MLJ Companion Preview

THE

THE All characters TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Archie characters created by John L. Goldwater. The likenesses of the original Archie characters were created by Bob Montana.

C O M PA N I O N

Printed in China.

Then, in the swinging ’60s, The Mighty Crusaders arrived with some of the wildest characters ever assembled, including the hen-pecked Web (whose wife secretly sneaks out to fight as Pow Girl!), as well as the sensual super-heroine who (no lie!) goes by the name of Fly-Girl! Plus, lest we forget, there was the Black Hood’s faithful robot horse named Nightmare…!

This comprehensive book covers 75 years of ever-changing incarnations, including little-known, behind-the-scenes looks, such as the Watchmen-influenced Spectrum Comics line abruptly cancelled before debuting due to public outcry, as well as the scoop behind the not one, but two lines of Archie heroes oddly published by a main competitor, DC Comics!

From the days of Zip and Pep to today’s Dark Circle, this massive blue ribbon, top-notch retrospective has it all!

THIS 288-PAGE VOLUME INCLUDES:

ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-067-0 ISBN-10: 1-60549-067-9

53195 60 PAGES OF CLASSIC GOLDEN AGE ADVENTURES • OVER 20 CREATOR INTERVIEWS! RARE LOOKS AT: THE WEB BY NEAL ADAMS! THE HANGMAN BY KELLEY JONES! LEARN 9 781605 490670 ABOUT THE DAY THE FLY (ALMOST) MADE TO THE SILVER SCREEN! PLUS: THE TIME THE RIVERDALE GANG BECAME SUPER-HEROES; LOOKS AT SUPER DUCK & THUNDER BUNNY; AND MORE!

TwoMorrows Publishing Raleigh, North Carolina

ISBN: 978-1-60549-067-0 $31.95 in the U.S.

Offenberger, Castiglia & Cooke

From the dawn of the 1940s Golden Age of comics to the current graphic novel scene, the super-heroes of Archie Comics have entertained avid fans and casual readers alike with their often thrilling and sometimes wacky exploits. Called the MLJ super-heroes, the line-up includes such unforgettable characters as The Shield, America’s first patrotic super-hero; the ill-fated Comet, the first comic book crimefighter to actually be killed in the line of duty; and his vengeance-seeking brother, The Hangman, a “hero” who didn’t hesitate to execute the bad guys by rope!

COMPANION

ALL THE WAY WITH THE HEROES OF MLJ!

by Rik Offenberger Paul Castiglia & Jon B. Cooke from THE GOLDEN AGE…

through the silver age…

into the 1980s…

up to the present day!

The Complete History of the Archie Comics Super-Heroes!

Chapter 1: MLJ Heroes in the 1930s and ’40s Partner Profiles: The Men Behind MLJ Magazines ........................................... 76 All The Way With MLJ! by Ron Goulart.............................................................. 79 Creator Chat: Irv Novick...................................................................................... 96 The Black Hood… on the Air!.............................................................................. 101 Stanley Taffet Takes the Top-Notch Prize......................................................... 105 The Black Hood, Pulp Fiction Hero................................................................. 107 A Brief History of Canada’s Golden Age Archie Comics .............................. 108 Super Duck, the Cockeyed Wonder.................................................................... 110 Close-Up: MLJ Comics… Exposed!...................................................................... 114 Interlude: The Archie Phenomenon.....................................................118 Chapter 2: Mighty Comics in the 1950s and ’60s Those Mighty Crusaders by Will Murray........................................................... 120 The Anti-Crime Squad........................................................................................ 123 MLJ Done the S&K Way.................................................................................... 127 The Pre-Mighty Comics...................................................................................... 130 The Spider and the Fly......................................................................................... 132 Too Many Ultra Heroes!..................................................................................... 139 Mighty Comics “Expands”................................................................................. 140 Mighty Marvel and the Mighty Crusaders...................................................... 142 The Other Fly-Man................................................................................................ 144 The Invasion of the High Camp Super-Heroes................................................. 146 Jerry Siegel’s Second Act...................................................................................... 149 Super Heroics: the Game of Crime Fighting..................................................... 150 The Shadow’s Forgotten Era at Archie Comics................................................. 152 The Secret Life of Mr. Archibald Andrews........................................................ 156 Interlude: Where are the Heroes?.........................................................160 Chapter 3: 1970s’ Red Circle Comics Group Sorcery Supreme! Vicente Alcazár Interview by Jon B. Cooke........................ 162 Creator Chat: Gray Morrow.............................................................................. 164 Red Circle Comics Group Index....................................................................... 167 Interlude: Mighty Legion of Justice......................................................168 Chapter 4: The Red Circle Heroes of the ’80s The Red Circle Years by Rik Offenberger............................................................. 170 Creator Chat: Rich Buckler................................................................................ 174 The Eve of Neal Adams........................................................................................ 177 With One Magic Clap… Thunder Bunny!...................................................... 179 Creator Chat: Cary Burkett............................................................................... 180 The Mighty Crusaders Action Figure Line..................................................... 184 Creator Chat: Dick Ayers................................................................................... 186 Creator Chat: Bill DuBay................................................................................... 188 Creator Chat: Stan Timmons ........................................................................... 192 Fox in Archie’s Henhouse: Alex Toth’s Edgy Take on the MLJ Hero ......... 195 Interlude: Descent into Darkness.........................................................198

Table of Contents

Foreword by Paul Castiglia ............................................................................... 69 Introduction by Rik Offenberger .................................................................... 71 Prelude: Roots of the MLJ Line........................................................................ 72 A Key to the Mighty Heroes of MLJ ................................................. 74

Chapter 5: The Ill-Fated Spectrum Comics Line Into the Spectrum by Rik Offenberger & Bradley S. Cobb............................... 200 Creator Chat: Kelley Jones................................................................................. 200 Creator Chat: Mark Ellis..................................................................................... 201 Creator Chat: Jim Valentino.............................................................................. 202 Steve Englehart Charts the Fly’s Course............................................................. 204 Scott Fulop on Spectrum (and those PSAs)...................................................... 207 Spectrum: The Comics Buyer’s Guide Article..................................................... 208 Spectrum: Killed at Birth....................................................................................... 210 Interlude: In the House of Superman...................................................212 Chapter 6: Impact Comics of the 1990s Making an Impact by Bradley S. Cobb................................................................. 214 The Impact Trading Cards.................................................................................. 220 Creator Chat: Brian Augustyn........................................................................... 224 Impact Socks It Old School................................................................................ 227 Creator Chat: Jimmy Palmiotti......................................................................... 229 Character Stats: The Black Hood, The Comet, and The Fly.......................... 230 Interlude: DC’s Diminishing Impact....................................................236 Chapter 7: Between Impact and Archie The Fly (almost) Goes Hollywood by Paul Castiglia....................................... 238 Creator Chat: Michael Uslan....................................................................239 Chapter 8: An MLJ Hero in the Digital Age The Web Goes World Wide by Paul Castiglia................................................... 244 Chapter 9: The Archie Gang Joins the MLJ! MLJ Goes to Riverdale by Paul Castiglia............................................................ 246 Creator Chat: Paul Castiglia.............................................................................. 248 Interlude: The Straczynski Effect...........................................................252 Chapter 10: The Crusaders Return to DC Into the DC Universe: Rachel Gluckstern Interview by Rik Offenberger.... 254 Creator Chat: Marco Rudy................................................................................. 256 Creator Chat: John Rozum................................................................................ 257 Creator Chat: Eric Trautman............................................................................. 260 Creator Chat: Brandon Jerwa............................................................................ 261 Creator Chat: Tom Derenick............................................................................. 263 Interlude: Full Circle at DC Comics.....................................................264 Chapter 11: Red Circle’s Fox and New Crusaders Digitizing MLJ’s Heroes by Jon B. Cooke............................................................ 266 Interlude: Archie’s Monster Makeover.................................................270 Chapter 12: Dawning of the Dark Circle Red Circle Goes Dark: Alex Segura Interview by Rik Offenberger................ 272 Bright Ruminations on the Dark Circle Comics.............................................. 276 Postscript: Those Majestic MLJ Heroes 75 Years (and Counting) of Archie’s Ever-Changing Super-Heroes............ 278 Collecting MLJ Comics: J. C. Vaughn Interview by Rik Offenberger........... 280 Learn More About MLJ......................................................................................... 284 It’s a Mighty MLJ World........................................................................................ 286

PRELUDE Roots of the MLJ Line

The not-so secret origin of the House of Archie

by Jon B. Cooke

The pulps, of course, were inexpensive fiction magazines featuring potboiler stories—often spotlighting heroes such as the Shadow and Doc Savage— behind lavish and compelling cover paintings.

As the product was a cheap source of popular entertainment, the pulps enjoyed enormous success from the Roaring Twenties through the Great Depression.

Thus, after Eastern’s bankruptcy in 1932, Silberkleit, keenly aware of the machinations of periodical distribution and production, subsequently founded (with Goodman) Mutual Magazine Distributors and a publishing outfit, Newsstand Publications, where he placed protége Goodman as editor for his pulp fare.

You’d think that the brightly colored and inviting content of the comic book might indicate its provenance is graced by rosy hues.

