Back Issue #96

Featuring an exclusive chat with Editori-Al, AL MILGROM!

June 2

017

82658 00096

featuring BBreyfogle • Claremont • Cockrum • featuring Golden Gol den • PéPérez • Plunkett • Rogers • Smithth • SSteacy Smi tea • Vess & more!

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BBEHIND EH EHIINND THE TTHHE SCENES SSCCEEENNEES OF O THE TTHHE CCELEBRATED EELELEBR BRATTED E ’80s ’’80 80s AANTH ANTHOLOGY NTHOLO LOGY GY SSE SERIES ERIRIES

1

Vision and the Scarlet Witch TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Volume 1, Number 96 June 2017 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

DESIGNER Rich Fowlks

TM

COVER ARTIST Sandy Plunkett (Originally the back cover of Marvel Fanfare #58, Aug. 1991. Original art scan courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions.)

COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek

John Kirk James Heath Lantz Rick Leonardi SPECIAL THANKS Ralph Macchio Arthur Adams Andy Mangels Roger Ash Michael Mantlo Terry Austin Brian Martin Chris Brennaman Franck Martini Norm Breyfogle Marvel Comics Pat Broderick David Mazzucchelli Marc Buxton Roger McKenzie John Byrne Doug Moench Shaun Clancy Brian K. Morris Chris Claremont Ann Nocenti ComicVine Luigi Novi Daniel DeAngelo Sandy Plunkett Steve Englehart P. Craig Russell Mike Friedrich Tony Salmons Stephan Friedt Andy Smith Russ Garwood Ken Steacy Dave Gibbons Roger Stern Peter B. Gillis Dan Tandarich Michael Golden Steven Thompson Grand Comics John Trumbull Database Alan Weiss Steven Grant Mark Wheatley Robert Greenberger Steven Wilber Craig Hamilton Marv Wolfman Heritage Comics Dwight Jon Auctions Zimmerman Douglas R. Kelly Susan Flaxman VERY SPECIAL THANKS Kennedy Allen Milgrom

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BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 INTERVIEW: Marvel Fanfare’s Editori-Al, Al Milgrom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 INTERVIEW: Chris Claremont’s Marvel Fanfare Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 FLASHBACK: The Doctor (Strange) Is/Was In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 FLASHBACK: The Black Widow Stings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 INTERVIEW: Roger McKenzie’s Marvel Fanfare Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 BEYOND CAPES: The Jungle Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 BEYOND CAPES: Sky-Wolf: A Love Letter to Blackhawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 ONE-HIT WONDERS: Captain America in “Home Fires!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 INTERVIEW: Ken Steacy’s Marvel Fanfare Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 FLASHBACK: Fanfare for Bill Mantlo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 ONE-HIT WONDERS: John Byrne’s All-Splash-Page Hulk Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: Norm Breyfogle’s Batman/Captain America Makeover . . 51 FLASHBACK: The Adventures of the Warriors Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 BEYOND CAPES: WeirdWorld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 PINUP: Marvel Fanfare pinup in Original Art Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 ONE-HIT WONDERS: Fallen Angels and Stormy Weather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 ONE-HIT WONDERS: Spotlight on the She-Hulk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 ONE-HIT WONDERS: The Startling Saga of the (Alternate Reality) Silver Surfer . . . . . 69 INTERVIEW: Steven Grant’s Black Knight Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 BEYOND CAPES: Shanna the She-Devil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 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 Sandy Plunkett. The Vision and the Scarlet Witch TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. 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. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 1

This issue we devote our entire contents (save the “Back Talk” lettercol) to a single series: Marvel Fanfare. Can you blame us? For 60 issues beginning with a March 1982 cover-dated first issue and spanning nearly a decade, Marvel Fanfare presented some of the industry’s best talent and up-andcoming newbies on short stories starring many of Marvel’s mightiest… and on a handful of occasions, Fanfare featured non-traditional material you normally wouldn’t find in a Marvel comic.

This bimonthly anthology was something special, as evidenced by its upscale production values and crisp, white paper stock, which were miles above the standard newsprint comics of the day. Through its pages paraded A-listers, many of them Marvel stalwarts and fan-favorites, as well as artists you might find in the independents. From venerated headliners like Spider-Man to underrated minor leaguers like the Black Knight to unexpected newcomers like Sky-Wolf, Marvel Fanfare hosted an ever-changing lineup. Pinups and art galleries were staples, allowing readers to ogle the craftsmanship of their favorite illustrators and discover the work of artists they had not previously encountered.

There was one constant, however, in the phantasmagoria found on the pages of Marvel Fanfare: its editor, Allen Milgrom, better known to most of you as Al Milgrom, and known to Fanfare readers as Editori-Al. His recollections of the series are captured in the new, exclusive interview following.

Complementing our chat with Editori-Al is a selection of interviews and articles exploring many of the individual issues and story arcs comprising Marvel Fanfare’s 60 issues, with numerous writers and artists sharing their perspectives on their stories. Not every creator who produced Marvel Fanfare stories is included, but overall in the pages that follow you’ll gain a deeper appreciation for one of the most inventive series of the Bronze Age. 2 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

ichael Eury

Michael Golden art from Marvel Fanfare #1’s cover graced this promo poster for the series. Poster courtesy of Russ Garwood. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

by M

by S h a u n

Clancy

interview conducted Sep

tember 9, 2016

AL MILGROM: You’re doing an article on Marvel Fanfare?

SHAUN CLANCY: Yes… BACK ISSUE is doing an issue on the series. I noticed you were involved in Marvel Fanfare at the beginning, but I’m not sure if you were there for the end.

MILGROM: The original run of the series ran 60 issues, and I was the editor on all 60. In fact, the idea for the book was mine.

CLANCY: How did the idea come about? The first issue was a Spider-Man and Angel of the X-Men team-up.

MILGROM: Right. Michael Golden worked on that, and it was originally slated for a Marvel Team-Up issue that I was in the process of editing. When we decided to do Fanfare, I co-opted it for that book.

The way the title came about was… [Marvel editorin-chief] Jim Shooter had explained to me at one time or another that we didn’t actually make money on our advertising—which sounds counterintuitive, I know—but it wasn’t so much that we made profits on the advertising, but we did get paid for them, and we didn’t have to pay any editorial costs, writing, penciling, inking, lettering, or coloring for those pages. Plus another thing that made the ads cheap to produce in the regular books was that they could print the ad pages in the same spot usually in the folios of the pages of the books in all the Marvel titles that they appeared in all at once.

Although it wasn’t profitable, per se, it did cut down the costs of producing the comics. That stayed with me for a couple of years, as I don’t remember when Jim first brought that up, but I always thought in the back of my mind, “Why run ads if they’re not profitable?” I guess it depends on your definition or the semantics, because if you’re spending less money and making money on the sales of the comics then in some ways it makes it more profitable. Most commercial magazines would make the majority of their profits from the advertising. Not so much from the cover price of the magazines to subscribers or from people who buy them at the newsstands. Subscribers would always get a deep discount off the newsstand’s price, and that was partly due to the publisher wanting their circulation numbers to be as high as possible so that they could charge their advertisers more. Newspapers worked that way, too.

The bottom line is that I said to myself, “If these aren’t profitable, then why don’t we do a comic book that has no ads? The readers don’t like the ads, so why don’t we do a book where the cover price is high enough that if it sells well, then it would be profitable based strictly on the size of the circulation and we could do stuff that would be fan-specific.” Stuff that we thought the fans would really like and buy it in droves but priced higher than the newsstand stuff. If they liked it enough and were willing to pay the extra money, then we could do it on better paper stock instead of on the cheap, crappy newsprint that comics had been traditionally printed on.

This would be a win-win. We could produce a high-quality book, charge more for it, the fans would get high-quality material, pay more for it, and get 32 pages of sheer enjoyment, hopefully… and Marvel would make profits hopefully, which, of course, was the goal.

Shooter took the idea to whomever he took it to and said, “One of the editors has this idea for a different

Editori-Al Al Milgrom’s self-caricature, as reimagined by artist Ken Steacy for the cover corner boxes of Marvel Fanfare #22 and 23. Special thanks to Ken for the scan.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3

Golden Avenger Original art from the Iron Man back-up from Marvel Fanfare #4 (Sept. 1982), courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

Signed by its penciler, Michael Golden. Story

by David Winn and David Michelinie, inks by Dan Green.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

title. How many would it have to sell in order to be profitable? What kind of cover price would we need to charge without gouging people but at the same time making it a profitable venture?” And they said, “A regular 32-page comic book plus covers would need to be $1.25.” This was around 1982, and I don’t recall what the price of a regular comic book was at the time… but I do know it wasn’t that high.

CLANCY: I think it was 50 cents.

MILGROM: I would have guessed 60 or 75 cents.

[Editor’s note: The average price of comic books with a March 1982 cover date was 60 cents.]

Anyways, they gave me the go-ahead, and suddenly I had to produce, so I co-opted that Michael Golden and Chris Claremont Marvel Team-Up story. Golden was already a fan-favorite at the time and the trick was… the story was never completed. I think he did the first two issues and then we had to find other people to do the rest of the storyline, which we did.

Dave Cockrum [Marvel Fanfare #3] and Paul Smith [issue #4] finished it. Paul’s first comic-book work was in issue #1. It was a Daredevil back-up story…?

4 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

CLANCY: That’s correct.

MILGROM: I only remember that because Paul’s supertalented and I liked his stuff. He sent in samples and someone shuffled them over to me and said, “Here.

Some guy’s sending in samples and they look okay.”

So I looked at them and his drawing was very good but he was an animation guy—I think a storyboard guy, so he drew really well. I contacted him and told him I liked his samples but they were mostly just drawings that were more like pinups or single-figure drawings. The stuff looked good but I didn’t have any sense if he could tell a story or if he could draw continuity. I told him I’d like to get him to do a few sample pages and he said, “Look.

I’m a professional, so instead of that why not send me a script and I’ll do the story and if it’s acceptable then you can publish it?” I don’t remember if he did the whole story or just a few pages initially, but the stuff came in and it looked fine. But I probably gave him a couple of tips, hints, or a little instruction about storytelling techniques, because although storyboarding is similar, it’s not exactly the same as comics. Apparently I may have offended him… [laughs] I’m really very mild when I give people a critique of their portfolio. I’m usually very reasonable about it. I never say, “Oh, my God, this sucks! You need to go home and learn how to cook hamburgers. Don’t ever darken our doorway again.” There are guys who do that. Neal Adams and Larry Hama used to be very harsh with these guys.

Larry’s attitude was, “Look. If they can’t take the criticism, then they shouldn’t be trying to get into this business because it’s not easy.” I would tell Larry, “I know, Larry, but you don’t have to crush their spirits.”

So I told Paul some stuff and he listened and would say, “I get it. I know what you’re saying.” I would tell him he didn’t even need to change anything in this instance, but just be aware of it in the future. I wasn’t looking to bust his chops.

About a year later he was getting regular work other than from me, and he came into the office visiting from the West Coast and said, “I sure miss you busting my balls over this stuff.” And I said, “Huh?!” Believe me, I did nothing that would remotely resemble ball-busting.

I just gave him some advice that I thought was worthwhile to give, but he apparently thought every little suggestion was a sting. He did say that I gave good advice and that he really missed that. I told him that he probably took what I suggested to heart and that there probably was no need for anyone else to give him any more grief, so it’s not that the other editors were going easy on him.

I told him that he was good, which he appreciated.

So anyways, I’m pretty sure that Daredevil story was his first published comic-book work.

CLANCY: Roger McKenzie wrote it.

MILGROM: Right, and Terry Austin inked it. Terry was my go-to guy to work on someone who hadn’t really been inked before. Everyone loved Terry’s work. He was one of those guys who had such a strong style that he would do a nice, solid, detailed job and make the stuff look great pretty much no matter who penciled it.

I think Terry was the first person to ink over Kevin Nowlan. Kevin had a very nice, detailed style, kinda like the Wally Wood/Frazetta-looking style. He had originally gotten ahold of Terry and sent him samples. Terry showed them to me and I liked the samples and ended up giving Kevin an issue of Dr. Strange [#57], with Terry inking it.

He then started inking his own stuff, but he didn’t do a lot of work. He actually was working for a sign company.

One of the first samples I saw of his work was a SpiderMan story that was done in thumbnails, but in a very detailed way. They were so good, in fact, that I wanted to get him to tighten them up even in the small size,

which he probably did on typing paper, and told him I’d publish it because it was just that good. I really liked his stuff and I pretty much guaranteed I could give him as much work as he could handle, which was not a lot of work because he wasn’t fast. In fact, that issue of Dr. Strange was bimonthly, and I think I gave him that plot to do and I remember reading an interview somewhere where he said, “I got this Dr. Strange story that was my first job and Al Milgrom kept calling me up and hounding me for the job and it was terrible,” acting like I was some sort of evil taskmaster.

But I gave the job to him with several months lead-in time and it was bimonthly anyways so he probably had at least two months to draw it, and I’m guessing I gave it to him with more lead time than that and probably closer to four months, and here he was bitching I was being unnecessarily cruel to get him to turn in the damn thing [both laugh]. In my mind I was giving him all the time in the world, but in his mind I was pressuring him with a ridiculously tight deadline. All in the perception.

CLANCY: The title for the series, Marvel Fanfare—how’d that come about?

MILGROM: I tend to have a punny sense of humor and I come by it honestly. I worked for Murphy Anderson, who was an inveterate punster. He’d get this kind of goofy smile on his face over some bad joke… there was this old joke about Tarzan and the punchline was, “Tarzan stripes forever.” Like “Stars and stripes forever,” but had to do with Tarzan painting the stripes on the leopards, tigers, and zebras in the jungle or something like that. My good friend Jack Abel was also a big punster.

So I said it’s gonna be for the fans and it’s gonna be fare for the fans, the kind of stuff that the fans will go for, and that’s how I came up with “Marvel Fan Fare.”

This isn’t well known, but the logo was actually designed

by Ed Hannigan. He submitted one or two ideas and one had an ornate design with scrolls and trumpets because a fanfare was played by trumpets, which I thought might be a little over the top. Ed was a good cover designer and obviously had some logo design talent.

CLANCY: He also did coloring on some titles, too.

MILGROM: I know he would suggest colors for some of the covers he did, and did do some coloring on a few of his own covers, which were good. I remember on at least one cover of the Peter Parker title where he did full “painted” colors where Spidey’s under water, and I think Doc Ock was involved. Ed’s a very talented guy.

So, back to the Marvel Fanfare series. I got the go-ahead to put issues together. Fans who love to be critical would start to say that we were just taking a bunch of inventory junk and throwing it in a magazine and calling it “Fanfare.” That wasn’t quite the truth, but remember that initial Fanfare story was originally designated for Marvel Team-Up and not exactly inventory, just a long time in the making. I think I was having trouble getting Golden to do the rest of the story and finally

Moonlighting Editori-Al drew this swingin’ pinup of Black Widow that appeared on the back cover of MF #9 to promote the character’s appearance in the following issue.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

when Shooter told me we had the go-ahead for Fanfare and that we had to start getting the issues out. I probably pulled that Michael Golden story out to show to Shooter, which he liked. I then asked Golden if he’d be able to do the other two parts and he said no. So I thought since it had the X-Men involved, then why not get Dave Cockrum who was the artist when the new X-Men came out? Paul Smith was just a lucky late discovery that did a nice job in Fanfare #1, so I put him to work on Fanfare #4.

I would then start to experiment a little. I would try new artists I stumbled onto or possibly team up pencilers and inkers that would make it as interesting as possible. Because we had the good paper stock and were charging the public a premium price, I convinced them to let us do more ornate coloring, which allowed us to also get some air-brushing, but nothing too elaborate like they do today… but this was before computer coloring.

There was at least one issue that Murphy Anderson and company did the color separations on. He had started a company— and remember, Murphy was kind of my mentor my first year in the business and I inked backgrounds for him—he had started a company that did color seps, he and his son. They hired a few more people and used the old-fashioned Rubylith approach where you would have each page with Rubylith page cut-outs.

I’m not up on the technique, but there were these translucent red sheets and you would cut them out to the shapes, and I don’t know if you had to do a Rubylith for every color grade… I’m not sure how that worked. Instead of using coloring brushes you would use these sheets that had adhesive backing and cut them out and cover the area where the color was supposed to go. There’d be a sheet for red, blue, and yellow, each of the primary colors, and then different degrees of those colors. They also probably had the capacity to do gray tones, also. I think that on the first job [Murphy] did, I requested a lot of changes which he said he didn’t think he’d make a profit with all the change requests, which I understood, and toned that one issue down a bit but decided not to use them again.

So we had elaborate colors, and I tried to get good writers. I did honestly snag inventory stories if I thought they were worthy of the title, but I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of stuff that went into the book was material that I commissioned for the book. At the time, it was early on and they weren’t paying royalties yet on the sales, Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 5

A Flair for Fans (top) Lettercol header for MF’s “Marvel Fan Flair” readers’ forum. (bottom) Milgrom’s “Editori-Al” from issue #15 (July 1984).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

so I convinced them that if we were gonna make money on the sale of the book then I needed to give talent some incentive to want to work on this book.

At the time we came up with a formula that we would pay everyone involved rate and a half of what they would normally get. That made it quite a good deal for the freelancers, which meant I could pick some of the best guys to work on the title because they were gonna get more money for doing it. That went well, but at some point the bean counters looked at it and said, “We can understand paying more for the writing.

We can understand paying more for the art and the coloring, but why the lettering? The lettering’s not any different or any better and not a big draw, so why are we paying more for the lettering?” So they stopped paying rate-and-a-half for lettering.

So I got to try new things and I even got Mike Mignola to pencil an issue. Mike used to come in with samples all the time and they were really good. He would draw stuff and ink it, but for some reason, and I don’t know why, he wanted to be an inker. I asked him, “Why do

6 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

you want to be an inker? No one wants to be an inker.

Inkers are guys who want to be pencilers and for whatever reason they’re not quite good enough or not fast enough or not quite dynamic enough… there’s drawbacks. There’s things that keep them from being a successful penciler. I don’t think anyone starts out wanting to be an inker.” Certainly I didn’t. I wanted to pencil ultimately, and I like inking and enjoy it. It’s one of the few things you can do artistically to collaborate with another artist. I like trying to come up with the best approach to inking different pencilers and I like putting different pencilers with different inkers where I think they’d be a good match. Most of the time it didn’t work, but a few times it did.

Getting back to Mike, he got a little bit of inking work, but his inking wasn’t great. It was okay. I think the first thing I saw was a Don Perlin [Defenders] job and I said to Mike, “Your inks look much better on your pencils and your pencils are very good, so why are you trying to be an inker?” He said he didn’t know if he could do penciling and that he thought penciling was hard. I asked him to draw something for me and if he wanted to, he could ink it as well. Then he said he didn’t really like to draw superheroes, which I had a laugh over. This is what Marvel did—superheroes. But I asked him if there was any character he wanted to draw? He said he liked Sub-Mariner and thought he was pretty cool. I said okay and asked if there was anything particular he’d like to have in the story that he’d like to draw and he said, “Well, I like drawing animals.” [both laugh] Here’s a character that’s in the ocean all the time and he wanted to draw in animals.

So I then called Bill Mantlo, who was one of my go-to guys because Bill was real cooperative, always eager and always happy to do stuff, so I told him I had a new guy here and that he had a lot of talent. He likes Sub-Mariner but he also says he wants to draw animals. Can you come up with some story that has Sub-Mariner and animals in it? Bill wrote this really nice little story, which was a back-up story for Fanfare, where Sub-Mariner is swimming around the ocean and there’s a ship that has these beautiful Arabian stallions on board and he admires their great beauty [in Marvel Fanfare #16, Sept. 1984].

Somehow, there’s a big storm—maybe Neptune causes it… Mike also liked the supernatural elements—the ship is wrecked and sinking with all the horses struggling in the water and are going to drown, so Sub-Mariner prays to Neptune or maybe it was Poseidon, I don’t remember which one [it was Neptune—ed.], and he says, “Please, oh, great Neptune, can you spare these lovely creatures?

Can you save them for me?” Neptune changes them into sea horses. It was a sweet little cool story and I don’t think Sub-Mariner saved any of the humans [both laugh], but the horses were transformed and saved.

So Mike turned in the pencils on this story and I asked him if he wanted to ink it. He said, “No, I’d feel like I’d be repeating myself.” I said okay and then thought, “Who’d be a good match for him?” I thought Craig Russell might be a good match for this job and so I called him and he said sure. They actually did another Sub-Mariner job together that had something to do with a female pirate. To this day I get people coming up to me telling me how much they liked the sea horse story. There were some Bill Mantlo detractors who thought Bill was just a hack because of Bill also doing licensed characters.

At the time there was an anti-licensing fan base who thought Marvel was selling out because they were doing all this licensed stuff. We were doing a ton of licensed stuff during that time period.

CLANCY: Wasn’t Bill Mantlo involved in a hit-and-run accident?

MILGROM: Yes. I didn’t realize this, as I thought he was roller-skating or roller-blading in the street, but someone said he was waiting to cross the street when a car jumped the curb and hit him. When it happened he wasn’t really doing any comics and basically was thinking his career in comics was over and he went back to school. He got a law degree and was working as a public defender and was having a great time, and then one day, boom. He was hit and badly injured.

CLANCY: Your one-page caricatures in the Marvel Fanfare series… was that your first attempt at doing those?

MILGROM: Yeah, yeah. I hate writing [laughs]. It’s like a chore to me to sit and write, to write a page-long editorial, and I don’t recall how many typed pages that was, but probably at least two.

I went to Shooter and I said, “Instead of doing an editorial, can I do an illustrated editorial?” and he said, “Sure.” So I was trying to think of ideas and I typed out the word editorial and I said to myself, “Wait a minute. EditoriAl! So there’s my pun and distinctive idea because it fit.

People have asked me if I was a big Kurtzman fan based on the way I drew that first one and I’ve said, “I’m aware of Kurtzman but I never really read any of his stuff.” If it resembles his stuff, I guess that’s a compliment because he’s considered a top talent, but I wasn’t well aware of his stuff then. After that I used that approach for any of my editorials.

I edited a Captain Marvel reprint series of all Starlin’s stuff and I did Editori-Als for that… The funny thing about doing those was that people would come up to me at conventions and say, “You must be Archie Goodwin.” Archie used to do little caricatures of himself for the Epic stuff and I would do mine for my stuff and for some reason they would mix us up, but Archie’s character had hair, so I don’t know how they could mistake the two of us [both laugh]. I guess it was because they were both caricatures of ourselves and they couldn’t tell the difference.

CLANCY: You would also make fun of some of the people who were working at Marvel at the time in your Editori-Als. You’d show Chris Claremont as a big windbag, as an example….

MILGROM: I love Chris. He’s a good guy, but he is a big windbag [both laugh]. The thing that makes him kind of adorable is that he is very easy to deflate. He would come in and make pompous statements about how great X-Men was and how great it was selling, and you’d make some sort of statement and he’d sigh… and I liked that about him. He didn’t take himself too seriously.

I would poke fun at Shooter and I poked fun at myself, certainly. I would do these fictionalized interactions between myself and some of the talent on the book like… another bad pun was where I would occasionally run a set of pinup portfolios and there was even one issue I did in Fanfare that was all pinups… I would sometimes pick a person who was better known as an inker to do the drawings and they’d do five or six pinups, which I called the inker’s corner. I did a joke about the inker coming in and begging me, “Please, Al. Don’t send me to the inker’s coroner!”, implying that I was going

Editor’s Choice Ye ed’s personal fave issue of Milgrom’s Marvel Fanfare was #15 (July 1984), cover-featuring bashful Benjy Grimm in a 19-page story written, illustrated, and colored by Barry Windsor-Smith wherein… the Thing grows a beard!

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 7

to kill them. That’s an example of one of my awful puns and I had fun with it.

I always felt that if I was enjoying it, the fans would, too.

CLANCY: How were the sales on the series?

MILGROM: The sales weren’t off the charts but they were very strong. I don’t remember how high. Certainly the first issue did great, and I think it was selling in the 200,000 range but possibly in the 150,000 range. It was selling very respectably, especially at the inflated cover price.

CLANCY: And selling that high in the direct market, which had no returns.

MILGROM: Yeah, and that was part of the reason why it made it viable in the first place was that there would be no returns. That was one of the advantages of the direct market, and the dealers got a bigger discount. Another win-win.

CLANCY: Was the decision to go to the direct market in part to try and avoid the Comics Code?

MILGROM: No. It really had nothing to do with the Code. The vast majority of the stuff that we did was still going out on newsstands. The whole point of the direct market was… I believe it was Phil Seuling who was the guy who used to run conventions back in the very early days, in the early 1970s… I don’t remember if he had a comic shop or shops, but it became a way for him to become a distributor to the local comic-book shops that were starting to spring up. As a result of that he said, “I’ll take this many comics but give me a bigger discount and I won’t do returns.” The publishers agreed and probably looked at it as a side thing, but during this time comic shops started growing and springing up all over the place. It started to be a bigger and bigger percentage of the overall sales and much more profitable because the newsstand sales kept falling, which could have been because of the direct market eating up a portion of the newsstand sales. You’d send 100 comics to a newsstand dealer and they’d return 70 of them, and the weird thing is… in the old days, they used to tear off the cover or the title logo of the comic and return it for credit and that’s how they’d prove they didn’t sell that issue. At some point they decided it was a lot of extra work and didn’t want to do it that way anymore, so they changed it to the honor system. When you do stuff on the honor system, there’s gonna be people who are gonna cheat. I guess the companies were thinking that as long as they didn’t cheat us too much and as long as we are still making a profit then they’d put up with it. But at some point, the direct market essentially became the only market and the newsstand sales were selling in the 20% sales range, sharing shelf space with little profit to the newsstand dealer.

I remember when the company wanted to completely do away with newsstand sales, Tom DeFalco said, “It’s a bad idea. Where is the next generation of readers going to come from?” and all the people upstairs were saying, “We’re only making a little profit on the newsstand sales and doing much better on the direct market, so why keep doing the newsstand sales?”

CLANCY: Toward the end of Marvel Fanfare, did you see the end coming?

MILGROM: Yes. There were a few factors. I was no longer on staff but it was one of the books I kept on editing on a freelance basis. I don’t remember what they were paying me but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t enough. By this time, I don’t remember exactly when it went into effect, they started paying the royalty incentives.

DC had cleverly come up with the idea of paying a royalty depending on sales and Shooter heard about it—we all heard about it—and he went up to Jim Galton, who was the head of Marvel at the time, and said that this gives all the freelancers an opportunity to go over to DC and make a lot more money and we’d lose all the best talent. Marvel was number one for quite awhile, but once DC has all the best creators they’d be liable to get all the better sales. I think initially there was some resistance because the publishers thought they had the better characters and Marvel’s fan base was very loyal, but Jim convinced them by some miracle that it was the material and DC would have the better material and eventually beat Marvel. Jim finally convinced them and Marvel matched the DC deal.

Jim was a very good advocate for freelancers. He wanted them to get the royalty.

He also wanted to make sure if the characters were picked up for any licensing that the creators would be compensated because he didn’t think it was fair that Kirby, Ditko, Siegel and Shuster… that a lot of the guys who created these incredibly successful characters never got to share in any of the profits from them.

Namor Gives ’Em Hell, Boy! (top) From the Heritage archives, original art from then-newcomer Mike Mignola’s Bill Mantlo-scripted Sub-Mariner back-up tale from Marvel Fanfare #16 (Sept. 1984). (bottom) A Mignola Subby pinup drawn in 1983 but published in 1984’s MF #16.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

8 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

CLANCY: But the end of Marvel Fanfare…

MILGROM: [laughs] I do that sometimes—I digress….

They installed this new system where you got royalties… so suddenly the best talent theoretically who were working on the most popular titles, X-Men and Spider-Man, for example, were now making many times the usual page rate because of the sales of their titles.

So now Marvel Fanfare’s rate of 1.5 times the usual rate didn’t look that impressive anymore. Essentially, sales started falling because I could no longer lure the top fan-faves to work for the book because they were busy making a lot more money on their sales. A guy like Frank Miller, who was a brilliant creator, goes over and revamps Daredevil, and it starts selling fantastically…

CLANCY: I remember a Frank Miller Captain America story of him against an arsonist.

MILGROM: I don’t remember that story, but I do remember the cover where Captain America was holding an American flag. [Editor’s note: Actually, they’re one and the same: “Home Fires!” from Marvel Fanfare #18, the subject of an article in this issue.]

Basically… sales were falling, and I remember the head of the direct-market sales, Carol Kalish, came into my office and said that the sales were falling and she had a solution: “Do more X-Men stories,” because the X-Men sold better than anything else. I didn’t want to make this another X-Men title as that would defeat the whole purpose of the series, but she said it would sell a lot better. I told her I was sure she was right but I didn’t want to do that, so I suggested setting an end issue and called it quits.

Paul Smith did kind of a sequel Daredevil story to the one he originally did in the first issue. I had contacted him and told him that Fanfare was coming to a close and that I’d like to have something like a bookend here with him doing a DD story for the last issue. Paul asked if he could write it as well as draw it and I agreed. I’m thinking the lead story was an unfinished Spider-Man story that Michael Golden had done years ago… but I see here that is was used in issue #47 and not the last issue, #60.

Bill Mantlo wrote the Hulk/Spider-Man story that Michael Golden drew—that was a weird one—because I wasn’t sure where this story was going to originally be printed—maybe a Team-Up—but they had started this story and Golden had laid the whole thing out in very light blue pencil. I would periodically call him up and say, “Michael, can you finish this story up? I’d love to publish it,” and he’d keep saying that he was busy with this and busy with that and he finally said that he wasn’t sure if he’d ever get around to finishing it, so he asked if we could get Vinnie Colletta to ink it. I asked, “Why Vinnie?” He said he liked Vinnie’s stuff but I said if the pencils were real tight maybe, but they were loose breakdowns, so I suggested Joe Sinnott. He’s always good… and Michael said, “I like Sinnott, but I don’t know.” I told Michael I wasn’t gonna use Vinnie and if he didn’t want Sinnott then I didn’t know what we were gonna do. I don’t recall if I tried to apply pressure or if I ignored him long enough that he said, “All right, then, I’ll just ink it myself.” Which he did, and so we got another beautiful Michael Golden story out of him.

Clash and Splash (left) Original art (from Heritage) from MF #21 (July 1985), featuring Editori-Al inking his old pal Jim Starlin. From the concluding chapter of Starlin’s two-part Thing/Hulk story. (right) Milgrom’s “Editori-Al” page from MF #29 (Nov. 1986), the famous John Byrne all-splash Hulk issue.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 9

Strike a Pose Wraparound cover for Marvel Fanfare’s pinups issue, #45 (Aug. 1989). Cover

by John Byrne, with Editori-Al caricature

by Al Milgrom.

