of the hero’s bodies and invades the computer system NoMan’s on. Stealing data and precious company secrets within seconds, he dismantles the bodies before the android’s shocked eyes! One NoMan is left intact, so there’ll be a reckoning… in a future issue.

WWTA #4 (Feb. 1986) showcases a gorgeous (of course) Pérez cover with the Iron Maiden dangling the heroes on strings. Love her or hate her—the lady’s a winner! Dann Thomas’ last Raven story opens this one up, and it’s another winner by her and George. Dan Adkins is back as a T-Agents inker on this job, doing wonderful inking on Pérez’s pencils. Raven looks over the NY Stock Exchange at night—it seems two gunmen have seized it, killed one man, and taken another broker hostage. Raven swoops in and a bomb goes off. As the smoke clears, Lawson is shown that one of the murderers has a gun under the captive’s nose and that he’d better go along with their instructions. Wary of his costume’s capabilities and hidden weaponry, they order him to strip. For this one, Dann and Roy did research. She says, “I researched the settings of the stories to try to give them an air of authenticity.

For the Wall Street story, Roy and I even visited the New York Stock Exchange.

I remember being impressed by the quantity of paper that littered the floor in those days before electronic trading. It looked like the bottom of a birdcage.” Down to his briefs, Raven isn’t surprised to see the “hostage” train a gun on him. It was an elaborate stunt. The former hostage tells Lawson that Captain Kidd’s buried treasure lies below the Stock Exchange but he needs experienced demolition men to get close to it. Like Geraldo Rivera’s trip inside Al Capone’s vault, the end results aren’t good. Kegs are brought up by the strongman of the trio. One baddie puts on Raven’s outfit and flies around. The kegs are thought to have jewels and gold inside—nope, just lousy, very old stale beer. In the confusion, Craig bolts and gets his gun, blasting the greedy Wall Street fraudster (hmmmm….) away. The biggest one of the bunch gets his hands on the costume-less Raven, but Lawson’s superior training and some exposed wiring puts the big bad man down for the count. The fake Raven gets pounced on. Lawson had some acrobat training in years gone by. The fake Raven gets steered into a wall and Lawson gets his outfit and wings back.

Dann Thomas gave Craig an edge the other Agents didn’t have. It was refreshing. She observes, “I decided to treat the Raven as a worldly and worldweary James Bond character, but working for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. instead of Her

NoMan by Dave Cockrum (top) NoMan was back and Englehart and Cockrum got him! This impressive opening splash came from WWTA #1 in ’84. Copy of the signed original art courtesy of Jerry Boyd. (bottom) The Undersea Agent’s life was at stake (in WWTA #4, Feb. 1986) and to save him, all Len Brown had to do was make love to Rusty! Superhero comics sure had changed a lot since the 1960s! Art by Rich Buckler.

TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 65

A Deluxe Quartet Covers for Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents final four issues.

Covers for #2–4 by Pérez, cover for #5

by Mike Machlan and Jerry Ordway.

TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.

Majesty’s Secret Service.” The next story saw Lightning looking in on a dead South American president, still being set up by the stalker back in the States. Cy Klopps’ island property is in the Mariana Islands. The Chief wants his organization’s secrets back, and NoMan is the man to retrieve them. Ninety-seven android bodies will be there waiting for him! Klopps is part machine; a cyborg. His armored form is getting added to by one of his stooges, Vernooker, who gets rewarded with the Thundersuit— “all of T.H.U.N.D.E.R.’s paranormal devices wrapped into one! I’m a genius, I swear! Those idiot U.N. delegates will think their security agency has turned on them!” Cy Klopps gloats. The suit is mostly a pastiche of Lightning’s with a Menthor helmet, the invisibility cloak of NoMan, and Dynamo’s belt. Though Ditko drew this concluding epic with his usual style, the all-together throw-on didn’t look too good, and that was probably the intention! There was always a degree of ridiculousness Woody put into his books; this fit it nicely without being silly or too over-the-top. NoMan attacks and his antagonists counterattack. The supersuit kills poor Vernooker; it’s too much power and he disappears inside its confines. Anthony Dunn tackles Klopps with every android body at his disposal. Klopps has an armored body Steve Austin would’ve loved to be in, and smashes many a NoMan. Cy believes he’s done in the last one, but Dunn’s brain patterns have entered a mechanical insect and he stings Cy’s one good eye (the other was just an ornament), rendering him helpless… and in incredible pain.

And in case you were wondering what happened to the captured Davey Corrigan, we begin this end-chapter with him still being fed life-giving oxygen in a tank controlled by Rusty, with Len Brown looking on helplessly. Brian Marshall was the new writer and Rich Buckler followed 66 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

in the style of Cockrum to keep some degree of continuity, as I saw it.

Back at HQ, Kitten and Guy argued some more about his refusal to “rest,” and the silent female Menthor made more inroads into the drama. Rusty demands and gets Len to make love to her. They strip.

Davey, chained up, has to watch! Menthor is getting some terrific mental powers as time goes on. She gives Lightning a “mental image to follow” and soon he is closing in on the IM’s hideout. “Just tell me… tell me you love me… Uhh….” Rusty purrs afterwards as she and Len chat, naked and unaware that Guy is near. But Menthor puts a brain freeze on her as the swift agent races into her dock stronghold and knocks out her men. She frees Corrigan and asks Len to arrest her!