But the business roots of the art form, which shares with jazz music and the banjo the distinction of being purely native-born, has a shadowy past that belie its sunny fourcolor appearance. In fact, the origins of the American industry can be found in the black-&-white world of the pulp magazines. As authors Blake Bell and Dr. Michael J. Vassallo write in their Secret History of Marvel Comics, “The pulp pirates of the 1920s and 1930s became the comic book barons of the 1930s and 1940s. All of comic books’ founding fathers rose up from the fetid swamp of cheap By 1934, Silberkleit had run afoul of a moral crusade spearheaded magazines and pulp publishing. Most lived in New York, and the by the incoming administration of New York City mayor Fiorello comic book business they created was just as nasty and incestuous as H. LaGuardia, which banned certain “under the counter” titles, a the pulp business that spawned them.” number of which were distributed by Mutual, forcing Silberkleit to dissolve the company. Newsstand Publications was then sold to Among those founding fathers was Louis Horace Silberkleit, who Goodman, and Silberkleit promptly set up shop with circulation emerged from a childhood on the mean streets of New York’s Lower manager John Leonard Goldwater, also born in the Jewish ghetto East Side to work in newspaper circulation by his early 20s. In 1925, of New York’s Lower East Side (though, after being orphaned at he joined with future DC Comics player Paul Sampliner’s Eastern four, raised in more pleasant climes of uptown foster care), and they Distributing Corporation, which also hired future Marvel Comics formed Winford Publications. The new venture’s business manager publisher Martin Goodman. Eastern handled the distribution of was Maurice Coyne—the Bronx-born Morris Cohen—a notary cigars, candy, and magazines to newsstands, including the sciencepublic and certified public accountant (who seems to have done fiction pulps of Hugo Gernsback, a main account for Silberkleit. work for Hugo Gernsback).

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The MLJ Companion

THE JAGUAR: Zoologist Ralph Hardy, friend to all animals, picks up a mysterious jaguar belt left by the ancients and transforms into The Jaguar -- complete with superheightened animal powers!

THE SHIELD: Chemist Joe Higgins devoted his life to fighting evil after the murder of his father by the diabolical Eraser.

Donning a patriotic costume, this G-Man has become an extraordinary hero!

THE COMET: An experimental substance gives young scientist John Dickering powers beyond belief -- including the power of flight! He soon decides to use his newfound powers in the fight for justice!

THE FLY: Attorney Tommy Troy, using the powers of the magic ring given to him

by Turan, emissary of the extraterrestrial Fly People, transforms into the Fly. He possesses the strength of 100 men, has the ability to see in all directions and is endowed with super quick insect reflexes -- making him a super guardian of justice!

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1

Chapter One

MLJ Heroes in the 1930s and ’40s

Archie Comics put out a whole slew of super-hero characters beginning in their very first comic publication, Blue Ribbon Comics #1, way back in November 1939. Other super-hero titles they published during the 1940s included Zip Comics, Jackpot Comics, Hangman Comics, Shield-Wizard Comics, and even Pep Comics—which before Archie came along in issue #22, was home to the first-ever patriotic super-hero, the Shield.

Partner Profiles: The Men Behind MLJ Magazines

by Rik Offenberger [Editor’s Note: The following originally appeared in slightly different form in Borderline #19 (Mar. 1, 2003).]

Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater formed MLJ Magazines and started publishing in November 1939. The company name was derived from the initials of the partners’ first names.

M

aurice Coyne (Sept. 15, 1901–May 9, 1971) Maurice Coyne had worked with Louis Silberkleit in several publishing ventures, starting with employment from Hugo Gernsback. Maurice Coyne and Louis Silberkleit were partners in Columbia Publishing.

Maurice Coyne also served as MLJ’s bookkeeper and chief financial officer.

L

ouis Horace Silberkleit (Nov. 17, 1900–Feb. 21, 1986) Louis Silberkleit had a college degree from St. John’s University, was a licensed registered pharmacist, and also had a law degree from New York Law School. Silberkleit was regarded as having an uncanny knack as a circulator and was known for setting very tight distributions and being an extremely tough negotiator with printers, distributors, and separators.

He worked for a pulp chain in the late 1920s and, in the early 1930s, Silberkleit, Martin Goodman, and Maurice Coyne started Columbia Publications. Martin Goodman soon

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MLJ Comics Index Black Hood Comics Winter 1943-44 to Summer 1946 #9–19

Blue Ribbon Comics (Blue Ribbon Mystery Comics #9-18) November 1939 to March 1942 #1–22

Hangman Comics Spring 1942 to Fall 1943 #2–8

Jackpot Comics Spring 1941 to Spring 1943 #1–9

Pep Comics

January 1940 to January 1948 #1–65

Shield-Wizard Comics Summer 1940 to Spring 1944 #1–13

Special Comics Winter 1941-41 #1

Top-Notch Comics December 1939 to June 1944 #1–45

Zip Comics

February 1940 to Summer 1944 #1–47 Next page is a circa 1943 photo of the three founders of MLJ, a company name derived from the initials of the owners’ first names. From left: Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit, and John Goldwater. Note the painting.

left that company and it was owned solely by Silberkleit and Coyne.

Columbia was one of the last pulp companies, putting out its last pulp in the late ’50s (only Pines’ Ranch Romance ran longer).

J

ohn L. Goldwater (Feb. 14, 1906–Feb. 26, 1999) John Goldwater grew up as an orphan in Harlem, New York. As a teenager, he traveled the country working odd jobs. Eventually returning to New York, he began working loading magazines at the docks, before starting at Independent News.

Goldwater served as editor-in-chief and co-publisher for MLJ. He was focused primarily on the editorial end of the business. Goldwater was one of the founders of the Comics Magazine Association of America, and served as its president for 25 years. The CMAA is best known to comics fans for its Comics Code Authority. He was also a national commissioner of the Anti-Defamation League.

All of them—Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit, and John Goldwater—had met when they worked at Independent News for Paul Sampliner. Sampliner, along with Jack Liebowitz and Harry Donnenfeld of DC Comics, founded Independent News, which was, in turn, the distribution company of DC Comics. Louis Silberkleit worked on some publishing ventures with his friend Martin Goodman, who was a founder of Timely/Marvel Comics.

The MLJ Companion

All The Way With MLJ!

The saga of the super-heroes who paved the way for Archie Andrews and the Riverdale Gang

by Ron Goulart [Editor’s Note: This material was originally printed, in slightly different form, in the magazine Comics Collector, in the issues for Summer and Winter 1984. Thanks to Brian K. Morris for a retyping assist.]

“Give Me An ‘M,’ Give Me An…”

In 1984, the Archie Comics folks again resurrected some of their old-time super-heroes and costumed crime fighters. By way of their Red Circle line of comic books, you could once again follow the adventures of Steel Sterling, the Shield, the Black Hood, Mr. Justice, and several other heroic chaps who first set up shop forty and more years ago. I got a kick out of seeing some of my boyhood idols cavorting again and I wished Red Circle well.

The only trouble was, for someone like me who grew up following these fellows in their original Golden Age incarnations, these latter-day Mighty Crusaders were too slick and sensible. I missed those old illogical, sometimes outright wacky heroes of my youth. I missed, too, the second-banana good guys—such as Mr. Satan, TyGor, the Firefly, Captain Valor, etc.—who probably wouldn’t even get revived this time around. And I missed the eclectic look of the magazines of that long ago and more innocent age.

Let me, in the following pages, show you what I mean.

When these particular heroes first came forth, Archie hadn’t even been born and the publishers called themselves MLJ Magazines, Inc. Less formal than MGM, the company took its title from the first-name initials of its proprietors. They were Morris Coyne, Louis Silberkleit, and John Goldwater, and they entered the fast-growing funny-book field late in 1939. The artwork and scripts for the earliest issues of the new titles were provided by the sweatshop run

by Harry “A” Chesler. While some gifted people worked for the enterprising Chesler, it doesn’t look as though he sent in his first team to produce material for Morris, Louis, and John.

Blue Ribbon Comics

The MLJ line got off to a rather shaky start with the launching of Blue Ribbon Comics. The first issue had a November cover date, and its star was not a super-hero but a dog. “Rang-A-Tang,” billed as “The Wonder Dog,” was right there on the cover acting courageous, and his six-page adventure started off the issue. Rin Tin Tin, who’d made his movie debut way back in the silent days of 1916, was undoubtedly the inspiration for this less-than-scintillating feature.

Most of the other strips, such as “Dan Hastings,” “Buck Stacey,” and “Burk of the Briney,” weren’t much snappier. Science-fiction hero Hastings wasn’t even brand new, having already done his stuff in Star Comics for another company as early as two years before.

MLJ Heroes in the 1930s and ’40s

About the only bright spot in the issue was “Crime on the Run,” a lively Gang Busters sort of feature turned out by a young fellow named Jack Cole, later famed for creating Plastic Man. Although he favored big-foot gag cartooning, Cole was already developing an effective adventure style. He also, unlike most of the Chesler colleagues with whom he shared the magazine, understood that comic books were different from newspaper strips and pulp magazines.

At top is the cover of the very first MLJ comic book, Blue Ribbon Comics #1 [Nov. 1939] featuring the Rin Tin Tin knock-off, Rang-A-Tang, with cover art possibly by Edd Ashe.

Above is a “Bob Phantom” panel from Blue Ribbon #2, art by Irv Novick.

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a dagger entering an innocent heart with such explosive bloodiness.

After Mr. J came “Inferno,” who made his debut in #13 ( June 1941). Also known as the Flame Breather, Inferno had first turned up as a villain over in Zip Comics. Reformed by Steel Sterling, he went straight and was rewarded with a strip of his own. His only wild talent was being able to spout flame out of his mouth.

The magazine’s last hero came along three issues later and was of the super-patriot persuasion. Tom Townsend was just another drunken playboy until an enormous eagle carried him off to its mountain lair. Tom’s father, “wealthy inventor of the Army’s new bomb sight,” had been kidnapped and tortured by a sinister villain known only as the Black Hand. A cadaverous fellow with deadwhite skin, the Black Hand dressed in a hooded purple robe. He came by his name because of his right hand: “It is black… diseased!

A disease easily capable of being transmitted by penetrating the skin with my claws!” In order to make the stubborn senior Townsend talk, his son is abducted as he comes staggering out of the exclusive Crane Club. Unfortunately, the Black Hand loses his temper and strangles Tom’s father. He’s about to do the same thing to the young playboy, when an eagle smashes into the rundown mansion and carries Tom off in his talons.