(Note the boot and cape of Superman in the lower right corner of the front cover.)

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc., except Superman TM & © DC Comics.

There was another issue that was in inventory that John Byrne had done, an issue of The Hulk when he was doing that title. He had made it an all-splash page issue— one panel per page… on every page. I don’t know precisely the details, but I think he may have done that sort of without running it by the editor first, who was Denny O’Neil. Denny said, “It looks great, but I don’t feel like there’s enough of a plot there to justify it being a whole issue of The Hulk.” So Denny rejected it and I think as a result Byrne may have quit The Hulk because he was miffed. I’m not positive of any of these details, but the only detail I am sure of is that I had said I’d take it and put it in Fanfare [#29], and so Byrne got the extra half-rate for writing, penciling, and inking the whole thing. As a story, yes, it was a little spare because instead of 20-some pages of five panels a page, it was 20-some pages of one panel a page. It was basically a 20-panel story, which would usually be a four-page job. But I thought, Byrne is a fan-fave, and I thought it looked nice and impressive and was an interesting concept, and so I thought I’d be able to put it in Fanfare and not have to worry about apologizing that the story was a little on the spare side. I thought the art more than made up for it.

CLANCY: You used some artists in Marvel Fanfare who weren’t known as Marvel guys…

MILGROM: I got the chance to use guys who weren’t doing regular stuff for Marvel. Charles Vess did a

10 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

Warriors Three story for m,e and Charlie has this beautiful old-fashioned style of illustration, which is incredibly detailed and, in fact, I even bought a page from that issue from him because I thought it looked so great. He did three issues I believe [#34–37]. I remember Brent Anderson did a Moon Knight story.

I had Ken Steacy, a Canadian artist, who did this very nice blue-line coloring, which was probably some of the most sophisticated coloring I had in Fanfare. I remember at the time, he was complaining. I liked his stuff quite a bit but it had a sort of cartoony quality to it, and he was trying to get work at Marvel and none of the other editors wanted to use him because they thought his stuff looked too cartoony. I couldn’t see condemning a guy because his style was too cartoony and the overall look of the stuff was nice enough that I was happy to use him.

CLANCY: Did you have to actively go out looking for submissions rather than people sending in submissions to Fanfare?

MILGROM: I’d get submissions occasionally, and there was one job I regret not using. There was this writer over at DC whose name escapes me right now but it was him and Paris Cullins, who was a talented artist, that submitted an idea and I’m thinking it was a Captain America story… anyways, I didn’t commission this and I never asked them to do it, they just came in with this really elaborate, several-issue storyline

with all kinds of character sketches, and I don’t recall if he drew a few pages of continuity or not, but it was basically unsolicited.

I don’t recall if it was because it was a multi-issue thing or if there was something about it… I don’t remember, but I did not take them up on it and I kind of regret it because it was really well thought out and well done. I like Paris’ artwork quite a bit, but for some reason the story didn’t grab me and so I told them I wasn’t interested.

There was another story which was going to be an issue of The Silver Surfer by John Buscema, which Jack Abel was inking and I think it was slated to be the first issue of a new Silver Surfer title, but they ultimately did something different and so this was sitting in a drawer and probably not completely inked for a long time.

I think I booked Jack Abel and told him I wanted him to finish it up and I’d print it in Fanfare and he would get rate-and-a-half and in fact we’d give Buscema the extra 50% for the job, too. So we printed it [issue #51] and I think Steve Englehart wrote it.

CLANCY: Where were the inventory stories stored at the Marvel offices?

MILGROM: In various flat files. I don’t think people automatically threw the stuff in my office thinking, “Here, Al, here’s one for Fanfare.” As a matter of fact, I know the Silver Surfer story was in a manila envelope near Jack Abel’s desk in the Bullpen. He may have been working as a proofreader at Marvel at that time.

It was a double-sized issue so there were, like, 39 or so pages, and I was just surprised no one had lifted it and I hated to see it just sitting there.

There was also a Black Knight story just sitting in a drawer and penciled by Scott Hampton that never went any further. I always liked the Black Knight character and even have some of the old 1950s Marvel comics with him in it.

Overall, I look at the series and I’m pretty happy with it.

I remember using a Gil Kane Mowgli story that I used and had Craig Russell ink. It was some story that Gil Kane had started but never finished for some reason and I believe Craig Russell even finished the next two issues of it.

CLANCY: Did you ever get any negative feedback about Marvel Fanfare?

MILGROM: The only time I ever got any super-negative reaction was one guy at a convention I went to, and I had done an issue early on, probably within the first 15 issues [Close… it was in #16–17—ed.], it was a Dave Cockrum/Marv Wolfman story about the Sky-Wolf, I think it was. It was basically something like a Blackhawk-type of team of military guys and some guy came up to me and he was a dealer who had a comic shop and he said, “You know we buy this stuff, and Marvel Fanfare is supposed to be for the fans and is supposed to be so great, but then you do this crap story!” Now, this wasn’t an inventory story… it was something Dave and Marv had been working on and wanted to do together but had only gotten so far on it, so I told them if they wanted to finish it up then I’d publish it in Fanfare and they said sure so I did. Yes, it wasn’t superheroes, but I thought it was a fun story and Marv was a big shot writing Teen Titans and Dave, of course, was from The X-Men. So I thought… top talent, did a good job, it’s not the standard superhero stuff, but why not? It’s Fanfare, so why can’t I do something a little different? So this guy said, “Now I’m stuck. I ordered this many copies of it and I’m stuck with them! I’ll never be able to sell them.” I told him I was sorry that he wasn’t happy with the results and if I had really been cool, which unfortunately I was not, I would have said, “Look. How many do you have? Fifty? I’ll buy your entire overage at what you paid.

I’m not gonna give you a profit on it, but I’ll buy them back and take them off your hands.” I should have done that and I’m sorry I didn’t, and maybe he would have shut up.

CLANCY: Well, he still might have them [both laugh].

MILGROM: It’s quite possible.

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.

Editori-Al’s Last Stand (bottom) The final issue of Marvel Fanfare, #60 (Dec. 1991).

Cover art by Denys Cowan and Walter Simonson. (top) A young Jim Lee illo’ed this Silver Surfer/ Galactus pinup, which appeared in MF #45.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 11

Sitting down and chatting with legendary X-Men writer Chris Claremont is always an enlightening experience.

Chris is a walking cornucopia of ideas and Marvel Comics’ history; to talk with him about his involvement with Marvel Fanfare is not only a great way to spend an afternoon, but also provides great historical insight into this unique anthology and comics creation.

Considering Marvel Fanfare’s amazing array of story ideas and printing on high-quality paper—a novel innovation for the time—we begin by talking to Chris about how the chance to write the initial issues presented itself.

“Well, Marvel was trying all sorts of experiments in those days with stories that were by folks who you wouldn’t normally see with characters that weren’t regular fare,” Claremont says. “In this instance it was a great opportunity to put me and Michael [Golden] together after our work on the Avengers Annual. From my perspective: way cool.” [Editor’s note: Claremont and Golden co-produced 1981’s Avengers Annual #10, which introduced the breakout character Rogue.]

Chris wrote stories for the first five issues of Marvel Fanfare: a continuing saga set in the Savage Land with Spider-Man, Angel, and Ka-Zar in issues #1 and 2, with the X-Men joining in with #3 and 4. Claremont did a Dr. Strange story in #5 and also wrote for issues #24, 33, and 40, including tales featuring Dr. Strange and various members of the X-Men and their associates or enemies. Mystique and Destiny encountered Storm in a very memorable tale in issue #40.

Regarding Marvel Fanfare #1–4, “It was something that we had thought up for Marvel Team-Up—hence the SpiderMan involvement, and my memory might be wrong—but that’s why it never ended up in Team-Up, because my run ended before Michael finished the story. Rather than drop it into the regular continuity, Fanfare was seen as a way to burn off the inventory [of stories] that was around but also to showcase writers and artists’ stories that wouldn’t fit into the normal continuity. There was no easy way to put the Savage Land story in X-Men continuity and there was no easy way to put it in Spidey continuity.

Fanfare was it. The reason why it kept going after that was, we had loose ends.

How do we tie up those loose ends?

Well, we fell back on the continuity.

We were left with Sauron still in the Savage Land—you know, back in the days when it wasn’t a problem to use a name like Sauron, because who was ever going to read Lord of the Rings [laughs]?”

Claremont attributes a great deal of the comic’s success to the variety of artists he worked with on each of these issues.

“Who better to draw the X-Men than Dave [Cockrum]? Dave did one really cool issue and then we ran into schedule glitches.

But then Paul [Smith] doing the final part of the story was essentially his showcase that told us that he could draw the X-Men. Of course, one look at that and we were there.

My only regret with Smitty was if he could have only stuck around for two years instead of one, we would have hit the half-million mark then and not ten years later, dang it.” [Editor’s note: For more on these mutant milestones of the Bronze Age, see BACK ISSUE #29.]

Does Whatever a Spider Can Ka-Zar joins the “fun” in Chris Claremont’s Marvel Fanfare serial. Cover to issue #2 (May 1982) by Michael Golden.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

12 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

by J o

hn Kirk

GOLDEN YEARS

These were golden years. Marvel Fanfare’s goal may have been to showcase a variety of talent, but in order for it to successfully launch, it needed the tried-and-true comic appeal of veteran dynamic writers and artists like Claremont and Cockrum. While Smith was a relative newcomer at the time, his work was truly scintillating and as Claremont indicated, his work in Fanfare only served to confirm his talent and popular appeal. Of course, the pun notwithstanding, the work of Michael Golden in these “golden years” was also impossible to leave out. Claremont is emphatic in stating that the challenge of working with such an eclectic and diverse range of artists and characters only added to the “fun” of this anthology.

“When you work with someone as cinematically gifted as Michael… I mean, just look at the doublepanel spread of the establishing shot of Angel flying around over the Grand Canyon and the insert panels of Candy Southern and Karl Lykos’ girlfriend, Tanya.

The establishment of Warren and Candy Southern— it’s wonderful. Michael can present the most prosaic of moments in the most visually enticing and evocative characterizations to evoke the emotions you need for the scene and the bonding moments of the characters.

It’s an exaggerated moment of reality that you love in good television and cinema. It’s wonderful to me and the character moments with Angel playing with the falcons, it’s like you wished you had wings so you could do that too.”

Claremont characterizes Golden’s style as brilliant and logical with visual storytelling that wisely heeded all the elements of the story that completely matched the context. For Golden, everything had to fit perfectly. Before Step G could be reached, it was essential to understand everything in Steps A through F. In comparison to the work of Cockrum and Smith, Claremont has this to say: “Dave knew the characters. For him it wasn’t about telling who everybody was—it was more about how best to present them. What would be the coolest evocative presentation of the characters? With Paul, it was getting to know him as a penciler—what his strengths and weakness were, what he liked to draw or how he approached the responsibility of telling the story.

How much did I need to tell him? All that © Luigi Novi / stuff got worked out in the first issue.

Wikimedia Commons.

But what was cool was, that enabled us to do the Japan two-parter [X-Men #172–173] after the Wolverine miniseries. He hit the ground running and

Bugle Fever (top) A Claremont story, illustrated by Golden? No wonder Marvel Fanfare caught the attention of readers! Signed original art from issue #1, courtesy of Heritage (www.ha.com). Note its title stamp, signifying its original Marvel Team-Up home. (bottom) Chris loves this Golden-drawn Angel spread from issue #2—and so do we!

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 13

Wrapper’s Delight Wraparound cover art for Marvel Fanfare #3 (top), by Dave Cockrum and Bob McLeod, and #4 (bottom), by then-newcomer Paul Smith.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

came up with visual images that just grabbed you.”

The Savage Land holds a special significance to Claremont.

“It was fun,” he remarks of these issues. “But it was a way of presenting a ‘What if…?’ style of reality. In was the same rationale that we used in creating Nova Roma [New Mutants], putting it in the Andes. There are no undiscovered plateaus in the Andes or at the headwaters of the Amazon. To have a city created by exiles fleeing Caesar was fantastic. Why the heck not?

In 1975, a lot of this was plausible.

There were still unknown parts of the world, so we could have Shangri-La in the Himalayas, just out of reach of what we can perceive. But today, everything has been Google-mapped seven ways from Sunday. Evolution in technology and perception in this century really means that comics need to stay ahead of the curve—or at least somewhere off to the left where no one is looking.

Hence an alcove of Antarctica at the bottom of this plateau is the Savage Land.”

When asked if this was like saying goodbye to the age of Burroughs, Claremont rejects this notion. “No, it’s finding a new way of looking at it. Today, we can say that the doorway to the Savage Land is in Antarctica, but the Land itself could be elsewhere.

It’s fun.”

Whether it was working with a variety of different artists or switching locales from the Savage Land to Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, the one consistent detail in the conversation with Chris is the fact that it was all fun. Despite the different repercussions on the continuity or the diverse ways of presenting the characters, Claremont manifested a joyful attitude in recalling these stories.

Courtesy of Marvel.Wikia.com.

THE MYSTIQUE OF MARVEL FANFARE

When talking about Marvel Fanfare #40, Claremont eagerly recalls the bold way in which Mystique and Destiny were presented during this issue that had profound effects upon the X-Men continuity.

“We weren’t fooling about the relationship,” he begins.

In this issue, we saw Mystique manifest her protective mother’s instinct over Rogue to Storm. It is a visceral and raw story that changed the way X-Men readers viewed this iconic villainess.

14 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

The Devil Made Me Do It Splash page to the Claremont/Hamilton Storm story from MF #40.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

“It was part of my evolving perception of the characters. The point for me was not that Mystique and Destiny referred to Rogue as their foster daughter because she was their foster daughter, but rather for her protection. Nightcrawler was unfortunately outed from the get-go. He knew that one of his parents was Mystique.

In my iteration of it, it’s the parental relationship with Mystique and Destiny in both cases that mattered. And the reason that Mystique reacted to Kurt so negatively was that she was not comfortable seeing herself in that way.”

Great fiction comes from when characters are forced to face that unbearable side of themselves, which is what we see in issue #40.

This is a comic story that not only broke ground with regard to samesex relationships but also altered the path of four essential characters of the X-Men history. [Editor’s note: Artist Craig Hamilton’s recollections of Marvel Fanfare #40 appear elsewhere in this issue.]

But Marvel Fanfare also had its humorous side as well. Al Milgrom’s “Editori-Al” segments brought a more relaxed side to the prestigeladen format of the book. It was a refreshing break that provided a personal insight into the relationships of the Marvel staffers and creators.

“That was Al’s soapbox,” Claremont offers. “In the same way that Archie [Goodwin] did his editorial notes and commentaries in Epic, and he would toss in his own cartoons where he would make fun of himself, dressed up in the Phoenix costume—Al was the same way.

The nice thing about comics is the drama or comedy, good or ill—the only limitations to what you present are your sense of humor and your ability to put it on paper. How well could you draw and how clearly can you make the joke work? It was very rare. I enjoy a good joke. I have a beautiful picture of Dark Phoenix threatening the X-Men—except it’s me dressed in the Dark Phoenix costume! I was not what one would call… svelte [chuckles].”

To be the subject of caricature takes a great sense of tolerance and humor. Upon my comment that I would have paid money to see that, Chris responds: “Yeah, well—in your dreams, dude! But that’s the key with comics: visual iconography. The gift one has in working with Michael, Dave, Smitty is any shot that I can think of, any way of presenting a scene: they can bring it to life. In fact, they will have a tweak or way that will make it better. The challenge is going to John Byrne, Walt Simonson, Alan Davis, and getting them excited about your ideas.

They’re the visual presenters—I’m just a guy who can write words on a page. Wow… that’s cool.”

MARVEL FUNFARE

Marvel Fanfare was a spectacular break from the regular stream of Marvel titles. It showcased characters in a way that permitted veteran writers like Chris to bring them to the reader in different circumstances or allowed new or unexpected creators represent them in new ways.

In Chris’ case, it represented the interaction of different heroes like Spider-Man with characters he was well versed with, like the X-Men. But it also introduced him to dynamic artists like Paul Smith or reunited him with Michael Golden and Dave Cockrum. Moreover, he also expanded the breadth of characters like Mystique and Destiny while also exploring settings like the Savage Land that would become fixtures in the Marvel Universe.

“I am a writer of stories,” Claremont says. “What I got taught by Stan, Jack, Steve, or Neal is, how can I imagine a scene in a way that will ignite the artist and catch the reader’s eye and heart? I want the reader to stop and read the book again but look for stuff that is in the background, around the edges; I want them to see what they might have missed the first time. There’s so much going on in Michael’s Savage Land art. Each of the characters in this comic—Zabu, the dinosaurs—are in context, in character, and to me, that’s what makes

the visual potential of the industry and of the craft so irresistibly enticing and so damn cool.”

In short, Chris remembers Marvel Fanfare as fun. While this may seem to be an overly simplistic way of describing Claremont’s experiences on this comic, it definitely does not diminish them.

After all, if the readers of the time were allowed to see Michael Golden’s cinematically spectacular work with panoramic views, or Paul Smith’s stunning depiction of Storm, then certainly that was fun-filled joy experienced by the reader. Why shouldn’t Claremont experience some of that joy as well?

“I could do anything with any of these artists that Spielberg could do on screen but it would cost him 100 million bucks. All it would cost us is the time it takes to put these stories together. That’s the incredibly great power of comics. That’s the incredibly great power and incredibly great responsibility of coming up with stories and characters that fulfill all that potential. That’s what makes telling these stories like the two-part Savage Land story so much fun. It’s playtime, but it’s playtime with comic-book Michelangelos.”

Comics are pure imagination. Claremont believes this and as a result, we see a dynamic interaction of uniquely talented writers and visual artists. There was a greater sense of individuality in comic storytelling, and much of the success of the comics in Claremont’s day stemmed from this. While the readers of these comics remember them fondly, for Claremont, this was the source of the fun that he enjoyed. His joy in telling these stories became our joy in reading them.

JOHN KIRK is a librarian and English teacher with the Toronto District School Board in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, who incorporates comics and comics history into his classroom teaching.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 15

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Stephen Strange probably appreciated the rest. After all, here was a character that, throughout his career, had been involved in more than his fair share of extended storylines.

Early on in Strange’s series in Strange Tales, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko had the good doctor chased all over the planet by Baron Mordo. Dr. Strange went to the ends of the universe and met Eternity, for Pete’s sake!

Steve Englehart and a couple of different artists sent him all through time, and even had him the only survivor when the planet Earth was destroyed!!

Then, just a couple of years before arriving in Fanfare, he was engulfed in the year-long Creator Chronicles.

Extracurricular activities were no better. Over in The Defenders, Steve Gerber involved the Sorcerer Supreme in a year-long storyline involving a gorilla with a human head and a veritable plethora of bozos!

MAY I HAVE A FANFARE, PLEASE?

Suffice to say, the short, one-issue stories that Dr. Strange was involved with in Marvel Fanfare surely came as a welcome respite. And yes, one of those stories spanned two issues, but that was balanced out by the fact that three of the tales were short back-up stories of eight or 13 pages.

The series probably also served as an ego boost for Stephen. His first story appeared in issue #5 (Nov. 1982) and was cover-featured. This is rather significant since the four-issue storyline that preceded it featured heavy-hitter characters the X-Men and Spider-Man and creators such as Chris Claremont, Michael Golden, Dave Cockrum, and Paul Smith. Heady company, indeed.

Dr. Strange was even fortunate enough to have Mr. Claremont stick around and pen his first Fanfare adventure. Having recently scribed issues #38–45 (Dec. 1979–Feb. 1981) of the Doctor’s own title, Claremont feels the story in Fanfare was, “If not actually left over, it was an idea I was playing with.”

The villain of the piece was a sorcerer who had only previously made one appearance, and that was in a back-up feature in The Defenders #53 (Nov. 1977), where he battled Clea alone.

The choice of a minor adversary such as this was, “I think basically [out of] desperation,” recalls Claremont. “You go through the list of who is available, who haven’t we seen in a long time.”

Further to that idea, regarding his run on the Dr. Strange title, Claremont states, “I was always trying to come up with new and different ways of presenting magic and magical-themed antagonists that ideally hadn’t been seen before.” In this case, of course, it was a foe who had not encountered Strange before, but was still a logical adversary.

The fact that Nicodemus battled Clea in his other appearance lent itself to this story featuring Clea in quite an active role mystically. After Nicodemus steals Stephen’s powers, it is up to her to stop their foe and take those powers back. “It’s a Claremont story,” says the author.

“Women do not generally [play] second fiddle to the men.”

Master of the Marvel Fanfare Arts Detail from the Dr. Strange pinup from MF #33 (July 1987). Art by Ian Akin and Brian Garvey.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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by B

rian Martin

Marshall Law (top) Marvel Fanfare #5’s (Nov. 1982) wraparound cover, gorgeously illustrated and signed by Marshall Rogers and incredibly inked by P. Craig Russell.

Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). (bottom) Page 10 of Doc’s MF #5 adventure, showing Marvel Fanfare’s fascination with the color hold.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Chris continues, believing, “From my perspective, we’re used to seeing Doc save the day. We’re used to seeing Clea be the damsel in distress.”

Teamed with Claremont on this story was Marshall Rogers, an artist fresh off a six-issue run on Strange’s comic where he was teamed with Roger Stern for issues #48–53 (Aug. 1981–June 1982). Aware that Marshall was going to illustrate this issue, Claremont tells BACK ISSUE, “For me the fun is working with guys who are that good.” Chris continues stating his credo for these collaborations: “What are the neat things I can come up with that will catch the artist by surprise, and by extension, the readers.”

EXCUSE ME, BUT YOU LOOK VERY FAMILIAR

Those readers were in for another surprise as immediately after that, in issue #6 (Jan. 1983), Strange took a turn as the back-up story. This entry was written by roger stern the aforementioned Roger Stern, who was still authoring the doctor’s regular book at the time, with Charles Vess tapped to illustrate it. Why have a story end up in Fanfare when you’re writing the regular book? “As I recall,” begins Roger Stern, “Allen Milgrom asked me to write a Dr. Strange story specifically for Marvel Fanfare. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know in what issue of Fanfare the story would appear. I just knew that Al would slot it in where it would best fit.”

This story concerned a young gun who showed up intent on wresting the title of Sorcerer Supreme away from Strange. “It was an idea I had about Doc in general,” Stern reveals. “If other mystics considered him the Sorcerer Supreme, it just stood to reason that some would occasionally challenge him and try to move up in the mystic world.”

Strange proceeds to school the youngster in magic and the perils involved in being the top gun. “The story is about the brash young stranger coming to town to ‘out-gun’ the established master,” recounts Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 17

Stern. “I watched a lot of Westerns when I was growing up. So, while working on the plot, I immediately saw a number of parallels between Doc’s position in the mystic world and that of a gunslinger in the Old West.”

(Remember that Old West remark; we might see its like again.)

THREE OUT OF FOUR AIN’T BAD

Stephen Strange must have begun to think of Fanfare as his second home when he appeared again in issue #8 (May 1983). Cover-featured, his story within was penned by Peter B. Gillis and drawn by Carmine Infantino and P. Craig Russell. “The Dr. Strange story was an inventory plot,” Gillis remembers. “When I wrote the plot I had no idea who would draw it—or even if [it would be produced]. I did it in something like 1979 or ’80. I was ecstatic to learn that Carmine would draw it.

My favorite book as a kid—before Marvel even existed— was Mystery in Space. And Carmine Infantino/Craig Russell? Be still, my heart.” [Editor’s note: In the Silver Age, Carmine Infantino drew the Adam Strange feature in DC’s Mystery in Space.]

The story centers on a neophyte named James Mandarin, who had appeared in issues #15–17 (June– Aug. 1976) of Dr. Strange’s book. Gillis’ reason for using him? “I wanted to rehabilitate James Mandarin, who I thought had been given a raw deal (even though I knew Steve Englehart had envisioned him as a Charles Manson

Say Yes to Vess!

A moody Sanctum Sanctorum splash (below) from the Roger Stern/Charles Vess Dr. Strange tale in Marvel Fanfare #6 (Jan. 1982), and (left) Vess’ back cover pinup to that issue.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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clone). He dates back to the Englehart/Colan days, which was when I was writing letters to the book.”

In one of those coincidences that seem too bizarre to be true, the character appeared in another story right around the same time. Dr. Strange #57 (Feb. 1983) featured the return, albeit brief, of Mandarin. Since his story was penned much earlier, Gillis says, “Any timing issues are mainly accident-Al. (Sorry.)”

The author of Dr. Strange #57, Roger Stern, concurs.

“Our stories were probably written several months apart. It was just a fluke of scheduling that they appeared close together.”

Fanfare’s story depicts Mandarin getting himself into some trouble that only Doc can get him out of. With a little help from Mandarin’s lady love Meredith they combine love, imagination, and magic to empower Mandarin to win his own battle. “The themes in the story are ones I picked up on when I took over the regular book,” reveals Gillis. “I had this issue of Dr. Strange with Morgana Blessing in Doc’s costume—and in a way, my whole tenure on the book was about Strange’s problems with love—and Clea. Even before the breakup it was pretty dysfunctional.” The breakup he is referring to is the end of the Strange/Clea romance that had just occurred in the regular book.

One final note on this issue: An alternate cover for the issue was used as a pinup in the back of issue #11. The illustration is by P. Craig Russell, and is basically another version of the scene that adorns the cover of issue #8.

LET’S YOU AND HIM FIGHT

Our hero was then given some time off before appearing again. The layoff was offset by having the tale span two issues. Marvel Fanfare issues #20–21 (May–July 1985) involve Doc with his old foe Xandu in a tale crafted by that master of cosmic adventure, Jim Starlin.

The Thing is walking the streets, minding his own business, when an image of Dr. Strange summons him to another dimension to aid him. Ben Grimm arrives to find Doc crucified and surrounded by demons. It seems Xandu has discovered the Ruby of Domination, which allowed him to control one of Strange’s allies in the Defenders.

This ally delivered Strange into Xandu’s clutches since the evil mage needs to utilize Doc’s Eye of Agamatto to expand the Ruby’s power to encompass the entire Earth.

Thing frees Strange, and the two track Xandu and that Defender still in his thrall to Strange’s Sanctum. Much to Ben’s chagrin, that Defender is the Incredible Hulk.

As befits a story titled “Clash,” the Thing and the Hulk begin an epic battle through the streets of New York while Strange battles Xandu. Once Strange realizes his foe’s true plan, he leads Grimm back to his home and has him destroy the Ruby, traumatizing Xandu and allowing him to be easily beaten.

On the humorous side, Ben is mainly able to hold his own against the Hulk because he grows tired of the Jade Giant referring to him as “Rockman.”

Just to tie a neat bow on the tale, Strange offers to return Ben to the Baxter Building and the Hulk to the

Arcane Infantino Legendary Flash artist Carmine Infantino’s rendition of Marvel’s Sorcerer Supreme: (left) Original art (inked

by Terry Austin) to the cover of Marvel Fanfare #8, courtesy of Heritage, and (right) that issue’s splash, with Infantino inked by P. Craig Russell.

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middle of the desert. A little battle weary, the mage switches the two destinations.

This may have been a bit of an inside joke to long-term fans, as Starlin had illustrated a Thing/Hulk clash in Marvel Feature #11 (Sept. 1973) that took place in, and left Ben stranded in… the middle of the desert.

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

Dr. Strange had a bit of time to recover after that episode. He did not reappear until issue #31 (Mar. 1987), and this story added an extra breather as well: His body actually rests for most of the story, letting his astral self do the heavy lifting.

In an eight-page tale written and drawn by Mark Wheatley, Stephen’s astral self encounters a young boy named Owl who lives on the banks of the Amazon and is practicing to be a mystic himself.

But like many young people, he is refusing to follow the guidance of an elder. Strange proceeds to show him what his life could be like if he follows a path similar to the one Strange did.

“I started out with a huge fanboy love for Dr. Strange and Steve Ditko,” reveals Wheatley. “Al Milgrom asked me what favorite Marvel character would I want to do a story for—and Dr. Strange was at the top of my list.”

From there Wheatley had to deal with a matter that probably plagued a lot of Fanfare creators. “The tricky part in all this, as Al warned me, was to avoid getting my story tangled into current Marvel continuity,” he recalls. “I needed a story that featured Dr. Strange, but did not create any problems for continuity. So I had the idea of telling a mirror version of his origin by showing how another magician might have made the wrong choices.”

Of course, when you only have eight pages, you have to get a little creative to sneak a tribute in. Mark tells how he managed it. “Al Milgrom was one of those exceptional editors. When I named the new character Dr. Owl, I was making a nod to Dr. Al Milgrom.”

THAT’S LIFE IN THE BIG CITY

Dr. Strange’s next appearance is in issue #41 (Dec. 1988), and he returns with a couple of heavy hitters in tow creator-wise. With Walter Simonson on script and Dave Gibbons illustrating and coloring, Strange faces a foe of almost unimaginable power: a sentient city.

When asked how the creative pairing came about, Dave Gibbons tells BACK ISSUE, “I think the reason I did the story was I wanted to collaborate with Walt Simonson, who had been a friend of mine for a long time.”

As for the reason Strange got the starring role, Gibbons continues, “I loved the Lee/Ditko stories when they came out.

They had a completely different flavor than most of the Marvel superheroes at the time. I think this is one of the first things I did after doing Watchmen, so it’s a complete change of pace in that Walter just gave me a plot to work from and it was a fairly weird and wonderful story where I could go in all sorts of directions and do some quite hallucinatory page layouts.”

As mentioned, the antagonist of the story was a sentient city, though this fantastic being was asleep through most of the story. That being the case, it is manifestations from the creature’s dreams that Doc confronts.

Two of those beings are old Dr. Strange acquaintances Nightmare and Eternity, one of which held a special attraction for Gibbons. “I loved Eternity,” he begins, “the way in which he was literally just this black shape that had all of these kinds of cosmic objects floating around inside him. So I made the most of what I could do with him in a graphic sense.”

Staying with the graphic-design angle, coming up with the visuals for a character who literally embodies a city surely required a bit of thought. Gibbons lets us in on the process. “I just wanted to have it look like sort of Eastern magic. A kind of Indian-style city. A lot of the ancient buildings, temples

From Here to Eternity (top) Mark Wheatley’s rendition of the good doctor, from Marvel Fanfare #31 (Mar. 1987). Scan courtesy of Brian Martin. (inset) Dave Gibbons’ cover for MF #41 (Dec. 1988). (bottom) A jaw-dropping Eternity reveal from that issue.