Lightning collapses from the strain, shocking Menthor, and Rusty regains her mind. She snatches up her dress and escapes… again. And Len kind-of lets her get away… again. (Can you blame him?)

THE END IS NEAR

Jerry Ordway and Mike Machlan did the cover for the final issue, WWTA #5 (Oct. 1986). It was a beaut—NoMan on the Moon menaced by a hulking robot! Roger McKenzie and Ordway were welcome additions and their story was another gentle reminder of how well Wally Wood and friends had handled the earlier T-Agents’ outer-space excursions.

The only bad note in this intriguing chapter was… another chapter was coming, but it’d never arrive! What?! As the story goes, NoMan wanted to find out about a mysterious moon base. Once there, he contacts his friends. The resourceful leaders at the U.N. wisely kept a spaceship Dynamo had brought back years ago and use it to land on the Moon. Looking around, they run into a hero team called Codename: Danger in separate

parts of the moon base. They win some skirmishes, the Agents win some. Meeting up with unconscious foes on both ends, confusion reigns.

Ordway enjoyed his short stint with the Agents. He tells BI readers, “I only drew one story, written by Roger McKenzie, if I remember right. I really had fun with it, as it incorporated NoMan, and the Moon, so they were great ways to pay tribute to Wood’s art. NoMan utilized a great effect as rendered by him, with the spirit form of NoMan flying from body to body, drawn only as Wood could bring it off. I was happy to replicate that effect in my story.”

In the same issue, Lightning’s stalker makes a move and kills one of Guy’s friends. Unfortunately, this ongoing situation would end here. Dynamo starred in two stories to finish the book. Singer, Mike Harris, and Jose Marzan, Jr. lightened up the mood with a costume party for the agents, spotlighting Len Brown in a suit a Kryptonian would love. There’s one thing wrong: An ‘8’ is on the chest emblem where the ‘S’… okay, it was the right thing to do. Lawsuits, don’t you know. Brown hits the party, and costumed coworkers made up as Jon Sable – Freelance, Wolverine, Black Canary, Grimjack, American Flagg, Thor, and even Daffy Duck, etc., provide the patter. A bank robbery is in progress and Len notices it. This is a job for… okay, you get it. He’s wearing his Thunderbelt beneath his costume and put the baddies away. As the police take them away, one of them angrily declares, “What a fink!

And I used to buy his comic books!” Dynamo goes solo in the final story, as well. There’s a strange-looking damsel in distress, with a metal monster chasing her about.

Brown and the creature trade blows, but it’s all a sham.

The metal-clad gorilla chasing her is a friend, and it’s an interplanetary game of tag. So ended the Singer books.

David Singer wanted to go on, but John C. wanted control over the T-Agents back. The matter went to court and Carbonaro produced the paper trail necessary via his pro bono lawyer and the case drained considerable monies out of the Deluxe Comics offices and David’s pockets.

John C. won the case, but this time, he’d shop the properties around, looking for the right fit at either another independent or one of the majors, perhaps a film studio.

Following the lawsuit, there was a chance of the Agents being picked up by the Epic people, a smaller division at Marvel Comics. Singer and Carbonaro were still not working together, so possible deals between them weren’t workable, and within a few years Marvel had been sold and all of that went out the window.

one-shot before Carbonaro caught up with them and told them they were unable to publish it. Enamored of DC’s Watchmen, their tale was a derivative of the established heroes with a young brunette putting on the Thunderbelt, and a kid named Reflex in a new take on Lightning. NoMan was pretty much intact, but would require help from the new team. A Soviet-style version of the Agents would provide the danger.

Though John C. wasn’t in love with the concept, he liked it enough to okay it and “licensed” the characters to Solson. Brown had two daughters by the deceased Iron Maiden and everything got grim-and-gritty like lots of heroes and situations from the late ’80s. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. #1 (1987) didn’t fly.

THUNDER IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

Dark Horse Comics issued Boris the Bear #11 (June 1987) with the Thunderers teaming up with Boris in a Dynamo suit. An evil subterranean is cloning the super-spies, but Boris and the real deals put an end to his sinister plans. John C. took no legal action here; he probably sensed the confusion swirling about his properties being in the public domain. It was the same with Apple Comics’ Thunderbunny #11 (Sept. 1987) that came out later that year. A Dynavac committing a crime draws Thunderbunny, Dynamo, and Weed onto the scene. After the obligatory “I-thought-you-were-acriminal” scuffle, the trio joins forces with NoMan and Raven, who’ve tussled elsewhere with the Iron Maiden in separate chapters. Together, they all move toward her fortress and eventually triumph. That was it. Carbonaro contacted Dark Horse via his attorneys with a cease-and-desist letter and probably did the same to Apple Comics.

A NEW THUNDERVERSE?

Solson was a small-press publishing company that emerged in the late 1980s. They were led to believe the T-Agents were in the public domain. They produced a

T-Agent Rarities (top left) Solson Publications’ T.H.U.N.D.E.R. #1’s cover (1987) gave us a NoMan in agony! (top right) Thunderbunny teamed up with three of the Agents in his 11th issue in 1987. (bottom left) Also in ’87, Boris the Bear tussled with, and then teamed up alongside, the Thunderers in his 11th issue. (bottom right) Omni Comix briefly brought back the Agents for its third issue in 1999.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC. Thunderbunny © Martin L. Greim. Boris the Bear © James Smith. Omni Comix © Omni Media.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 67

AFTER THE THUNDERSTORM

Different companies, new and veteran talents, new concepts, new characterizations… but nothing quite came together to make the Agents an ongoing success. I asked Mr. Ordway if he thought the spies would’ve been better served as a retro-comic, with new adventures beginning in 1969 instead of ’81 or ’83? “I didn’t feel it needed to be retro when it came out in the 1980s,” Jerry says, “because the time difference wasn’t that great from the 1960s until then. James Bond had a resurgence in the ’80s movies, and I think that hi-tech approach applied to the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents concept as well. It was a time of nuclear fears, as much as in the 1960s.”