Mr. Justice was introduced in Blue Ribbon Comics #9 [Feb. 1941] and he was, in actuality, Prince James of England, an 11th century noble, whose spirit was resurrected just in time for World War II when the “Royal Wraith” made battle with the Devil himself to save the soul of our world. The hero would vanish from the Golden Age scene by 1943.

Hardly was this villain bested when up popped the Green Ghoul, a scaly chap with three bloodshot eyes. He’s devoted to “committing murder and atrocity as fast as his wretched mind can conceive of new plots.” Mr. Justice needed a full three months to overcome the Green Ghoul. They meet for their final showdown in “the void between the spirit world and the real world.”

Out-punching his rival, Justice sends him at last into the sea “to sink to the foul depths from which he sprang.”

While the Hand goes on a rampage of sabotage and ruthless crime, Tom stays in the mountains with the eagle and “develops the muscles he had allowed to degenerate.” One day, after the former wastrel has shaped up sufficiently, the eagle brings him an American flag. “This is a symbol of my destiny—a destiny I vow to fulfill!” He whips up a star-spangled costume, “and so Tom Townsend becomes Captain Flag!” His first target is, of course, the Black Hand. In the battle that ensues, the Hand is knocked cold and seems to perish in the fire that sweeps his hideout. “But is the Black Hand really dead?

See for yourself in the next issue!”

Two late arrivals to Blue Ribbon were Captain Flag and former Steel Sterling villain and now hero, Inferno (seen with a lick of flame coming from his mouth, below).

Sam Cooper rendered all this half-baked horror in a toothsome style that never missed an opportunity to be excessive.

His ghouls and demons are all appropriately loathsome, their twisted, gaping mouths jampacked with such a spiky array of fangs that feasting on anything but human flesh would have been out of the question. He never passed up a chance to depict his fiends slavering and drooling, and few could draw

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The MLJ super-hero gets his own radio show After three years in the comic books, The Black Hood debuted on network radio on July 7, 1943 on the Mutual Broadcasting System (MBS).

It was a sustaining (nonsponsored) series and aired its 15 minute episodes five times weekly until going off the air in January 1944, having failed to pick up an advertiser.

The Black Hood (1943) 15-minute Mutual Network Radio Program Author Unknown.

Based on the MLJ Comics and Magazine Character.

Two then unknown, but competent, radio performers played the leads: Scott Douglas portrayed The Black Hood/Kip Burland, while Marjorie Cramer was the voice of his girlfriend, Barbara Sutton, usually called “Babs.”

A supporting character in this Zip Comics #43 [Jan. ’44] featured this ad promoting the Black Hood radio show. radio series, Sergeant McGinty of the local police, was a third SFX: GONG Hit wheel to the crime solving accomplishments of Kip and Babs.

Radio standards for content were more stringent than the pulps and the comic books, so radio’s Black Hood had much less violence in his stories, while bondage and torture were eliminated altogether.

The theme music for this radio program was a curious choice: the “water bucket” segment from “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” composed by Paul Dukas in 1897, but certainly recognizable to juvenile listeners as Mickey Mouse’s showcase scene in Disney’s 1940 classic Fantasia.

While approximately 120 episodes of The Black Hood were aired on Mutual, only one audio copy has survived, the initial episode which was recorded as the audition disk. Here is a transcript of that episode:

MLJ Heroes in the 1930s and ’40s

CAST OF CHARACTERS: Kip Burland/ The Black Hood Barbara Sutton Sergeant McGinty Gunman Womba Old Man

The Black Hood… on the Air!

The Black Hood... on the Air!

ANNCR: The Black Hood!

SFX: GONG Hit. ANNCR: Criminals beware… The Black Hood is everywhere!

SFX: Weird TONE UP and UNDER HOOD: (filter) I, the Black Hood do solemnly swear that neither threat, nor bribe, nor bullet, nor death itself—will keep me from fulfilling my vow: To erase crime from the face of the earth!

SFX: Tone UP AND OUT SFX : GONG HIT MUSIC: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, by Paul Dukas.

UP AND FADE OUT UNDER ANNCR.

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The Black Hood, Pulp Fiction Hero!

Though many comics would adapt pulp magazine heroes such as the Shadow and Doc Savage to the fourcolor realm, few characters would be translated in the other direction. But one mystery man who did make the jump was MLJ’s Black Hood, who headlined three issues of his own magazine between 1941–42, which featured prose “novels” centered on the Top-Notch character.

Interestingly, only the first issue was called Black Hood Detective, with the remaining titled Hooded Detective. To find out why, we asked pulp historian Will Murray.

“The reason Columbia was forced to change the title goes to the little-know legal battles pulp magazine publishers often fought behind the scenes and out of sight of magazine readers,” Murray shared. “No sooner had Albing’s Red Mask Detective hit the stands in 1941 than its title was changed to Red Hood Detective. (This despite featuring Stanley Richard’s “Man in the Red Mask” series.)

“The explanation is simple. Popular Publications— which recently purchased Black Mask [a long-running and popular mystery pulp]—threatened legal action, calling it an infringement on their trademark. So Albing hastily capitulated. Two months later, Columbia released the first issue of Black Hood Detective, starring their comic book and radio hero, the Black Hood. Popular Publications sought an injunction against use of that title, again citing infringement against their Black Mask. Columbia lost on appeal, and Black Hood Detective swiftly became Hooded Detective. Both titles sank without a trace shortly after.

Otherwise the owners of Red Hood and Hooded Detective would probably have gone to war!”

MLJ Heroes in the 1930s and ’40s

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A Brief History of Canada’s

Golden Age Archie Comics

by Rik Offenberger [Editor’s note: Thanks to Stephen Lipson, Tom Burton, Jonathan Gilbert, Curtis Leach, Richard Boucher, Bradley Cobb, and Shawn Clay for helping with research, information, and cover scans.]

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. On Sept. 3, 1939, after German forces penetrated deeper into Poland, Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand declared war on Germany. This marked the beginning of World War II. Canada was an independent country at this point, but many still felt a strong kinship with the British Empire, and thousands of Canadians immediately joined the armed forces to fight on behalf of the motherland. On Sept. 10, 1939, Canada declared war on Germany.

With the country quickly shifting into wartime mode, the federal government created new agencies to oversee such war efforts as munitions manufacturing, propaganda control, and the rationing of natural resources. By mid-September of that year, the Foreign Exchange Control Board was established to oversee the rationing of foreign currency and take charge of monitoring Canada’s international trade. Throughout 1940, its members grew concerned by Canada’s growing trade deficit with the United States. Still a neutral country at this point, the United States would not enter the war until after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, on Dec. 7, 1941.

In Dec. 1940, as Canada’s trade deficit with the United States grew and British gold shipments were curtailed, government intervention in the economy broadened with the introduction of the War Exchange Conservation Act. While sterling bloc countries traded heavily with England and kept their currency at parity with the English pound, this act was aimed at countries outside the sterling bloc and was primarily designed to conserve United States dollars by restricting the importation of non-essential goods.

“Non-essential” goods meant practically anything that couldn’t be converted into weapons and ammunition, so among the items banned were comic books.

Publishers of “Canadian Whites” (Canadian comic books which were mostly black-&-white) began importing printing plates from the U.S. and printing the American comics in Canada for the Canadian market. These comics weren’t published in any particular order, nor were they often exactly the same as the U.S. editions.

One of the new Canadian pulp magazine publishers, Science Fiction, made this claim: By the purchase of this periodical, you are giving Canadians employment, Canadians who are paying taxes, buying War Savings Certificates and

Due to reasons discussed in the article, Canada was limited in regards to American imports and thus had to produce some of their own items, including comic books for a spell.

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Last… But Hardly Least…

Super Duck!

by Paul Castiglia & Jon B. Cooke It’s a bird… It’s a plane… no, wait, it really is a bird! It’s Super Duck!

One memorable footnote in MLJ’s early history was the creation of one of the first wave of superpowered funny animal characters, Super Duck. Debuting in Jolly Jingles #10 [Summer 1943] (which was actually the premiere issue of the kiddie humor title, picking up its numbering from Jackpot Comics, which was cancelled at #9), MLJ’s meta-mallard flew onto the stands within eight months or so of those other anthropomorphic comic characters making their Golden Age debut: Supermouse; Super Rabbit; and Hoppy, the Marvel Bunny, while the animated Mighty Mouse simultaneously was a smash hit on the Hollywood silver screen.

As his name suggests, Super Duck was initially a fantasticallyendowed fowl (with powers gained by popping vitamin pills) replete with flowing cape. His costume was blue and red at first, but quickly changed in following stories to red and green, possibly to avoid problems from the publishers of the similarly hued Superman. If his origin tale is any indication, the costumed character’s exploits appear to swipe liberally from the Walt Disney milieu with a vigorous nod to the popularity of super-heroes (albeit a fad then starting to lose reader appeal).

Just as the MLJ heroes were, one by one, put into mothballs, so too

was the super-heroic version of our feathered friend, a conceptual shift which occurred very early in the character’s run. In fact, after only six appearances in Jolly Jingles and the premier issue of his own title [Fall ’44], Super Duck’s extraordinary abilities would not last. Upon hanging up his cape and costume in return for shorts and a cap, the bird soon curbed his vitamin habit and traded in super-strength for an explosive temper and mundane, bourgeoisie existence. As blogger David Merrill shared on the Mister Kitty’s Stupid Comics website, “Super Duck spent the next 17 years careening through mid-century American urban life in a pair of lederhosen and a little feathered hat, blowing his top at dumb gags, and battling landlords, beat cops, salesmen, and other prosaic villains.”