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Old West Avengers Just for fun, Alan Weiss shares with BACK ISSUE his Old West Avengers, a commission inked by Joe Rubinstein. “I was particularly tickled by my angle on what to do to make Iron Man Western,” Alan says. “Didn’t want to make him look like a steam engine or the Oz Tin Man, so the Iron Gambler, still a little steampunk, seemed an apt solution.” (inset) Marvel Fanfare #49 (Feb. 1990) featured Alan Weiss’ surreal real-deal of a Dr. Strange Western.

Avengers characters TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

and things with a kind of Buddhist/Tibetan feeling to them.” Dave felt this was the angle to take since “Dr. Strange’s magic essentially came from the Far East, so that was really what we had in mind.”

Appropriately enough, Strange escapes the creature by casting a spell that makes it seem that he himself is only a dream this immense being is having.

IS THAT A GUN IN YOUR POCKET…

comments Alan. “It was mostly for show in any case. Like the rest of the Marvel cowboy Kids, he never kills anybody with his gun.”

Strange does use the gun, however, and a special gold bullet which disrupts his foe’s aura, ending the threat. “This was a superhero supernatural fantasy spaghetti Western,” comments Alan. “Doc was the American sorcerer versus the Native-American sorcerer.”

As a final caveat he adds, “I may have had the ‘Strange on the range’ title in mind, but I’d always wanted a crack at the character. So I gave him a gun, boots, and spurs, changed his cape to a poncho, and off to the Wild West he went.”

FOR MY FINAL TRICK…

The good doctor’s final cover feature was issue #49 Dr. Strange materializes again in Fanfare with an eight-page (Feb. 1990), and you could be forgiven for missing it. back-up tale in issue #52 (Aug. 1990). Legendary Strange The shirt and cape are there, but Strange is wearing artist Gene Colan is on hand, penciling a tale scribed

by Dean Allan Schreck and inked by Al Williamson. cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, and wielding a gun Interestingly, the three had collaborated the issue before in his hand. The story inside is the work of Alan Weiss, and it guest-stars Nick Fury and Dum-Dum Dugan. on a short tale that centered on Doc’s frequent foe Nightmare.

When asked how this particular setting came about, In this tale, Strange receives a psychic distress call Weiss tells BACK ISSUE, “I’d just finished a miniseries from an old friend. This leads him to another dimension, and wanted to do something unusual and fun. Maybe where his friend’s hubris has caused him to be trapped a Marvel Western. Of course, Westerns don’t sell, as by the very forces he was trying to contact. Our good doctor is unable to save his friend but is able to free we’ve been continually told. Always looking to slip his soul, destroying his physical body in the process. one in anyway whenever possible, a superpowered Courtesy of Marvel.Wikia.com.

With that, Stephen Strange bows out of Marvel Fanfare. The title fantasy horse-opera seemed worth a shot.”

This tale begins with Doc summoning the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents ended not too long afterwards, so in the end it probably didn’t to assist him in preventing a calamity in the Old West. Strange needs adversely affect his average appearance rate. their assistance, having detected a “tear” in the fabric of time. A medicine The stereotype is that doctors go golfing on Wednesday afternoons. man of the Apache plans to bestow magical powers on a number of So let’s just consign all these stories to that particular day and time, young braves, thereby prolonging the Indian Wars, costing many more and presume that on these Wednesdays, Dr. Strange went off and met Al Milgrom to star in Marvel Fanfare. lives and changing the course of history.

Why include the back-up characters for Strange? “I thought Fury and Dugan would be great support and would look good in US Thanks to Chris Claremont, Dave Gibbons, Peter Gillis, Roger Stern, Alan Weiss, Calvary uniforms,” Weiss recalls. “Since he’s not an actual gunman, Mark Wheatley, plus John Kirk and Thomas Powers, and, of course, Michael Eury.

Strange figured it might be a good idea to have, in the Old West, BRIAN MARTIN lives in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. He began loving comics a couple of trusted fellows with extensive firearm experience.” even before he could read, and is told he learned to read from them.

Of course, Strange himself did sport a firearm on the cover and within This has lead to him reading just about everything, and he shows no signs the story as well. “It’s against type, while looking cooler and more cowboy,” of slowing down.

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Of all the issues of Marvel Fanfare, some of the most reprinted have been #10–13 (Aug. 1983–Mar. 1984), a four-part Black Widow story written by Ralph Macchio and largely illustrated by George Pérez. The story is full of flashy costumes and international travels, and pushed adult boundaries, ramping up the twisted history of Marvel’s redheaded femme fatal. But what is the actual history of the story itself? Top secret files were declassified, and writer Macchio (pronounced Mack-eo) unleashes the truth in the confession that follows…

TWISTING TENDRILS

The cover of Tales of Suspense #52 (Apr. 1964) headlined “Introducing the gorgeous new menace of… the Black Widow!” and saw the Armored Avenger facing down the equally armored Crimson Dynamo while a purpleclad, fur-wearing woman gestured imperiously. The story inside, plotted by Stan Lee, scripted by “N. Korok” (a pseudonym for Don Rico), and illustrated by Don Heck, introduced the Russian spy-seductress Madame Natasha Romanoff, who was sent to Stark Industries to retrieve—or kill—the defecting scientist Ivan Vanko, as well as Iron Man. Although failing in her first mission, Widow stuck around in the States to steal Stark’s antigravity ray in the very next issue.

Natasha would appear in several further Iron Man stories, duping Hawkeye into battling the armored hero, receiving a black-and-blue costume replete with fishnets, suction boots, and weaponized bracelets, and vacillating between her harsh masters in Russia and a desire to lead a freer life in America. Defecting to the US, she would encounter the Avengers and work alongside Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as watch her husband die in the costume of the Red Guardian, but in Amazing Spider-Man #86 (July 1970), the displaced spy would make another fateful choice to forge her own destiny. A part of her decision involved designing her own new costume (aided

by John Romita, Sr. and Jim Mooney), which, as she says, “will be more in keeping with the swingy seventies!

And with the modern image of the new Black Widow!”

Over the following decade, Black Widow would headline her own stories in Amazing Adventures, join the Avengers as its 16th member, move to San Francisco to share title billing with Daredevil, and become a founding member of the misfit superhero team the Champions. Through it all, tiny bits of her origins were teased out, but much of her past remained a Cold War mystery.

BLACK WIDOW… IN BLACK AND WHITE

The magazine series Bizarre Adventures was Marvel’s bid at an older audience, allowing creators to work outside the Comics Code, like the sexier and darker Warren magazines of the day. Bizarre Adventures #25 (Mar. 1981) was subtitled “Lethal Ladies,” and its contents including the Daughters of the Dragon, Lady Daemon, and the Black Widow. The Widow story was by writer Ralph Macchio and artist Paul Gulacy, with Natasha receiving a S.H.I.E.L.D. assignment to infiltrate a Soviet arms depot in

Web of Intrigue George Pérez’s cover to Marvel Fanfare #10 (Aug. 1983), launching a Black Widow story arc originally planned for Marvel Premiere.

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by A n d y

Mangels

South Africa and stop its commander, Irma Klausvichnova— the very woman who had trained Natasha!

Macchio recalls of the story that he wanted to deviate from a James Bondian spy story and instead do a twisty “John LeCarre thing where you really didn’t know who were the good guys and the bad guys. Even in the names of the people in there I wanted to be a little bit off-putting.

There’s a bishop character. The idea with the bishop is that he doesn’t move in a straight line. A bishop moves diagonally. And Langley, of course, Langley being where the CIA is headquartered. The whole thing that occurs at the end, where you think you know what’s going on in the story and all of a sudden, the Langley character pops up— who looks just like Humphrey Bogart—and he basically schools the Black Widow. He says, ‘You know, you just knew this, but this was what was really going on.’ Then she goes, ‘How do I know if that’s what’s really going on?’ And he basically tells her, ‘You don’t.’

“I wanted the story to be very bizarre, fitting with Bizarre Adventures. I wanted it to be something where you got to the end and went, ‘Wow! This is really strange.

What happened here?’

“That story took me longer to write than I think anything else I’ve ever written,” says Macchio. “I really worked very hard because every line, every word, had to be precise and had to lead toward these few concluding pages. I didn’t want anything in there to be extraneous. I wanted it to be as stripped down and as tight as I could possibly make it, just as Gulacy’s art was the perfect complement to that.

I didn’t want it to be like any other Black Widow story that you’d read with just a lot of fight scenes and then you get to the end and you know this is the bad guy and this is how it happened. I wanted it to be very murky and very...

Spy Who Came in from the Cold-kind of thing at the end.”

THE MARVEL PREMIERE STORY THAT WASN’T

The Bizarre Adventures story wasn’t the first time Macchio had worked on Black Widow, but it was the first to see print. In the Marvel fanzine FOOM #22 (1979), Macchio was interviewed about his upcoming work, which was to include a three-part Widow story for Marvel Premiere, with art

by George Pérez. The writer noted at that point that Pérez had drawn six pages, and a cover from 1978—inked

by Bob Layton—was printed, showing explosions, technology, underwater fighting, Nick Fury, and an international group of bad guys, all surrounding an angry Natasha. Later that year, in Marvel Spotlight vol. 2 #3 (Nov. 1979), the letters page promised that the Widow story would be in Spotlight instead.

It would be another half-decade, though, until the Widow story was © Marvel. actually completed and appeared in its eventual home, Marvel Fanfare, in 1984. And now, instead of three issues, it was a four-parter, but half of one issue—and a cover— weren’t drawn by Pérez! How did this all come about?

Macchio had begun working at Marvel in the mid-1970s, about the same time as Pérez. “I remember being up there just about the time he was starting,” Ralph recalls. “He lived in the Bronx—and he was always up at Marvel and I remember him bringing in pages that were going to the inker for ‘The Sons of the Tiger’ [in the magazine Deadly Hands of Kung Fu], and he just really continued to improve on that. We got to be friends, and at one point, I remember going to his house and doing an interview with him, for a portfolio called Pérez—Accent On the First ‘E.’ What was interesting about it was, I had the tape recorder there and I had it on and George was talking and I had the tape in.

We talked for almost two hours and then I realized that the tape recorder had not been on record! George was such a nice guy; he sat there with me and we redid the entire thing! As friends, we discussed if time ever opens and the opportunity comes up, what would you like to work on? And eventually it led to the Black Widow.”

The story would be one of the first where Pérez would be credited as co-plotter. “I don’t remember exactly what the division of labor was,” says Macchio. “I’m sure it was basically George came up with the original idea and then we sat down and probably discussed the various story points along the way. We all know that George is an excellent plotter! He wants to be involved with the story. I’m sure that he jumped in here and had an awful lot to do with the direction of the storyline. In terms of scripting, I’m sure that I did all the scripting on that.”

As noted, the original three-part story would eventually be published as a four-parter, with the first issue (published as Marvel Fanfare #10) grafted on to the beginning to basically fill readers in on the “known” backstory of Black Widow. Nick Fury and his S.H.I.E.L.D team discuss the

Freefalling Title page of issue #10’s Chapter Two, with art by Bob Layton and Luke McDonnell.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 23

history of Natasha, while the Widow herself exits a luxurious shower to face down a cadre of masked goons in her penthouse. Once she defeats them, she learns that they were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents sent to test her at the behest of Fury… who wants her to help find her trainer/adopted father, Ivan Petrovich.

The first nine pages of the story were penciled by Pérez, while the back nine were penciled by Bob Layton and Luke McDonnell, all with inks by Brett Breeding. In the TwoMorrows book Modern Masters: George Pérez, the artist explained that when editor Al Milgrom wanted the unfinished Widow story for Fanfare, he came back to finish the third (now fourth) issue, and draw the first/prequel issue. However, due to conflicts with Marvel and [editor-in-chief] Jim Shooter over the first planned JLA/Avengers book— and due to his burgeoning workload—Pérez couldn’t finish issue #1, and refused to draw the final cover (an unknown named Art Adams would draw it instead).

Of issue #10’s scene in which a nude Widow fights thugs and gets dressed at the same time, Macchio says that Pérez’s mastery of storytelling and density made the scene shine, along with quick cutting. “That one full-page shot said it all. It did not need to show a lot of nakedness or anything like that. It was suggestive and strongly drawn. When I looked at that full-page shot... I wanted to come up with just a line that would complement that, that would be equal to the art. And that’s the kind of thing that makes you a better writer. Because even if I had originally written that full script and I said, ‘Okay, George. Full page shot, Widow holding a smoking gun, guy’s down, his face has been blown away,’ I would not have come up with what I came up with unless I had actually seen the artwork. I mean, it was so good it inspires you as a writer to do it.”

Although Marvel often danced around the issue of whether some of their characters actually killed, Macchio made it clear that Black Widow was deadly throughout the story, including in this opening scene. “I did certainly intend in that scene when she blew that guy’s face off that he’s dead. And there are later sequences where she goes to Russia under that disguise of Laura Matthers and they wind up killing the KGB guys who were actually working for Damon Dran. When they wind up stabbing Corcoran in the back, and she goes after them with her Widow’s Bite, my feeling is that she’s got those turned on to full and that she probably did them in… We did not want bodies littering the landscape. She definitely is not the Punisher. She will do you in if you get in her way and if that’s the most expedient way of getting out of a situation.”

The story that follows plays heavily on past Marvel continuity, while adding to the Black Widow canon. “I’m a huge continuity guy,” Macchio says. “If you can bring in a character that the Black Widow has had a past association with, I think that’s more fun than just right away introducing somebody new because that gave her some sort of personal connection. Also, the idea of using Ivan gives it a personal touch. I wanted it planted in the readers’ mind, the uncertainty of whether or not the Black Widow who will kill... This is the man who basically raised her. If she was going to be killed by him, would she be able to let her spy training take over? Would she be able to kill him?

We were able to make it a personal story for her, both with Ivan and with Damon Dran, and even some of the other characters in there, too.”

INTERNATIONAL INCIDENTS

Foot Soldier Natasha gets her kicks—and so do Macchio and Pérez—in this dynamite two-page action sequence from Marvel Fanfare #11.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Over the following three Fanfare issues, Black Widow returns to the USSR to recapture Ivan Petrovich for S.H.I.E.L.D., seduces the American defector scientist Michael Corcoran, and becomes the target of a sextet of international assassins: Zulu warrior N’Kama, big game hunter Deadshot Darrance, silver-armored Russian agent the Iron Maiden, rodeo rope mistress Laralie, martial artist the Black Lotus, and Sumo wrestler Kono.

Eventually, the masterminds behind the whole affair are revealed to be the new villainess Snapdragon and the scarred millionaire munitions manufacturer Damon Dran, who had previously battled Black Widow and Daredevil.

Unaware that the defunct T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents comics also featured a silverarmored villainess named Iron Maiden, Macchio says that “the Iron Maiden, who [Natasha] had the more extended fight with, had long felt that she was under the Widow’s shadow because of the more flamboyant escapades of the Black Widow.

She felt she hadn’t gotten her due, so she also had a sense of revenge that she wanted on the Widow. I wanted to keep it away from just being someone on the outside who was just brought in as sort of a McGuffin character, and make some real revenge and some personal stakes in the story. I think I used the name Kono for the sumo wrestler because I had recalled in Hawaii Five-0 that McGarrett’s assistant was Kono, and he was a big Hawaiian guy.”

One element of the story stood out for its time because it was so unusual for superhero comics. In the second issue, it’s clear that Corcoran and Natasha have had sex.

“One of the things that we know in the real world is that a lot of information is given to women when they sleep with men,” says Macchio. “Men loosen up in bed! We know this! When is a man at his most loose and gonna open up to a woman? Right after he’s slept with her. Pillow talk! So I have no doubt that even though she had grown close to Corcoran, there was also that cold-blooded spy inside of Natasha, and I’m sure she said, ‘You know what? If I sleep with this guy, he’s gonna loosen up and tell me something about Ivan that I may not get at any other time.’ ”

24 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

Cover Girl The remaining covers of Black Widow’s MF stint. (top) Issues #11 and 12 by Pérez, and (bottom) #13 by Arthur Adams. (background) A freshly-bathed Natasha and a face-offed foe, from issue #11.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Amusingly, Macchio would make an international error in the second issue, placing Hong Kong in Japan! “That was me,” he laughs. “I’ve never been to Europe, never been to the Far East. I remember Chris Claremont, who was looking at the story at the time, called me out on it because Chris is a world traveler.” In later reprintings, Marvel has edited out the incorrect geographical references.

Over the three decades since its arrival in comic shops—Marvel Fanfare was a direct sales-only series—the Black Widow story has been reprinted in multiple versions: as the comic Black Widow: Web of Intrigue (June 1999) and in 2010 as a trade paperback and hardcover under the same title.

Macchio worked with Black Widow a few times more, on the Daredevil book, and as an editor. “I’ve always kept my eye on her. I’ve always had a great fondness for our friend Natasha.” But he maintains that the Fanfare story has fans today, in large part thanks to Pérez’s art. “George’s style never goes out of style! From day one, when George picked up a pencil, ’til today, he does not have a style that ages! I hope that the story holds up. We tried to do a good spy story, something that holds up over time and you wouldn’t grow bored with. The fact that we’re talking about it some 25 years after it’s been done is to me amazing! It’s very gratifying that people still find that story interesting. It was just a good thriller with a character that’s as active as she’s ever been. The Black Widow has never gone out of style. She’s worn so many coats—femme fatale, saboteur, heartbreaker, superhero, spy. She’s all over the place and she played each role equally well. I think that’s because she’s such a versatile character, also that draws people to that story.”

Before we break off, Macchio adds, “I just want to express my gratitude to you guys there at BACK ISSUE for wanting to do an article on this! I think any writer, when he’s done something he’s proud of, just loves the idea that people are still interested in it… Maybe we’ll get some Black Widow fans to enjoy that story who weren’t familiar with it from the days of yore.”

The interview with Ralph Macchio was conducted in September 2016 by Andy Mangels, and transcribed by Steven Thompson.

ANDY MANGELS is the USA Today bestselling author and co-author of 20 books, including the recent TwoMorrows book Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation, as well as Iron Man: Beneath the Armor, and a lot of comic books, including the Wonder Woman ’77 Meets the Bionic Woman series for Dynamite and DC. Additionally, he has scripted, directed, and produced Special Features for over 40 DVD releases. His moustache is infamous. www.AndyMangels.com and www.WonderWomanMuseum.com

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 25

DOUGLAS R. KELLY: Roger, I’m gonna throw the chronological approach out the window and start with the stories you wrote about the Vision in Marvel Fanfare #14 and 32, because I’m a huge fan of the Vision and I want to get right to the dessert.

ROGER McKENZIE: Okay, sure.

KELLY: Your story in Marvel Fanfare #14 (May 1984) was entitled “Dangerous Vision,” and it opened with the Vision brooding about the absence of his wife, Wanda. He leaves Avengers mansion to look for her and finds that, of all things, she’s been attacked by the Fantastic Four. Did you have an idea in mind for how you wanted to explore the character of the Vision in this story?

McKENZIE: If I did, I don’t recall now what it was, but I have to say that Marvel Fanfare was like being a kid in a candy store. I got to use characters like the Vision and the Scarlet Witch and Iron Man, characters that had their regular writers and characters that I never got to do. But I could in Marvel Fanfare.

KELLY: The Vision is a hugely powerful being, but he often uses that power in kind of non-violent ways… here, for example, you had him partly solidify his hand inside Ben Grimm’s head.

That’s a non-violent way to end, or win, a fight. Did you see the Vision this way?

McKENZIE: I did. I’ve always liked the Vision, pretty much for the reasons you just outlined.

KELLY: At the end of your story here, the Vision grabs one of the bad guys, the Thinker, and says to him, “I may be less than human, but I am more than machine.”

McKENZIE: Yeah, and if I’d been writing the character in the Avengers or in a miniseries book, that’s how I would have played it. It gives him human appeal and you can build stories around this dichotomy… questions like, “What am I, really?” “What do humans think of me?”

KELLY: Your editor on Marvel Fanfare was Al Milgrom.

Do you recall him giving you input on the characters and stories, or was it a looser arrangement than that?

McKENZIE: As I remember it, we had pretty much free rein. But still, you couldn’t take these characters outside of their usual realm. You can’t suddenly make Captain America a member of Hydra, for instance. I wouldn’t have done things like that, so I never ran into that kind of situation with Al, who I think is a great editor and a great talent all around.

My two favorite Marvel heroes are Captain America and Daredevil. I was lucky enough to be able to write both of those characters. But I never gravitated toward the powerful characters… I never really wanted to write a Superman story, for instance, because he’s too powerful.

KELLY: A few years later, you returned to the Vision character with Marvel Fanfare #32 (May 1987), in

Fading In and Out of Marvel Fanfare From the Vision tale “Rosie” in Marvel Fanfare #32 (May 1987), one of several memorable MF stories written by Roger McKenzie. Art by Paul Smith.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

26 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

by D o u g l a s

R. Kelly

a ten-page story entitled “Rosie.” You really dug into the Vision’s makeup in this one… he becomes obsessed with finding out the real identity of a street vendor, Rosie, who’s been murdered. The Vision can’t accept that this woman died without friends, without anyone to care for her, so he enlists Ben Urich, the reporter, and together they set out to find out Rosie’s real name and so on. You offered some insight here into what drives the Vision.

McKENZIE: Well, I tried. At least, what drove him from my perspective. I think it was this primal gnawing, this feeling within him, “Am I human or not?” It’s actually somewhat like DC’s Metal Men, who had those “responsometers” that didn’t quite work right, and they were kind of human. I’m not sure if Doc Magnus ever figured out exactly what went “wrong” with those, but they were basically human, and that’s what fascinated me. As I recall, [the Vision] was never a cyborg… he’s part human and part robot, an android. Or, I guess, a “synthezoid,” as it was called. He really, really wants to be human, but there’s always this doubt in his mind.

And it’s not just because of the powers he has… I always thought the Vision’s powers were great. I don’t recall a character before him who can turn intangible and then become rock-hard.

KELLY: Paul Smith did the art on this story, which I think is excellent. Did you work with Paul or was he assigned after you’d written the story?

McKENZIE: If memory serves, that was one where he got the story after it was written. Paul and I go back

quite a ways. He originally worked on my wooden detective character, Mike Mahogany, that we did at Pacific Comics. He actually came to me at one point in time [when Marvel offered him The Uncanny X-Men] and asked me, “Should I take it?” So I sat him down… he didn’t really want to do The X-Men. He was perfectly happy doing Dr. Strange. I said, “Take The X-Men, work on it for as long as you’re comfortable doing it, and make your name.”

KELLY: Roger, let’s circle back to the beginning. In Marvel Fanfare #1 (Mar. 1982), you did a Daredevil story called “Snow,” which had a double meaning. Not just the time of year (during the Christmas holidays) but also it had to do with cocaine and the drug trade. It’s getting close to Christmas, and an old man named Lewis is doing his annual sidewalk Santa Claus thing, collecting donations for a hospital for handicapped children. But he’s beaten and robbed by druggies, and Matt Murdock is incensed by this, that the thugs stole the money that’s meant for the kids. As Daredevil, he goes after those responsible.

Roger, you set up a coincidental situation toward the end of the story that winds up looking an awful lot like a miracle.

McKENZIE: Well, I was (and probably still am) the “king of corn.” But it was Christmas. Wasn’t Lewis praying to God? KELLY: Right, he was praying for a miracle.

McKENZIE: And he got one, at least from his viewpoint.

KELLY: Paul Smith penciled this one and Terry Austin inked it. What more could you ask for on the art side?

From the Holiday Grab-Bag (left) Splash from the Daredevil back-up in Marvel Fanfare #1, written

by Roger and illustrated by the Daredevil-dynamic duo of Smith and Austin. (right) McKenzie—with Luke McDonnell and John Beatty— brought together Cap and Bucky in the pages of Marvel Fanfare #5 (Nov. 1982).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 27

Vision-ary Writer (left) Roger humanized the Avengers’ synthezoid in this memorable tale from Marvel Fanfare #14 (May 1984). (right) The issue’s cover.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

McKENZIE: I wouldn’t dream of asking for more!

Over the years I’ve been blessed with better artists than I ever deserved.

KELLY: In Marvel Fanfare #2 (May 1982), you wrote “Annihilation,” which had Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four trying, once again, to find a cure for the Thing (Ben Grimm). In the process, Reed accidentally frees Annihilus from the Negative Zone, and mayhem ensues. You wove into the story themes of guilt and regret, on Reed’s part. Were you happy with the way that story turned out?

McKENZIE: I think, as a writer, you’re never really happy. I can look at anything I’ve ever done and ask, “Why did I do that? Why didn’t I think of this at the time?” But as I remember, I think that one turned out pretty well. Obviously, you couldn’t have Reed “cure” Ben of the Thing persona, because then, what’s the writer on the Fantastic Four book going to do?

KELLY: The next story you wrote was a Captain America adventure that appeared in Marvel Fanfare #5 (Nov. 1982), entitled, “Shall Freedom Endure…” You opened it with a flashback to World War II, in which

28 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

Cap and Bucky fight and defeat a Nazi named Stryker, who is using a “prototype hydraulics-powered combat suit.” Turns out the flashback is a film being shown to a gang of thugs by Stryker’s son, who vows to destroy Cap, “…just as he destroyed my father!” They manage to capture Captain America, and Stryker’s son thinks that by taking away Cap’s uniform and shield, that he can break Cap and force him to renounce his country. But things don’t work out that way in the story, do they?

McKENZIE: No. Cap was always more than his costume or his shield. He’s an ideal. He’s Captain America. His shield, his costume, are symbols of greater truths.

That’s how I’ve always perceived the character. You know, as a kid, I didn’t know there was such a thing as the Golden Age of Comics. I thought they started when I started reading them. The first time I ever saw Captain America, it was in Strange Tales—I forget what issue it was—where Cap was being impersonated by the Acrobat. [Editor’s note: The issue was Strange Tales #114, Nov. 1963.] That was my first experience with Captain America and I was just blown away.

And then, shortly thereafter, he showed up in The Avengers. I think that was probably the highlight of my comic-book reading experience!

KELLY: That was your Golden Age. McKENZIE: It was. Imagine my surprise when, years later, I found out they’d been doing this back in the 1940s.

KELLY: Did you create the Stryker characters, father and son, for this story?

McKENZIE: As far as I recall, yes.

KELLY: Onward. Marvel Fanfare #14 contained another Daredevil story of yours, “Crimson Ash.” In this one, you had a childhood friend of Matt Murdock’s, a woman by the name of Crimson, who has had a pretty tough time of it in life. Now, as an adult, she’s suspected of setting fires in New York. Daredevil cares enough about Crimson to try to help her, and that

Reach Out and Touch Someone Watch your back, Shellhead! From the McKenzie/Steacy story in Marvel Fanfare #22 (Sept. 1985). (inset) Its cover.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

stirs something in her. We just start to learn, to get a peek into Crimson’s psyche, into her motivation, when suddenly the story ends. Seemed to me that ten pages was too short, like it needed more room to breathe.

Would you agree with that or not?

McKENZIE: Who drew that one?

KELLY: Jack Sparling did the pencils, and it says that Akin and Garvey inked it.

McKENZIE: Okay. There’s never enough room. If we ran out of space and had to end it, that would have been my fault as a writer. I should have compressed something, or taken something out earlier on.

KELLY: In Marvel Fanfare #22 (Sept. 1985) and 23 (Nov. 1985), you got to do a two-issue Iron Man story. The story in #22 is entitled “Night of the Octopus,” which has Dr. Octopus escaping from Ryker’s Island prison using a set of tentacles made of adamantium.

In the process of doing this, Ock also manages to free the Sandman, Electro, and the Gray Gargoyle, which is quite a party. Ryker’s, it turns out, is a security client of Stark Industries, and the escape is seen as a Stark Industries failure. Iron Man manages to defeat the other three, but Doc Ock humiliates Iron Man and escapes. Issue #23 opens with Tony Stark repairing his armor and setting out to find Ock. Instead, Ock finds him and kidnaps Cherry Wood, a research scientist with whom Stark is having dinner. Stark feels responsible for Wood being in harm’s way and goes after Ock, but Cherry Wood turns out to be more than equal to the task… she’s great at hand-to-hand combat, and she figures out how to take down Doc Ock. Do you recall if you wrote her character this way as a conscious thing, to be a capable, able woman, or did it kind of happen organically?

McKENZIE: Good question. Probably a little bit of both. Early on, I was really tired of the helpless female that has to be saved. Stand up and do something, even if [you’re up against] Dr. Octopus… who, by the way, is my favorite Marvel villain. Always has been. But the Dr. Octopus that I like is not the muscle-bound guy in the green uniform. I want the myopic, little kind of gelatinous guy… who even I could knock out; even I could take him if I could get through those arms. If I can, Octopus is a piece of cake. There’s not a bone in his body. He’s nothing!

But he’s got those arms, and they can rip Iron Man apart, if you’re not careful. And he’s crazy as a loon.

KELLY: You must have had a ball writing this story.

McKENZIE: Oh, I would have written Dr. Octopus in every story Marvel ever did, if they let me [laughter].

There’s something about that character. In those two issues, I loved Ken Steacy’s art.

KELLY: It’s kind of an unusual style, particularly for that time, that painted style.

McKENZIE: It was unusual, but I just loved it.

KELLY: I think it worked well, especially where Ken had room to really let it fly. There’s a scene in issue #23 where he has Iron Man streaking across the landscape, in among factory buildings, and it just looks tremendous… the painterly quality of the art perfectly suits the scene.

McKENZIE: Yeah. I thought what everybody (not just my stuff) did in Marvel Fanfare was really great. But as

I understand it, a lot of these were inventory stories.

Mine weren’t… the Daredevil stories and the Vision stories and the Fantastic Four story. They would have to be there [in Marvel Fanfare], because I couldn’t write the Mr. Fantastic story in the main Fantastic Four book, because I wasn’t the writer of that book. Good example… Chris Claremont was the writer of The Uncanny X-Men at that time. Those were his characters… in a lot of ways, he owned the X-Men. And for a new guy like me… I would have to have gotten it cleared

by Chris, to write any X-Men story. Which I don’t think is a bad way to go. It makes sense to coordinate all of that, with those characters.

DOUGLAS R. KELLY is editor of Marine Technology magazine and a collector of Silver and Bronze Age comics. His byline has appeared in such publications as Antiques Roadshow Insider, Associations Now, Model Collector, and Buildings. He’s no longer in near mint condition, but wouldn’t mind being called a very fine minus.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 29

Marvel Fanfare wasn’t the first series to feature the adventures of the jungle boy Mowgli and his wild friends. Marvel wasn’t even the first publisher to adapt the classic, as Dell featured adaptations of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book in the mid-1950s, and prior to that, Classics Illustrated adapted a few tales that follow the feral protagonist. But it was a love for those books, a film, and the original stories that pushed then-editor Roy Thomas to have Marvel adapt some of Kipling’s narratives.