When asked, Did you have any new ideas and powers for new T-Agents?, Jerry stated, “No, I wasn’t involved at all on a story level back then. If I had been asked, I certainly could have offered up some ideas.

I think the various updates done to Menthor, for example, were great.

To relaunch or reboot a concept exactly the way it was done before is playing too safe, and ignoring the audience’s tastes from the ’60s to the ’80s. From my artist’s perspective, Deluxe Comics’ biggest contribution was in upgrading the printing process and paper quality on their books. They used a full-color process, rather than screen-dot hand separations.”

The team’s full history is documented in the THUNDER Agents Companion, available at www.twomorrows.com

I asked Jerry if it might have been fun to incorporate some of Woody’s other characters into the T-Agents Universe. I’m thinking about Cannon or Animan or the Misfits. Did anyone ever throw out those ideas?

His reply: “I am not qualified to answer from a legal point of view, but while Wally Wood didn’t own the T-Agents property, he did own Cannon, Animan, and the Misfits. So it wasn’t considered, to my knowledge.

From a purely fanboy POV, I think it would have been cool, especially adding Cannon and Sally Forth into the mix in some way, since they were both action/spy concepts.”

Did the Deluxe Comics line, the longest-lasting run during the T-Agents’ ’80s revivals, fail due to poor sales or a failure to click with readers? “I’m not sure it did fail to click,” says Dann Thomas.

“My understanding is that David learned that he didn’t have the rights to the series, as he had thought, so he had to quit. I was especially sorry for David since doing the series meant so much to him.”

And it was only natural to ask Roy Thomas, who’d been known for a few successful comic and comic-character revivals, what he thought about the original line (a competitor from ’65–’69) and the later versions. “Not a big fan of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, though I felt it was a nice concept,” Roy replied. “To me it was like ‘Marvel Lite.’ Still, it had some talented artists and writers working on it, and there were some nice moments.

The death of Menthor was a precedent… and I loved the line where giant reptiles charge through the streets and Dynamo (I think it is) says, ‘I haven’t seen a good dinosaur stampede in ages!’ ” Roy had the notion for an international group of X-Men à la the Blackhawks, so that was part” of my next query: Would the Agents have fared better with a truly international U.N. group with agents from all over the world? Roy: “I never really thought about it at the time.” Roy had no great likes or strong dislikes © Luigi Novi / about the ’80s revivals, also. “No strong feelings.

Wikimedia Commons.

Except for Dann’s work, and George Pérez’s with her, I didn’t pay much attention to any of the revivals.” Dann enjoyed her time on the title. “Yes, it was a positive experience in all aspects,” she says.

A lot of money, time, and effort went into the revivals of the T-Agents, but again, it never completely meshed at the various companies.

What was needed, exactly?

As a longtime fan of the U.N.-based heroes, I missed Demo and his daughter Satana, the Warlords, dinosaurs, the Red Star, S.P.I.D.E.R., and other demonic forces from the 1960s that were never retooled in the 1980s. Maybe those guys needed to come back, also. And the Deluxe group eschewed Vulcan altogether and never made much use of the female Menthor. And maybe more new Agents were necessary, along with backstories of the original Menthor, the Chief, the origins of T.H.U.N.D.E.R, etc.

One day, right? We shall see.

SOUNDS OF THUNDER

ExtraOrdway-nary Art Jerry Ordway gives us another look at the retooled-forthe-new-millennium T-Agents, with Dynamo and Lightning decked out in new outfits! Thanks again, Mr. O.!

TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.

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In the mid-1990s, Omni Comix appeared, backed by the financial powerhouse Penthouse International. For its third issue, Paul Gulacy and Terry Austin provided some incredible T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents artwork and George Caragonne and Tom Thornton packed their story with a werewolf, Russians, and very dangerous scenarios. Carbonaro has since passed on, and some reports say that Singer has, also. DC Comics revamped the spies for the ’00s and IDW took their shot at them, also.

These days, IDW has reprinted a lot of the material in attractive, deluxe (pun intended) hardcover editions. The rumor mill says a feature film may hit theaters in 2018!

Do we dare hope? Keep watching the skies, like the man said, but watch out for lightning and listen for the rumble of thunder…

JERRY BOYD would like to thank Dann and Roy Thomas and Jerry Ordway, plus Jon B. Cooke for his invaluable and definitive tome, already mentioned.

This article is dedicated to Dan Adkins, Woody, Gil Kane, Reed Crandall, Chic Stone, Steve Ditko, Dave Cockrum, etc., and all the un-official T-Agents who gave us such a fun time in the ’60s on.