That’s right: Despite losing the raison d’être for his name, the bird thrived as non-hero until #94 [Dec. 1960]. (Between 1950–52, he even hosted a spin-off title starring little brother Fauntleroy.) Most of the early tales were drawn by creator Al Fagaly, who infused the series with a supporting character that may attest for the book’s longevity.

As blogger Merrill explains: For my money, the star here is his long-suffering girlfriend Uwanna. Let’s face it, she makes Daisy Duck look like ten miles of bad road. This thick slice of duck-billed cheesecake single-handedly transforms the feature from yet another lame funny animal comic into the wellspring of disturbing

Alas, Super Duck would only briefly be depicted as an anthropomorphic, pill-popping super-hero, whereupon the character was dressed in lederhosen and feathered cap, and given a mischievous little brother, Fauntleroy, and curvy girlfriend, Uwanna. Above is the cover of Supe’s first appearance and a panel detail from that same issue of Jolly Jingles, #10.

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The MLJ Companion

MLJ Comics…

Exposed!

Cross-promotion was in play when the Aug. 1941 edition of Close-Up, a girlie magazine (sporting plenty of gag cartoons and racy pix) published by the MLJ outfit, included a four-page photo feature titled “How Comic Magazines are Made” (cover-blurbed as “Comics Exposed”) that featured a leggy young lady visiting the comic book bullpen. Comics researcher Mike Catron shared these pages with later Archie publisher Michael Silberkleit, who identified his father, Louis, in the second photo on this page, who is described on an intro page (not shown) as “dynamic, vigorous and overflowing with ideas.” Other MLJ bullpenners appear to be “husky” editor/ writer Harry Shorten, “slender” writer Joe Blair, artists Carl Hubbell, Charlie Biro, and perhaps Harry Lucey. Photos are credited to Patricia Gordon and Norman Fallon.

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INTERLUDE The Archie Phenomenon

America’s Teen transformed MLJ and the entire field

by Jon B. Cooke Let’s face it: the appeal of the comics depicting the antics of a gang of high schoolers from the mythical American town of Riverdale (as idyllic and improbable a place as Walt Disney’s “Main Street, U.S.A.” attraction) is sex. Not the icky, sweaty, fumbling-in-the-backseat kind of our all-too real world, but more the foolishness and, well, quaint hormone-driven attraction between kids growing ever so slowly into adulthood amid a typically middle-class rural American hamlet. The love triangles, the striving to impress, the pining (with just a dash of angst), the stereotypes and cliques, and overall silliness of the courtship “drama” of pubescent youngsters… That’s what keeps the Archie Comics’ teenage humor juggernaut barreling along, now heading for its eighth decade, an unbroken progression of success for a single comic book genre that cumulatively beats out even the seemingly dominant category of super-heroes.

And here’s the thing: though it was the fantastically-powered costumed crimefighters which expanded the comics industry when Superman first hoisted that coupe over his head in 1938—and besides, perhaps, the provocativeness of Matt Baker’s Phantom Lady and other flimsily dressed damsels—what super-heroes lacked was any overt sex appeal. Archie Andrews and company… well, they simply fulfilled a need. Teenagers, a huge portion of the comics readership, are perennially obsessed with the mating ritual, and what better subject to exploit for a company cognizant of the booms and busts of the magazine industry?

As fate would have it, the appellation for kids going through puberty, though long in the making, was coined at almost the exact moment Archie Andrews debuted in Pep Comics. Author Steven Mintz cites in his book Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood, “The first published use of the word teenager occurred in September 1941, when a columnist in Popular Science Monthly remarked about a young person: ‘I never knew teenagers could be so serious.’” Though rarely somber, Archie and his four-color Riverdale gang (at least Betty and Jughead) first appeared—buried 49 pages into the 68page Pep #22 [Dec. ’41], hardly a headliner, in writer Vic Bloom and artist Bob Montana’s superfluous six-pager—and real-life teen readers made the feature a smash hit. Soon enough, the carrot-topped “America’s Typical Teen” would become the engine that drove MLJ Publications, so much so that the company changed its name to Archie Comic Publications in less than five years hence.

It is safe to surmise that had it not been for their teenage humor property, MLJ would not have survived the 1940s as a comic book publisher. The Archie formula proved bulletproof, unlike the superheroes (including MLJ’s troupe of mystery men) who were dropping like dud bombs by the end of the Second World War, hardly seven years after their exploding on the scene. The rubric consisted of a small cast of characters all playing their parts in mundane situations: Archie, the headliner, who Craig Yoe describes as “clean cut, well mannered, and well-meaning, but extremely impulsive and well distracted”; his girlfriends, the wholesome, blond girl-next-door Betty and her best friend, Veronica, a spoiled-rich, sultry brunette; pal Jughead, ever seeking a nap and a cheeseburger, always fleeing both labor and female attachment; and nemesis Reggie, the handsome, smart alecky jock with seemingly sinister intent.

Supporting cast members abound in the bucolic setting of small town America, where the kids hang out at Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe and attend Riverdale High under the tutelage of Principal Weatherbee and teacher Miss Grundy, but it’s the romantic triangle (epitomized by the illustration at left) that most resonates: Archie yearns for a (relatively) indifferent Veronica and rejects the unceasing adoration of Betty. Of course, other dynamics come into play and desires can vary, but this basic template is the crux of the Archie phenomenon, resonating for threequarters of a century now. (And do not be fooled: male readers—if not necessarily super-hero fans—have consistently comprised a significant portion of the readership of these socalled “girls’ comics.”) Many thousands of Archie comics have milked this classic love triangle, in an apparently infinite range of possibilities.

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Chapter Two

Mighty Comics in the 1950s and ’60s

The Shield led off Archie’s Silver Age super-hero publications in the famous Joe Simon/Jack Kirby collaboration, The Double Life of Private Strong ( June 1959), but the threat of a lawsuit by DC Comics (over the character’s supposed similarity to Superman) killed the title after only two issues. Archie soon published another Simon/Kirby opus, The Adventures of the Fly (August 1959), as well as Adventures of the Jaguar (Sept. 1961). By the mid-’60s, the super-heroes were back in full force in both Mighty Comics Presents and The Mighty Crusaders, which featured all of Archie’s super-hero characters teaming up for epic adventures.

Those Mighty Crusaders!

The rise and fall—and rise and fall and rise— of Archie’s 1960s super-team of ‘Ultra-Heroes’

by Will Murray [Editor’s Note: This article was edited from a piece that originally appeared in the magazine Comics Feature #56-57 (July & July 1987).]

Part I: Radio Comics

When I began collecting comics in the early 1960s, my allowance was a mere dollar per week. But comic books were only 12 cents. It was enough to buy all the DCs—my first love—and most of the Marvels. And a smattering of lesser titles from the Charlton, Dell, and ACG lines.

High on my “smattering” list were the unlikely pair of Adventures of the Fly and Adventures of the Jaguar, products of the Archie Adventure line, formerly known as MLJ Comics, but for some reason now calling themselves Radio Comics. I bought those two titles for simple reasons: they were bright, colorful, and most importantly, between 1961 and 1964, they were practically the only super-hero comics not published by DC or Marvel.

They were also relentlessly anonymous. No writer credits were given, and the artist never signed his At right is the Mighty Comics Group brand icon that adorned covers of the imprint’s line—note its similarity to the Marvel Comics Group icon of the day. On next page is Paul Reinman’s Mighty Heroes art.

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work—they were just very simple stories of a couple of well-drawn and fairly new super-heroes. I never ran across any of the pre-1961 issues of either title, so I never suspected that it hadn’t always been that way. Nor did I have an inkling that the figure of the Fly buzzing out of the magazine’s bold logo—it had to be bold because the title was so wimpy—was actually drawn by no less than Jack Kirby. But I get ahead of my story.

Adventures of the Fly was the older of the two titles—its first issue had a cover date of Aug. 1959—and my favorite of the pair. Blond attorney Thomas Troy possessed a magic ring which, when he rubbed it in the fashion of Aladdin and his magic lamp, transformed him into the heroic Fly. Clad in a spiffy green and yellow outfit, a buzz gun hanging at his hip, and clear fly wings growing out of his shoulders, he was half-man, half-insect. The Fly could fly, spin hard steel cocoons around his body, and communicate with an obedient insect world. He also possessed the proportionate strength of an insect—a superpower analogy than went back to Superman’s earliest days. In many respects, the Fly was an anticipation of Marvel’s Spider-Man and AntMan, two characters on which Jack Kirby would later claim co-creator status.

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From the Michael Dunne collection Color by Gregg Whitmore.

One thing that fascinated me was the Fly’s costume. It was a bright yellow and green. But no ordinary green. Not quite

blue-green, and certainly not olive green, it lay somewhere inbetween. Definitely an insect green. I’ve rarely seen this specific hue before or since, and I’m told that in colorist parlance it’s known as Y3BR2—which means that it’s a blend of 50% yellow, 25% red and a solid blue. Not every comic book company had the palette to reproduce it properly. Apparently it was formulated to mimic the iridescent green of the common housefly.