And he wanted Gil Kane to draw them, beginning with a discussion in the editor’s Manhattan apartment in the mid-1970s.

The primary reason? Kane’s skill in rendering animals. “A lot of comic book artists just can’t do it,” Roy Thomas wrote in an introduction to a 2007 collection of Marvel Fanfare #8–11.

“Their horses look like two men in a horse suit, and their bears are merely lions with more fur and greater girth.”

A believable bear would be particularly useful, with Baloo serving as a key character in the run. This is a series in which animals dominate each and every page. Even though John Buscema was the most frequent collaborator of Thomas, Kane emerged as the desired artist. Thomas continued, in the introduction: “His beasts moved with fluid grace the way such creatures did in nature, remaining animals even when called on to exhibit nigh-human intelligence.”

Yet, Thomas was gone by the time Kane’s pages for the anthology series Marvel Fanfare were being sent for inking to P. Craig Russell. Thomas had exited Marvel and begun a “semi-exclusive” relationship with DC Comics. In his introduction, Roy lamented not getting to script those adaptations (or a splash-page nod, even, for formulating the plan). Instead, Kane would handle writing duties on the run, with Mary Jo Duffy jumping on to script the final two issues.

Russell remembers the assignment with fondness: “I was just ten years into my career at that time,” Craig says. “I had grown up admiring the work of Gil Kane. And to hold the original penciled pages in my hand, and to see the markings [was special]. When I inked Gil Kane, I tried to be as faithful as possible to the linework.

I thought to myself, ‘How would Gil Kane ink this, if he had time?’ I’m in the camp of wanting to see Gil Kane’s pencils as unadorned. I’m not trying to add flourishes and a fantastical style to the work that’s already there.”

The introduction to Marvel Fanfare #8 (May 1983) maintains the literary cadence of The Jungle Book’s opening, yet simplifies some of the setup: “Now Mang the Bat sets free the night— the herds are closed in corral and hot and loosed till dawn are the jungle’s own. This is the hour of pride and power, talon and claw, Portrait by Michael Netzer. and for the telling of the saga of Mowgli and his brothers.”

Compare that to the original Kipling: “Now Chil the Kite brings home the night/That Mang the Bat sets free/The herds are shut in byre and hut/For loosed till dawn are we. This is the hour of pride and power/Talon and tush and claw. Oh, hear the call!/Good hunting all/That keep the Jungle Law!” Yet, Kane’s task was more daunting than to simply take text and apply it onto his jungle backdrops and action, updating when needed. Russell has made a career of adapting classic works, including other Kipling tales (collected in 1997’s Jungle Book Stories).

“You can’t just take chunks of copy and paste them down into the story,” Russell says. “It has to work in the form you’re working in.

There’s a great deal of editing and solutions that go into it.

You have to get under the skin of the story, come up with visual metaphors, commenting on the story while you’re telling it.”

This is something Russell has honed over a four-decade career.

With the series Night Music, Russell wrote and drew both literary and operatic classics, including works by Mozart, 30 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

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by A

ndy Smith

Born to Be Wild This P. Craig Russell portrait of Mowgli and Shere Khan graced the back cover of Marvel Fanfare #8 (May 1983). (inset) Marvel Fanfare’s adaptation of Kipling’s classic was collected in the 2007 trade paperback Marvel Illustrated The Jungle Book, with this Russell cover.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

The Man-Cub Matures Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com), two original art pages featuring the spectacular Jungle Book team of Kane and Russell: (left) Baloo looks out for little Mowgli, from Marvel Fanfare #8. (right) The threat of Shere Khan, from issue #10.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Wagner, and Strauss. “I’m always simply looking for a good story to tell. And why not some of the greatest stories of all time? It’s all there.

Kipling’s dialogue sparkles, jumps off the page.”

By the end of Marvel Fanfare #8, the tiger Shere Khan was established as the primary antagonist for the run, with Mowgli being brought into the pack of wolves led by Akela. He had also garnered the protection of the aforementioned bear, Baloo, and the black panther, Bagheera, who had paid for his life with a bull offering. His ascent to becoming one of the leaders of his wolf pack is part of that plot.

In that time, he begins to ponder what happens to most leaders: They’re either driven out or killed, eventually replaced within the council on which he currently resides. This theme carries into all of the narratives, an analog for considering leadership in any backdrop.

Russell says there are “twin pillars of adaptations: either being faithful or using it as a springboard for something new.” Kane would take the former approach, aging Mowgli and having the hero learn the laws of the jungle from Baloo, the “Stranger’s Hunting Call,” and the words that would protect him from all of the “peoples of the jungle.”

The writer/author adds an example of the latter: “The Shining. Now, that’s Kubrick. He uses the book, Portrait by John Severin. but in the end, the film is Kubrick’s.” Kubrick’s version certainly takes several liberties, abandoning the central plot and even shifting the focus on the evil present in the stories. King was famously not a fan.

There are also two approaches to comic covers, Russell says, which he had to think about when asked to create a cover for a collection of the Marvel Fanfare’s specific Jungle Book-sourced stories a decade ago: “There’s a situational cover and an iconic cover, where you have all of the characters in their natural backdrop, in their milieu.” Russell went for the latter, surrounding the jungle boy with characters that appear throughout the stories in the issues, save for the villainous Shere Khan. It’s a tranquil scene, with Mowgli aged somewhere from where he started.

The adaptations featured throughout the four-issue run in Marvel Fanfare are titled “Wolf-Boy,” “Mowgli’s Brothers,” “How Fear Came,” and “Kaa’s Hunting,” respectively. And tranquility isn’t always the evoked

mood throughout the narrative, which is packed with bouts, humbling moments, and self-doubt via the protagonist. It is in this final chapter that Mowgli gets caught up with the trickster monkeys the Bander-Log, against the advice of Baloo. The tale ends with Kaa the snake aiding our hero’s rescue, and Mowgli needing to pay for his trespassing with the law of the jungle. His penance? A swift swipe across the face from Bagheera the black panther, who remarks that the hit wouldn’t have had knocked out his cubs like it did Mowgli. “Mowgli slept peacefully, riding on Bagheera’s back all the way to his own cave,” the run’s last piece of narration began. “For one of the beauties of the Jungle Law is that punishment settles all scores. There is no nagging afterwards.”

In a way, Russell is still telling narratives like those of Mowgli. His long association with Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, which began as a notion that the British scribe wanted to set tales like Kipling’s in a graveyard, maintains these themes. “After 30 years, I can’t escape these stories,” Russell says. “Once you have a character in a natural setting, in the jungle and danger, you’re going to have these concepts of human striving and trying to make your way into the world.”

That’s exactly what makes these stories, originally written as a book in 1894, relevant today, Russell maintains. In 2015, The Jungle Book was made into a new, live-action film from Disney. (The critical and commercial success grossed $966 million.)

Kipling’s knack for universal themes seems to make its way into every generation since first appearing. “Any story that comments on the human condition is going to be timeless,” Russell says. “Honor. Evasion. Loyalty. All of the aspects of Mowgli growing up, which is really what the story is about.”

Among his stated other regrets, Thomas added another one in his introduction to the 2007 collection: “That this volume isn’t a whole lot thicker, because Gil and company never got the chance to adapt all the Mowgli tales—and then move on to do the non-Mowgli stories in The Jungle Books, and maybe the Just-So Stories, to boot.”

Still, in some form or another, the stories have lived on.

ANDY SMITH is a writer based in Charlotte, NC, where he serves as arts editor at the city magazine. His work also appears in Hi-Fructose Magazine, New Noise Magazine, and other publications.

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Months ago, when I sent Marv Wolfman an email asking for an interview about his Marvel Fanfare #16 (Sept. 1984) and 17 (Nov. 1984) contributions, Sky-Wolf, he was more than a little puzzled.

“Hard to believe anyone cares,” he wrote back.

In the annals of the Marvel Fanfare anthology series, Sky-Wolf is most certainly one of the stranger, more offbeat entries. Penned by Wolfman with pencils handled by Dave Cockrum, the story details the origins of the titular team of World War II adventurers. Escape artist Jesse “Little John” Johns, Hollywood special-effects master Sidney “The Gaff” Levine, and Matt Slade III come together under the lead of Skyler “Sky-Wolf” Wolf in an effort to retrieve a super-secret airplane prototype.

That may sound fairly straightforward, but once you dig into the story, you’re actually bombarded by a seemingly never-ending succession of insane images, over-the-top characters, and outlandish war machines.

“Both Dave and I really loved DC’s Blackhawk,” Wolfman says. “We kept thinking what we loved about the series was the stuff done in the 1950s.

The villains were so far advanced compared to the heroes. They had the War Wheel, they had the flying tanks, they had all this silly stuff that looked great in a comic book. That was when they were being published by Quality. When they came to DC, they weren’t quite the same anymore.”

That’s what Sky-Wolf was—a love letter to the Blackhawk comics of old, penned by Wolfman and penciled by Cockrum.

“We did what we loved about them,” Wolfman says.

“We did giant, silly machines and big, dopey stuff.

We just wanted to have a lot of fun with it and see if we could do the Blackhawks that never quite existed but the one we always wanted.”

A Hawk-a Hawk-a Burnin’ Love… …for Blackhawk—Wolfman and Cockrum’s Sky-Wolf! Dave’s cover to Marvel Fanfare #16 (Sept. 1984).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

32 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

by C

hris Brennaman

So readers get treated to a barrage of that “big, with his friend and regular collaborator Dave Cockrum. dopey stuff.” On top of the usual World War II Nazi He recalls most of the details of its creation. So, why menace, there’s Murder Mountain, Steel Kommando, the shock that a reporter would email him for an the Flying Fuhrer… interview about it?

Yes. You read that right. The Flying Fuhrer.

“I’ve never seen anyone comment on it in all the “That was the absolute silliest thing I could years since,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve never signed imagine,” Wolfman says of a weapon that a single issue of it that I can remember it. appears at one point in the story to terrorize But we loved it. We did exactly what we the masses. wanted to do. We wanted a big, fun And in case you’re wondering what Blackhawk-like thing but there was a Flying Fuhrer is, well, it’s pretty much never any response to it.” exactly what you would imagine: a Still, part of him would have liked to giant, flying weapon in the form of have revisited the team of World War II adventurers.

Adolf Hitler that rains down fiery death “It would have been nice had we from its extended right hand.

“We wanted to have fun and go way gotten a lot of mail,” he says. “But overboard,” Wolfman says. books like that rarely got mail. The “I pretty much just decided I Fantastic Four may only get like 20, wanted to do it. I don’t think anyone 30, 40 letters at most. It wasn’t what cared what we did as long as it was everyone thought. A book like as well done as it could be. We were Marvel Fanfare, unless it was something unbelievable in terms of the at a stage in comics when readers Portrait by Michael Netzer. were looking for new stuff rather than 40 versions Marvel superhero line, never really got much mail at of the same old comic and we were trying to do all. If we had gotten two or three letters that would something a little different than the standard have been a lot.”

Marvel superhero.”

Sky-Wolf is a comic feature Wolfman clearly has fond CHRIS BRENNAMAN is an Atlanta-based writer and operates memories of. He enjoyed putting the book together the blog www.AtlantaGeekScene.com.

Sky Team (left) The Sky-Wolves identified, from MF #16. (right) Cockrum’s cover for the second (and final) appearance of Sky-Wolf.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 33

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h n Tr u m b u l l

Roger Stern and Frank Miller’s “Home Fires!” in Marvel Fanfare #18 (Jan. 1985) finds Captain America and the FDNY fighting a series of fires in Brooklyn. The mysterious arsonists “We—The People” threaten even more unless the city of New York pays them six million dollars. As Cap combs the city looking for leads, he pauses to admire a happy father kissing his wife and sons goodbye for the day. “I wonder if that man knows how lucky he is?” Cap wonders. “I’d give just about anything to have his life… to be just another ordinary man, working to keep my piece of the American Dream.”

Captain America ultimately discovers that that same family man, Hal Brady, is also the leader of the arsonists.

Feeling that the American Dream has failed them, Brady and his fellow Knights of Brooklyn have turned to arson and extortion to tip the country’s scales in their favor.

Cap is horrified that community leaders, local businessmen, and even a policeman have conspired to burn down a nursing home. When Brady is incinerated in a fire he started, Cap has little sympathy, observing, “He had chances… a lot of chances. He just looked for excuses not to take them.”

After smashing through a brick wall to lead the other arsonists to safety, the Sentinel of Liberty charges back into the burning building for one last rescue: the American flag. Holding Old Glory before the remaining Knights of Brooklyn, Cap states, “This belongs to all of us. But it’s not for free—and it doesn’t come easy. It’s America! America doesn’t hand you things on a silver platter.

Sometimes all she offers is hope. And now, I have to think of some way to bring hope to Mrs. Brady and her boys. If any of you still pray… pray for them!”

FROM A SPARK TO A FLAME

In addition to Roger Stern, Frank Miller, and inker Joe Rubinstein, MF #18 carries the credit “Based on a story suggested by Roger McKenzie.” Roger © Luigi Novi / Stern explains the history to BACK ISSUE: Wikimedia Commons. “ ‘Home Fires’ had a more complicated beginning than most stories. It actually started back when I was the editor of Captain America and other Avengers-related titles.

“At the time, Roger McKenzie was writing Cap, and he had come up with the plot for the first part of a proposed two-part story for what would have been Captain America #238–239 (Oct.–Nov. 1979). Except that, as originally plotted by McKenzie, there was very little Cap in the story.

It mostly dealt with Steve Rogers getting involved in fighting a fire in his neighborhood. It’s been a long time [and I don’t recall all the details], but I think he may have appeared as Cap in a couple of panels. Anyway, the artist who was supposed to draw the issue wasn’t interested in drawing the ‘Adventures of Steve Rogers,’ so he turned the plot back in and bowed out. To keep the book on schedule, I wound up substituting a different two-part story, one written by Peter Gillis and penciled by Fred Kida.

Uncle Cap Wants You Frank Miller’s soul-stirring cover to Marvel Fanfare #18 (Jan. 1985).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 35

“And that’s where things would have ended, if not for Frank Miller.

Frank had heard about the story from McKenzie, and asked if he could fiddle around with it. What Frank had in mind was turning the story around, bringing in Cap almost immediately, and condensing the two-parter into one. All of that sounded like it might work, so I gave him my blessing and sent him on his way. I didn’t think much more about it until Frank showed up with 17 penciled pages.

“I don’t remember exactly when that was, but I think that I was on the verge of leaving the editorial staff to write full-time.

And one of the titles I was picking up was Captain America.

“And, since Frank and I had been talking about working together, it was decided that I would script the story as part of my new writing assignment, and we’d slot it in as needed. But before I ever got around to scripting it, Marvel’s story content was enlarged from 17 to 22 pages.

When that happened, I sat down with Frank, and we figured out where best to expand the story. Then, he went off and drew the additional pages, and then, those pages sat in a drawer, waiting for an opening.

“Finally, long after I left the monthly Captain America assignment, I wound up scripting the story for Marvel Fanfare. I think that I came up with the title ‘Home Fires’ as I was scripting it. As I said, it was a long, complicated process.” Stern remains modest about his contribution to the finished story. “It was mostly Frank’s plot, what with all the work he put into it. I just helped a little, here and there.” Miller also provided new front and back covers for the issue.

While four years might seem like a long wait to see a comics story published, Stern points out, “Actually, since it started with an idea that Roger McKenzie had, back in 1979, there was an even longer gap.

But four, or in this case, six, years isn’t an unheard-of gap between conception and publication. I once scripted a Dr. Strange story 12 years after I had plotted it. But I always figured that ‘Home Fires’ would see print someday. Marvel doesn’t let stories sit on a shelf forever.”

PATRIOTISM AND POLITICS

Protecting the American Dream Original art to the splash page from the Stern/Miller/Rubinstein Captain America classic. Courtesy of Heritage Comic Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

36 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

Incredibly, the arsonists of “Home Fires” were only mildly exaggerated from a real-life incident. As Stern recalls, “I believe that McKenzie’s original inspiration was a news report about firefighters in some city in New England, I don’t remember where, who were secretly starting fires during a period of contract

negotiations. It wasn’t extortion per se; they were just trying to convince the city fathers that there was a lot from danger from fires, and that the city shouldn’t drag its feet on fully funding their fire department.

“With the arsonists, we weren’t trying to make a [political] statement, so much as taking a look at the darker, resentful, reactionary side of Middle America; the flip side to the optimistic, hopeful, reasoning side, as exemplified by Cap. Sure, you can sympathize with Hal Brady’s lament about sweating and slaving just to get by.

But then he rants about the ‘poor and infirm,’ whom he labels ‘cheaters’—shades of Reagan’s divisive ‘welfare queen’ speech. And then, Brady takes out his anger on the wrong people, and in a way that really horrifies Cap.” Looking at the story today, with the vanishing Middle Class still an issue, Stern reflects, “If we were prophetic about what was going to happen to the Middle Class— well, I wish that we’d been wrong. What’s really depressing is that so many folks are still buying into the big lie, pointing fingers and blaming the wrong people. They’re all too willing to look for scapegoats and to beat up on people (sometimes literally) who are even lower down on the social and economic ladder.”

On Steve Rogers’ politics in general, Stern says, “From the very beginning, Steve Rogers was very much a New Deal Democrat—or, as they were called in the ’60s, a Moderate. His whole life has been about standing up for the little guy, facing down the bullies, fighting fascism, and trying to make things better, always putting others ahead of himself. You can think of him as the opposite of Donald Trump.”

INKERS ARE DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES

Marvel Fanfare #18 also contained bonus portfolios by two artists largely known as inkers: Kevin Nowlan and Terry Austin. Nowlan’s six pages of Marvel heroines included Dagger, the Black Widow, Red Sonja, Phoenix, Nova, and a sunbathing She-Hulk. Nowlan’s She-Hulk piece inspired John Byrne’s story of Jennifer Walters becoming an inadvertent centerfold in Fantastic Four #275 (Feb. 1985).

On his five-page portfolio, Terry Austin tells BACK ISSUE, “I like to keep my drawing muscles limber, as doing so always helps my inking to improve (it’s a weird yin/yang sort of thing). As I recall, I was showing some of those pinup-type pieces to someone in the Marvel office (maybe even Allen [Milgrom] himself) and he expressed an interest in using them in Fanfare. I had the Doom, Cloak and Dagger, Thor (with Golden Age Atlas stars Silly Seal and Ziggy Pig), and Black Widow pieces done already.” Austin’s last piece, of X-Ladies Storm, Rogue, Kitty, and Lockheed, was a suggestion from Editori-Al himself. “I believe that Allen suggested I do one more, this one involving the X-Men in some way, as 1) I was associated with the merry mutant team from the run with Chris and John and 2) the X-Men were pretty much guaranteed to boost sales on any given comic book, and he figured that a portrait of any members of the team by a guy who was known for working on their book was worth a try.”

Agent with Shield (left) From the climax of “Home Fires!” (right) A pinup from the Terry Austin art gallery in MF #18.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

JOHN TRUMBULL has been writing for BACK ISSUE since 2012.

Check out his weekly column “Crisis on Earth-T” every Monday at http://atomicjunkshop.com/. A big, hearty, Captain Americastyle salute to Roger Stern and Terry Austin for sharing their memories with BI.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 37

by D a n i e l

DeAngelo

Repulsor Rays Are Go! Courtesy of Ken Steacy, the artist’s go-to character in the pages of Marvel Fanfare: the Invincible Iron Man! TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

In addition to unpublished inventory stories, Marvel I was one of the first artists to produce painted artwork Fanfare was also meant to spotlight various creators for comics in the States, having been heavily influenced and special projects that didn’t quite fit in the pages

by British artists Frank Hampson and Frank Bellamy in Eagle magazine,” Steacy explains. “Nowadays, of a regular monthly comic-book series. Fanfare’s glossy if I’m doing comics, it’s usually B&W line art which is pages were a perfect fit for the painted work of Canadian artist Ken Steacy, who worked on a trio of colored digitally; if it’s an illustration, then I’ll use Iron Man stories, along with an Alpha Flight one-shot other traditional media.”

Steacy was also a rarity among comic artists in and numerous pinups. “Fully painted artwork reproduced so much better [on coated paper] than the standard that he could do it all, providing pencils and inks as mechanical color on newsprint,” Steacy notes. well as letters and colors (or “colours,” as its spelled “I was an avid Marvel fan, and at age 11 noticed in Canada). He often wrote the stories as well! the credits in each issue and decided then and “Philosophically, I’ve always believed that the best work is produced by a creator who controls every there to become a comic-book artist,” Steacy aspect of that work,” Steacy comments. “Plus I recalls, “an atypical career path from which my hated the assembly-line approach to cranking out parents never tried to dissuade me, for which I © Abbyarcane / Wikimedia Commons. am very grateful.” While painted comics by artists like Alex Ross comics on a schedule, which required contributors to specialize as are more common today, Steacy’s art style was a bit different from writers, or pencilers, or inkers, or letterers, or colorists—I think that much of that seen in traditional comics at the time. “Back in the day, specialization is for insects, not artists.”

38 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

In An Octopus’ Garden Steacy’s wraparound covers for his Iron Man vs. Doc Ock two-parter in Marvel Fanfare #22 and 23 (Sept. and Nov. 1985).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

THE SUPERIOR OCTOPUS

In Daredevil vol. 1 #165 (July 1980), writer Roger McKenzie and artist Frank Miller had Spider-Man’s archenemy, Dr. Octopus, create a set of tentacles made from the indestructible metal adamantium. McKenzie eventually revisited this concept in a two-part Iron Man story in Marvel Fanfare #22–23 (Sept.–Nov. 1985), which he wrote while Steacy did everything else. “As I recall, I met Roger McKenzie at the San Diego Comic-Con,” Steacy says, “and he recommended me to Al Milgrom, who was the editor—and one the very best I ever worked with.”

Consumer activist Joe Barger is overseeing Tony Stark’s upgrade of Ryker’s Island Penitentiary’s security system to prevent future breakouts. Among the supervillains imprisoned at Ryker’s is Dr. Octopus, whose adamantium arms are currently being examined at Stark International.

When Octopus mentally summons them, the tentacles escape and break him out of prison, along with fellow prisoners Gray Gargoyle, Sandman, and Electro.

Iron Man makes short work of the other villains, but Octopus—now also reunited with his original set of tentacles—commands the adamantium set to rip apart Iron Man’s armor. Octopus escapes and Barger holds Stark responsible. With Stark International stocks plummeting in the wake of the bad publicity, the first part of the story ends with a seemingly despondent Stark returning to drinking.

However, in the next issue’s conclusion, “From the Ashes,” we learn that Stark was merely drinking Ginger Ale (Canada Dry, of course!) as he builds a new suit of armor. “Subversion of audience expectation through the device of a reveal is always a good way to engage your readers,” Steacy remarks. Stark’s security upgrade was designed to keep prisoners from breaking out of Ryker’s Island, not to prevent Octopus’ tentacles from breaking in. Stark International is forced to shut down due to a grand jury investigation, so Stark’s business lies

in the balance as he seeks out Dr. Octopus for a rematch.

In an amusing sequence of events, Iron Man shows up to demand information about Octopus from Daredevil stoolie Turk, who just got finished being interrogated

by DD. Turk convinces Iron Man that he knows nothing, but as soon as Shellhead leaves, a hapless Turk is confronted by Ock himself! In the end, Iron Man is able to defeat Ock by cybernetically taking control of the adamantium tentacles and using them against him.

“Iron Man was always my fave character because his power came from his imagination, creativity, and Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 39

industriousness,” Steacy notes. “He wasn’t bitten by a radioactive arachnid or bathed in gamma rays; he was just a really smart guy who tinkered together cool stuff and used his high-tech toys to fight crime. Moreover, I’ve always believed that the best stories are redemption stories, and Tony Stark’s is no exception; the millionaire playboy military-industrialist whose life is threatened by the weapons of war he developed is in turn saved by a positive application of that technology.”

Both issues include pinup galleries by Steacy. “That’s interesting,” Steacy reflects. “The first chapter is 25 pages, and the second is 26, and Fanfare was a 32-page book, so we had space to fill. I honestly can’t remember why the odd number of pages (standard comic scripts were 22 pages).” Issue #22 includes pinups of Conan the Barbarian, Captain America, the Hulk, Thor, Spider-Man, Nick Fury, and the Fantastic Four. Issue #23 includes pinups of Cloak and Dagger, Guardian from Alpha Flight, Dr. Strange, Power Pack, Storm of the X-Men, and Deathlok.

THE CANADIAN CONNECTION

Steacy returned to Fanfare a year later in #28 (Sept. 1986) with a one-shot story that stands apart from his Iron Man issues—mostly because Iron Man isn’t in it! Instead, Northstar is spotlighted in a story, by Alpha Flight writer Bill Mantlo with art by Steacy, called “Murder by Numbers 1, 2, 3… It’s as Easy to Learn as Your A-B-C!” Despite being Canadian himself, Steacy was not at all familiar with Alpha Flight at the time. “Honestly, I’d stopped reading comics in my late teens when I discovered sex ‘n’ drugs ‘n’ rock ’n’ roll,” Steacy jokes, “so I knew nothing about the characters, other than what was in the script.”

The script focuses on Northstar’s past and his former membership in a 1970s FLQ (Front de Liberation du Quebec) terrorist organization called Cell Combattre.

As members of the FLQ are being mysteriously killed off, RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) Commander Giles McHeath summons Alpha Flight (Vindicator, Aurora, Snowbird, Puck, and Box) and encourages them to seek out the surviving members of Cell Combattre to warn them of the potential danger and, if possible, convince them to surrender to the authorities. The headstrong Northstar insists on dealing with the matter by himself, although the rest of Alpha Flight follows him.

Each time Northstar finds one of the Cell members, they wind up getting killed by an armored assassin called Scourge, eventually unmasked as McHeath himself, who was using Northstar to track down the remaining Cell members so that he could kill them! Unlike the Iron Man issues, this is a full-length story with no pinups.

“The Alpha Flight story was particularly fun because we set it in Toronto, my hometown at the time,” Steacy comments. “I got to include plenty of friends as incidental characters, notably Mark Askwith—then manager of the Silver Snail Comic Shop—who appears startled by Northstar’s passing on the splash page, and writer/artist Pierre Fournier as one of the villains. I co-created the antagonist Scourge, and helped Bill Mantlo with the Quebecois profanity—in his original script, the FLQ characters actually said ‘sacre bleu!’

Looking over that script, I note that Al Milgrom heavily edited both the dialogue and my layouts, a testament to the engagement that made him such an excellent editor.”

He’s Norse, Of Course!

No one had ever before seen so much rainbow in Asgard’s rainbow bridge when Ken’s Thor pinup was published in MF #22.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. 40 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

Steacy Title Pages (top) MF #23’s Iron Man tale. (bottom) Was writer Bill Mantlo listening to The Police’s Synchonicity when he came up with the title to this Northstar story in MF #28? (inset) #28’s cover.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

“I tried a novel approach to coloring that issue, using bluelines, the method then favored by artists in France, which is still in use to this day by some,” Steacy continues. “The black-and-white line art is photo-mechanically transferred to watercolor paper in blue ink, which is then colored with airbrush and aniline dyes— most artists used Dr. Martins, but I preferred the less-saturated Talens Ecoline transparent watercolors. It’s then separated into the process colors cyan, yellow, and magenta, and the original black-and-white artwork is added on top, thereby affording a full range of color with solid blacks. It’s quite labor-intensive, however.”

FADE TO DOOM

Steacy provided both writing and art for his last Marvel Fanfare issue with another Iron Man tale in #44 (June 1989), this time a one-shot story. “My pal Al asked if I wanted to write and illustrate a story,” Steacy recalls, “so, of course I jumped at the chance. Iron Man was always my favorite hero, and Doc Doom my fave villain, so it was a no-brainer.”

In “Doom Bug,” Iron Man is in the desert, seemingly battling a huge robot, when he is actually testing out a new device called a “Telepresence System” that enables the user—in this case, James Rhodes—to remotely control the robot from a distance. Rhodey wears a suit similar to the type of motion-capture outfits worn today by actors portraying CGI animated characters in movies. Stark hopes that his latest invention will be a big hit at the upcoming International Robotics Symposium, since it can be used to enable people to remotely perform tasks in uninhabitable environments—such as on the Moon, underwater, or in a fire. (This concept turns out to be prophetic, since remote-controlled robots and space probes are actually used today.) However, Iron Man is exposed to a strange gas that causes his armor to malfunction and shut down, leaving Tony Stark trapped inside. Fortunately, Ant-Man (Scott Lang) is on hand to shrink inside of Iron Man’s armor and free Stark.

Stark attempts to de-bug the armor but is unable to find any trace of the gas, so the trio head for the symposium, which is being held in Latveria, home of Dr. Doom.

There, Iron Man meets several other armored heroes (including Avro-X of the Canadian Armed Forces, whose armor bears more than a passing resemblance to Scourge’s from #28). When the other suits of armor begin to malfunction, Iron Man immediately suspects Doom’s involvement and confronts him. Doom admits to creating a computer virus that will destroy any machine’s central-processing unit but claims that Iron Man himself is the one spreading it, since the virus disappears quickly from a machine without a trace but survives indefinitely in the lungs of a living host. Although Doom had taken precautions to protect his own armor from the virus, it still winds up affecting him—perhaps due to the virus mutating— and shuts down his armor as well. Since Doom’s armor will explode if it isn’t reactivated, Iron Man uses Ant-Man’s shrinking gas to shrink inside and fix it. When Doom realizes that Iron Man and friends are responsible for saving his life, he magnanimously offers to spare their own lives, thus canceling any debt he owes them. What a nice guy!

“I opted for painting the entire Iron Man issue in fullcolor on Strathmore two-ply bristol, again with Ecoline dyes and Badger Air-Opaque acrylics,” Steacy notes. “The big bonus, of course, is that I had all those fabulous originals to sell when the book was finished.” Steacy provided beautiful wraparound painted covers for all four of the issues of Fanfare that he worked on. This issue’s painting of Iron Man in the foreground with the image of Dr. Doom’s face in the background is perhaps his finest, but it sadly met with an unfortunate end. “The artwork for that issue was airbrushed with water-based media—all pigments are fugitive to varying degrees, and I always tell collectors to frame originals under UV-filtering glass, rotate them off the wall every six months or so, and never expose them to direct sunlight,” Steacy explains. “The guy who bought the cover and a number of the interiors pages [owned a comic-book store and] wanted to share them with his customers; unfortunately he broke the cardinal rule of display [leaving the art in the store’s window], and the originals were almost totally bleached out after a few months of direct exposure to the sun.” What a tragedy!