Starting with BACK ISSUE #1, Rough Stuff was a mainstay in this magazine, but later spun off into its own short-lived title. In last issue’s lettercol, reader Scott Andrews made an appeal for the return of Rough Stuff, echoing similar requests from other readers. “Your demand is our command,” as DC Comics used to say: Rough Stuff is back, and will grace our pages from time to time, beginning with…

captions by

Who better to brighten our opening page than the fiery Jeanette Crane, a.k.a. Morningstar, from Bill Willingham’s The Elementals? While Willingham’s dark superhero comic is mentioned elsewhere in this issue, readers wanting to learn more about The Elementals should read our article about the series in BI #24. This sketch, courtesy of Heritage, dates back to 1985.

MORNINGSTAR

by BILL WILLINGHAM

Michael Eury

Morningstar and The Elementals TM & © Dynamite Entertainment.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 69

SILVER STAR

by JACK KIRBY

“The King” brought his creator-owned Captain Victory (covered in the last issue of BI) and Silver Star to Pacific Comics in the early ’80s. Silver Star’s run only lasted six issues, but the hero has since been revived by both Topps and Dynamite. This is an alternate version of the cover for Kirby’s Silver Star #3 (June 1983), courtesy of Heritage. The published version is shown in the inset.

Silver Star TM & © Jack Kirby Estate.

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T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS

by LOU MANNA

Lou Manna, the artist for the first T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents revival, kindly provided these scans to BACK ISSUE. (top) Lou’s pencil roughs for two pages of JC Comics’ T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (May 1983). (bottom left) Cover layouts for that premiere issue. (bottom right) A T-Agents salute from the artist’s 2015 sketchbook. Thanks, Lou!

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 71

JUSTICE MACHINE

by BILL REINHOLD

(above and opposite) Two original pencil pages from what would have been Texas Comics’ second issue of Justice Machine. Pages supplied by the kind courtesy of Bill Reinhold himself.

Justice Machine TM & © Mark Ellis.

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Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 73

TM

Steven Grant has had a varied and prolific history in comics and elsewhere. Since the late 1970s, Steven has written for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Capital, First, Wildstorm, IDW, Boom!, and Avatar. He’s had two successful, long-running columns for the Comic Book Resource website. Steven has authored a number of Hardy Boys books and a Tom Swift novel. Steven’s Boom! Studios work included an updated Whisper book and the crime series 2 Guns, which was made into the 2013 action film with Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg.

Norm Breyfogle has been in comics since the 1980s.

“Discovered” by Mike Friedrich at the 1984 San Diego Comic-Con Art Show, Norm was soon working for Marvel, DC, and First. Though perhaps best known for his stellar work on Batman through multiple Bat-titles, Norm also drew The Spectre and other DC titles. He continued in a variety of venues including working for Speakeasy, Markosia, and Malibu, the latter of which where he co-created the character Prime. Norm has also illustrated children’s books, novels, and advertising. In 2008, Norm made his mark at Archie Comics, and in 2012 he returned to illustrating Batman for Batman Beyond at DC. In 2014, Norm suffered a stroke and has been coping with the limitations that resulted.

Steven Grant’s character Whisper first saw the light in a two-issue run (1983–1984) from Capital Comics, with artwork by Rich Larson. With the demise of Capital, Whisper moved to First Comics with a continuation of the story in Whisper Special (Nov. 1985), again with art by Rich Larson. From there she became a part of the First anthology series First Adventure (Dec. 1985–Apr. 1986) for all five issues of its run. Then she received her own series which ran for 37 issues (June 1986–June 1990), with art

by Del Barras for the first two issues. Norm Breyfogle handled the art chores for issues #3–11 (Oct. 1986–Feb. 1988). This relatively short two-year run is fondly remembered by many fans as a highpoint in the Whisper series.

– Stephan Friedt STEPHAN FRIEDT: What was the inspiration for your work on Whisper?

STEVEN GRANT: I was living in New York and taking a train home to Madison, Wisconsin, where I grew up. I read a cheap paperback, supposedly factual, about ninjas, to pass the time. At the time ninjas were just beginning to Courtesy of Comicvine. work their way into the American psyche. I knew that while “ninjas” did exist in feudal Japan—they were

Artist’s Choice Whisper #9 (Oct. 1987), artist Norm Breyfogle’s favorite cover from his work on the series.

Whisper TM & © Steven Grant.

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by S t e p h a n

Friedt

essentially messengers for nobles—what we think of as “the ninja,” the black-garbed, shuriken-throwing, virtually unstoppable magical assassins, were the product of nationalistic interwar Japanese pulp fiction. In other words, complete BS. I mean, really, if ninjas as we think of them ever existed, do you really think Japan could’ve lost WWII? Prior to this, Capital Distribution decided they wanted to branch out into publishing and approached me about it. They didn’t have any budget yet so I passed, not because I couldn’t have done it but because I didn’t feel comfortable asking an artist to work for free, and while I did want to create my own characters—it may not look it from my résumé, but that’s always been my preference—it wasn’t like I was desperate to be published. I was being published. So I sent them a couple guys I knew named Mike Baron and Steve Rude who did want very badly to be published, and they worked out their own deal [Nexus]. That started up Capital Comics, but Capital still wanted a series from me.

One thing I’d discovered writing for Marvel in the late ’70s was that, at least at the time, you could do more interesting things with plot and character for non-white or non-male characters. White male superheroes, like Spider-Man, if you had them respond in any manner that wasn’t absolutely heroic—and let’s face it, there are lots of situations where in-your-face heroics are the dumbest move possible—it was considered bad characterization. So I’d started thinking in terms of heroines so I could hit a somewhat broader range, at least within my own limitations.