By contrast, The Jaguar’s costume was a bright red, relieved only by spotted leopard-skin boots and belt, with a black jaguar symbol etched on his chest. He was a sort of animal-powered version of the Fly, and John Rosenberger originated him, in concert with his uncredited Fly scripter, Robert Bernstein. I

Mighty Comics/Radio Comics/ Archie Adventure Index Adventures of the Fly

Double Life of Private Strong

Adventures of the Jaguar

Fly Man

October 1961 to September 1963 #150–160, #168

Laugh Comics

August 1964 to September 1965 #1–8

August 1959 to May 1965 #1–31

September 1961 to November 1963 #1–15

Archie’s Madhouse October 1965 #43

MLJ Heroes in the 1950s and ’60s

June 1959 to August 1959 #1–2

July 1965 to September 1966 #32–39 October 1961 to March 1963 #127–144

Mighty Comics

November 1966 to October 1967 #40–50

Mighty Crusaders

November 1965 to October 1966 #1–7

Pep

Chapter Two: MLJ Heroes in the 1950s and ’60s

The stories were simple and straightforward, but in truth, dull. The Fly fought the usual hoods, an arch-enemy uninspiredly called the Spider, and hosts of alien invaders. Alien invaders were a Fly staple. Curiously, almost all of them were similar saurian bipeds armed with death rays, doom robots, and names like Lxo III, Roxr, and Bra-kr. But the art sparkled. It was mostly the work of John Rosenberger, now deceased, who drew in what might be described as the Silver Age DC house style—crisp and clear of line and devoid of frills—only he was doing it mostly for Archie/Radio.

THE Shadow

Super Heroes vs.

Super Villains July 1966 #1

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Besides the parody comic Super-Fan (more a humorous sports strip), has the great cartoonist Jack Davis ever drawn a super-hero story? Why, glad you asked! Because his pencils appear in The Fly #3 [Nov. ’59], with inks possibly by Joe Simon. Other artists who worked on the Simon-helmed books include George Tuska and Al Williamson. Below is a panel detail

by Jack Kirby from The Double Life of Private Strong #2 [Aug. ’59].

the adult Thomas Troy, lawyer, stands in his place.

Adventures of the Fly was a similar packaging job. Simon & Kirby dropped out after only four issues. With the fifth, Robert Bernstein took on the scripting chores. The artists ran the gamut from the forgotten Bill Vigoda to John Giunta.

With issue #5, Giunta took over the art chores completely.

In that issue, Tommy Troy and the Marches disappear—and

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Bernstein and Giunta redefined the series and perhaps saved it from early extinction. It was during these 1960 issues that CatGirl first appeared. In issue #7, the company’s greatest Golden Age hero returned in a story called “The Fly and The Black Hood Join Forces!” Next issue, The Fly teamed up with a rather bland nonKirby Shield. The Shield seldom appeared after that, but Black Hood emerged as a frequent drop-in guest.

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Writer Jerry Siegel shoe-horned 21 of his “ultra-heroes” and three ultra-villains into his aptly titled “Too Many Super Heroes” story crowding The Mighty Crusaders #4 [Apr. 1966], an assignment that doubtless had artist Paul Reinman scouring the bound MLJ Comics archives. Here’s a handy identification feature for you.

1 2 3 4

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[Spoiler Alert: The climax of The Mighty Crusaders #4 features the Golden Age Wizard as the “secret super-hero” guest star.]

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The Shadow’s Forgotten Era at Archie Comics Who knows… why he was made into a super-hero?

by Paul Castiglia

That’s right, he throws his voice! To change into his “secret” I.D., he does nothing more than put on glasses and remove his cape! Amazingly, this is all it takes to project the mystery man described as “America’s top secret agent” in the “U.S. Secret Service”.

[Editor’s Note: This article appeared in different form in Comic Book Marketplace #101.]

The Shadow. The mere mention of his name evokes many things: The classic radio show whose catchphrase—“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men… the Shadow knows!”—remains firmly ingrained in the American consciousness; the original magazine pulps, enthralling millions of readers; the merchandising spawned by the radio series; the movie serials and short features of the 1940s; and the various comic book adaptations—from the original Street & Smith editions to the Marvel, Dark Horse, and, of course, the celebrated Michael Kaluta-illustrated DC issues—not to mention his encounters with Batman!

Like all great literary figures, however, the Shadow has a littleknown skeleton in his closet: From August 1964 until September 1965, his course was charted by the good folks at—are you ready?— Archie Comics!

Also on hand are secretary Margo Lane and chauffeur Shrevy. The plot involves the classic Shadow villain, evil Shiwan Khan, trying to steal plans for a new, experimental “cold war” theme. Despite the trite story, we are treated to a James Bond-esque scene in which Cranston, trapped in his own limo, gleefully informs his would-be-assassin that his Rolls is equipped with a “dual set of controls,” enabling him to control the car from the back seat and to knock out the driver with an electrical charge.

In the back-up story, “The Eyes of the Tiger,” the Shadow When you first pick up the Archie Comics’ version of The Shadow tackles #1 (Aug. 1964), the cover deceives you into thinking that this will some common thugs be just like the classic Street & Smith Shadow comics of the Golden attempting an insurance Age. The slouch hat, the dark cloak, and his distinctive nose are scam by holding a penclearly in view. Then you turn to the first page. In a story entitled light under his face so “The Shadow vs. the RXG Spymaster,” we see Lamont Cranston as that he appears ghost-like. the Shadow: no hat, a bright blue cloak, and blonde hair astonishing The crooks think he is a us all right off the bat with the awesome power of…ventriloquism! tiger(!), and the Shadow takes advantage of their fear to knock them out.

The issue is written

by Bob Bernstein with art by John Rosenberger.

The only time Lamont Cranston appeared in the Archie Comics’ adaptation of the great pulp/radio crime-fighter in his classic getup [as shown above on a 1948 pulp magazine] was on the cover of The Shadow #1 [Aug. ’64, shown on next page]. Otherwise, as seen on cover detail at right, he was mostly dressed as a super-hero.

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As if the incongruities of the Archie version weren’t

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The Secret Life of Mr. Archibald Andrews That year Riverdale went mad for super-heroes

by Jon B. Cooke There must be something tangible to the notion that the sudden explosion of super-hero titles in the mid-1960s had less to do with the increasing circulation figures of Marvel Comics and more with the licensing of said colorful characters to the far more lucrative realms of merchandising and television production.

The Licensing Corporation of America, along with Independent News Distributors, a sister company to National Periodical Publications (which we

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know as DC Comics), was founded in 1960 by Jay Emmett and Allan Stone, and it sold licenses to manufacturers and other firms for permission to use the names and likenesses of creative properties. By the early to mid-’60s, the partners (described by True magazine, in Dec. ’66, as “sitting in one of the coziest catbird seats in merchandising history”) made a killing by licensing the secret agent with a license to kill, James Bond 007.

Emmett, being the nephew of DC co-owner Jack Liebowitz, also had access to the DC characters, and, by 1966, the partners were doing slam-bam-pow business with the success of the Batman TV series.

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INTERLUDE Where Are the Heroes?

The 1970s bring change and retrenchment to Archie

by Jon B. Cooke Upon completing “MLJ Looks for a Way,” his two-part essay on the super-hero titles of Archie Comic Publications (Amazing Heroes #50–51), writer Dwight R. Decker submitted a follow-up letter, in AH #59 [Nov. 15 ’84], which shared fascinating conjecture he received from a fellow comics historian. Decker writes: As a result of the first part… Mark Evanier (DNAgents, et al.) called me the other night. During the course of the conversation, he passed along a theory that explains as well as anything I’ve ever heard why Archie’s super-hero comic books were the way they were during the ’60s. For the first time since I took an interest in the things way back when, I feel like I understand what was going on.

Basically, the name of the game was merchandising.

In particular, in those days of the Batman TV show, that meant getting characters on the tube. Selling comic books is nice, but the big money lay in television exposure.

Now Archie’s “Mighty Comics Group” begins to make sense: not as a real line of comic books, but as the appearance of one.

With such key points as scripting by the man who created Superman and some two dozen superhero characters “just like Batman,” TV producers wouldn’t have known the difference. Presumably they would have confused “Mighty” with Marvel. The actual content of the books

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was virtually irrelevant, whether good, bad or indifferent, and even sales figures were unimportant: the comic books existed as brochures aimed at people who knew very little about the comic-book industry. Then, too, the comics also established Archie’s claims to the characters and trademarks. The last thing on anyone’s mind was apparently whether they were comic books and if the buyers enjoyed them.

Yet, disappointed or not with their MLJ cast of characters, the publisher found no reason to keep them in mothballs if interested parties were willing to pay any licensing fees. In the early ’70s, The Buyer’s Guide to Comics Fandom publisher Alan Light received permission to publish black-&-white reprints of Pep Comics #1 and #17 for his Flashback series. And, in July of 1984, Dwight Decker wrote that aforementioned two-part “hero history” for Amazing Heroes that revealed a possible proposal to revive the legendary characters: Around 1970 and 1971, one of fandom’s odder characters seriously claimed that he had the rights to the MLJ characters and planned to revive them himself… In any event, the entrepreneurial fan talked convincingly enough that at least a few people believed him, and spot illustrations of MLJ characters bearing his name in the copyright notice turned up in some major fanzines, drawn by [a] fairly well-known fan artist.

Nothing ever came of the scheme, however, and after a few months we stopped hearing about it. So far as I can tell, the whole thing was just moonbeams and cobwebs in one fan’s mind, and not even Archie knew what was going on.”

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1970s’ Red Circle Comics Group

For a brief shining moment, Archie Comic Publications was dipping its toe into the more adventurous realms of comic book genres when it debuted the Red Circle Comics Group in late summer 1973. While the line-up mostly consisted of “mystery” titles—comics that resembled the Comics Code Authority approved quasi-horror comics then a staple of DC Comics (House of Mystery, etc.), as well as Marvel (Journey into Mystery, et al.) and Charlton, and not so much super-heroes (though a MLJ hero revival was in the works)—the quality of the imprint’s offerings deserve mention here. Anyway, the crime book Red Circle did release was called The Super Cops, so what the heck!

Sorcery Supreme!