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 41

Iron Man’s Origin Ken’s version of Iron Man’s original armor, in a pinup from Marvel Fanfare #45 (Aug. 1989). Courtesy of Ken Steacy.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Protectors of the Great White North Courtesy of Heritage (www.ha.com), Ken Steacy original line art from the Northstar story in Marvel Fanfare #28 (Sept. 1986), featuring the entire Alpha Flight team.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

“I recall that there was a screw-up regarding the deadline on that last Fanfare story, and having turned in the cover and first half of the book, I discovered that I only had four days left to complete the final 16 pages!

I had moved to Victoria, BC, by then, so I called my old pal Steve Leialoha (the finest inker to wield a brush, and the most underrated artist in the industry!) in San Francisco, and a former assistant named Rod Dunn in Toronto, offering them airfare, accommodation (comfy couches), and a hefty page rate if they’d save my bacon.

I already had a terrific assistant named Andrew Pratt, so the four of us set up an assembly line in my tiny studio— I penciled, Steve inked, Rod cut frisket, Andrew airbrushed, and we all colored. My wonderful wife Joan pitched in as well, and none of us got much sleep, but we actually got it done by the deadline.”

AFTER THE FANFARE

Steacy would provide two more pinups for Marvel Fanfare: one of Iron Man in his classic gray armor for #45 (Aug. 1989), and the Punisher in #60 (Dec. 1991). “The Iron Man origin illo is interesting, insofar as it’s one of

42 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

three paintings that were not returned to me by the publisher back in the day,” Steacy reveals. “The other two are a cover for The Wanderers at DC, and a Racer X wraparound at NOW Comics.” Although Steacy was able to track down the Racer X cover, “the Iron Man and the Wanderers originals are still wandering around out there somewhere—and I still want ’em back, dammit!”

These days, Steacy makes annual appearances at the Desert Bus for Hope fundraiser, which celebrated its tenth year in 2016. “During that time they’ve raised over $3 million dollars for sick kids’ hospitals,” Steacy says, “of which I’m very proud to say my appearances (I auction off collectibles from my Archive of the Awesome, original artwork, and commissions) have raised just under $200,000 so far.” (For more info, visit https://desertbus.org/about.) “My wonderful wife Joan Steacy (who is also a graphic novelist) and I created the only program in Comics & Graphic Novels in the mainstream post-secondary school system here in Canada,” Steacy points out, “and we’ve just started our fifth year here at Camosun College.” (For more info visit www.camosun.ca/comics, www.kenspublishing.com/ winchester.pdf, www.kenspublishing.com/dougandken.pdf, and http://aurora-graphicnovel.tumblr.com/books.) We can hope that Steacy’s students will someday be able to turn out artwork as fine as that of their teacher.

DANIEL DeANGELO is a freelance writer/artist in Florida. He would like to thank Ken Steacy for his assistance with this article.

TM

Bill Mantlo’s career in comics was a prolific one. One cannot think of ROM: Spaceknight or Micronauts without mentioning his contributions to their four-color adventures. Mantlo has also had celebrated runs on The Incredible Hulk and The Spectacular Spider-Man, and he co-conceived Rocket Raccoon, Cloak and Dagger, and the series Swords of the Swashbucklers.

Yet, of all his work, perhaps the superhero anthology series Marvel Fanfare has most shown his versatility as a writer. His Micronauts creation Captain Universe plus Spidey and the Hulk are just a few of the characters he’s written for the title. Let’s explore all of Mantlo’s masterworks in the pages of Marvel Fanfare…

CONSCIENCE OF A FILL-IN KING

by J a m e s

Heath Lantz

Much like Rod Serling and Gene Roddenberry did in television, Bill Mantlo used his writing as a platform to discuss the social issues that were important to him. Mantlo was, as his brother Michael tells BACK ISSUE, “a champion of the oppressed.” He wanted everyone, human and animal alike, to be treated fairly and equally. Many of his stances on the state of the world, in this case underpaid civil workers, overcrowded animal shelters, and the unnecessary deaths of stray pets, were expressed in his stories.

“Bless the Beasts and the Children,” the back-up feature in Marvel Fanfare #7 (Mar. 1983) starring Marvel’s resident Man without Fear, Daredevil, was such a tale.

The streets of New York are normally filled with traffic and chaos. However, on this particular day things get dangerous as a Daily Bugle van nearly hits a visually impaired boy. Daredevil saves him, but the young man’s new guide dog was © Marvel. frightened by the vehicular incident.

Ol’ Hornhead scours the city for the canine, only to be overwhelmed by the fear he senses from the animals incarcerated in the cramped shelters full of city workers who are trying to make ends meet. Daredevil finds what he’s looking for. Yet, he’s too late. The poor pooch is put down because he was mistaken for a stray, leaving the Man without Fear wondering how he will tell the disabled lad that sometimes even superheroes fail in their quests.

Mantlo continued to write about animal cruelty in his second story featured in Marvel Fanfare, in issue #16.

Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner was the star of that particular saga. Namor attempts to save a white stallion from both smugglers who beat the poor creature and a raging storm on the sea. When the Scion of the Deep is severely injured by his adversaries’ weapons, the intervention and powers of Neptune save him and transform the steed into a beautiful sea horse.

Jumping a bit ahead (don’t worry, we’ll get to Mantlo’s next Fanfare story soon), the Uni-Power and Captain Universe, first seen in Micronauts #8 and covered in depth in BACK ISSUE #93, show up to give some bullies their comeuppance in Marvel Fanfare #25’s second feature

Marvel Beat-Up Bill Mantlo penned this Spidey/Hulk mash-up/smash-up for Marvel Fanfare #47 (Dec. 1989). Art and colors by Michael Golden.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 43

Fearless Daredevil performs a rescue in the Mantlo-written, George Freemandrawn tale in MF #7 (Mar. 1983).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

presentation. This time, the Hero Who Could Be You chooses the studious Delayne Masters to not only stand up to the boy’s tormentors, but to illustrate the problems plaguing inner-city schools less than a decade before Michelle Pfeiffer tackled similar subject matters in the film Dangerous Minds. Delayne/Captain Universe’s confrontation of a gang of hoodlums inspires students and faculty alike to want to clean up W.E.B. DuBois High School to give the students a better future.

and his gangsters. The pusher who brought her to the criminals flees, only to learn that nobody escapes Cloak’s caliginousness. Mantlo’s story ends with the duo realizing that even though they can no longer have what they long for, at least Cloak and Dagger have each other.

What makes the Cloak and Dagger story in Marvel Fanfare #19 interesting is that it’s part of the “Editori-Al” section on the inside front covers of the comics. The story from those strips has Al Milgrom wondering what to put in Fanfare #18. He originally asks Chris Claremont for something, but the X-Men scribe didn’t hand in anything.

MANTLO, DAGGER, ALPHA While the Bill Mantlo Marvel Fanfare tales discussed before Milgrom decides to use the Bill Mantlo/Tony Salmons “Cloak were back-ups, he proved that he was capable of and Dagger” tale when a shadowed figure steals Salmon’s doing larger-scale sagas for the title. Among the main work. MF #19’s “Editori-Al” reveals that Milgrom found presentations for Fanfare written by Mantlo were stories the art and wishes for the culprit of the page pilfering, one featuring Cloak and Dagger (Marvel Fanfare #19), Tony Salmons, to apologize to readers. This, however, requires a literal arm-twisting from Milgrom.

Daredevil (#27), and Alpha Flight (#28). While he had When asked about the “Editori-Al” strips in Marvel penned a few tales with Ol’ Hornhead before, Cloak and Fanfare #18 and 19, Al Milgrom recalls to BACK ISSUE, Dagger were co-created by Bill Mantlo, and he had a very “Well, these do seem to have the ring of truth about substantial run on Alpha Flight in issues #29–66 of that book.

Marvel Fanfare #19’s book-length saga begins with them. Many a true word spoke in jest, and all that. I’m Cloak and Dagger on their mission clean up the streets guessing that Tony might have borrowed the pages of illegal substances. Dagger, wondering if they’re back to do some touch-ups or to polish up something making a difference, longs for a normal life. She leaves he wasn’t completely happy with. I doubt I would Cloak but promises to return to him. Her night of © Callianthus / Wikimedia Commons. have thrown him under the bus if it was my mistake, dancing in a club to forget her troubles is cut short by a drug dealer but maybe just for the sake of the ‘Editori-Al’ gag I did just that.” whose connections have been dealt a serious blow by the pair of heroes.

“The ‘Editori-Al’s were Al’s personal notes,” Tony Salmons responds.

He knocks out Dagger with the intention of delivering her to mob boss “This one was funny to me at the time and for years after. To that end, Uncle Sandino. Meanwhile, Cloak, fearing the darkness within will consume it worked great.”

“Chapter II: Dancin’ the Night Away!” in pages 11–20 of Marvel him, goes on a frantic search for the one person who can keep the shadows at bay. Cloak sees a light in a window that he knows could be Fanfare #19 was drawn by Rick Leonardi, who took the time to talk only that of Dagger, whose luminous blades deal justice to Uncle Sandino with BACK ISSUE about the story and Bill Mantlo.

44 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

“My recollection is that this Fanfare piece was kindred to the longer stories that Bill was telling in Cloak and Dagger’s various series appearances,” Leonardi says.

“He was preoccupied in his writing (and in his pursuit of a law degree) with issues like drug abuse, runaways, teenage entitlement, and disaffection. It’s arresting to reread this stuff now and see Bill anticipating the advent of ‘at risk’ youth and catch him very, very gently probing questions of prejudice and racism.”

On working with Bill Mantlo, Leonardi states, “It was always a pleasure and a challenge to work on his stories.

I knew we were polemicizing, but that was just a reflection of Bill really caring about the characters and the subject matter. As a penciler, I had no choice but to respond to that kind of commitment.”

Another Bill Mantlo/Tony Salmons collaboration in Marvel Fanfare was #27’s “Cars” (insert Gary Numan music here), starring Daredevil. Automobile-obsessed Foggy Nelson wants to buy one for the law firm of Nelson and Murdock as an excuse to drive his wife for a vacation.

Matt Murdock, better known as Daredevil, accompanies him to the dealership in spite of traffic giving his costumed alter ego a headache. When the vehicle purchased is stolen, Daredevil must stop the thieves. The end result is a wrecked car and a gift of airline tickets from Matt to Foggy.

On Bill Mantlo, Salmons tells BACK ISSUE, “I met Bill on a few occasions before and after the Fanfare work. He was always pleasant but all business on those occasions. It was in the company of other people in the offices and he had a direction in his meetings with editorial. Meetings were always half social and unstructured, but Bill was purposeful.

“Marvel Fanfare was a special title,” Salmons reminisces.

“It was originally for smart takes on characters by hot talent, a chance for them to spread out with the properties aside from the main line continuities. Great idea. Eventually it was a great place for new talent because it was generally single issues with a back-up story; no deadline.

For these reasons and others, they were enthusing. The

stories were good and I was starting up at Marvel Comics with an editor who ‘got it.’ ” Bill Mantlo’s next Marvel Fanfare story starred Alpha Flight and was drawn and colored by Ken Steacy. The Tempus Fugitive creator is no stranger to working with Bill Mantlo in the Alpha Flight sector of the Marvel Universe.

Roughly two years before the team’s first appearance in Alpha Flight #54, Mantlo and Steacy, according to what Steacy himself tells BACK ISSUE, had discussed a miniseries starring the Derangers. However, that never went beyond an outline and development artwork for the characters.

Ken Steacy discusses with BACK ISSUE his Marvel Fanfare collaboration with Bill Mantlo and expands upon a story he briefly told in this issue’s Steacy interview: “Most of my interaction with Bill was through our editor, my pal Al Milgrom.

I remember having a conversation with Bill about the use of profanity in the Alpha Flight story. He had the FLQ members saying ‘sacre bleu!,’ which no one in Quebec (or France) has ever said, so I supplied him with the appropriate Joual (Quebecois slang) expressions. Someone at Marvel looked at my revisions, and told Al that what I’d suggested could

They Only Come Out at Night A double-shot of Tony Salmons Marvel Fanfare covers for issues featuring Bill Mantlo stories: (left) Cloak and Dagger, for #19 (Mar. 1985), and (right) Daredevil, for #27 (July 1986).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 45

You Light Up My Life A double-shot of Rick Leonardi Cloak and Dagger art: (top) the title page for Chapter 2 of Mantlo’s C&D tale in Marvel Fanfare #19, inked by Terry Austin, and (bottom) a 1984 sketch, courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

be construed as blasphemy, but it’s such an authentic part of the language and culture that nobody would bat an eye at it—and far as I know, no copies of Fanfare were ever burned in protest.”

Steacy continues, “The last conversation I had with Bill was shortly before he quit comics to pursue his dream of becoming an attorney. I recall him saying how ironic it was that he’d spent his time at Marvel writing characters who fought the bad guys, and now he was going to be defending them.”

Mantlo and Steacy’s Alpha Flight feature in Fanfare had Northstar’s past come back to haunt him when members of a terrorist group of which he once was a member are being hunted by a killer in Scourge armor originally developed by James Hudson, a.k.a. Alpha Flight’s Guardian. Northstar does not know whom to trust, as his former colleagues feel betrayed by him. Alpha Flight tries to save them, but they die in what could be perceived as bombings or accidents. This leads Northstar to refuse the Canadian super-group’s aid, particularly after he learns they used an implanted tracker to follow him. However, he eventually allows Alpha Flight to help him and his ex-allies capture Scourge, who is revealed to be Commander Giles McHeath, a retired Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman who sought revenge for the deaths of his men during a bombing that © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. occurred years ago. Alpha Flight brings McHeath to justice, and Northstar finally accepts the squad as his family while, at the same time, they gain their faith in him once again.

FIRE AND WATER

The year 1989 was the half-century anniversary of Marvel’s Sub-Mariner and original Human Torch. In addition to Roy Thomas and Rich Buckler’s The Saga of the Sub-Mariner and The Saga of the Original Human Torch limited series, Marvel Fanfare #43 ran stories with the Prince of the Deep and Ol’ Flame-Head, albeit the second incarnation of the latter, Johnny Storm, and his family/teammates in the Fantastic Four also appear in the second feature. The Sub-Mariner tale, like the back-up in Marvel Fanfare #16, was drawn by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. This time, however, P. Craig Russell was the embellisher. Russell didn’t work that closely with Mantlo on the story, but he tells BACK ISSUE that he was very impressed with then-newcomer Mignola’s art.

Mignola himself was unavailable to speak to BI on this subject, but he did make the following statement in David Yurkovich and Michael Mantlo’s benefit book, Mantlo: A Life in Comics: “Bill was the first writer I worked with in comics. We did a short ‘Sub-Mariner’ story for Fanfare then a couple ‘Vision/ Scarlet Witch’ stories. I guess he liked my working with him. I think Bill always had a zillion projects in his head. It was just a matter of finding the right artist for them. It seemed that there were three of us who Bill sort of kept as his guys—Butch Guice, Rick Leonardi, and me.”

Marvel Fanfare #43’s “Time After Time” has Prince Namor investigating the Atlantean mysteries of the Sargasso Sea. He becomes entangled in the sea kelp and algae and returns to the surface with no idea how long he had been trapped. He witnesses a battle between an English vessel and a pirate ship from what appears to be the past. A beautiful ravenhaired woman named Patience Drew leads the buccaneers. While wishing to know the reasons for battle, as is typical for the character, the Sub-Mariner 46 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

falls in love with Ms. Drew. This results in the Sovereign of the Seven Seas becoming her co-captain. Patience gives Namor a ring, which he places in his left earlobe, as a token of her affection. However, when their boat is slowed down by fog, the King of Atlantis must swim the waters, only to find that he is in the Sargasso Sea with the lifeless hulk of the pirate sea craft and fleshless corpse of Patience Drew. Was Namor’s time with the female adventurer just a dream? Perhaps not, for the earring she gave him is still on his person.

The Sub-Mariner tale in Marvel Fanfare #43 wasn’t originally slated to be the Bill Mantlo/Mike Mignola team’s last outing with the Prince of the Deep. According to Mignola in Mantlo: A Life in Comics, another Namor saga was among the projects Mignola and Mantlo had discussed: “We were working on some ideas—a Sub-Mariner graphic novel (that turned into an Alpha Flight graphic novel) based on a story idea of mine. Editor Carl Potts turned that into a Death of the Sub-Mariner graphic novel so that, of course, didn’t get done. We were also planning an original, creatorowned, fantasy/science fiction series or graphic novelsomething called Pilgrim, sort of a cross between Jack Kirby’s Kamandi and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.

I don’t remember exactly why that didn’t happen.”

Returning to Marvel Fanfare #43, in the Fantastic Four story written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Greg Brooks, Reed Richards, a.k.a.

Mr. Fantastic, finds himself trapped in his laboratory after a rocket-fuel experiment goes awry in “Death in a Vacuum!”

With the doors sealed shut, the rest of the Fantastic Four wait while Reed navigates through flames. None of his contingency plans work as the heat is more intense than predicted. Ben (the Thing) Grimm claps out the fire, creating a vacuum, and Reed is revived by Susan (Invisible Woman) Richards. Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, recounts these events to the reader as he leaves his teammates in search of action. He finds it in the form of a police pursuit of a trio of bank robbers.

He fire-melts the tires of the thieves’ speeding car. © 5of7 / Wikimedia Commons.

Yet, it runs smack-dab into a school bus full of students visiting an oil refinery. Nobody is hurt. However, the criminals are holding a boy hostage. If Johnny “flames on,” he could ignite the entire area. He manages to deal with two of the bad guys from a distance, but the Torch needs a plan to get the final one and save the child. His going supernova makes both the villain and his victim lose consciousness, forcing Johnny to make a choice. He uses CPR to revive the young man, but his foe is now brain dead while the Human Torch, recovering from injuries from the fight, understands why Reed Richards must always make tough decisions for humanity and the Fantastic Four.

RETURN OF THE GOLDEN BOYS

In addition to ROM and Micronauts, Bill Mantlo is perhaps best known for his tales featuring Spider-Man and the Hulk in those characters’ respective titles. Mantlo has even written team-ups between the Web-Slinger and the Green Goliath. One such pairing was published in Marvel Fanfare #47 (mid-Nov. 1989). This particular issue reunited Bill Mantlo with original Micronauts artist Michael Golden, who also colored and co-plotted the comic. Mantlo and Golden were the creative team responsible for launching Micronauts for Marvel. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #76 for a detailed look at that series.]

The Hulk, with Bruce Banner’s mind, is on a mission for S.H.I.E.L.D. to examine a satellite full of gamma radiation. An alien organism attaches itself to the Jade Giant, causing him to go mindless.

With Nick Fury injured, S.H.I.E.L.D. drones under the command of Quartermaster Waldo attacking, and a sick SpiderMan trying to stop the rampaging Hulk, a true Rumble in the Bronx ensues as Banner fights to regain control of the Hulk. A sneeze from Spider-Man that carries the flu germ kills the protoplasmic extraterrestrial because, like the Martians in H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, it had never been exposed to Earth’s microbes.

Bruce Banner once again has taken charge of his green alter ego while Nick Fury busts Waldo to kitchen patrol. Meanwhile, Peter Parker sells photos of the Spider-Man/Hulk confrontation to the Daily Bugle before returning home to recover from his illness.

Both Mantlo and Golden had evolved quite a bit in the years since their days on Micronauts, and their reunion was a pleasant surprise for their fans. Yet, it was not without its challenges.

“I have a strong suspicion that Bill wrote the plot for this very early in the Fanfare run,” said Al Milgrom in Mantlo: A Life in Comics.

“Maybe Michael was interested in doing the Spidey and Hulk characters. I believe (memory very hazy here) that Michael did some loose breakdowns of the story, and Bill scripted it. Years passed.

Every once in a while, I’d

Pretty Pirate Namor is smitten with Captain Patience Drew in this stunningly gorgeous original art page (courtesy of Heritage) from Marvel Fanfare #43 (Apr. 1989).

A Mantlo/Mignola/Russell production.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 47

Rip Van Wink-Al (left) Al Milgrom has some fun with Michael Golden in his “Editori-Al” in Marvel Fanfare #47. (right) “Nice art job,” indeed!

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

prod Golden, and finally, he finished the breakdowns.

Bill finished scripting. I got it lettered. I knew Fanfare was going to be canceled. I prodded Golden more to finish the job. At one point, I know he said he didn’t want to ink it. Ultimately, after other inkers were suggested, I got Michael to do the job himself. It was, by far, the most satisfying outcome as far as I was concerned.”

CALL FOR BACK-UP

Toward the end of its initial run, Marvel Fanfare featured back-up features written by Bill Mantlo in issues #56–58.

The first—“Toys Night Out” (MF #56), drawn by the Don Heck—saw Mantlo return to toys after his fan-favorite outings in ROM and Micronauts. This time, however, action figures based on the Marvel Universe heroes and villains help young Billy Baker clean and organize his room while duking it out in the classic Mighty Marvel manner.

“Power and Duty” (Fanfare #57) sees ex-New Orleans Harbor Patrol Captain Monica Rambeau, Marvel’s second Captain Marvel, return to her roots as she uses her powers and soothing words to prevent a woman’s suicide.

The police and the person rescued both seem surprised that Captain Marvel went out of her way to save someone who is a drug addict. Monica then tells all involved that she, like the local law enforcement, has a duty to protect and serve everyone so she can sleep better at night.

Marvel Fanfare #58’s back-up “Hometown!” mixes superhero action with supernatural eeriness as the android Vision and his wife the Scarlet Witch must protect the small town of Leonia, New Jersey, from a demon from another dimension. Even though the townspeople believe they are a danger to small hamlet, Wanda and Vision

48 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

send the creature back where it came from. However, as long as the pit it used still exists in Leonia, the Vision and Scarlet Witch will be there to prevent more evil from taking their neighbors, even if said evil is drawn to Wanda Maximoff’s power.

Marvel Fanfare ended its first series’ run with issue #60. Bill Mantlo went on to have a law career before the hit-and-run accident that caused severe injuries to the comics scribe. However, Mantlo’s legacy, like that of many creators, continues to live on in the pages of Fanfare and many other Bronze Age comic books.

For Spotty and Uga. You gave us all the unconditional love in your hearts and made us better people for loving you. You are always with us.

Dedicated to my beautiful and marvelous wife Laura, who deserves infinite fanfare, Pupino, and the rest of our four-legged Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., my nephew Kento, who needs to stop playing with Gamma Rays, the friends and family of Michael and Bill Mantlo and the legendary Bill Mantlo himself. May Odin smile upon you all forever.

JAMES HEATH LANTZ is a freelance writer who was heavily influenced by television, film, old time radio shows, and books— especially comic books—growing up in Ohio. He’s co-authored Roy Thomas Presents Captain Video with Roy Thomas.

He also wrote the introductions for Pre-Code Classics: Weird Mysteries vols. 1 and 2 and Roy Thomas Presents Sheena Queen of the Jungle vol. 3 (all published by PS Artbooks), self-published his Trilogy of Tales e-book (available at Smashwords.com and other outlets), and reviews various media for Superman Homepage. James currently lives in Italy with his wife Laura and their family of cats, dogs, and humans from Italy, Japan, and the United States.

by F

ranck Martini

There are not so many instances of John Byrne’s work in Marvel Fanfare. Two, to be precise. He drew the nice wraparound cover for issue #45 (Aug. 1989)—the all-pinups issue—and the lead story in issue #29 (Nov. 1986)—featuring the Hulk—that also contained a Captain America back-up story by then-newcomer Norm Breyfogle on one of his rare Marvel works.

If you know your Marvel and Byrne history, you know that 1986 is when Byrne left Marvel and took over the Superman books, and this issue hit the stands five months after Byrne’s final Hulk issue and three months after his final Fantastic Four issue.

There is a simple reason behind this schedule. This story was not to be published in Marvel Fanfare. It was meant to be The Incredible Hulk #320, the follow-up issue to Betty Ross and Bruce Banner’s wedding—issue #319 (May 1986).

And, as Byrne dryly explained to John B. Cooke in Modern Masters vol. 7 (TwoMorrows Publishing, May 2006): “That was what led to my leaving the Hulk.”

During Byrne’s short run on The Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner and the Hulk were physically separated, and issue #319 presented two stories simultaneously—one featuring the Hulk fighting Doc Samson and the Hulkbusters and a second one reuniting Banner, Betty, Rick Jones, and General Ross.

The story concluded with Bruce and Betty’s marriage on one half of the page and the mindless Hulk jumping to new adventures after defeating his opponents on the other half.

Byrne was trying new storytelling processes during these times; he had done a sideways issue with Fantastic Four #252 (Mar. 1983), and a previous “split stories” issue (#274, Apr. 1984). So Hulk #319 followed a similar pattern, and Byrne then went further with his following issue, a story told in 22 splash pages focusing on the “mindless” Hulk.

So, why was it shelved in the first place? It appears that then then-editor-in-chief Jim Shooter had issues with some of John Byrne’s works, as Jim explained on his blog in May 2011: “A number of issues from Denny [O’Neil]’s office made it into print that had serious flaws or things that were unacceptable— including several by John Byrne. After one particularly bad incident, I finally confronted Denny and told him he’d better start doing his job. That very day, I think, a John Byrne Hulk job came in, finished, lettered and inked, that was all splash pages. Denny thought I’d go ballistic when I saw it, so he rejected it! And he told John it was because I, Jim Shooter, didn’t approve.

“John was the one who went ballistic.

He quit, contacted the President of Marvel 1992 photo by Corey Bond / and demanded I be fired. (…) I never even Wikimedia Commons. saw the rejected book! I assumed that Denny had given it back to John. I didn’t even know why Denny had rejected it, only that he did. I didn’t know it was all splash pages.”

Byrne presented a different reason on his website in January 2015 when asked about this issue: “Denny did not tell me he couldn’t use the all-splash issue because Shooter had rejected it. Denny didn’t even show it to Shooter. Everyone at the office was by then so gun shy they were afraid to let Shooter even SEE something that might ‘upset’ him.

And THAT was why I quit HULK, and why I eventually quit FF.”

Hulk… Splash!

Ol’ Jade Jaws, the mindless star of John Byrne’s all-splash-page tale in Marvel Fanfare #29 (Nov. 1986).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 49

Hulk… Arrive! (left) What an entrance! Page 2. (right) From Heritage’s archives, signed Byrne artwork to page 6.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Byrne’s tumultuous relationship with Jim Shooter is no mystery and dates back to the Dark Phoenix days.

It seems that Byrne had long-range plans for the book and aimed to apply his trademarked “Back to Basics” approach for the Hulk. He explained to Comics Feature (Sept. 1985) and Amazing Heroes #75 (Aug. 1985) the direction he wanted to take with the character, laying out the first five issues that were published and his plans afterwards up to issue #321.

But apparently there were ongoing issues with Shooter, as Byrne explained to Comic Book Resources in August 2000: “I took on the Hulk after a discussion with Shooter, in which I mentioned some of the things I would like to do with that character. (…) He told me to do whatever was necessary to get on the book, he liked my ideas so much. I did, and once installed he immediately changed his mind—“You can’t do this!” Six issues was as much as I could take,” the seventh issue being the one printed in Marvel Fanfare #29.

So, how did it end up there? Jim Shooter gave a sort of bittersweet answer on his blog: “Months later, Al Milgrom found the rejected book in a drawer and brought it to me.

He liked it. So did I. I thought it was great. Al looked into the situation and found out that Byrne hadn’t been paid for it, got him paid and ran the job in Marvel Fanfare.”

Byrne acknowledges this version on his website: “The all-splash story was later used by Al Milgrom as an issue of Marvel Fanfare. (…) So perhaps it was not so bad after all?”

Not so bad, indeed. Mindless Hulk encounters a Native American who tries to befriend him, then uses “neurotranquilizing vapors” (!) to calm Hulk down. Those vapors somehow trigger Hulk’s memories, proving that the Green

50 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

Goliath may not be so mindless after all. The old Native American actually uses the Hulk as bait to lure two “targets”: Hammer and Anvil, two second-rate villains previously seen in The Incredible Hulk and Marvel Team-Up. As they attack the Hulk, Hammer is shot in the head, and through their psychic connection Anvil also dies in the process. It turns out that the mysterious Native American was the Scourge of the Underworld, the Mark Gruenwald-introduced character that was used to reduce the amount of villains in the Marvel Universe.

The story ends with the dumbfounded Hulk picking the Scourge’s abandoned disguise and uttering his first word since the split with Banner: “Friend.”

Compared to Incredible Hulk issues, Marvel Fanfare gives a better view of Byrne’s art thanks to its quality paper, but we lose Keith Williams’ background inks, which added details and subtlety. Yet, it is nevertheless a great-looking issue and a nice coda to Byrne’s first and probably best era at Marvel Comics.

Finally, there is another Marvel Fanfare John Byrne connection. Marvel Fanfare #18 (Jan. 1985) presented a gorgeous Kevin Nowlan portfolio as back-up feature.

It contained a She-Hulk sunbathing pinup that inspired “The Naked Truth” in Fantastic Four #275 (Feb. 1984), the story in which She-Hulk has to deal with paparazzi taking pictures of her sunbathing at the top of the Baxter Building.

FRANCK MARTINI discovered the Spider-Man daily strip in the French TV Guide at the age of three. After that, “Nothing would ever be the same again.” When no one is watching he is also an intranet manager with a patient wife and two daughters.

Batman TM & © DC Comics.

by M i c h a e l

Eury “My first sale to Marvel Fanfare was a Captain America job told with almost no balloons or narration, just a ‘silent’ story,” Norm Breyfogle tells BACK ISSUE. That tale appeared as the back-up in MF #29, better known as the John Byrne all-splash-page Hulk issue.

But Norm’s Captain America story is more than a “first sale” curiosity. Mike Friedrich, who at the time was Breyfogle’s agent, says, “I met Norm after seeing an eight-page spec Batman story he’d displayed at the [San Diego] Comic-Con art show. I used that story to market his work. Editor Al Milgrom of Marvel Fanfare liked the story,” but as Norm himself continues, “he asked me to redraw and patch in Captain America wherever Batman showed up.” Mike adds, “Of course, Norm agreed.”

And so Norm Breyfogle’s eight-page Batman story became an eight-page Captain America story and was published in Marvel Fanfare #29.

According to Breyfogle, “When it was finally in print, I was told that [Marvel editorin-chief] Jim Shooter saw it, and his first reaction was, ‘Captain America is acting very much like Batman!’ ” Norm maintained an occasional presence in Milgrom’s Marvel Fanfare, but his original Batman eightpager opened yet another door for the artist. “My memory isn’t as clear on Photo by this,” Mike Friedrich Stephan Pytak. admits, “[but] I think I used the original story back at DC to land Norm the ongoing gig on Batman that cemented his reputation.” Breyfogle went on to become one of the eminent Batman artists of the 1990s and beyond.