At Marvel, I’d already created a couple heroines—Mockingbird, who went nowhere at the time, but who was effectively a hero “masquerading” as a villain (or, rather, being pigeonholed as one due to wrongly skewed perceptions, a fairly common theme in my work), and Vienna, a pragmatically treacherous spy whose loyalties were always suspect, who wandered in and out of the fill-ins I was doing, since I was mainly making a living writing fill-ins and couldn’t get a title to write regularly.

That was the appeal of Whisper for me, when I went back to Capital, which was based in Madison. By then Nexus and The Badger had come out, the comics were making money for them, and we were all willing to revisit the idea of my creating a book. Whisper was a name I’d written down on a list of potential superhero names—we all had them—and when at some point the idea coalesced into a woman who fakes being a ninja then finds she can’t escape the role, it seemed an appropriate name.

NORM BREYFOGLE: Well, the series was about an ultra-realistic female ninja, so I took my cues mostly from martial-arts movies and spy thrillers.

But to be honest, my drawing style had already become pretty mature through 15 amateur years of development, so that was what my real foundation came from: learning to draw from actual live figures and photographs and from my long interest in great drawing styles in my favorite superhero comics. Neal Adams had always been my favorite comic illustrator back then, but I also had many other favorites, like Nick Cardy, Curt Swan, Joe Kubert, Gil Kane, P. Craig Russell, Jim Aparo, and later, artists like Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz. But really, there were far too many to mention. Every good artist in and outside of comics whose art my eyes feasted upon became, in some organic way, the foundation for my comic illustration style.

FRIEDT: What influenced you when you worked on the character? …

Movies? …TV? GRANT: Probably the biggest influence on the origin story, as far as other material goes, was the 1974 Sydney Pollack/Paul Schrader/Robert Mitchum film The Yakuza. I’d seen it years earlier—lots of film societies in Madison—but didn’t refer back to it (this was before videotapes; I wouldn’t even have been able to find it). But it did provide something of a structural framework for the first story. There weren’t any stories I

was intentionally trying to replicate or pay homage to, past the initial inspiration I just pieced it together by trial and error, which is kind of how you’re supposed to develop your ideas.

I was pretty good friends with Frank Miller at the time—still am, as far as I’m concerned, but I haven’t seen him in years—but I didn’t have much thought of Elektra in mind. If anything, Whisper was sort of the antiElektra. The one thing I cribbed from that book on ninjas and clung to in Whisper was the idea that ninjistu wasn’t a real discipline, it was more the art of making it up as you go along and using whatever’s available environmentally as a weapon. That was probably the single biggest influence any one thing had on the series to come, that one concept.

Aside from the aforementioned The Yakuza, crime movies in general were an influence. Not cop movies… “crime movies.” Stylistically—this will sound loony, because I doubt anyone could look at them and at Whisper and see any connection at all—the films of Samuel Fuller were a big influence. Not in content, but in the way he handled character and movement; especially the film Pickup on South Street. Nicolas Roeg’s films, too, the way they dissect and dislocate perception. Like I said, lots of film societies in Madison. I was also a film/TV major in college.

I wanted to apply certain things from them to comics, but my whole approach was pretty inchoate.

But all those things gave me a sort of language through which I could coalesce my worldview, and my worldview was what I was trying to put into Whisper more than anything else. Whisper was very noir for the time, not that most people would’ve noticed it. It was in the attitude, not the style.

About the only TV show I would have considered anything like an influence on me was The Prisoner. I loved the show… still love it. It opened up a lot of ideas for me, though I don’t know how many of those found their way into Whisper.

“Datapanik in the Year Zero” Splash page to Whisper #3, Norm Breyfogle’s first issue, with John Nyberg inks.

TM & © Steven Grant.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 75

Photo by Stephan Pytak.

Lady Ninja Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com), original art to Whisper #4 (Dec. 1986), signed by the artist. (inset) The published version.

TM & © Steven Grant.

76 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

BREYFOGLE: Another big influence on me was the Sergio Leone Western movies, because of the extremely dramatic closeups and generally great storytelling.

My favorite TV shows? I don’t know how much they influenced my drawing, but my favorite shows include my favorite TV show of all time, Star Trek.

FRIEDT: What was your goal in developing the character?

GRANT: To do it, really. To prove I could. Of course, making a living was always part of it, but, for lack of a better term, the real goal was simply self-expression. I think if you want to be a professional writer you have to, at minimum, con yourself into believing you bring something to the table that nobody else is going to bring: your own worldview. That’s really the reason to create and work on your own characters, so you can explore territory you map out yourself. Ultimately that’s the only thing you really have to market. It’s the thing people have to come to you for that they can’t get anywhere else.

Hopefully it’s something enough of them want that you can make that living… in theory, anyway.

I tend to distrust both selfproclaimed “entertainers” and “educators” in comics, and really in any pop-culture medium. If people found themselves entertained or educated, I had nothing against it, but, really, I just wanted to do what I wanted to do, even if I had no clear idea moment to moment what that was. I never had a game plan. I was just selfish and greedy, at least about that. In Whisper I discussed the things I wanted to discuss, in ways I wanted to discuss them. Any considerations beyond that were accidental, except one.

Had it been up to me I’d never have put a costume on her, but Capital insisted. That was the one thing they insisted on. It was a small enough thing, I was happy to oblige, given the rest of the opportunity, but that damn costume was a pain, story-wise, for the whole series.