Vicente Alcazár and the glorious Red Circle horror comics helmed by artist Gray Morrow

by Jon B. Cooke To my knowledge, the only character resembling a super-hero that appeared in the Archie Comics line-up between 1968–79 was the Shadow-byway-of-Death-Wish pulp “hero,” The Cobra— “To him, justice was a .45 slug in the brain”— who haunted writer Marvin Channing and artist Gray Morrow’s harrowing tale, “Die in the Name of the Law,” in Red Circle Sorcery #8 [Aug. ’74]… that is, if you don’t count Dave Greenberg and Bob Hantz, the real-life New York City policemen (nicknamed “Batman and Robin”), whose exploits made it into The Super Cops, a July 1974 one-shot spinning off a buddy-slash-crime-fighters movie.

But, truth be told, having just become a public company, Archie Enterprises, Inc., did hope to stretch its reach, focusing on different formats (particularly its hugely successful digest line, which remains popular today) and, for a short, glorious period, delve into the mystery/horror genre with its new imprint, the Red Circle Comics Group.

But why no more super-heroes? Likely it was because of the increasing dominance of the Marvel line, and just maybe due to Archie’s having failed to adequately cash in on licensing its super-heroes in the ’60s.

One might take exception that an examination of the 1970s Red Circle Comics 162

Group might be ill-fit in a survey of the MLJ costumed heroes, but upon a close look, it would be difficult to argue that the short-lived imprint did not contain the work of an amazingly talented line-up of contributors, among them Alex Toth, Jesse Santos, Howard Chaykin, Larry Hama, Pat Boyette, Bruce Jones, and Frank Thorne, as well as some of the very best work of Gray Morrow’s career.

One of editor Morrow’s favorites was artist Vicente Alaczár, who shared his memories of the Red Circle days in the following e-mail chat: Jon B. Cooke: Where are you originally from and how did you develop an interest in comics and cartooning?

Vicente Alcazár: I was born in Madrid, Spain. In my childhood, comics were one of the few portals to the enchanted lands of imagination where I could find relief from the crudeness of the difficult post-Civil War days in Spain. I remember dedicating hours to copying covers by my favorite comic book artists and, through the exercise, I discovered early the pleasure that comes from the act of drawing.

JBC: Where did you study art?

Alcazár: Though once I attended some classes at the Sir John Cass School of Art in London, I consider myself as selftaught through the contact with my peers and the enjoyment that came from so much practice.

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INTERLUDE Mighty Legion of Justice On the eve of the MLJ hero line’s ’80s resurrection

by Jon B. Cooke Brooklyn-born John Vincent Carbonaro had a dream. The lifelong comics aficionado, who prior to college had helped bankroll the outstanding prozine Phase One in 1971, was intent on resurrecting the legendary T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, a renowned super-hero line from the mid- to late ’60s created by Wallace Wood. As an advertising agency accountant, he by happenstance made the acquaintance of the president of Tower Books, the T-Agents owner, from whom Carbonaro purchased rights to the characters. Soon enough, with an intention to start up his own T-Agents revival, Carbonaro struck a deal with the Archie publishers to include MLJ characters in his inaugural title, the black-&-white magazine-size JCP Features [Dec. 1981].

The first (and only) issue did include reprints of Simon and Kirby’s The Fly and the Neal Adams’ Black Hood story, but it contained no crossover between the T-Agents and MLJ’s heroes. Still, Carbonaro shared, “I wrote a story where we meet the Mighty Crusaders individually. I had [the] Black Hood pursue a villain in a car chase in one chapter. Looking from a rooftop, the original Shield had been reanimated from a statue (per a 1960s’ story). I had him explain that this was done by bio-electricity generated by Simon and Kirby’s Shield (whom I now called Captain Strong, to avoid confusion). Anyhow he’s on his way to meet the Comet, the space swashbuckler, but it seems that the process left him halfway human, dulling his senses of touch and feeling due to [the] high-density atmosphere. This gave him some invulnerability and super-strength. Comet ditches the hat and reverts to his red/white costume (which I got [Red Circle editor Rich] Buckler to use for Mighty Crusaders #1).

The plan was for them to go to [the] planet the Comet was once on and have outer space adventures.”

Carbonaro continued, “Hmmm… who at that time could I get to do good cosmic stuff ? My bet was on Jim Starlin. I got his rates and came back to Archie with the costs and was turned down flat in favor of Buckler’s picks.” Unfortunately, Carbonaro said, the original 168

editor of JC Features, Pat Gabriele, vanished with over twenty pages of the T-Agents/Crusaders crossover artwork. “Too bad,” Carbonaro said. “It was a nice looking book and almost ready to go.”

(Apparently, instead of the Mighty Crusaders, Carbonaro replaced that team with Mike Gustovich’s Justice Machine, and the donnybrook saw print courtesy of Texas Comics, in Justice Machine Annual #1 [’83].)

After Carbonaro purchased reprint rights from Archie, they initially recruited him as editor of a new Red Circle comics line. “Archie Comics was interested in getting into the new direct sales market. [And] as with me acquiring the characters in the first place, it was another case of good timing.” The Comics Journal reported in Sept. ’82, “Carbonaro said that he still has publishing rights to the material, but decided to team up with Archie [as freelance editor] because the company’s ‘publishing capital’ would be helpful in getting the series off the ground.”

Writer Dwight R. Decker (a passionate fan of the MLJ Golden Age characters) was witness to a meeting between entrepreneur and publishers. “Carbonaro had to talk to the upper management at Archie comics once,” Decker writes in Amazing Heroes #51 [ July 15, ’84], “and I tagged along and sat in on the conference. On the other side of the table were Richard Goldwater ( John’s son) and Mike Silberkleit (Louis’s son), who now run the company. They were relatively young men who had evidently spent their lives in the teen funnies business, but they seemed uncertain and cautious about comic books outside that baliwick. They were interested in cracking the direct sales market and diversifying the company’s product line to appeal to fans, and probably regarded a collaboration with an outsider like Carbonaro as a reasonably risk-free way to plumb unexplored territory.”

Decker, who signed on with Carbonaro to be “an unofficial technical advisor in regard to MLJ matters,” continues: Among other topics discussed, I suggested breaking out the MLJ heroes under their own marque, preferably as “MLJ” since that was the name to begin with and the one that still has the most historical validity and name recognition. Silberkleit told me that it wasn’t possible because the original partnership that formed MLJ no longer exists and

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The Red Circle Heroes of the ’80s

After taking a break in the 1970s (except for a brief Black Hood appearance in ’79), the heroes returned full-force in the 1980s, when Archie spun the characters off into a new line of periodicals called Red Circle Comics. The notion was for the House of Archie to claim its stake in the burgeoning direct sales market of that era, specifically appealing not just to the general reader but to the growing super-hero fan base. Leading the charge—once again—was the Mighty Crusaders, with Archie’s Silver Age characters, Lancelot Strong as the Shield and the Fly, getting their own series (as well as Golden-Agers Steel Sterling and the Comet helming their respective titles, along with the modernized Black Hood) and Blue Ribbon Comics was resurrected to showcase other costumed characters.

The Red Circle Years

Dropping the camp and cornball, the MLJ line of super-heroes get real and gritty for the ’80s

by Rik Offenberger The concept of the direct market—comics publishers distributing their titles through stores specializing in the sale of comic books— was created in the 1970s by Phil Seuling, organizer of the New York Comic Art Convention. At the time, comics were dispersed by magazine distributors and sold to newsstands, pharmacies, and candy stores.

These retailers had no choices of title, quantity, or publisher. The distributor would drop off the comics, and pick up the unsold copies, charging the retailer for the sold comics only, and destroying the unsold ones. Magazine distributors refused to deal with comic book specialty shops, used book stores, or with any retailer who dealt in back issues. These distributors believed comic shops would purchase used comics from their customers for pennies, and then send those copies back for credit as “unsold.”

The distributors had no way of knowing if a comic had been sold at full retail price to the reader and then repurchased by the shop, with the intention of getting both a sale and a full credit for the returned product.

shops were allowed to order specific comics directly from the publishers. The most important elements of the system were that retailers’ orders were pre-paid and non-returnable—the retailers could chose which comic titles they wanted to sell and the quantity of each they would receive.

Compared to newsstand distribution, Archie Comics owners Richard Goldwater and Michael Silberkleit saw the new direct market system as a bonanza.

The newsstand distributor would subtract unsold returns from their payments to

Seuling formed Seagate Distributors as a method to get comics into the hands of collectors and enthusiasts. He made deals with Archie, DC, Marvel, and Warren to buy their comic books from a central distribution center in Sparta, Illinois. This was called the direct market distribution system, wherein specialty At right, cover detail from The Mighty Crusaders #6 [Mar. ’84], with art by Rich Buckler (pencils) and Ricardo Villagran (inks).

Next page, top, is detail from Jim Steranko’s cover for The Fly #1 [May ’83] and, bottom, back cover detail by artist Gray Morrow for The Black Hood #1 [June ’83].

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4 Rich Buckler Creator Chat

An Interview with

Conducted by Paul Castiglia [Editor’s Note: Rich Buckler is perhaps best known for his work on Marvel Comics’ The Fantastic Four in the mid-1970s and for creating Deathlok. He has drawn virtually every major character at Marvel and DC. Rich worked as the editor of the Red Circle Comics line from 1983 to 1984 and personally recruited Cary Burkett to write the Mighty Crusaders title.]

Paul Castiglia: What was your first exposure to the MLJ heroes? Were you already aware of them before taking on your first Mighty Crusaders assignment?

Rich Buckler: Working at Archie Comics in the ’80s to revive their characters for the direct sales comic market was for me a labor of love. My affection for the MLJ heroes goes back to my fan days in the late ’60s, when I first met Roy Thomas and Professor Jerry Bails.

But the idea of reviving the Archie/Red Circle characters in the ’80s originated with John Carbonaro. John took the idea to Archie with the intention initially of reviving the Fly and Lancelot Strong, The Shield.