When Captain America Throws His Mighty Batarang Cap to the rescue, in Norm Breyfogle’s Marvel Fanfare #29 adventure.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 51

The Warriors Three—Fandral the Dashing, Hogun the Grim, and the Voluminous Volstagg—first appeared in the “Tales of Asgard” back-up in Marvel’s Journey into Mystery #119 (Aug. 1965) by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Fandral has the appeal and panache of Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood, Hogun is as grim and dour as they come, and Volstagg could be the brother of Shakespeare’s Falstaff. Throughout the years, they have joined Thor on many adventures and have become popular supporting characters, even appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Thor films. For all their popularity, they have had relatively few adventures on their own. However, some of the best have appeared in Marvel Fanfare, courtesy of creators Alan Zelenetz and Charles Vess.

Zelenetz told Steve Ringgenberg in Marvel Age #26 (Feb. 1985), “I had gone in to [Marvel Fanfare assistant editor] Ann Nocenti asking what she needed for Marvel Fanfare, and she said there’s this fellow named Charlie Vess who wants to draw the World Tree. Want to do a story about the World Tree and the Warriors Three?”

That led to “Ballad of the Warriors Three,” the back-up story in Marvel Fanfare #13 (Mar. 1984).

In the story, the Warriors Three encounter Idunn, whose husband, Bragi, the God of Poetry, has gone missing in the woods while seeking inspiration for a new ballad. The Warriors Three split up and encounter dwarves, giants, and mermaidens, all of whom tell them that Bragi was headed towards the World Tree. The Warriors come together at the tree. Bragi has taken the form of a bird and has become tangled in the tree’s branches, where he is menaced by a snake. Volstagg saves him by falling on the snake, and the Warriors Three become the inspiration for his new poem.

In Amazing Heroes #126 (Sept. 1987), Vess told Mark Askwith about the story. “He [Zelenetz] wrote a story that was lots of fun. It wasn’t violent. Courtesy of ComicVine.

It wasn’t people hitting each other over the head.

I enjoyed drawing it.” This enjoyable collaboration led to the two joining together again for the graphic novel The Raven Banner, an epic tale set in Asgard.

This would, in turn, lead to a four-part Warriors Three story in Marvel Fanfare #34–37 (June–Dec. 1987), though Vess said in Amazing Heroes that it originally started as a four-issue miniseries. “It started off when Alan and I said, ‘Let’s have some fun. Let’s come up with a silly story and do a miniseries.’ ” Jim Owsley was the original editor of the miniseries, but when he left Marvel editorial, finding a replacement proved difficult. “Well, we wanted to come up with a story that would be making fun of heroic-ness,” Vess told Christopher Irving in Modern Masters vol. 11:

The Warriors’ Tree The Warriors Three by Charles Vess. Back cover art to Marvel Fanfare #13 (Mar. 1984).

Original art courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

52 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

by R o g e r

Ash

Charles Vess (TwoMorrows, Feb. 2007). “We actually went to two or three editors who simply did not get what we were trying to say, and finally went back to Al Milgrom, who completely understood the story. He knew what we were trying to do. A lot of the other editors kept saying, ‘Make it serious—some giant, epic thing.’ ‘No, no, no, we’re making fun of all these very grim people—grim and grimmer.’”

Due in part to the success of Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, among others, dark and grim comics were the order of the day in the late 1980s. It’s not at all surprising that some editors wanted the story to be more serious, as that was big business at the time. And the story could easily have taken on a dark tone, but the creative team made sure it didn’t.

“It’s filled with puns, anachronisms, and lots of slap-stick [sic] humor,” Zelenetz told Bill Slavicsek in Marvel Age #55 (July 1987).

“Artist Charles Vess and I work very well together. We’re both romantics at heart when it comes to this sort of story. We’re very comfortable in the realm of fantasy and mythology, so these opportunities are the perfect indulgence. And editor Al Milgrom brings his own eccentric sense of humor to the project as well.”

The story begins in Marvel Fanfare #34. In Asgard, Una and Mord are preparing for their wedding, but there is a dire prophecy surrounding them. If they do not marry on Midsummer’s Eve, they will not wed. Instead, they will marry other people and their offspring will bring about the destruction of Asgard. The Warriors Three will be attending the wedding as Odin’s personal advance guard. Plans for the wedding are going smoothly until Loki learns of it. He was not invited and decides to cause mischief, prophecy or no. During the wedding rehearsal, Loki turns the groom, Mord, into a goat that promptly runs away.

Una follows and, in a clearing the woods, finds a stranger with a goat. The stranger is Loki, of course, who tells her that if the goat is bathed in a magic well in Wolf Castle, he will be restored to his human form.

“But even with the grim prophecy and Loki’s mischief marring the happy occasion, the tale is still light-hearted and funny,” Zelenetz told Marvel Age. “Each warrior must undo a portion of Loki’s mischief before the wedding night, and each is thrown into circumstances that are very atypical for their own personalities.”

Una finds Volstagg, the first of the Warriors Three to arrive, at a nearby inn and sets him on a quest. With the fate of Asgard at stake, Volstagg can’t hide behind bluster and exaggerated tales of his past heroics as usual; he actually has to go on the quest. But that doesn’t mean he’s suddenly a brave and great warrior. He is still as clumsy and cowardly as always, which makes his battle against werewolf-like men in Wolf Castle very funny.

And, wonder of wonders, he actually accomplishes his goal.

However, the goat remains a goat.

Volstagg was a challenge for Vess to draw as he kept trying to make his skeletal and muscular structure to work.

“It wasn’t until I was doing the four-issue miniseries with the Warriors Three that I realized how to actually draw Volstagg,” Vess told Irving in Modern Masters. “I was watching a Warner Brothers cartoon, “King-Sized Canary”—a Tex Avery cartoon about a cat and bird who keep drinking a magic formula that makes them get bigger and bigger. I looked at them and went, ‘Volstagg! He’s a cartoon character. There’s no bones in him!’ And that’s when I could finally draw him.”

[Author’s note: The actual title of the cartoon is “King-Size Canary” and it was released by MGM.] Vess also included a tribute to one of his influences, Frank Frazetta, in this issue. “In the first part the wolf-men are straight out of Frazetta’s ‘Loathsome Lore’ one-page strip in Creepy or Eerie,” he told Irving. “I had lots of fun with it; it was a gloriously silly story.”

A New Tale of Asgard (top) Title page from Alan and Charles’ Warriors Three back-up from Marvel Fanfare #13. (bottom) 1985’s Marvel Graphic Novel #15: The Raven Banner (A Tale of Asgard) reunited Zelenetz and Vess… as well as Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 53

For Odin!

Original art by Charles Vess for the cover of Marvel Fanfare #34 (June 1987). This image was later used for the hardcover collection Thor: The Warriors Three.

Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

54 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

Issue #34 features Hogun the Grim and is perhaps the funniest part of the story as it directly takes on the grim and gritty hero. The story opens with Hogun battling a troll on a bridge. The troll is happy to let him pass, but Hogun insists they battle.

This time, it is Una’s mother, Lady Sunna, who meets a stranger with a goat in a clearing. This time the quest is to pick a fruit from a tree in Elf Wood and feed it to the goat. That will change him back into Mord. She meets Hogan at the inn and sends him on the quest. But she doesn’t send him alone.

She sends Mord’s squire, Vilar, along with him, much to Hogan’s vexation.

Vilar is rather plain with a simple philosophy and sense of humor. He can’t understand why Hogun is so serious and often goes about things the hard way.

This, unsurprisingly, drives Hogun to distraction and he sends Vilar away.

Hogun next meets the elves of Elf Wood, fair folk who enjoy fun and offer to show Hogun a secret way through the woods if he will only stop and play.

Hogun has no need for such frivolity and soldiers on.

When Hogun finally reaches the fruit tree, he finds Vilar waiting for him, as the elves showed him the secret path.

Hogun climbs the tree and is attacked by a serpent but is saved with the assistance of Vilar and the elves.

He feeds the goat the fruit and nothing happens.

The absurdity of the situation and his quest actually makes Hogun burst out in laughter.

While #35 may be the funniest issue, #36 is definitely the most poignant. Fandral is known as a ladies’ man to some and a scoundrel to others. This issue starts off with him trying to escape the wrath of two sisters he was wooing. But what happens when someone actually believes his promises?

This time it is Lord Sigurd, Una’s father, who encounters the stranger in the clearing. He is told that the Priestess of Freya, Goddess of Love may be able to help. Lord Sigurd sends Fandral on this quest and he travels to the priestess’ island to seek her council.

There are only women on the island, which suits Fandral just fine. On the boat ride over, he flirts with his guide, but she is forbidden to love, or even kiss, until her apprenticeship is over.

They are attacked by a giant squid, which Fandral quickly dispatches, and they fall into each other’s arms.

Even though Fandral has promised to marry her (not the first time he has said this to a woman this issue), she is horrified that she has broken her vow. When she hears him using the same lines on other women that he used on her, she is inconsolable.

Meanwhile, Fandral meets with the priestess who attempts to turn the goat back into Mord. She fails and then realizes there is a deeper magic at play. They are interrupted by a messenger bearing the news that the woman from the boat is planning to leap off a cliff to her death for breaking her vow. Fandral realizes that what he saw as a game has serious consequences.

He stops the woman from jumping, begs her forgiveness, and swears off philandering.

Everything comes to a head in issue #37 as the Warriors Three storm Loki’s castle, where he is hiding the real Mord/goat. Vilar warns Odin and his party of the events of the previous issues and Odin sends Thor to help the warriors. Before he arrives, Loki takes on the form of a dragon and, rather than soil himself in physical battle, attempts to control the Warrior Three’s minds. However, with their experiences throughout the story, they break the mind control very quickly.

Volstagg, Hogun, and Fandral engage Loki in battle, but all appears lost when Loki threatens to kill Mord.

Luckily, Thor arrives in the nick of time and Mord is saved and returned to his usual form. The wedding goes on as planned, Asgard is saved, and Loki attends the wedding—in the form of a goat.

This whole adventure is rousing good fun and still holds up well today. The dialog is crisp and the art is stunning. One wonders what would happen if Zelenetz and Vess were to return to the Warriors Three for a new adventure. The Three remain popular characters and I think that readers would love to see a new solo adventure.

Covers Four Vess’ inviting covers for Marvel Fanfare #34–37, featuring the Warriors Three.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

A very special thank-you to John Wells, Christopher Irving, Eric NolenWeathington, and KC Carlson for their assistance with this article.

ROGER ASH lives in Wisconsin, where he works for Westfield Comics and helps with the Baltimore Comic-Con. He shares his condo with his cat, Candy, and his growing collection of hats. He’s been a fan of the Warriors Three, especially Volstagg, since he first saw them.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 55

Marvel’s early-1970s output was an unending series of surprises, as readers were introduced to gothic horror, sword and sorcery, new heroes, new villains, and tons of new writers and artists.

Many of these creators settled into roles closely identified with a specific style of story. Doug Moench, for example, came to Marvel and established himself as a street-level writer with his stirring Master of Kung Fu and Moon Knight. As a result, when I bought Marvel Super Action #1 in early 1976, the magazine stunned me with Moench penning a fantasy series, WeirdWorld. Clearly, it resonated with readers since it subsequently appeared in comics and magazines, fueling interest in its fantasy realm, especially since it was coupled with inspiring artwork from Mike Ploog and later, John Buscema.

Marvel Comics finally collected the WeirdWorld stories for the first time in a trade paperback in 2016, and on the day we spoke by phone, Moench had just penned the introduction from his Pennsylvania home, so had his memories refreshed. He clearly relished those early days with its lax editorial oversight and the freedom to try things. “And boy, was that joyous,” he tells BACK ISSUE. “And I don’t think you can say the [Marvel] books were terrible. There wasn’t just me.

There was [Steve] Englehart, Steve Gerber, Don McGregor, and on and on and on.”

by R o

bert Greenberger

WEIRDWORLD DISCOVERED

In the ’70s, Moench was a prolific writer and Marvel’s magazines were always in need of fresh content, so he had a fairly free hand to submit stories. “I’d dialogued my 20

The Great Darklens Saga A wonderful WeirdWorld commission by Pat Broderick, contributed by the art’s owner, Shaun Clancy.

WeirdWorld TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

56 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

pages for the day or whatever and wasn’t tired,” Doug recalls. “And so they were always bugging me for more six-, seven-, eight-, and nine-page horror stories for Vampire Tales and Tales of the Zombie and whatnot. And I thought, ‘Well, I’m not tired so I’ll knock out a sevenpage black-and-white thing,’ and figuring I would come up with another Zombie or whatever. And instead, I found that [WeirdWorld] coming out and I thought, ‘Jeez, what is this? And are they going to take this?’

“I was very aware that it didn’t really have a home, so I made sure that there were, like, ogres in it and a dragon, or at least the implication of a dragon.”

What Moench invented was a world filled with magic beings and a rich backstory that he explored only in later tales. WeirdWorld was the result of clash between the black god Darklens and his fellow gods some time in the distant past. Darklens was trapped on a new land and created a floating island from which he conjured up demons and monsters to emerge from the island’s shadow. The island was shattered by a comet sent by a white god, and shards of the comet were collected by five Dark Riders. Darklens was seemingly dead, buried in a tomb until his future resurrection.

Years and years later, young Tyndall of Klarn was an elf living with the Dwarves of DwarfHaven. He began a series of adventures where he was sent to destroy the Heart of Evil, which turned out to be an egg containing an elf named Velanna, who became his companion. The pair became a trio when they helped save the dwarf Mud-Butt’s life, and proceeded to explore their world on land and across the various seas. Tyndall was brave and plucky, able to communicate telepathically with Dragons, giving him some advantages.

“I don’t know where it came from, other than after— every time I did a real late story like that, I was on automatic pilot, sort of just going on momentum and my brain was kicked into the next gear,” Moench reveals.

“There’s something to be said to force yourself to work beyond the breaking point. You pass this barrier and it becomes automatic writing. It just flows… I mean, it really flows. And I used to hate the first six or seven hours of each day because that’s what it took me to get to this state.”

Moench submitted the story to Marvel’s magazine editor, Marv Wolfman, who was captivated with this fresh take on the fantasy genre, something Marvel hadn’t really touched previously.

Moench recalls, “And they had never rejected anything I’d ever given them, but I was sort of cringing on this one, thinking, ‘Well, what if it isn’t ‘monster’ enough?’ I turned it in when I came in one morning, and then I was goofing around in the Bullpen, talking to people and maybe went out to lunch with some people, came back, and Marv came rushing down the hallway and he said, ‘Your WeirdWorld—I love that story!’ And he said, ‘I have the perfect artist for it,’ and I’d heard that a thousand times. ‘I’ve got the perfect artist for this thing,’ and it’s almost never true. But in this case, it turned out to be absolutely—he was dead-on.”

That artist turned out to be Mike Ploog, whose Will Eisner-influenced art was gaining attention on characters including Ghost Rider, Werewolf by Night, and Frankenstein.

The two hadn’t worked together before and Moench was taken with the choice. Today, we fondly recall their collaboration on Planet of the Apes, but as it turns out, WeirdWorld was done first. “I turned in the WeirdWorld story, it could have been very, very early in ’73, before I ever started Planet of the Apes,” Moench says.

WEIRDWORLD’S PREMIERE

Back in 1973, Moench wrote the story and loved the notion of Ploog as artist, but then got preoccupied and forgot about WeirdWorld until it was finally published in 1976 in Marvel Super Action, a Marvel magazine headlined by the Punisher and also including Howard Chaykin’s Dominic Fortune… with Moench and Ploog’s WeirdWorld. The WeirdWorld story caused a bit of a stir among readers and staff alike. “I wish I could remember who it was, it might have been Ralph Macchio or Marv Wolfman, I can’t remember… but they had—what was it? Marvel Premiere, the color book—where they were doing one-shots or two-parters of obscure stuff. And either Ralph or Marv said, ‘Hey, why don’t you do a WeirdWorld one-shot in the color book?’

And I said, ‘Oh, okay!’ So I probably sat down and did that. And I think that happened maybe again, if I remember right. There was another one-shot.”

At the time of Marvel Premiere #38 (Oct. 1977), Marvel began touting its release as being in the same vein as J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, which had been enjoying a resurgence of interest for about a decade by then, and the Ralph Bakshi-animated adaptation was on

Welcome to Weirdworld This detail-drenched beauty hails from Doug Moench’s very first WeirdWorld story, from the magazine Marvel Super Action #1 (Jan. 1976).

Original art signed by its artist, Mike Ploog, and courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 57

the horizon. Many consider WeirdWorld heavily inspired by Tolkien, but Moench disagrees.

“I have no idea where it came from, other than I had tried to read Lord of the Rings, I did read The Hobbit, and then I found the first, like, eight pages of The Lord of the Rings boring as hell and gave up,” Moench says. “But I loved the idea of elf-type characters and dragons and sh*t, so that just came out.”

Ploog returned for pencils, but the Marvel Premiere tale was inked by the great Alex Nino, which made for a visually interesting combination, perfect for a fantasy. By this point, readers were beginning to write in and respond positively.

After the relative success of that story, Moench was asked either by Rick Marschall, who was then editing the magazine line, or Macchio, Marschall’s assistant, for a new WeirdWorld story intended for the magazine line. Ploog set to work on it before quitting over a dispute with Marvel over the then-new work-for-hire provisions in their agreements.

“You know, Ploog,” Moench chuckles. “I love, love Mike Ploog, but he had a bug up his ass about Marvel not treating him right and it was a constant thing. He was always quitting.” Ploog got about four or five pages into the penciling before quitting, according to Moench.

One of the editors tapped John Buscema for the assignment, pairing him with his frequent Savage Sword of Conan inker, Rudy Nebres.

“And here’s a behind-the-scenes thing,” Moench offers. “This was supposed to be one magazine and the plot that I wrote was for like a—oh, I don’t know, a 42-page story or whatever? And then I was informed that it was going to be three issues and well over a hundred pages long and I said, ‘Oh, God, I’ve got to rewrite it.’ ‘No, no, no! Don’t change a thing.

We’re just going to tell Buscema to let it breathe, to stretch it out. And then we’d get double-page spreads and triple-page foldouts and giant pages

with two panels on them,’ and that’s how the whole thing came about— [chuckles] that was really intended to be a 40-odd page story.”

Another important office matter was the change in title from WeirdWorld to Warriors of the Shadow Realm. According to Moench, “We announced we were doing a big, full-color WeirdWorld magazine, and DC Comics said, ‘No, you’re not. We copyrighted, or trademarked, that title’ [Weird Worlds, an earlier ongoing series showcasing Edgar Rice Burroughs characters and later, Howard Chaykin’s IronWolf]. So Stan Lee asked, ‘What’s it about?’ And I said, ‘It’s about these things from the Shadow Realm.’ ‘Shadow Realm? That’s perfect! Okay, we got Lords of the Shadow Realm.’ I go, ‘Ehh, that’s too much like Lord of the Rings.’

‘All right, Warriors of the Shadow Realm.’ And I said, ‘All right, fine with me.’

“So Stan named it. I still was pissed off. I thought, ‘Well, that sounds like the title of the story, not the title of the property.’ ” Those three issues were Marvel Super Special #11–13 (Spring–Fall 1979). They showed a definite rise in Buscema’s illustrative storytelling, coupled with the amazing airbrushed color work from Australian artist Peter Ledger. At the time of release, this was revolutionary material, closer in feel to rival Heavy Metal than anything else coming from the House of Ideas. Marvel’s process color had been introduced in the companion Hulk magazine, also written by Moench, “and they started realizing, ‘Holy smokes,’ ” Moench beams. “I think one of the reasons they thought of WeirdWorld was because of the color possibilities, you know, as the perfect vehicle to show off what we could do with color.

“They got into the airbrush thing and man, oh, man, it just became this gigantic technical toy like Orson Welles going to Hollywood and thinking he had the biggest train set any boy could ever have. He went crazy and did everything possible in movies, right? And they were hellbent on doing everything possible with the color.”

Many an artist came knocking on Marvel’s door, unbidden, since the Marvel Age began in the 1960s, and Ledger was no different, except the distance traveled. “The story I remember—don’t take it as gospel—but I just remember someone telling me that [Peter Ledger] just showed up… this guy from Australia just showed up at Marvel and was sleeping in the lobby and pestering them to give him some work,” Moench says.

“And eventually, he started talking about how he knew how to use an airbrush, to do color work with an airbrush, and that’s how he got the gig.

Now, I don’t know if that’s really true at all, but that’s what I remember.”

Once they saw what Ledger could do with an airbrush and how it could be reproduced on the better paper used for the magazines, it was clear this project could be something special. According to Doug, “It wasn’t just full-process color, but then they tried to see what was possible with full-process and push it to the absolute limit and with the airbrush and all the other crap they did. It almost overwhelmed the whole thing. By the end of the whole thing, I started feeling like I don’t think that my original story, intended for 40 pages, is meaty enough for this gigantic, sprawling, dazzling thing, you know?”

The finished product included gatefolds, which were sadly not included as such in the trade collection. The three-part story that summer excited fans and pleased all involved.

“Oh, it was better than I expected,” Moench agrees. “Buscema told me, ‘You know, they’ve given me all this crap and I haven’t cared about it. But this is different. This is great and I’m actually taking time on this stuff. I’m getting lost in it, you know?’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s good.’

And the freedom, he also loved that, that fact that he could take a 40-odd-page plot and turn it into a 140 or whatever it was. It was just a joy to him. You know, he didn’t have to even think about anything, you know? However, many pages he wanted, they were there.”

On the other hand, Moench does not recall receiving much immediate fan feedback with one notable exception. “I got this really, really long, long letter from Wendy Pini, accompanied by about a dozen or more hand-colored drawings, telling me how much she loved

Tyndall Returns!

Moench brought back WeirdWorld in the Bronze Age tryout title Marvel Premiere, in issue #38 (Oct. 1977).

Cover by Rudy Nebres.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

58 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

Not to Be Confused with Weird Worlds…

WeirdWorld was back—rebranded (on its covers, at least)—in 1979 in these three consecutive issues of Marvel Super Special magazine. Cover art by Buscema, Nebres, and Ledger.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

WeirdWorld and how it inspired her to create all these characters and she wanted to someday talk Marvel into doing her Elfquest idea. And that’s the only reaction I remember is the Wendy Pini opus,” Moench says.

EPIC FANFARE

Among those impressed by the results was editor Archie Goodwin, who was readying the introduction of Epic Illustrated [explored at length in BACK ISSUE #88—ed.].

As Marvel’s other magazines failed and were canceled, Epic’s new mix of creator-owned original stories and characters from Marvel’s library was an ideal home for Tyndall and company.

“Archie would every once in a while say, ‘Well, when are you going to do another thing for Epic Magazine?’ ” Moench reveals. “I said, ‘Well, when you want me to, just let me know, Arch.’ And, ‘Okay, okay.’ And then he finally called out of the blue. He said, ‘Okay, I got something.’ And I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Why don’t you do another WeirdWorld story with John Buscema?’ And I said, ‘Yeah! Great.’

You know, I mean perfect. That was easy, and so I did.”

The four-part Epic story, inked by Marie Severin, appeared in Epic Illustrated #9 and 11–13, adding to the backstory and looking pretty gorgeous.

Sometime later, Al Milgrom, editing Marvel Fanfare, reached out to Moench about a new WeirdWorld story.

Milgrom coaxed Mike Ploog back to work on the fantasy land, but Ploog quit after just one issue. Milgrom then turned to Michael Golden to continue the story.

“He was all set to do it and I don’t want to say he’d found out that Part One had already been done by Ploog and that was a deal killer or something, but I’m not sure if that’s right,” Moench recalls.

“Then Al called, and I don’t remember if he or I suggested Pat Broderick. I honestly don’t know,” Moench admits. Where P. Craig Russell did a lovely job inking Ploog, he didn’t stick around for the remaining chapters, which, by schedule necessity wound up with different inkers— Brett Breeding in issue #25 and the team of Ian Akin and Brian Garvey for issue #26. Broderick and Moench liked working together and wound up transitioning over to DC, where they produced the Lords of the Ultra-Realm miniseries.

Looking back, Moench is proud of how well the story held up considering the gaps between appearances.

“You know, to this day, I don’t know why I never proposed a monthly [WeirdWorld] book,” Moench admits.

“Why didn’t I do that? I guess I was doing so much that I didn’t have time to propose things. It’s like I almost never said no when they asked me to do something, and that was already three times more than any human should do. [And] I never proposed a Moon Knight book.

They asked me.” [Editor’s note: You were here last issue for our look at Moench’s Moon Knight, weren’t you?]

Despite WeirdWorld’s erratic publishing history, Moench was always eager to get back to his world and its inhabitants.

His and readers’ favorite character was the comic relief,

Artists of the Shadow Realm The illustrators who brought Doug’s saga to life in Marvel Super Special: John Buscema (seated), Peter Ledger, and Rudy Nebres.

Photo courtesy of ComicVine.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 59

Plugging for Ploog Mike Ploog’s return to WeirdWorld was short-lived… but, man, was it gorgeous, especially with Craig Russell inks. Original art from MF #24, courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

60 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

A Little Fanfare for WeirdWorld (top left) The long-journeying series wound up in Marvel Fanfare beginning with issue #24 (Jan. 1986), with this P. Craig Russell cover.

Pat Broderick smoothly slid into the role of WeirdWorld artist. (top right) His cover to Marvel Fanfare #25, and (bottom) his splash (with Akin and Garvey inks) from MF #26.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Mud-Butt. “I was just trying to think, when you asked me about doing an interview, Mud-Butt popped into my head and I was trying to think, ‘Did I come up with the name first and then the shtick of him being this feisty, crusty little guy who’s always punching up and always getting knocked on his butt in the mud or the other way around?

Did the concept of the feisty, crusty guy always punching come up first?’ And then I thought, ‘You know, he’s always getting knocked on his butt—oh, I’ll call him Mud-Butt.’

Pat Broderick named his puppy Mud-Butt.”

While aware Marvel’s 2015 Battleworld series brought Doug’s WeirdWorld characters firmly into the Marvel Universe, Moench hasn’t read the stories and isn’t particularly impressed by the move. He would, though, like to return to WeirdWorld some day and continue to explore it. He admits that there was never an overall arc to the story and no clear ending planned.

“You know, for all of my stuff, unless it was designed to have an ending, I would not look too far ahead. I would just know that there certain things that were going to happen, probably, or plant the seeds that I knew could develop into certain things, but I would do it basically month-by-month. And in the case of WeirdWorld, since every one of them seemed to me like, well, this could be the last one, I didn’t bother thinking any further than each story.

“Like I said, I have no idea why I never proposed a monthly book because I don’t know how well that stuff sold, so they never mentioned it—but they kept asking me to do more, so it couldn’t have been a terrible money-loser. Everybody that I dealt with seemed to really love it, I think partly because it was different from everything else.”

Physical ailments have kept the writer from his usual pace of storytelling. He has turned to prose and has four or five unfinished manuscripts. On the other hand, royalties have sustained a comfortable life and he’s come to embrace a certain level of relaxation.

“I mean, I’m not officially retired or anything, but I have turned down the last three offers in a row, other than these introductions, of course. It’s like I can’t imagine anybody offering me something that I would want to do enough that it would overcome all of my other reservations, which are this micro-managing, lookingover-your-shoulder editing style that has come around.”

The inhabitants of Klarn and the entire Shadow Realm await his return.

Special thanks to Brian K. Morris for the interview transcription.

Follow writer/editor/educator ROBERT GREENBERGER at BobGreenberger.com.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 61

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“Batman AND Superman!” Bronze Age World’s Finest, Super Sons, Batman/Superman Villain/Partner Swap, Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane go solo, Superman/Radio Shack giveaways, and JLA #200’s “A League Divided” (as a nod to Batman v. Superman)! Featuring work by BRIAN BOLLAND, RICH BUCKLER, GERRY CONWAY, JACK KIRBY, GEORGE PÉREZ, JIM STARLIN, and more. Cover by DICK GIORDANO!

“Comics Magazines of the ’70s and ’80s!”

From Savage Tales to Epic Illustrated, KIRBY’s “Speak-Out Series,” EISNER’s Spirit magazine, Unpublished PAUL GULACY, MICHAEL USLAN on the Shadow magazine you didn’t see, plus B&Ws from Atlas/Seaboard, Charlton, Skywald, and Warren. Featuring work by NEAL ADAMS, JOHN BOLTON, ARCHIE GOODWIN, DOUG MOENCH, EARL NOREM, ROY THOMAS, and more. Cover by GRAY MORROW!

“Bronze Age Adaptations!” The Shadow, Korak: Son of Tarzan, Battlestar Galactica, The Black Hole, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Worlds Unknown, and Marvel’s 1980s movie adaptations. Plus: PAUL KUPPERBERG surveys prose adaptations of comics! With work by JACK KIRBY, DENNY O’NEIL, FRANK ROBBINS, MICHAEL W. KALUTA, FRANK THORNE, MICHAEL USLAN, and sporting an alternate Kaluta cover produced for DC’s Shadow series!

“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.

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Killer Smile Then-newcomer Arthur Adams produced this stupendous Spider-Man/Black Cat/Hobgoblin pinup in late May of 1984, with Al Milgrom publishing it almost four years later in Marvel Fanfare #37 (Apr. 1988).

Original art courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 63

Marvel Fanfare #40 (Oct. 1988) is offbeat even for Fanfare, a series that specialized in the offbeat.

Two of the mega-popular X-Men, Angel and Storm, are featured in solo stories, but neither is a typical superhero tale. One has our merry mutant unconscious for 12 of its 14 pages, while the other features a visit to a nightclub.

THE ANGEL IN “CHIAROSCURO”

Ann Nocenti and David Mazzucchelli’s “Chiaroscuro” centers on a sheltered widow named Josephina. In a life filled with a delinquent grandson, an overprotective neighbor, and temperamental appliances, Josie feels her best days are long behind her. Too afraid of the outside world to even take her classic Cadillac out for a drive, Josie sits in her garage, remembering better days and dreaming of an escape.

Just then, an injured Angel crashes into Josie’s backyard. Hearing him muttering about battling Mephisto (a battle seen in Mephisto vs. #2, May 1987), Josie assumes that he’s an actual angel, fallen from Heaven. She takes the X-Man into her home and nurses him back to health, gluing all of his loose feathers back into place. When the recovered Angel wakes up and realizes what this sweet, old woman has done for him, he kisses Josie on the cheek and flies off without a word. The last page shows a peppy Josie taking her Caddy out for a long-awaited drive, blasting the song “Get Happy” all the way.