And, basically, by that point I wasn’t terribly interested in writing a superhero book. I wanted to do a crime book. I wanted to write political fiction, especially since I was having an allergic reaction to the Reagan Administration. Neither thing was much valued in comics at

the time, certainly not at Marvel. So while I put Whisper in a costume, I put it in my contract she could never cross over to any other book and no one else could write the series. (These were modified slightly when First took over the book, but only slightly.) I made it clear to Capital there’d be no other costumed characters in the strip, no superpowers. It’d all be on a strictly human level, if considerably jacked up. So, yeah, a political crime book, focusing on shadow politics and the crime that always attends it. That’s what I wanted to do, even if it took me a little while to realize it.

BREYFOGLE: Simple: My whole drive on Whisper was for me to get better at meeting the bimonthly deadlines without sacrificing any quality, and, in fact, to improve my quality of drawing and storytelling. Basically, I was just out to entertain the reading audience and to make a name for myself. And, of course, my main goal was to tell the story in the best manner possible. That’s always been my goal when illustrating a comic script.

FRIEDT: What did you enjoy about working on the character? Was it a challenge to build each issue?

GRANT: I’m not sure “enjoy” is the word I’d use. It was always a problem to write because I never really had a template for it. You write Marvel Comics, certainly in the late ’70s, and the template was very simple. Whisper took me a lot longer to write than other books, partly because I always worked on it full script. But it was my experimentation ground. I did a lot of experimenting with narrative, ways to expand on traditional comic narrative to try to get more, and hopefully, fuller story into the books. I found I always wanted to put in about a third more story per issue than there was room for… that was just my natural storytelling rhythm. I was lifting techniques wherever I could find them: from William Burroughs and Brian Eno and Nicolas Roeg and literally anywhere I stumbled across them. I was always looking at “experimental” works in all kinds of media—film, literature, art, dance, movies, comics, etc.—pretty much from mid-high school on; a side effect of growing up in a radical hotbed in the ’60s.

Out of self-defense I developed what I called a “foldover narrative,” after those old fold-over inside covers they’d always have on MAD magazine when I was growing up; it wasn’t a style or technique so much as a working method. I’d go at Whisper scripts in passes, usually writing each pass fairly quickly so as not to spend too much time second-guessing myself and chickening out, since I really had no idea what I was doing. The first pass was to break down the book visually; I used a screenplay format broken down into pages with set directions that “suggested” panel breakdowns without actually specifying them. The object was to get as much story information as possible into the art. The second pass added the dialogue, where I tried to insert as much information that couldn’t go in the art as possible. I’d always been familiar, and uncomfortable, with the use of captions as a redundant reiteration of visual information; captions in comics were traditionally perfunctory in every sense of the word. What I wanted— and this I got from Gil Kane and his approach on His Name is… Savage, though obviously my usage was quite a bit different from his, was to use the captions to present information that could not easily be comfortably conveyed by either visuals or dialogue. Then a final pass for sound effects and the little things like that. I started having parallel or counter-narratives to the visual/spoken narrative running in the captions and laying the captions without consideration of the panels they were in, to purposely schism the narrative more, just to watch what was born in the juxtapositions. It was a rather criminal approach.

It created a lot of probably unnecessary problems, but it had its moments and it certainly wasn’t like any other book on the market at the time.

That was what was enjoyable about Whisper, though.

Every issue turned into something of a surprise to me. I think probably my favorite arc remains the first four issues Norm did, where the cornered heroine seems to have killed herself and it builds to the apocalyptic showdown with Eckert, the intelligence agent villain, leaving everyone thinking she’s dead for real, whereupon she abandons her life and relocates to the other coast under a new name. I wasn’t sure the series would go beyond issue #6, so it could’ve ended there and been the ending.

The funny thing about the series was that very little of the “over the top” background stuff was anything I made up. It was all real, if retooled slightly for my purposes.

Aside from the characters and the plot situations, very little in the book was invented or speculative.

BREYFOGLE: Basically, the main thing I enjoyed about working on Whisper was that it was my first full-time comics gig. However, I also enjoyed the themes and characters in the story; Steven Grant and I seemed and still do seem to share an awful lot of viewpoints on political and social issues.

Eisner Would Be Proud A stylish splash page opening Whisper #4.

TM & © Steven Grant.

Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 77

“Wrong Number” A dynamite page from Whisper #10 (Dec. 1987) showing the Steven Grant/Norm Breyfogle team at their zenith.

TM & © Steven Grant.

Were there any challenges? Don’t get me started! I was working on this before I owned a computer and before there really existed much of an Internet at all, so I had to find all my visual reference in magazines and books at the local library. It was very difficult.

It was a gigantic challenge for me to meet the deadlines while penciling, inking, lettering, and painting the covers for the series. I remember thinking how difficult my career path had turned out to be; I have a large Dionysian stripe in me, and that stripe was even more pronounced back in my 20s. But after meeting the deadlines for a year or so, I began feeling good about it all.

FRIEDT: Any regrets or things you wish you could “do over”?

GRANT: I wish I could’ve kept Norm on the book longer, but aside from that, not really. Nothing leaps to mind. It was fun while it lasted.

BREYFOGLE: Ha! Are you kidding? I often wish I could redo almost all of my earlier work. But I suppose many artists feel this way, and none of us has a literal time machine. By far, my favorite story arc was the Carnicero one. I remember well enjoying my painting of the “flaming heads” cover.