John and I met at my retail comic book store in Staten Island and we talked things over. At first, John wanted to hire me to do some concept drawing. I wanted to be much more involved than that. So we set up a meeting with publisher Richard Goldwater, who was very enthusiastic about the prospect. He actually took it further by entertaining the possibility of reviving all of Archie’s super-hero properties. This was when Archie Comics still had their publishing offices in Manhattan.

John’s interests were fan-based and included a desire to collaborate with the publisher to exploit the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents property he had just acquired the rights for. I had considerable editing and publishing skills and I knew all of the Archie/ Red Circle characters. So that’s what I brought to the table. Plus—and this was a big plus—I had extensive experience in dealing with the comics direct market both as a publisher and a comic book retailer. The timing seemed to be right and I was confident that I could take things to the next stage and make it actually happen for them.

I remember clearly when Richard asked me: “So, when do we start, and what do you need to get started?” And I said, “Just give Above is Rich Buckler’s painted self-portrait. The artist has spent considerable time producing simply magnificent surrealistic paintings. At left is a mirrored cover detail, penciled and inked by Buckler, from The Mighty Crusaders #2 [May ’83].

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4 Cary Burkett Creator Chat

An Interview with

Conducted by Bradley S. Cobb [Editor’s Note: Cary Burkett has been interested in comics since his youth. He began at DC Comics, working his way up through the editorial staff and creating his own super-hero, Nemesis. At DC, Cary teamed with Rich Buckler on World’s Finest and developed a respect for Rich’s strong storytelling skills. When Rich moved to Red Circle, he asked Cary to work on Mighty Crusaders, and he also freelanced as a writer for Marvel Comics. Burkett currently lives in central Pennsylvania and can be heard on-air at WITF-FM, where he hosts the radio show Classical Air.] Bradley S. Cobb: What was your first introduction to the Mighty Comics heroes?

Cary Burkett: As a kid, I was always on the lookout for new superhero comics, always interested in checking out new titles regardless of the brand. I had read some Fly issues in the ’60s and some Jaguar issues, and thought they were okay. And when the Mighty Comics started coming out, I checked them out as well. It was very frustrating because I really wanted to like them, but found them embarrassingly bad. I hated the whole “camp” thing as a kid, hated it in the Batman TV show and hated it in Mighty Comics. But I kept coming back to the comics because at the time I was really interested in the so-called Golden Age of comics and hungry to find out more about it. The characters in The Mighty Crusaders seemed to me that they might have been very interesting if the stories hadn’t been so “camp,” and I was frustrated by that approach.

But for those who claim that Mighty Comics were more ridiculous than other super-hero comics of the period, take another look. This was from around the same era when Jimmy Olsen was turning into “porcupine boy” or “Pinocchio-Olsen” or some such every month. It was the era of Krypto leading the Legion of SuperPets, Bat-Mite, the Bizarro World, and so forth. And who could forget that great hero—Bouncing Boy! There’s a character to strike fear in the hearts of criminals. And what about Matter-Eater Lad from the planet Bismoll? He could eat anything! What a superpower! The point is not that these were bad comics—some of them had a real charm—it’s just to point out that super-hero comics were not taken all that seriously in the period when Mighty Comics were published.

I remember once when Mike Barr and I were sharing an office at DC Comics; he dug back into the archives of the comics from this Above is an uncredited photo of Cary Burkett. At left is cover detail from Rich Buckler’s The Mighty Crusaders #8 [July ’84] cover featuring (clockwise from immediate left) the Fly, Dr. Malcolm Reeves, Darkling, the Black Hood, and the Web.

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The Mighty Crusaders Action Figure Line Recalling Remco’s ‘Mighty Punch’ toy super-heroes

by Paul Castiglia From the 1950s through the mid-1990s, the toy company Remco was one of the steady “independents” in the field.

Producing a variety of toys from board games to dolls to vehicles, among their most popular offerings were action figures.

Initially their figures were on the novelty side. These included everything from big-headed 1960s figures of characters from the Addams Family and Munsters TV shows, an I Dream of Jeannie doll with Barbie®-like fashions, to a line of “Energized” figures (figures with slight electronic features) based on Marvel and DC heroes.

Ultimately Remco ended up releasing more standard articulated action figures, of such fan-favorites as DC’s Sgt. Rock, Conan the Barbarian and the Universal Monsters.

In 1984, Remco struck a deal with Archie Comics to produce a line of action figures based on the Mighty Crusaders super-heroes and villains.

The line-up consisted of four heroes and four villains. On the side of justice were The Comet, the Fox, the Shield and the Web. The dastardly villains they faced off against were the Brain Emperor, the Eraser, Sting and Buzzard. Of particular note is the fact that Sting and Buzzard appeared as action figures a year before they made their comic book debuts.

Most of the figures came with accessories. These included weapons with holsters and a “secret sonic signaling shield” which could be blown like a whistle. Each also had “punch action,” activated by pushing a button in the figures’ backs. The package art for the figures was done by none other than comic book legend, Steve Ditko.

Available exclusively at K-Mart stores, ads for the figures were featured in Archie-published comics. While not a huge success, they are much sought-after by collectors today.

The relationship between Remco and Archie was mutually beneficial: just as Remco brought Archie’s comic book heroes to life via three dimensional toys, Archie returned the favor and created a comic book series and backstory for Remco’s line of human-robot mashup action figures, Mantech Robot Warriors.

The series lasted four issues spanning 1984 and 1985, and featured the work of such Red Circle alumni as Rick Buckler, Dick Ayers, Chic Stone, Joe Giella and Rich Margopoulos.

Inset near right are two of the Mighty Crusaders action figures, which were relased simultaneous to the 1980s’ Red Circle Comics line. Far right is ManTech Robot Warriors #3 [Feb. ’85], licensed from the same toy manufacturer as the action figures, Remco. The series ran between ’84–’85.

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4 Bill DuBay Creator Chat

An Interview with

Conducted by Bradley S. Cobb [Editor’s Note: Comics writer, artist and editor William Bryan “Bill” DuBay (Jan. 11, 1948–Apr. 15, 2010) was not only an avid comics reader as a teen, but a creator of comics as well. A contributor to the Komix Illustrated fanzine in the early 1960s, DuBay made his first professional sales to Charlton and Marvel Comics before the decade was over. A long association with Warren began in the ’70s and lasted into the ’80s. The ’80s found DuBay bouncing between assignments for Heavy Metal, Pacific Comics, and Marvel Animation, as well as a brief stint for Red Circle as a writer on The Comet and Blue Ribbon Comics, as well as editor on The Comet and The Black Hood.]

Bradley S. Cobb: What was your first introduction to the Mighty Crusaders?

Bill DuBay: I was an avid comic collector in the ’60s when The Mighty Crusaders first appeared. I liked the idea of the Archie Group delving into costumed heroes and thought they’d do as credible a job with the group as they’d been doing with The Adventures of the Jaguar and The Fly—two titles I enjoyed. Can’t say I was really impressed with The Crusaders, though. More than anything else, Paul Reinman’s art was a turn-off. The idea of these great old characters teaming really captured my imagination.

BSC: Did you choose The Comet, or was the job given to you?

DuBay: When Archie revived the Red Circle line in the early ’80s, I had no intention of working for the company. I was editing several titles for Western (Popeye, Turok, Yosemite Sam, and others), working on a title for Pacific Comics (Bold Adventure) that would keep a few of my old Warren artists busy, and had 188

teamed with two partners to open a new magazine company (Ion International) with the intent of producing Videogaming Illustrated and Chocolatier magazines, a couple of monthly newsstand titles.

Carmine Infantino and I were also collaborating on several new ideas for DC, as well—one a title that company later used without us: Preacher. If memory serves, I might even have still been working with Warren. All this while still running my art studio, the Cartoon Factory. I was keeping busy.

BSC: How’d you get hooked up with Red Circle?

DuBay: When Richard Buckler, recently-appointed editor of the Red Circle line, called to speak with his sister Peggy, to whom I was married—I was surprised to hear, at the end of their conversation, that he wanted to speak with me. While friendly, we never really had much to do with each other—both of us too interested in our own paths.

He told me that he’d been having trouble with one of his titles— The Comet. No one quite seemed to know how to handle the Above is an uncredited Bill DuBay photo from the later 1990s. At left is a panel detail from the Mr. Justice story, “Blood Tide,” which another Red Circle editor, Robin Snyder, has said he scripted the first half of, and DuBay completed. From Blue Ribbon Comics #2, with art by Von Eeden and Niño. Next page is a panel from The Comet #1 [Oct. ’83].

The MLJ Companion

Fox in Archie’s Henhouse Alex Toth’s edgy take on the MLJ/Red Circle hero

by Paul Castiglia [Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Comic Book Marketplace Yearbook 2014–15, from Gemstone Publishing.]

It was the late 1980s. I was a year or so out of art school.

I knew I didn’t have the chops to be a comic book artist, but I was determined to become a writer and/or editor of comics. I started researching all the nearby companies, including Archie.

I bought up a bunch of Archie comics and digests for reference, and was perplexed by a few one-page, full panel drawings contained in some of the digests.

The drawings showed superhero characters I hadn’t recalled ever seeing before. They weren’t doing anything other than touting literacy and their own existence, but that was enough for me—I was entranced and hooked!

Soon thereafter, I had an opportunity to visit a store deep in back issues—basically a warehouse with more comics than I’d ever seen before! I sought out the comics featuring the characters I saw in the digest public service announcements and left the store with a precariously bulging armful. Among them were a few issues of a character called The Black Hood.

I snatched them up because I recognized the artist’s signature on the cover: Alex Toth! While I was disappointed that the title character did not feature in accompanying Toth stories inside the covers, the Golden Age MLJ character the Fox (think a lily-white version of Marvel’s Black Panther and you’ll get the drift) did appear as a back-up, resplendent in a fabulous fury of colorful Toth art and prose.