Explaining her inspiration for this unique story, writer Ann Nocenti says, “When I read battle scenes in comics, my mind often wanders to the characters in the background. What happened to that kid whose eyes got wide when he saw the Hulk pound down 5th Avenue? What happened to that guy who spilled his apple cart when Thor’s hammer pounded the street?

The X-Men were often having spectacular battles in the sky, and I decided that it would be fun have Angel drop into the backyard of a religious woman who saw him as a ‘real’ angel. I’m also very interested in how ordinary people view spectacular events from afar.

When I was growing up Catholic, I enjoyed it when, in catechism class, the nuns would tell tales of angelic battles, fallen angels, Lucifer getting pushed out of heaven and falling. So I thought I would tell a tale about an ordinary lonely lady whose life is energized, however briefly, by a fallen angel.”

Nocenti lucked out when it came to her artist: David Mazzucchelli, fresh off of collaborating with Frank Miller on Daredevil: Born Again and Batman: Year One. “David Mazzucchelli was (and is) certainly a favorite of mine, so however it happened, I considered myself very lucky to have gotten to work with him,” Nocenti says.

Fall from Grace David Mazzucchelli’s feather-full Angel cover for Marvel Fanfare #40 (Oct. 1988).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

64 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

by J o h n

Tr u m b u l l

As Mazzucchelli recalls, it was Nocenti’s story that brought him aboard. “After drawing Batman: Year One, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to draw any more costumed vigilante stories, which is why Ann Nocenti’s idea for the Angel story piqued my interest—he’s unconscious for the whole thing, and it’s really about Josie and the effect that the Angel’s appearance (he looks like an angel!) has on her.”

“Josie was inspired by my grandmother Josephine,” Nocenti says. “She and my grandfather Silvio ran a dairy farm, and spending time on their farm had a big impact on me. She worked hard, but was a gentle, funny woman who loved to giggle. At the same time, she was restrained by the norms of the times. I always had a sly instinct that she would have loved to kick up her heels once in a while.”

For his part, Mazzucchelli appreciated pushing his art in a new direction. “As far as a storytelling exercise, it was pretty straightforward,” he recalls. “The challenges were ones I set up for myself, specifically in terms of drawing style. I wanted to get away from the more naturalistic way I had been working and cartoon more.”

The coloring for “Chiaroscuro” was by Mazzucchelli’s friend, painter David Hornung: “[David] was interested in trying his hand at coloring comics, so I recommended him for this story. I was very pleased with what he did.

(Years later, I included some of his own comics in my magazine Rubber Blanket.)”

“I think overall people enjoyed the story,” Nocenti recalls. “I still sign quite a few of that issue at comic conventions. It is one of my favorite stories that I’ve written. The short story is in many ways more difficult than a full-length comic. They are more like poems.

The Classic X-Men short stories I did with John Bolton, a Daredevil short story I did with David Aja, and this tale with David Mazzucchelli are some of my all-time favorite beloved comics. Maybe I should have written more short stories!”

STORM IN “DEAL WITH THE DEVIL!”

Marvel Fanfare #40’s second story is a 15-pager by Chris Claremont and Craig Hamilton where Storm meets with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants’ Mystique to debate the future of their mutual teammate Rogue. For most of the story, the shapeshifting Raven Darkhölme assumes Storm’s appearance to taunt her foe.

Penciler Craig Hamilton tells BACK ISSUE how he got the Fanfare assignment: “Like everyone in the ’80s, I was a fan “Deal with the Devil!” gave some of The X-Men. It was one of the first backstory to a significant issue in Marvel titles I picked up, having been X-Men continuity: Uncanny X-Men primarily a DC fan previously. I went to #185 (Sept. 1984), where Storm and a lot of conventions in the ’80s, showing Rogue bond as friends and teammates my portfolio, meeting artists, writers, just before Storm loses her powers and editors, and trying to break in. (she’d regain them in February Along the way I met Chris Claremont, 1988’s Uncanny X-Men #226). As we who had seen several sketches I had find out here, Mystique gave Storm a lead to find Rogue in UXM #185. done of Storm, particularly in her © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. mohawk look, and [he] thought I would be great to Craig Hamilton states that the Fanfare tale was originally draw a story. I had also struck up a friendship with the supposed to appear closer to the X-issues, but outside legendary Archie Goodwin, who introduced me to Al circumstances delayed it: “The story fit into the continuity Milgrom and put in a good word, so Marvel Fanfare was of the main X-Men title at the time, but my art was the perfect place for such a story to occur. (I credit Archie put on hold because I had landed the Aquaman miniseries at DC and took nine months away from it to with a lot in my comics career.)”

The Storm story’s setting in an Atlanta nightclub was draw that.” [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #27 and no coincidence, says Craig. “I lived in Atlanta at the time, 46 for more info about Craig’s Aquaman miniseries, and during a particular Dragon-Con, Chris was a guest and written by Neal Pozner.]

The story was inked by Rick Bryant and colored by accompanied me and some friends to an Atlanta nightclub, Weekends, known for its alternative culture and new wave Petra Scotese. “Rick Bryant’s studio in Manhattan was sensibilities. Thus was the inspiration for the story.” a nexus of comics creators in the ’80s, and I met him

Touched By An Angel …or, An Angel Touched By An Old Lady. Page 9 of the Nocenti/ Mazzucchelli tale.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 65

Work It, Girl! (left) Hamilton’s visual inspiration for the mohawked Storm was none other than (inset) RuPaul. (right) Craig’s MF #40 pinup of the Sanctum Santorum canoodlers.

Storm TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

pretty early on in my career,” Hamilton remembers.

“I was very happy with his tight brushwork inking over my pencils, and Petra is a legend and her colors brought the art to life, especially in something as colorful as a nightclub setting.”

As an artist who often bases his characters’ appearances on real people, Hamilton had a surprising, soon-to-be-famous model for Storm. “Being an art student in Atlanta in the ’80s was a very exciting time and I was immersed in the alternative new-wave scene, where I met a very original and exciting entertainer by the name of RuPaul. We struck up a friendship and Ru was my enthusiastic model for Storm. This revelation has freaked out several fanboys over the years that found my depiction of Storm to be very alluring.

“Distinguishing between real Storm and Mystique Storm relied on facial Courtesy of DC Wikia. expression, mainly. There was an extra b*tchy salt in Mystique that one doesn’t see in the real Storm, who even when angered, never comes across as mean.

There is a page where during their face-off it is a series of closeup panels moving across their respective identical faces, but also showing the subtle emotive differences.”

The Storm/Mystique face-off has a cross-company connection to another comic that Hamilton drew nine years later: Starman #28 (Mar. 1997), a “Times Past”

66 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

story featuring 1970s Starman Mikaal Tomas having a final confrontation with his foe Komak in a nightclub.

Hamilton confirms the link to BACK ISSUE: “The Starman story was indirectly inspired by the Storm story. James Robinson wanted to do a conversation in a booth of a disco and knew that I had a precedent for such a thing. I find it an enjoyable challenge to illustrate a conversation that goes on for pages. Nuances of character and expression take center stage, and I live for that sh*t. It’s rare in a superhero comic.”

MF #40’s pinup section included a Sub-Mariner painting by Kent Williams and an Elektra painting by George Pratt.

In addition to his back cover of Storm, Craig Hamilton provided two pinups, one of Dr. Strange and Clea, and another of Ka-Zar, Shanna, and Zabu.

Hamilton recalls, “The pinups were a chance for me to ink myself, which Archie Goodwin was incredibly supportive of. I am particularly pleased that the Strange and Clea has become rather iconic over the years.”

JOHN TRUMBULL has been writing for BACK ISSUE since 2012.

Check out his weekly column “Crisis on Earth-T” every Monday at http://atomicjunkshop.com/. Thanks to Craig Hamilton, Ann Nocenti, and David Mazzucchelli for sharing their memories with BACK ISSUE.

TM

by S t e v e n

Wilber

By the late ’80s, Jennifer Walters had finally begun to make a name for herself with her second series from Marvel Comics, The Sensational She-Hulk, scripted and penciled by John Byrne. Byrne had become enchanted with the superheroine during his applauded run on The Fantastic Four. It had taken She-Hulk nearly a decade for readers to see her as more than an intelligent female rip-off of her world-famous cousin, the Incredible Hulk, especially after her shortlived first series, The Savage She-Hulk (1980–1982).

Under Byrne, She-Hulk had found her own unique look and voice, but because of a disagreement with his editor, Byrne’s tenure was brief and he was off of the comic book before its ninth issue.

Meanwhile, Al Milgrom, editor of the anthology series Marvel Fanfare, unaware of Byrne’s departure, was looking to capitalize on the success of the Sensational series and give She-Hulk an additional spotlight… but suddenly, he had to find a replacement for Byrne in his She-Hulk-centric issue, Marvel Fanfare #48 (mid-Dec. 1989). This led to two distinctively different stories that opened up new avenues of character development for the Gammazon.

WORLD’S HERO… FATHER’S SHAME

To begin the first of two She-Hulkfocused tales, Marvel Age managing editor Dwight Jon Zimmerman stepped in. Zimmerman was someone who knew She-Hulk well because of prior involvement. “I ghost-collaborated with writer David Anthony Kraft on most of the stories for the Savage She-Hulk series,” Zimmerman says. “Needless to say, that made me intimately familiar with her and her supporting cast of characters. Periodically I’d give an editor an ‘elevator pitch’—a one- or two-sentence high-concept idea—for a story. If an editor was interested, I’d then develop a formal one-page proposal. That’s basically how this story came about.

I pitched the idea to Al Milgrom, he liked it, and then I went to work.”

From there, alongside artist Kerry Gammill, Zimmerman reintroduced the She-Hulk’s father, Sheriff Morris Walters, who had come to terms with his daughter’s transformation into a seven-foot green musclewoman… or so he thought, until he realized she was permanently in her She-Hulk persona following the events of Marvel Graphic Novel #18 (Nov. 1985). To further complicate matters, Jennifer’s aunt, Dr. Cassandra Walters Pike, surfaced with an

A Sensational Appearance Original cover art (courtesy of Heritage) to Shulkie’s Marvel Fanfare outing, #48 (mid-Dec. 1982). Art by Kerry Gammill and Jose Marzan, Jr. Note the liberal use of Zip-A-Tone to create the threatening shadow.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 67

Fanfare for Shulkie (top) Jen drops a bomb on her daddy in Marvel Fanfare #48’s first story. (bottom) Playing mind games with the green gal in the issue’s second tale. Thanks to Steven Wilber for the scans.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

imagined vendetta against both her brother and niece. Zimmerman explains, “The genesis for the story was based on the difficult relationship I had with my parents. We didn’t see eye-to-eye on things I thought important in my life and it got very ugly at times. I saw a connection there with Sheriff Walters’ difficulty/refusal in accepting the changed circumstances of Jennifer’s life.” Mentally and physically manipulating her son into the monstrosity “Brawn,” Dr. Walters Pike unleashes him to battle She-Hulk, proving to be more than her match. In the end, She-Hulk is able to disrupt her aunt’s plan for revenge, leading Sheriff Walters to see the error of his ways.

“Cassandra has a corrosively destructive sibling-rivalry relationship with her brother that she refuses to release,” Zimmerman says, “and her ‘mother from hell’ relationship with her son whom she uses as a tool to ‘earn’ his mother’s love. A reason I included her was to serve as an example for Sheriff Walters—the ultimate cost he faced with his daughter if he didn’t change.” Following this key moment, their father/daughter relationship would continue as a periodic element within the Sensational series in the years to come, with Sheriff Walters eventually retiring to live with Jennifer in New York City, eliciting a new sequence of complicated events.

CALIFORNIA DREAMING

Next came an adventure for Jennifer that would prove her fabled strength ineffectual, written by Star Comics assistant editor and regular Marvel Comics Presents contributor Susan Flaxman Kennedy. She fondly recollects, “The first time I met [then-Marvel editor-in-chief] Jim Shooter I was a senior in college and I basically asked him to hire me after I graduated. I was wearing green body paint from head to toe and a black-and-green wig. She-Hulk was always one of my favorite characters. A strong, beautiful woman with a law degree? The opportunity to write her was one of the biggest thrills of my career.”

In this story, penciled by longtime Marvel artist Don Perlin, She-Hulk experiences a nightmare and quickly realizes that someone close to her has infiltrated her dreams, beckoning her to her hometown of Los Angeles. Jen soon reunites with her old friend Dr. Dylan Cavanaugh, head of Dream Research for Medtech. Cavanaugh confides that he’s gotten into trouble, but before Dylan can go into detail, a car chase ensues with She-Hulk showing her charm, wit, and skill behind the wheel are a match for any two-bit henchman.

It’s important to note that when our hero manages to slow down, it’s clear that her issues between being Jennifer Walters and She-Hulk still aren’t completely settled. “Every Marvel character has some sort of personal conflict or crisis,” says Flaxman Kennedy. “At that point in her storyline, She-Hulk was ‘stuck’ as She-Hulk. She couldn’t transform back into Jen Walters. I felt that that made her desperately and deeply conflicted about who she really was.”

Determined to help her friend, She-Hulk, following Dylan’s guidance, enters the dream realm to do battle with the powerful psychic Mr. Ogden, the director of Medtech. It isn’t until She-Hulk can sort out that she and Jen are one and the same that she finds the confidence and tools to stop Ogden… a dramatic end to a fun She-Hulk spotlight.

Following Marvel Fanfare #48, the She-Hulk would continue a successful 60-issue run with Sensational. Putting behind her fears and anxiety, Jen would establish a strengthened bond with her father before the title’s final issue in 1994.

Looking back at Marvel Fanfare, Flaxman Kennedy muses, “This was such a fun story to write. I’ve written several other Marvel women stories, but this one remains my favorite, if not my best.”

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.

68 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

TM

by D

a n Ta n d a r i c h

“Hoo-Boy! This issue is gonna take some explaining.” So said Marvel Fanfare editor Al Milgrom in his Editori-Al page in regard to the Silver Surfer story set for issue #51 (June 1990).

This story is not considered part of the mainstream history of Marvel Earth but features alternate versions of characters on an alternate Earth, according to The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Master Edition. What? Just keep reading.

Jack Kirby’s majestic drawings of “…some kind of naked character on a flying surfboard,” according to Stan Lee when he first saw the artwork, inspired the writer to give the Surfer an almost religious quality. After all, he was the herald for a god-like being called Galactus. The Surfer was “…the living personification of all that was good and pure in the human condition,” Lee wrote in his Stan’s Soapbox column in Marvel Age #52 (July 1987).

The Silver Surfer first appeared in Fantastic Four #48 (Mar. 1966). By FF #50 (May 1966), Galactus took away his herald’s ability to soar through the galaxies after the Surfer helped save the Earth from the planet-devourer, leaving him marooned on our world. Stan wanted to keep the Surfer’s appearances special and under his watchful eye and he did for 18 issues in the Surfer’s solo series (Aug. 1968–Sept. 1970).

One of the writers who Stan trusted with the character was Steve Englehart, who used the Surfer in his run on The Defenders. But as time passed and Stan became busier, appearances by the space-faring alien—real name Norrin Radd—were few and far between.

In 1984, the stage was set for Steve Englehart and Jim Shooter, Marvel’s editor-in-chief, to launch the next phase of the Silver Surfer’s adventures.

Jim wanted the character back in the spotlight, and Steve was more than happy to write the stories. In discussions with Stan they agreed on two things. One, Steve would write a 12-issue limited series showcasing the Surfer’s last adventures with him trapped on Earth. Two, Stan would begin work on a graphic novel with artist Keith Pollard that would allow the Surfer to break Galactus’ barrier surrounding the planet and soar the spaceways once again.

As Milgrom explained in Marvel Fanfare #51, “It was supposed to run 12 issues, each one a double-sized job à la the Surfer’s original mag way back when. While the editorial staff haggled over direction and plotlines, John Buscema dropped off the book, to be replaced by Marshall Rogers. This issue you now hold in your hands was the original installment in that limited series. I just couldn’t bear to see all this gorgeous Buscema/Abel artwork go to waste.” Today Al tells BACK ISSUE that he was most likely the one to commission the special wraparound cover for that issue of Fanfare.

In a preview blurb in Marvel Age Annual #1 (1985), Steve Englehart was “going to try and present the most

Mangog-A-Go-Go John Buscema’s cover to Marvel Fanfare #51 (June 1990), with the Silver Surfer and Mantis in mortal combat with Mangog.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 69

Sentinel of the Spaceways An undated John Buscema illo of our favorite spacefarer. From the Heritage archives.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Friendly Fly-By The “Swimmer”— make that, the Surfer—encounters S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on this original art page from MF #51.

By Englehart/ Buscema/Abel.

Courtesy of Heritage Comic Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

spectacular space epic yet devised, with the Silver Surfer acting as general of an inter-galactic armada fighting the Kree Empire from his ‘prison’ on Earth. There will be the Watcher, the Kree, the Skrulls, Moondragon, the Badoon, Mantis, you name them, if they’ve been in space, they’ll be here.” Steve became frustrated by the Earth limitations.

In Amazing Heroes Preview Special #4 (Winter 1987), Steve stated, “I found that having to write about the Surfer, where his big event took place somewhere else, was a real pain.” Steve kept bugging Shooter about getting the Surfer off of the Earth and was eventually given the go-ahead to let the alien fly free and to change his limited series to an ongoing monthly saga.

But, as Al said, there was the matter of that beautiful, original, now-shelved Silver Surfer #1. That issue was eventually published in Marvel Fanfare #51 (June 1990) with the following credits: Steve Englehart, script; John Buscema, layouts; and Jack Abel, finished art. The story featured the usual Surfer trademarks of him contemplating how to leave Earth, his longtime love Shalla-Bal, and his enemy Mephisto. Steve’s eventual goal was to change all of that.

One way Englehart was going to rock the Surfer’s world was by having a Celestial Madonna appear. Mantis,

70 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

the enigmatic Avenger who went off into the cosmos to fulfill her destiny as the mother of the one who would bring peace to the universe, was raising the future messiah in suburban Connecticut. Steve explains to BACK ISSUE, “I thought he and she would go nicely together, as they eventually did. The main thing, though, was that he would actually have a companion who could keep up with him, and that would be something new for him.

I was sick of his being stuck on Earth and moaning about it. At least I could cut out the moaning.”

As for changing the dynamic with Mephisto, Steve had a plan for that as well. “Devils are always linked to the earth element in magick. If the Surfer was going to be stuck on Earth, he might find that a demon of Earth could get close to him after all his time here, that perhaps he’d been tainted by all his time on this planet.” Regarding Moondragon, “She had a rivalry going with Mantis over Celestial Madonnahood, so she’d probably have been a thorn in the Surfer/Mantis relationship’s side.”

The militaristic Kree were keeping an eye on Arthur Raymond Celestine, called “Sprout” by Mantis, and they dubbed him “the Great Terror.” What could be worse for warmongers than the idea of universal peace?

So Mangog, the personification of a billion-billion hateful warriors, was sent to destroy him. The Surfer’s nobility triumphed in the end and a wink of romance was in the air between the Surfer and Mantis.

Englehart would weave a tapestry of space characters into his ongoing series starting with Silver Surfer #1 (July 1987). The Marvel Fanfare issue concluded with the line “This ends a tale of what might have been, had the Surfer remained on Earth.” It remains a wonderful “what if?” tale from an alternate reality.

Special thanks to Steve for being “Stainless” and to Al for being Editori-Al! Appreciation goes out to Rebecca Busselle.

DAN TANDARICH is an educator in New York City. He thinks that comic books and classrooms should always go together. Contact him at yellowjacket74@hotmail.com.

by S t e p h a n

Friedt

Marvel Fanfare #52–54 feature stories starring Dane Whitman, the Black Knight, by writer Steven Grant.

Marvel Fanfare #52 (Aug. 1990) features a cover by Ernie Chan. Scott Hampton drew its story, with inks by Chan. Scott provides his usual strong artwork with filled backgrounds and dynamic action panels. In the tale, Dane battles a cult and the slug-like monster dwelling beneath their temple.

Marvel Fanfare #53 (Oct. 1990) has its roots early in Steven Grant’s career, as the writer discusses in this interview. Its cover and interior art are by John Buscema, with inks by Jose Marzan.

While many panels are John Buscema mini-masterpieces, most of the issue has an almost-minimalist feel in its lack of background detail. Here, Dane goes on a mission for King Richard to confront a Saracen wizard. The Black Knight learns of Richard’s betrayal and gains his winged black horse.

Marvel Fanfare #54 (Dec. 1990) features a cover and interior artwork by Tod Smith, with inks by Christopher Ivy. Smith supplies beautiful detailed artwork for this last issue in the Black Knight trilogy. Dane confronts Richard in the adventure, battles the wizard, and discovers why history has no record of the Black Knight’s actions, setting up the story arc for an intended, but never realized, series.

Steven Grant and I discussed his work on the Black Knight story arc via email during the summer of 2016.

– Stephan Friedt STEPHAN FRIEDT: How did you get this Marvel Fanfare assignment?

STEVEN GRANT: It was my idea. It goes back a little bit.

At the end of 1976, I went to a convention in New York. I was typically young and broke, but as I was connected by then with Bob Layton’s CPL Gang. [Editor’s note: The CPL (Contemporary Pictorial Literature) Gang, a network of fans-turning-pro founded

by Layton and Roger Stern, and their fanzine Charlton Bullseye will be covered in BACK ISSUE #100.] Bob put me in touch with Duffy Vohland, another CPL-Ganger who’d gone pro and worked in Marvel’s production department. Duffy made the couch in his Brooklyn apartment available for crashing on, so I crashed on Duffy’s sofa. This was the week between Christmas and New Year’s, when Marvel’s offices were pretty much a ghost town… though at that point I wasn’t very interested in pursuing a career writing for Marvel. Duffy insisted that, as “rent,” I had to pitch some material to Marv Wolfman, then Marvel’s editor-in-chief, who was the only one in the office, catching up on work. (Marv remembers nothing of this, but why would he?)

So I spent a day typing up three proposals for Marvel. Duffy had suggested I focus on characters I liked that no one was doing Courtesy of Comicvine. anything with. I forget who the third was— Nick Fury or the Black Widow, I think—but one was the Punisher and the last was the Black Knight. Marv listened politely as I pitched for 20 minutes or so, gave me a little advice, then blew me off. That was okay; like I said, I wasn’t very interested at that point in pursuing it. I had other things going on. It was an interesting experience, though.

But the Punisher story was pretty much exactly what the Punisher miniseries was ten years later, and the Black Knight story that appeared in Marvel Fanfare [issue #53] 20 years later was the same “pilot” for the Black Knight series I pitched that day. There was something in both of them I couldn’t let go of.

FRIEDT: What was it like working for editor Al Milgrom?

Bite the Knight The Black Knight’s Marvel Fanfare premiere, in issue #52 (Aug. 1990). Cover by Ernie Chan (Chua).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 71

The Black Knight Returns (left) Marvel Fanfare #53 (Oct. 1990), cover art by Buscema and Marzan; and (right) #54 (Dec. 1990), cover art by Smith and Ivy. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

GRANT: I got along famously with Al. I don’t recall ever having a problem with him; I couldn’t say if he ever had a problem with me, but I was cockier than I had a right to be, so I wouldn’t be surprised.

I was sort of Al’s “Oddjob” in my early days there—he’d throw me assignments other people didn’t want, like killing off Omega [the Unknown] in The Defenders, fill-ins on Shogun Warriors, and turning an issue of Tarzan Marvel could no longer publish (they’d lost the rights) into two issues of Battlestar Galactica.

But Al was very receptive to things, though there was only so much he could do. From about the moment I started writing Marvel books in mid-1978, I pushed for the miniseries format. Sometime in 1979 Al started entertaining miniseries pitches, though ultimately Marvel didn’t do a “mini” until Contest of Champions (which I was connected to, but my actual contribution to it has been somewhat overestimated in years since; it was mostly Bill Mantlo’s baby). That’s when I resurrected the Black Knight pitch, which Al became very interested in. He saw the potential, though, clearly, the rest of Marvel didn’t. The story you saw in Marvel Fanfare #53 was started—and the John Buscema issue drawn— 15-plus years before it saw print.

FRIEDT: What influenced you when writing the Black Knight?

GRANT: I got very interested in medieval history during college, especially the Crusades. That was probably the biggest influence. I was also a big fan of Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock’s sword-andsorcery stories back then, along with a smattering of other writers.

A more realistic sword-and-sorcery story set amid the actual Middle Ages seemed an interesting challenge. But that particular story was really a reaction to Steve Englehart’s Defenders #11, where the Black Knight, his spirit having been tossed back through time into the body of his 12th-Century ancestor, decides his heart has really always been in that era and he’s going to stay there. ’Cause, gosh, nothing sounds like more swashbuckling fun than romping on horseback through the Middle Ages!

While I’ve generally been a big fan of Steve’s work, that struck me as sheer rubbish, the sort of inane romanticism that comics were floundering on at the time. The Middle Ages were generally a really crappy time to live for the vast majority of humanity, and the “great leaders” who are generally portrayed to us today as the very flower of chivalry, like Richard Lionheart, were real pieces of work. I wanted to do a series about a 20th-Century man who buys into the hype, takes 72 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

the one-way ride with no ticket home, and pretty quickly realizes he made a big, big mistake and his romanticized fantasy version of that world gets blown away by its reality. As Al put it when I pitched it to him, it’s like: “Yeah, the 1890s were great! You could buy beer for a nickel a schooner! Only problem was, nobody had a nickel.”

The series would have been, “What’s he going to do about it?” I had a fairly long story mapped out, wherein he’d have traveled the world of that era à la Conan, among other things running into existing Marvel characters drawn from medieval legend like Prester John. There’d have been room for various things. The idea was to weave contemporaneous legend and myth into a more or less real world of the time, and have the Black Knight work to become the embodiment of his romanticized ideals about chivalry, etc. I’d intended to go counter to cynicism. In the world where no true heroes existed, he’d have set out to be a true hero.

FRIEDT: Three issues, three artists… intentional?

GRANT: Not at all. I’d never intend that. I don’t think Al would ever have intended that. But the second issue was drawn in 1979 or 1980, the other two sometime in the ’90s. It sat in Al’s drawer for a long time. It was quite a shock to me when he called to say they were publishing it.

FRIEDT: Concerning issue #52… you did this issue with Scott Hampton.

What was it like? Did you get to collaborate or give each other any feedback?

GRANT: No, I had no contact with Scott at all, that I recall. Al had the plots in his drawer and sent them out. Now that you bring it up, I don’t remember that issue at all. I didn’t even remember Scott drew it. The only one I specifically remember was the Buscema issue, because it was the first one done, back when I was focused on it, and it was the centerpiece event of the series. #52 was, for me, just an introductory story to get us to that point.

(I know I have a copy around here somewhere, but I don’t know where.)

FRIEDT: The story reminds me of a Roy Thomas Robert E. Howard adaptation: ancient tribe, secret god/monster, etc. Not that there’s anything wrong with that… What was your inspiration?

GRANT: Probably, I was pastiching Conan for that story, since that was something the readers would’ve been familiar with. I think I wanted to start with a “romantic” story—a traditional sword-and-sorcery adventure— to set up the following issue’s swerve. This might have been Al’s suggestion.

FRIEDT: The story is set up while Dane Whitman was frozen in stone.

Was this your idea?

GRANT: Yes, the whole arc (and series that never was) took place while Dane Whitman’s body was turned to stone. Unless they did something I didn’t pay attention to, that body was destroyed anyway. Here, he’s in the body of his 12th-Century ancestor (who presumably had kids prior to heading off to the Crusades), and that’s the body he keeps from then on. It was Steve Englehart’s idea to put him there. It was my idea to keep him there.

FRIEDT: Any other things that come to mind when thinking back on this assignment?

GRANT: It was really the first thing I started for Marvel that wasn’t an “assignment.” I generated it. It all came from me.

No one at Marvel aside from Al had any interest in a Black Knight series, but I view it as one of my great lost opportunities.

There’s a lot more ground to it that was covered in those stories. That arc would’ve launched the series.

Weirdly, though I never did the series, I did write its conclusion, more or less, in The Avengers #225–226, where the Avengers travel back in time to help the Black Knight prevent the fall of Avalon. Minus the Avengers, that’s where the series would’ve ended up, with the same result: the Black Knight returned to the 20th Century the hard way, sleeping à la “King Arthur Under the Hill” for around 800 years.

It would have been an interesting series. Steven Grant’s love for the character and the period are evident throughout the three issues… but we’ll never know what could have been.

STEPHAN FRIEDT has been around comics for a long, long time. A former columnist for The Buyer’s Guide for Comic Fandom, he has contributed to Alter Ego and the Grand Comics Database and is the senior database administrator for www.comicspriceguide.com.

Artists Three Steven Grant’s Black Knight three-parter had different artists each issue: (top left) Scott Hampton and Ernie Chan, in Marvel Fanfare #52; (top right) John Buscema and Jose Marzan, Jr., in #53; and (bottom) Tod Smith and Christopher Ivy, in #54. Original artwork provided

by Heritage.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 73

As longtime fans of the medium know, comics can be like a jungle. Or like a lost civilization existing in the heart of a primal, verdant wilderness. In the wilds of this publishing jungle, some great comic stories are lost to the eyes of fandom. That is why we are here to pay tribute to Marvel Fanfare, a comic anthology that was like an intrepid jungle explorer, hacking and slashing to find the hidden treasures that may have otherwise been remained hidden forever.

As we stretch this jungle metaphor to the breaking point, we present Marvel Fanfare #56–59, featuring Marvel’s very own queen of the jungle, Shanna the She-Devil.

Now, these issues of Marvel Fanfare didn’t just rescue just any old Shanna tale… no, these gorgeous volumes rescued a tale of Shanna told by the late, great Steve Gerber. Now, think about that for a second, my brave jungle explorers.

If not for Fanfare and Milgrom, comic-book fans and historians would been denied four issues of jungle action from the legendary writer that penned so many issues of Howard the Duck, Man-Thing, and The Defenders, and what a crying shame that would have been.

GERBER’S JUNGLE GODDESS

For years, Mr. Gerber served as kind of a guiding force for the character of Shanna. Gerber dialogued the very first issue of Shanna the She-Devil in 1972 and was the custodian for the character after that debut. When Gerber wrote Daredevil from 1973–1975, Shanna was there.

Gerber supplied additional details to Shanna’s origin in Marvel Two-in-One #3 (May 1974) and even wrote a back-up strip featuring Shanna in Rampaging Hulk! #9 (June 1978). And in that unlikely place, we begin.