FRIEDT: Any great background stories from working on the character?

GRANT: Two off the top of my head. In Norm’s final arc there’s a villain named Carnicero, a drug lord heading up a religious cult whose main tenet that if you kill someone and take their head, when you die they’ll be your slave in the afterlife forever. (The tenet I nicked from the Zodiac Killer, though I don’t think he said anything about heads.) About a year after the story came out, a drug/murder cult got exposed and busted in Matamoros, Mexico, that was creepily similar in a lot of ways to Carnicero’s crew. I get a call from Kurt Goldzung, then First Comics’ head of marketing, who knew the political stuff I did in the book was all drawn from real-world sources, and he says, “So now I know who you got Carnicero from.” He was a little unnerved to find out, no, that 78 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue

wasn’t the one. There were others out there. But this was right at the time when there was a budding witch hunt against comics, various companies were talking starting a new comics code, etc., and I spent a few months in constant terror that when they cleaned out the Matamoros nest they’d find copies of that arc among the refuse and The 700 Club would start screaming, “SEE where killers get their ideas?!!”

At one point, I read a book on Texas slang, and having taken Whisper about as dark as I could stand to take it for a while, I decide to do a threeissue arc that veered in a different direction. She takes a trip to Las Vegas to get away from her life—this was well before I moved here—and there are two Texans I used for comedy relief… stealing as much of the slang as I could fit in. One of the phrases—I love it to this day—was, “I wouldn’t piss up his ass if his guts was on fire.” I’m sitting at my desk one day when the phone rings, and it’s my then-editor, a very nice woman whose name I unfortunately forget off the top of my head, who in this little concerned voice mentions they’re having a little trouble with the phrase and was wondering if I’d mind if they changed it. The suggestion did not brighten my mood, but, always willing to play ball, I said, “What would you like to change it to?” In a little timorous voice she says, “Ah… we were thinking… I wouldn’t SPIT up his ass if his guts was on fire.” I don’t say anything right away, and she starts getting very worried that I don’t like it. What she didn’t know is I was doing everything I could to not laugh my head off. I was literally grabbing great wads of Kleenex and shoving them into my mouth to muffle any noise; tears of laughter are rolling down my checks and I’m almost falling out of my chair. Finally I got myself together and to her relief said, “No, that’s fine, go with that.” And they did! While it didn’t hold the forbidden word “piss,” I don’t think it occurred to anyone at First Comics that the sentiment was far worse than what was originally written.

BREYFOGLE: Interesting background stories? Not really. Oh, wait. There probably are a few.

The first few times I saw my work in print and in color was injurious to my ego, and some letter writers (all letters columns were printed in the books back then, before the Internet) were relatively positive, and some not so. But it did all spur me on to improve.

I’m afraid I don’t have any blood-and-guts stories to relate. As I remember it, I felt like I was chained to my drawing board. [laughs] There was the first time I met Steven Grant at a comic convention.

My girlfriend, Barb, told me later that Steve called me “ambiguous.” I considered that to be a great compliment, especially coming from a writer of such multi-leveled talent!

FRIEDT: Are there any famous fans or followers that you are aware of?

GRANT: Not that I’m sure of. I’m told Larry Niven was a big fan, but I’ve never had it verified.

BREYFOGLE: Of my work and Whisper? I can’t say that I am aware of any such.

Steven Grant is currently working on a sequel to 2 Guns. Norm Breyfogle continues to recuperate from his stroke and dabble in writing.

STEPHAN FRIEDT continues his lifelong goal of burying himself in the study of the history of comics, ensconced in the wilds of Oregon and sharing those findings in articles for magazines and fanzines alike.

His family appreciates that it keeps him at home and out of the bars. Once a year he escapes to arrange and attend to comic-book professional guests for the Indy Pop Con in Indianapolis.

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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would be happy with. Greg was working seven days a week in that endeavor. I’m serious. Page and panel layouts and getting the stories in were his major concerns. Whenever I went over to his apartment, that was his biggest deal—to give Bill his best. He also cleaned up some of my stories to make them… just a little better.

Bill was always great to us and we were very appreciative that he gave us a chance to work on his characters. We wanted to show his trust in us was not misplaced and worked very hard to give him our best.

I know we gave him our best.

– Daniel St. John Thank you for sharing your perspectives, gentlemen.

THE “SENTINELS OF JUSTICE” TEAM SPEAKS

Journalism 101 dictated that I share with artist Greg Guler some of the comments made about him in this issue’s AC Comics interview with Bill Black. Greg’s response appears below, followed by remarks from his then-writing partner, Dan St. John.

Dan St. John and I were hired by Bill Black after we submitted a story that Dan had written and I penciled, inked, and lettered called “The Sentinels of Justice” featuring a number of old Charlton heroes. Bill liked what I did and we were assigned to a number of books with Dan writing and me penciling. It was a dream come true for both Dan and me. Bill treated us wonderfully, bringing us out to a local Comic-Con and treating us to a trip to Disney World while we were there. Dan and I were both impressed with his team of artists and we were enthusiastic about the great story opportunities with those characters and the universe they lived in.

Dan and I spent many hours developing a story arc which would continue through all of the books we were assigned. However, later, while I was working in my apartment on one of the issues, I received a call that I should immediately cease work as Bill was out of funds. I did with much reluctance, as I was really living hand-to-mouth in those days.

As time went on, I didn’t hear from Bill about resuming work and I couldn’t reach him. Finally, I had to look for other work and I found a full-time job as an artist at a company that made children’s teaching products. I knew even then that you can’t draw a number of scheduled books part-time, and this new job paid far better than comics and came with medical coverage and the like, so I had to drop out.

I informed Bill about this and afterward tried to contact Bill many times with no response. I was very disappointed to leave the project, and even more so now, now that I have read what Bill has said about the situation.

I have nothing but respect for Bill and what he has been able to do with his company. He has given many an artist a start, and that includes me.

I will say I have always done my best to act in a professional manner, even when it wasn’t easy or in my best interest to do so, as my work at DC Comics and my 26 years at Disney can attest to.

– Greg Guler Greg and I were working on the “Sentinels of Justice” story for Charlton Bullseye.

It was our chance to work in the comics field and we took it very seriously.

When Charlton closed its doors, I called Bill Black in hopes that he would be interested in our story. Bill liked our story and hired both Greg and me to do a couple of his titles.

Greg worked extremely hard on those titles to make deadlines and to give Bill the kind of quality visual storytelling he, and AC fans, Moon Knight TM & © Marvel Entertainment, Inc. BACK ISSUE TM & © TwoMorrows.

I found a couple of errors in BACK ISSUE #88 which I thought should be corrected: In Jerry Boyd’s article about Marvel magazines in the ’70s, he mentions Marvel Preview #6 [sic] as being a “Masters of Terror” issue in which “Richard Marshall wrote Hodiah Twist.” According to Don McGregor, it was he who wrote that story. McGregor says that he got into a dispute with Marshall and Jim Shooter over Marvel’s work-for-hire contract, and as a result Marshall removed McGregor’s name and took credit for writing the story.

On the issue’s contents page Marshall credits himself as writer, while on the issue’s text page he suggests that a story

by McGregor “served as the basis” for the finished story. According to McGregor, Marshall did not rewrite a single word of the story. Don describes the incident at length in his book The Variable Syndrome. Also, the issue in question [inset] was actually Marvel Preview #16… obviously a typo.

In Richard Arndt’s article about Warren magazines, he talks about Bill DuBay’s heavy rewriting of material published in 1984 magazine. However, he states that, “1984 published several stories that escaped DuBay’s heavy editorial hand,” and then cites the “Mutant World” serial by Corben and Strnad as an example. Yet according to Jan Strnad, that was not the case.

Strnad says that much of the dialogue in “Mutant World” was rewritten

by DuBay, and that when he and Corben protested the rewriting DuBay ignored them. The graphic novel which collected the serial a few years later (not published by Warren) restores the original dialogue.

Best wishes on continued success for your fine magazine, – Jason Czeskleba Thank you, Jason. While I ran a correction of the Hodiah Twist credit in last issue’s “Back Talk,” yours offered additional information that our readers will appreciate.

Next issue: CREATURES OF THE NIGHT! Moon Knight’s DOUG MOENCH and BILL SIENKIEWICZ in a Pro2Pro interview! Plus: Ghost Rider’s First Ride, Night Nurse, Eclipso in the Bronze Age, I… Vampire, Marvel’s singing Nightcat, JACQUELINE TAVAREZ, and an interview with Batman writer MIKE W. BARR. Featuring the work of BOB BUDIANSKY, GARY COHN, PARIS CULLINS, ALAN DAVIS, J. M. DeMATTEIS, LINDA FITE, DAN MISHKIN, MARTIN PASKO, DON PERLIN, MIKE PLOOG, DAVE SIMONS, ROGER STERN, TOM SUTTON, JEAN THOMAS, ROY THOMAS, LEN WEIN, and many more. With a retro Moon Knight cover by Sienkiewicz and KLAUS JANSON! Don’t ask—just BI it! See you in sixty!

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40 years after the debut of Marvel’s STAR WARS #1, its writer/editor ROY THOMAS tells RICHARD ARNDT the story behind that landmark comic, plus interviews with artists HOWARD CHAYKIN, RICK HOBERG, and BILL WRAY. Also: GEORGE BRENNER, creator of The Clock—”Jazz in Comics” by MICHAEL T. GILBERT—the finale of BILL SCHELLY’s salute to G.B. LOVE—FCA—and more! CHAYKIN cover.

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“Marvel Fanfare Issue!” Behind the scenes of the ‘80s anthology series with AL MILGROM, interviews and art by ARTHUR ADAMS, CHRIS CLAREMONT, DAVE COCKRUM, STEVE ENGLEHART, MICHAEL GOLDEN, ROGER McKENZIE, FRANK MILLER, DOUG MOENCH, ANN NOCENTI, GEORGE PÉREZ, MARSHALL ROGERS, PAUL SMITH, KEN STEACY, CHARLES VESS, and more! Cover by SANDY PLUNKETT and GLENN WHITMORE.

“Bird People!” Hawkman in the Bronze Age, JIM STARLIN’s Superman/Hawkgirl team-up, TIM TRUMAN’s Hawkworld, Hawk and Dove, Penguin history, Blue Falcon & Dynomutt, Condorman, and CHUCK DIXON and SCOTT McDANIEL’s Nightwing. With GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, GREG GULER, RICHARD HOWELL, TONY ISABELLA, KARL KESEL, ROB LIEFELD, DENNY O’NEIL, and others! Cover by GEORGE PÉREZ.

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