In Rampaging Hulk! #9, Gerber and the great artist Tony DeZuniga presented the tale “The Wrath of Raga-Shah!”

The unlikely publishing pairing of jungle queen and raging monster didn’t take and the Shanna feature was gone by next issue. But thanks to Marvel Fanfare editor Al Milgrom and Fanfare’s mission statement—to save stories from the dusty inventory drawer and to present stories by some of the finest names in comics—this Gerber-penned jungle tale was unearthed and brought to the light of civilization.

In author Jarrod Buttery’s August 2010 article published in BACK ISSUE #43 entitled “Shanna: And a Jungle Queen is Born,” Buttery presented Milgrom’s recount of how this Gerber-written Shanna tale came to be rescued: “I would scour the office looking for gems I could publish in Fanfare,” Milgrom told Buttery and BACK ISSUE in 2010.

“And I found the first part of Steve’s Shanna story completely penciled by Carmine Infantino. There were also complete scripts for the second and Photo by John Tighe. third installments. So I called Steve up and said… ‘I want to know going in that I can get you to finish the storyline.’

Steve replied that he’d be happy to do so.’ ”

Everyone Loves a Slinky!

Shanna’s serial premiered in Marvel Fanfare #56 (Apr. 1991), with this evocative Joe Chiodo cover.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

74 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

by M a r c

Buxton

It wasn’t only a Gerber story rescued by Milgrom; the editor also saved some completely penciled Carmine Infantino pages from the slush pile! Before the feature was pushed out of the magazine, Infantino was to follow DeZuniga on the Rampaging Hulk! back-up.

Each of these issues of Marvel Fanfare featuring Shanna sport absolutely stunning, pulp-inspired Men’s Adventure-esque Joe Chiodo covers, lush images featuring the She-Devil in all her leopard-skin glory, wrestling with snakes and lions. The Chiodo illustrations completed a package that allowed Shanna to rule Fanfare in the same manner she ruled her jungle home.

A BURIED JUNGLE TREASURE

Marvel Fanfare #56 (Apr. 1991) kicks things off in classical style. Under the serpentine cover, fans will find those long-lost Infantino pencils inked by a name who is about to become very important in Fanfare lore—Bret Blevins.

More on that in a beat of a jungle drum, but for now, let us focus on this almost-lost Gerber tale.

The issue opens with Shanna on the beaches of Malibu, pondering the duality of her existence. The first five pages are told through Gerber’s signature word balloons, with prose as lush and wonderfully dense as the jungle Shanna calls home. Gerber does what he does best, presenting the existential duality of his main character and the inner conflict within his title hero. It’s almost as if one can feel Gerber getting back into Shanna’s skin. On the beach, Shanna gives into her wildness and starts prancing on the sands. She runs afoul of a body builder and bully

named Dirk Mantooth (no, really), and Mantooth attacks her for upstaging him. The two struggle as Shanna remains silent, and Mantooth falls to Shanna’s furious assault.

Shanna’s fighting prowess impresses some women who witness the fight, but Shanna isn’t on a mission to make friends—she is on a journey of self-discovery and keeps referencing her psychiatrist Dr. Betz. It’s interesting that in a story presented as a classic tale of jungle action, Gerber has shattered all genre tropes and has made this issue about the fractured nature of a woman who is trying to balance her feral nature with that of traditional society. But that’s Gerber for you, an author that breaks convention with every panel.

The pages that follow continue the classic Gerber strangeness, with Shanna finding a note inviting her to a gathering of a group called the Pride. This piques her interest, and readers are treated to Shanna exploring the wilderness of the mundane as she reminds herself to go to the bank and to the grocery to pick up yogurt.

Then she curls up with her pet python in her “rainforest room” and goes to sleep. Ladies and gentlemen: Steve Gerber, the only author in comics that can juxtapose traditional jungle adventure imagery with yogurt!

The next sequence is pure Gerber as Shanna makes her appointment with Dr. Betz. This scene reminds readers that Shanna’s signature leopard-skin outfit is actually the skin of her former friend and companion, the big cat Julani.

Doctor and patient discuss Shanna’s attack on Mantooth as the jungle heroine is growing more concerned with these violent fugue states. Not many comics in 1991 explored

Carmine of the Jungle Carmine Infantino, inked by Bret Blevins, on pages 1 and 4 from Marvel Fanfare #56’s Shanna tale. Original art courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 75

You Better, You Better, You Bret Bret Blevins used the pseudonym “A. Novice” once he took over the Shanna art chores with MF #57.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

trauma and possible PTSD, and really, this was a comic that was supposed to be published in 1978!

After her appointment with Betz, Shanna goes to meet the mysterious Pride at a posh hotel. Gerber keeps adding new cast members as Shanna meets millionaire/ actor/cowboy Slam Sanders and powerful TV producer Kinsey Gardener. These two movers and shakers are also at the hotel to meet the Pride. Joining the group is outof-work comedy writer Martin Friend, who takes every opportunity to needle Gardener. Into this mundane scene of entertainment satire steps the Pride, a group of anthropomorphic big cats. The Pride tell the assembled four that they were chosen because they are at a crossroads in their lives and each of them is capable of committing murder to achieve their desires. Shanna takes offense to this and beats up one of the Pride. The leader of the Pride, a white-haired lion-man, has the power to control minds, and he seizes control of Shanna. He promises each in the room their heart’s desire and promises Shanna the secret behind her violent blackouts. Shanna breaks free from his control and the white-haired leader transports himself and Shanna to the mental plane.

Of course, since this is Shanna, the mental plane is a verdant jungle and the two do battle. Shanna bests her foe in physical combat, but trying to navigate the jungles of her own subconscious mind are too much for her and in the real world, Shanna goes comatose.

So in the span of 17 pages, Gerber takes readers from the beach, to Shanna’s strange home, to a fancy hotel, to the psychic jungles of Shanna’s damaged mind.

A. NOVICE AND A KILLER EMMY

Al Milgrom only found the story that appeared in Fanfare #56 in the slush pile. Issue #57 would have to be created from whole cloth if Shanna’s adventure was to continue. For art, Milgrom turned to issue #56’s inker Bret Blevins. In 2010, Milgrom told BACK ISSUE that this artistic shift was made because “Carmine’s a great designer but he doesn’t draw the most sensuous women. … I had been doing some work with Bret Blevins, who did great-looking girls, so I asked him if he’d be interested in inking an Infantino story. … I think I told Bret that if he inked the first issue, he could pencil the following chapters. Bret was keen to ink his own pencils[, which] slowed him down.”

So with Blevins in place on art, Gerber continues his story 13 years after he wrote the second chapter. This issue kicks off with Shanna still a prisoner of her own mind. The three celebrities follow the Pride to commit the murders the Pride demands. Shanna is found by a hotel maid and is taken to a hospital, where she awakens to find Dr. Betz standing over her. Once again, this is where Gerber explores the idea of mental illness and PTSD as the names of all those Shanna has lost are evoked. Betz brings up Julani, Shanna’s father, Jakuna Singh (a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that befriended Shanna in her own series), and her two deceased leopard cubs, Ina and Biri. This scene reminds readers just how heroic Shanna is because she continues to fight through the pain of her multiple losses, but it also reminds the reader that Shanna is a very damaged woman who has not come to terms with these losses.

But Shanna’s soul-searching will have to wait because she must prevent the Pride’s puppets from committing murder. The She-Devil leaps out the hospital window and races back to her house, where we are treated to another sleepy snake cuddle. Deena and Chris, the two ladies who witnessed Shanna’s beating of Mantooth, awaken Shanna. They help her track down Martin Friend’s agent and Shanna races to meet with him.

Shanna pretends that she is there to visit the agent’s… ahem… casting couch, but ends up beating him until he reveals exactly whom Martin would like to murder.

Shanna discovers that Friend is out to kill a former protégé of his, a wheelchair-bound feminist writer that has achieved great success with her Norman Lear-like scripts. Shanna thinks she arrives too late as she witnesses Friend murder the female writer with her own Emmy statuette. But after Shanna takes down Friend, she is shocked to see the writer alive and unharmed. The mystery of how this writer survived and the secrets of the Pride will have to wait until next issue, but as for Marvel Fanfare #57, it’s quite amazing how Gerber juggles Shanna’s inner conflicts with scathing satire of contemporary entertainment and Hollywood.

DIARY OF A MADWOMAN?

Fanfare #58 (Aug. 1991) starts rather strangely, with Shanna sparring with her pet python. Gerber stretches the sequence out for five pages before the snake-versusjungle queen workout (it’s like a low-tech Danger Room) is interrupted by Deena and Chris. It seems that Gerber is implying that Deena and Chris are more than friends— 76 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

and it’s utterly fascinating to think that Gerber was trying to introduce a lesbian couple into mainstream comics in 1991. Deena says that “Chris and I have a pretty… self-contained relationship…,” a rather gutsy direction for the day. One has to wonder if Gerber had the same dynamic in mind for the characters in 1978.

Shanna then meets with Dr. Betz as Gerber introduces the fact that Shanna may be suffering from schizophrenia.

Betz is confused because Shanna knows what she is claiming is preposterous, but just the fact that Gerber was putting forth the idea of a severely mentally-ill superhero makes this storyline stand out. Again, one has to wonder if this is where Gerber was going in ’78.

Whatever the case, Shanna takes Dr. Betz to a public debate between Slam Sanders and a porn publisher named Roland Fargas. Shanna believes—and she is correct—that Sanders’ chosen victim is Fargas, so Shanna plans to attend the debate to not only stop a murder but confirm her own sanity. Sanders may be a puppet of the Pride, but the aged cowboy actor finds a puppet of his own, a man whose family was disgraced when his sister posed for one of Fargas’ smut magazines. Shanna springs into action to save Fargas, but the Pride member that only she can see stops her. The brother shoots Fargas, but despite the fact that the porn guru is shot in the heart and covered in blood, he is fine. It seems the Pride found another meat puppet. The story is told with such a taut feeling of unreality that the reader, like Shanna, can’t help but question what’s happening. And through it all, Gerber also makes with some potent social commentary as the writer satirizes Hustler’s Larry Flynt and the porn industry while telling a fantastical tale with deeply personal ramifications for the hero.

THINGS BECOME STRANGE

Back in 2010, Mligrom told BACK ISSUE that Blevins “… couldn’t handle the deadline for the final chapter, so I asked Tony DeZuniga.” Now, an issue of Marvel Fanfare drawn by DeZuniga featuring Shanna is a treat no real connoisseur of Bronze Age awesomeness can miss. The art is gorgeous and Gerber’s plot is… well, rather strange.

Marvel Fanfare #59 (Oct. 1991) opens with Shanna being assaulted in the mental plane by all those she had lost.

Her survivor’s guilt, her PTSD, and her grief all attack her as she battles in her mental jungle. She is freed from this psychic battle by a shot of Thorazine after being rushed to the hospital once she entered one of her fugue states and attacked Fargas. As she lay in the hospital, Shanna is visited by the Pride’s three victims and they tell her that she is a member of this ancient primal group of primordial spirits. In order to rise again and defeat her grief and doubt, Shanna must break her modern psyche and embrace the Pride. She agrees to undergo an ancient blood ritual but turns on the Pride, plunging a dagger into the leader’s breast. Shanna is free of the influence and embraces her nature as a woman who must always stand between the wild world of the jungle and civilization.

Here, Gerber wraps up all loose ends in this final issue of Shanna’s Marvel Fanfare run. The issue ends with Gerber thanking Milgrom and the readers and admitting that this probably wasn’t the ending he had in mind when he first began Shanna’s tale so many years ago.

You Sexy Beast!

Joe Chiodo’s covers to the second through fourth chapters of Marvel Feature’s Shanna saga.

Note that the issues’ back-up stars are depicted in the covers’ corner boxes.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

ONE FINAL FANFARE

Whatever the late Steve Gerber originally planned for Shanna the She-Devil is forever lost, but this gripping tale of mental illness, adventure, metaphysical action, and groundbreaking social commentary is not—thanks to Al Milgrom and Marvel Fanfare. Because of this awesome anthology, fans not only witnessed Gerber’s experimental, always-super-cool storytelling, they also got to lavish in new artwork from legends like Infantino, Blevins, and DeZuniga.

Sadly, Shanna’s strange tale was the final fanfare for Marvel Fanfare, as issue #60 would be the anthology’s last. But as the drumming of Marvel Fanfare was silenced, at least the magazine gave us a chance to witness a very experimental tale by some great artists and more importantly, it added one more entry in the bibliography of Steve Gerber.

MARC BUXTON is a proud contributor to websites like Comic Book Resources and Den of Geek US. He is an English teacher, and Marc’s loving wife thinks he owns way to many comic books.

Marc has been reading comics since the dawn of time and is still deeply in love with every era of the great medium.

Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 77

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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although if any of my writers—especially those of you who are teachers— can convince me otherwise, you know how to reach me!

One of these days, we’ll get around to doing an article about Dynamite and those other kids’ mags of the ’70s.

I appreciate your feedback re that era of Legion. Mark Waid was its first editor, with me coming on early in the series, and with a few other editors following later. Readers either loved or hated that incarnation, it seems, although recently some “Five Years Later” fans have approached me to voice their appreciation of that run.

That version of Legion, along with its spin-offs like Legionnaires and Valor, will be featured in a future BI.

SUPERMAN #400’s SUPER ARTISTS

BELATED SPECIAL THANKS DEPARTMENT

BACK ISSUE contributor Christopher Larochelle tells us he inadvertently neglected to add acknowledgments to issue #90’s Elektra Assassin article. Christopher says, “I’m not sure why I didn’t remember to thank the people who really helped me to make that article work with it being impossible to chat with Frank Miller, but I’d like to thank ANDY MANGELS and JOHN WELLS for supplying fanzine article scans with previous Miller Elektra interviews.”

Andy and John are two of BI’s greatest Super Friends!

John Byrne forwarded to me this photograph (that he said he received from Walt Simonson) that I attempted to describe in the letter of mine that you printed in a recent BACK ISSUE concerning the autographing of the plates from the Superman #400 portfolio.

The photograph was taken by DC’s Albert DeGuzman.

Left to right: Will Eisner, Joe Orlando, Jerry Robinson, Terry Austin, Leonard Starr, Sal Amendola, Walter Simonson, Dick Giordano, Julie Schwartz, Howard Chaykin, Frank Miller, and John Byrne.

And I suppose if you were able to blow the image up to an absurd size you might be able to see the reflection of Steve Ditko in one or more of our eyes…

– Terry Austin

I had an old memory or two bubble up while reading the article on Marvel’s movie adaptations in BACK ISSUE #89. I bought the Krull book and at least one more (The Dark Crystal) from Scholastic Books, through my elementary school. I’m sure there were more, possibly from DC, too. If nothing else, I’m sure that I bought a “Making of” magazine for Superman or Superman II from Scholastic also.

Considering that there was still a bias against comic books in the late ’70s–early ’80s, it seems, in retrospect, odd that an educational-book distributor was selling these books directly to elementary students and delivering them to their classrooms.

I don’t know if there’s enough information available, but it might make an interesting, if short, article.

A tangentially related topic that you may have covered during one of my budget hiatuses is Scholastic’s Dynamite magazine, founded by Jenette Kahn before she was offered DC; and at least indirectly got her that offer.

Before I finish, I wanted to make a comment about Legion of Super-Heroes while you were its editor. I know that the “Five Years Later” era is usually maligned in print and online, but it’s one of my favorite LSH eras and I think one of the most creative. I even sent a few letters in about the book. It was eventually acknowledged in the letters column along with several other people who wrote in with guesses about some of the book’s mysteries that were a little too close to home to print.

– Doug Abramson You make a great observation about how these early Scholastic deals helped the educational system embrace comics, which they previously shunned. Similarly, public libraries, which had previously shelved a handful of token comic compilations, also began stocking graphic novels and collected editions. I’m not sure there’s an article here, though,

78 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue

Wow! That’s a gathering of greats! Thanks for sharing this, Terry.

THE YEATES/TARZAN “DIRECTOR’S CUT”

Here’s a heads-up that late last year, Dark Horse Books released a deluxe collected edition of Tarzan: The Beckoning, reprinting the seven-issue 1992 Malibu Comics series written and illustrated by BACK ISSUE #92’s cover artist, Thomas Yeates. This is no mere reprint, though—it’s a remastering. “Some things went wrong in the production of the original series, mainly eight pages in issue #3 were printed out of order and some of the coloring was problematic,” according to Yeates.

With this Dark Horse edition, “What I tried to do was maintain the best aspects of the original watercolors while making it easier to see the ink drawings,” Yeates explains. “The touchups took several months with three of us working on it in our spare time—my daughter Olivia Yeates, Christopher Lods, and myself.” The redo improved an already-spectacular work, but before-and-after sample pages can be seen on Thomas’ site, http://thomasyeates.com/… and ordering info can be found there, too.

TM & © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

TM & © DC Comics.

THE LOVE–HATE LEGION

Thanks again for another fun issue [#90]. Dazzler simply screams “1980s” and has always been a character I’d heard a lot about, but never checked out for myself. That beautiful artwork by Bill Sienkiewicz on Elektra Assassin sent chills down my spine! I really hope the cover got you some new readers.

The main reason I’m writing is to thank you for the great interview with Dan Mishkin and the look back at his run on Wonder Woman. Where to start? When Gerry Conway returned to the book, he returned Diana Prince to the military along with Etta Candy and Phillip Darnell, and also brought back Steve Trevor back from the dead a SECOND time. This was apparently an unpopular move to a lot of fans, but I was happy with it. Gerry wrote some fine stories, including a fantastic storyline with Kobra, before he and artist Jose Delbo were sent out the door for Roy Thomas in WW #288, who only stuck around for seven or eight issues (but what great issues they were!) before Dan Mishkin came on board. Artist Gene Colan, who started with Roy, left mid-storyline and was replaced

by Don Heck. Oh, and during this time, Wonder Woman changed editors three different times, from Marv Wolfman to Ernie Colón to Alan Gold!

I mention all this to show just how chaotic it was reading Wonder Woman at that time, wondering how long a creative team would bother to stay on. I was planning to make WW #307 the last issue I would buy, but at the end of the story it said Black Canary was going to guest-star in the next issue, so I somewhat begrudgingly bought WW #308, and all of a sudden, it was like I was reading a whole new book! Wonder Woman teamed with Black Canary and the Elongated Man to stop a Nazi! And more intriguingly, Sofia Constantinas, a new character brought to Paradise Island to reform her terrorist ways, overheard Queen Hippolyta say she’s kept secrets from her daughter Diana…

Suffering Sappho! Wonder Woman went from being off my pull list to being the first book I read when it came out. Dan did a masterful job of having a main story be a two- or three-parter, but kept the subplot about Sofia learning the Queen’s secrets and her efforts to let Diana know simmer from WW #308–322, and I and many other readers were on the edge of our seats with anticipation waiting to see their confrontation, and we were not disappointed!

In his run, Dan Mishkin introduced no less than 12 new supporting characters, made Steve Trevor an interesting romantic partner for WW, threw in some foreign intrigue with the war in Tropidor, introduced a new tribe of Amazons, acknowledged the existence of a previous Wonder Woman, brought in a cute gremlin sidekick for Steve, and even gave WW’s invisible robot plane a personality! Despite all his hard work and a truly beautiful run by artist Don Heck, the looming Crisis pretty much put the final nail in the coffin for the book. While no one would say that DC made a mistake revamping Wonder Woman and having George Pérez as the artist on her new book, it’s really a shame that so few people realized how wonderful the book had become in those last few years.

I’m so appreciative that BACK ISSUE took the time to explore that particular run and I hope Dan Mishkin knew his work was admired.

Thanks, Steven Wilber!

I have three suggestions for possible stories: First, I would love it if someone could get Jim Starlin to talk about his brief but incredibly memorable storyline in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #239—you know which one I’m talking about. Ultra Boy was framed for murder by a hooded villain whom we found out at the end of Hawkman TM & © DC Comics.

BACK ISSUE TM & © TwoMorrows. All Rights Reserved.

the story was a fellow Legionnaire, although his identity was kept from us. Jim’s story was supposed to continue in a 64-page tabloid, but DC scrapped those and the story was shortened and instead appeared in Superboy/LOSH #250–251, only it was credited to “Steve Apollo.” While I’m sure Jim doesn’t have any of the art that was scrapped or edited out, or even his original script, it would be great to finally, after all these years, know how he intended the story to go. It’s incredible to me that a story that he described as just a money job could have such an impact on Legion fandom.

My second suggestion also involves the Legion, specifically a storyline that involved three writers over a small period of time. I’m referring to the Reflecto story.

Gerry Conway started it with Ultra Boy’s death, Roy Thomas followed up immediately with the introduction of Reflecto, and then Paul Levitz finished it off by revealing Reflecto was really Superboy—wait, it was actually Ultra Boy… no wait, it was Ultra Boy’s mind in Superboy’s body… well, who knows!?! Anyway, a roundtable discussion of this fascinating storyline would be much appreciated. It could have been a mess, and maybe it was, but it was an entertaining mess!

Third, how about an occasional column devoted to former comics talent no longer in the field? For example, Jimmy Janes, Dave Hunt, Mindy Newell, Alan Gold, Laurie Sutton, Dann Thomas, Tamsyn O’Flynn, and many, many others that have moved on. I’m sure readers might be interested in learning what they’ve been up to.

Thanks again for another perfect issue!

– Daniel Brozak

TM & © DC Comics.

PRAISE FOR MISHKIN’S WONDER WOMAN

Daniel, we’re tipping our tiara to Steven Wilber for recommending to ye ed the Dan Mishkin Wonder Woman interview. Steve was able to provide something I love to see in BACK ISSUE: a spotlight on an overlooked run, presented in a broad fashion to appeal to just about any reader.

Wow, those are good suggestions! (And maybe we should do another all-Legion issue… what say you, readers?) Re the last one: I’ve been toying with such a feature, called “Catching Up With,” for years but haven’t started it mainly because space in each issue is so precious. But I agree that it would be a great ongoing feature and will endeavor to work it into the magazine as soon as possible.

Next issue: “Bird People,” headlined by “Hawkman in the Bronze Age”: the Winged Wonder’s Shadow War and monthly series, JLA squabbles with Green Arrow, Golden Eagle, and more! Plus: JIM STARLIN’s Superman/ Hawkgirl team-up, TIMOTHY TRUMAN’s Hawkworld, Hawk and Dove, a Penguin villain history, Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, Condorman, and CHUCK DIXON and SCOTT McDANIEL’s Nightwing. Featuring GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, JOE GIELLA, ALAN GRANT, MIKE GRELL, GREG GULER, RICHARD HOWELL, TONY ISABELLA, BARBARA RANDALL KESEL, KARL KESEL, ROB LIEFELD, GRAHAM NOLAN, DENNY O’NEIL, JOHN OSTRANDER, and others! Featuring a high-flying Hawkman cover by GEORGE PÉREZ. Don’t ask—just BI it!

See you in thirty!

Your friendly neighborhood Euryman, Michael Eury, editor-in-chief Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 79

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DOUG MOENCH in the 1970s at Warren and Marvel (Master of Kung Fu, Planet of the Apes, Deathlok, Werewolf by Night, Morbius, Moon Knight, Ka-Zar, Weirdworld)!

Art by BUSCEMA, GULACY, PLOOG, BUCKLER, ZECK, DAY, PERLIN, & HEATH! MICHAEL T. GILBERT on EC’s oddball “variant covers”—FCA—and a neverpublished Golden Age super-hero story by MARV LEVY! Cover by PAUL GULACY!

Giant-size Fawcett Collectors of America special with Golden/Silver Age writer OTTO BINDER’s personal script records and illos from his greatest series! Intros by P.C. HAMERLINCK and BILL SCHELLY, art by BECK, SIMON & KIRBY, SWAN, SCHAFFENBERGER, AVISON, BORING, MOONEY, PLASTINO, and others! Plus MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and an unpublished C.C. BECK cover!

Relive JOE PETRILAK’s All-Time Classic NY Comic Book Convention—the greatest Golden & Silver Age con ever assembled!

Panels, art and photos featuring INFANTINO, KUBERT, 3 SCHWARTZES, NODELL, HASEN, GIELLA, CUIDERA, BOLTINOFF, BUSCEMA, AYERS, SINNOTT, [MARIE] SEVERIN, GOULART, THOMAS, and a host of others!

Plus FCA, GILBERT, SCHELLY, and RUSS RAINBOLT’s amazing 60-foot comics mural!

Showcases GIL KANE, with an incisive and free-wheeling interview conducted in the 1990s by DANIEL HERMAN for his 2001 book Gil Kane: The Art of the Comics— plus other surprise features centered around the artistic co-creator of the Silver Age Green Lantern and The Atom! Also: FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and BILL SCHELLY! Green Lantern cover by KANE and GIELLA!

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BACK ISSUE #98

BACK ISSUE #99

BRICKJOURNAL #45

DRAW! #33

“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.

“DC in the ‘80s!” From the experimental to the fan faves: Behind-the-scenes looks at SECRET ORIGINS, ACTION COMICS WEEKLY, DC CHALLENGE, THRILLER, ELECTRIC WARRIOR, and SUN DEVILS. Featuring JIM BAIKIE, MARK EVANIER, DAN JURGENS, DOUG MOENCH, MARTIN PASKO, TREVOR VON EEDEN, and others!

Featuring a mind-numbing Nightwing cover

by ROMEO TANGHAL!

“BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES’ 25th ANNIVERSARY!” Looks back at the influential cartoon series. Plus: episode guide, Harley Quinn history, DC’s Batman Adventures and Animated Universe comic books, and tribute to artist MIKE PAROBECK. Featuring KEVIN ALTIERI, RICK BURCHETT, PAUL DINI, GERARD JONES, MARTIN PASKO, DAN RIBA, TY TEMPLETON, BRUCE TIMM, and others! BRUCE TIMM cover!

FEMALE LEGO BUILDERS! US Architectural builder ANURADHA PEHRSON, British Microscale builder FERNANDA RIMINI, US Bionicle builder BREANN SLEDGE, and Norwegian Town builder BRIGITTE JONSGARD discuss their work and inspirations!

Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, & more!

Interview and demo by Electra: Assassin and Stray Toasters superstar BILL SIENKIEWICZ, a look at THE WATTS ATELIER OF THE ARTS (one of the best training grounds for students to gain the skills they need to get the jobs they want), JERRY ORDWAY shows the Ord-Way of drawing, JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews the latest art supplies, and BRET BLEVINS and Draw! editor MIKE MANLEY take you to Comic Art Bootcamp.

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #14 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #15 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #16

KIRBY COLLECTOR #70

KIRBY COLLECTOR #71

Comprehensive KELLEY JONES interview, from early years as Marvel inker to presentday greatness at DC depicting BATMAN, DEADMAN, and SWAMP THING (chockful of rarely-seen artwork)! Plus WILL MURRAY examines the nefarious legacy of Batman co-creator BOB KANE in an investigation into tragic ghosts and rapacious greed. We also look at RAINA TELGEMEIER and her magnificent army of devotees, and more!

Celebrating 30 years of artist’s artist MARK SCHULTZ, creator of the CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS franchise, with a featurelength, career-spanning interview conducted in Mark’s Pennsylvanian home, examining the early years of struggle, success with Kitchen Sink Press, and hitting it big with a Saturday morning cartoon series. Includes rarely-seen art and fascinating photos from Mark’s amazing and award-winning career.

A look at 75 years of Archie Comics’ characters and titles, from Archie and his pals ‘n gals to the mighty MLJ heroes of yesteryear and today’s “Dark Circle”! Also: Careerspanning interviews with The Fox’s DEAN HASPIEL and Kevin Keller’s cartoonist DAN PARENT, who both jam on our exclusive cover depicting a face-off between humor and heroes. Plus our usual features, including the hilarious FRED HEMBECK!

KIRBY: ALPHA! Looks at the beginnings of Kirby’s greatest concepts, and how he looked back in time and to the future for the origins of ideas like DEVIL DINOSAUR, FOREVER PEOPLE, 2001, ETERNALS, KAMANDI, OMAC, and more! Plus: A rare Kirby interview, the 2016 WonderCon Kirby Tribute Panel, MARK EVANIER, unpublished pencil art galleries, and more!

Cover inked by MIKE ROYER!

KIRBY: OMEGA! Looks at endings, deaths, and Anti-Life in the Kirbyverse, including poignant losses and passings from such series as NEW GODS, KAMANDI, FANTASTIC FOUR, LOSERS, THOR, DEMON and others! Plus: A rare Kirby interview, the 2016 Silicon Valley Comic-Con Kirby Panel, MARK EVANIER, unpublished pencil art galleries, and more! Cover inked by WALTER SIMONSON!

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REED CRANDALL Illustrator of the Comics

From the 1940s to the ’70s, REED CRANDALL brought a unique and masterful style to American comic art. Using an illustrator’s approach on everything he touched, Crandall gained a reputation as the “artist’s artist” through his skillful interpretations of Golden Age super-heroes DOLL MAN, THE RAY, and BLACKHAWK (his signature character); horror and sci-fi for the legendary EC COMICS line; Warren Publishing’s CREEPY, EERIE, and BLAZING COMBAT; the THUNDER AGENTS and EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS characters; and even FLASH GORDON for King Features. Comic art historian ROGER HILL has compiled a complete and extensive history of Crandall’s life and career, from his early years and major successes, through his tragic decline and passing in 1982. This FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER includes NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN PHOTOS, a wealth of RARE AND UNPUBLISHED ARTWORK, and over EIGHTY THOUSAND WORDS of insight into one of the true illustrators of the comics.

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

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Celebrate JACK KIRBY’s 100th birthday!

THE PARTY STARTS HERE!

TWOMORROWS and the JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR magazine celebrate JACK KIRBY’S 100th BIRTHDAY in style with the release of KIRBY100, a full-color visual holiday for the King of comics! It features an all-star line-up of 100 COMICS PROS who critique key images from Kirby’s 50-year career, admiring his page layouts, dramatics, and storytelling skills, and lovingly reminiscing about their favorite characters and stories. Featured are BRUCE TIMM, ALEX ROSS, WALTER SIMONSON, JOHN BYRNE, JOE SINNOTT, STEVE RUDE, ADAM HUGHES, WENDY PINI, JOHN ROMITA SR., DAVE GIBBONS, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, and dozens more of the top names in comics. Their essays serve to honor Jack’s place in comics history, and prove (as if there’s any doubt) that KIRBY IS KING! This double-length book is edited by JOHN MORROW and JON B. COOKE, with a Kirby cover inked by MIKE ROYER. (The Limited Hardcover Edition includes 16 bonus color pages of Kirby’s 1960s Deities concept drawings)

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