I had been enjoying Toth for years when I was Above is Alex Toth’s stunning splash page for his Fox story in The Black Hood #2 [Aug. ’83]. At left is a 1987 Toth self-portrait.

The Red Circle Heroes of the ’80s

a kid, but I didn’t know it. I’d seen his designs in such classic Hanna-Barbera animated fare as the 1967 Fantastic Four, Space Ghost, Birdman, and Super Friends. As a kid, I didn’t immediately make the connection that these designs all came from the same artist’s pencil. It was in the Justice League of America Limited Collectors’ Edition [#C-46, Aug. 1976] where I first encountered Toth’s name. In addition to classic JLA reprints, the oversized 1976 edition featured Super Friends model sheets drawn by Toth himself !

Seeing those model sheets blew my mind, because included in the images were shots of Plastic Man (who made one guest-appearance on Super Friends). Even then, Plas was my favorite super-hero, having been introduced to the looooooooong arm of the law via Jules Feiffer’s essential book The Great Comic Book Heroes… the seminal work that also included Will Eisner’s legendary The Spirit.

If it sounds like I’m backing into some connection between Toth, The Fox, Toth’s past work, and the work of his influences, you’re right.

Toth only did two Fox stories to my knowledge.

But what stories!

In the initial, untitled Toth Fox tale from The Black Hood #2 [Aug.1983], we see both an artist wearing his influences on his sleeves as well as one enjoying the freedom of working on a nonComics Code title. In the early days of the Red Circle line, the comics were distributed exclusively to comic shops. Eventually, the line would be rechristened the Archie Adventure Series and join Riverdale’s fabled teens at traditional newsstand outlets. But in the beginning… well, Toth got to go whole hog on hardboiled, yet fun (and naturally funny… not forced) tales. Toth infused

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The Ill-Fated Spectrum Comics Archie hoped to bring back the MLJ super-heroes in the late 1980s with a new imprint called Spectrum Comics, and recruited some of comics’ top talent, including Steve Englehart, Jim Valentino, Len Wein, Michael Bair, Kelley Jones, and Rob Liefeld. Some of the titles planned included The Fly, The Fox, The Hangman, Jaguar, Mr. Justice, and The Shield. Archie eventually cancelled the Spectrum Comics project before a single issue was published. Here, some of the creators involved discuss the evolution and demise of the imprint.

Talking with the artists and writers of the almost MLJ Super-Hero revival of the late 1980s Kelley Jones Conducted by Rik Offenberger [Editor’s Note: Kelley Jones began his career at Marvel with Micronauts, and then moved to DC, bringing a grim gothic style to Deadman, and a memorable turn on Sandman: Seasons of Mist. Kelley next made an impression with Batman, drawing the Elseworlds classic Red Rain, and becoming the cover artist for Batman and Detective Comics during the “Knightfall” event.

With inker John Beatty, he is credited with creating one of the most defining versions of Batman ever. Archie Comics was set to launch The Hangman with the superstar artist, and here he explains his experience with the ill-fated project.]

Rik Offenberger: How did Archie approach you for the Hangman job?

Kelley Jones: I was contacted by Scott Fulop, editor of Archie. He and Len Wein were revamping the book.

RO: Was the offer originally just Hangman, or did you get to choose from a list of characters?

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Spectrum Comics Index THE Fly

by Steve Englehart & Michael Bair Late 1980s Unpublished

The Fox

by Jim Valentino Late 1980s Discussion only

THE Hangman

by Len Wein and Kelley Jones Late 1980s Unpublished

Jaguar

by Mark Ellis Late 1980s Discussion only

Mister Justice Late 1980s Discussion only

The Shield

by Mark Ellis and Rob Liefeld Late 1980s Discussion only

Jones: They wanted me to do Hangman, after they saw Deadman, which they loved.

RO: What made you decide to be part of the Spectrum Comics launch?

Jones: I was eager to collaborate with Len and John Beatty.

RO: You are an “A-list,” in-demand artist and were associated with several projects when Hangman was announced. Was your schedule free for Hangman?

Jones: Nope, but I made time.

RO: Had you been a fan of the prior work on the character?

Jones: Never saw him before, but the idea and the premise were excellent.

RO: How many character designs did you submit for the project?

Jones: Just the one for Hangman, which they loved off the bat, and for Kadaver, the book’s bad guy, who was really creepy-looking.

RO: How long was it from the time you started on the project and when it was announced?

Jones: About three months.

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RO: What type of feedback did you get along the way?

Jones: All positive, from Scott, Len, and John. They were all very happy with my work.

RO: How far along were you on the project when they cancelled the Spectrum line?

Jones: I was waiting for the second script.

RO: What reason did they give you for the cancellation?

Jones: I was told that the orders were far in excess of what was hoped for and they kindly were giving me a lot of the credit for that due to my art. The next week I was told it was cancelled as of then because the art was too horrifying to the publisher, and it was done.

Mark Ellis Conducted by Rik Offenberger [Editor’s Note: Mark Ellis worked as a journalist, newspaper columnist, and copywriter before he became a comic book writer in the mid-1980s for Adventure Publications, including scripting Star Rangers for legendary comics artist Jim Mooney. In 1987, he created Death Hawk, a series that featured the first published work of comics artist Adam Hughes, as well as beginning his long association with the Justice Machine. In 1990, Mark and his wife Melissa co-founded Millennium Publications, serving as the imprint’s editor, giving early exposure to artists Mike Wieringo and Darryl Banks, and published industry veterans Jim Mooney and Don Heck.

The couple co-authored The Everything Guide to Writing Graphic Novels, and currently teach writers’ workshops in Newport, Rhode Island.]

Rik Offenberger: Mark, would you be willing to talk about your Spectrum Shield?

Mark Ellis: Sure… hope I can remember all of the details. I did find my Spectrum proposal for The Jaguar, though. Dot matrix, yet.

RO: This must have been a surprise.

Jones: It was.

I never thought that a success like that could not be seen for what it was. The point was to compete with Marvel or DC, and they didn’t just do that, they exceeded it.

RO: Was it just the Shield and Jaguar?

Ellis: I did talk to the editor about The Web, but I didn’t do a formal proposal for that. The whole Spectrum thing fell apart pretty quickly as I recall.

RO: What happened to all the Hangman art you had completed?

Jones: It’s in an Archie flat file I suppose.

RO: Do you still have a fondness for the character?

Jones: Oh sure, he was great and it was a terrific first issue. Such a shame.

RO: How did Archie approach you to work on the Spectrum Line?

Ellis: Jeez... my memories are pretty fragmented on all of this. Seems to me someone suggested I contact the Archie editor, Scott Fulop... it might’ve been Adam Hughes who made the suggestion.

Though completed pages of The Hangman #1, the Spectrum Comics title that was abruptly cancelled just before release, likely still exist—probably in the flat files at Archie Comics—the only Kelley Jones (penciler) and John Beatty (inks) artwork for that issue generally seen are the small repos that appeared in Comics Buyer’s Guide #815 [June 30, ’89].

Jones did recently share a photocopy of his character design, as seen above.

The Ill-Fated Spectrum Comics Line

Chapter Five: The Ill-Fated Spectrum Comics

Then they published a promo with a dozen pages or so in Comics Buyer’s Guide and it got a huge positive reaction. They were able to get nearly 400,000 orders for the book.

RO: They asked you to write the Shield, Jaguar and the Web? 201

6

Impact Comics of the 1990s

The next incarnation of the MLJ heroes was Impact Comics, a line of comics published by DC Comics in the 1990s. Archie licensed the rights to DC and while many of their titles received critical acclaim, there were already too many super-hero comics flooding the market, so interest was curtailed.

Making An Impact

Recalling those bygone days when DC Comics licensed the Archie super-hero line

by Bradley S. Cobb It was 1991. Memories of the 1980s Red Circle era were still floating around in some comic fans’ minds. Some of the more astute fans were still wondering where the Spectrum Comics line went. It was a time when X-Men and Spider-Man got brand new titles which sold way more than they should have (and is McFarlane’s art really that good?).

Mike Gold, along with Brian Augustyn and Paul Kupperberg, were coming up with some plans. Gold, for quite some time, had been a champion of bringing in younger readers to comic books. The big three really hadn’t paid all that much attention to the idea (Batman Adventures being a notable exception from DC), but in 1991, the House of Superman gave it a shot.

The premise was simple: find some old characters that have some name recognition, and update them. And, while not “dumbing them down,” make them easily accessible to the eight-to-twelve year-old age group. How well it worked can be debated forever (and seeing that Impact folded after two years, the naysayers may have a point), but it brought this reader into comic books, and into the world of cool super-heroes.

After deciding not to go with the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (there were legal issues still surrounding the characters at the time), it was decided that the Mighty Crusaders would At left is a detail of Grant Miehm’s Shield illustration for Who’s Who in the Impact Universe Vol. 1 [1991]. Above is the clever Impact logo, which graced the cover of every one of the imprint-within-the-DC-imprint line. Letterer Todd Klein shares that the logo, as well as the first six logos for the comics line, were designed by Keith “Kez” Wilson.

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towards the Crucible reboot.

Mind you, some of the titles still ran for another five or six issues. So, the Shield—who had quit— came back while the replacement “died”; the Comet “died” after finding that all he held dear was a lie; the Jaguar’s dad was kidnapped, and she was going to Brazil to investigate; the Black Hood’s history was revealed, and the Fly kept being his fun self.

Crucible was the new answer. The Crusaders would still be sent to space, but instead of following their adventures, the focus would stay on Earth, where people are trying to cope with the disappearance of the Crusaders (much like the American Crusaders “mysterious disappearance” years earlier).

So, the edict was handed down for the writers to wrap up the current storylines, and as best as they could, have those stories point

Impact Comics of the 1990s

In the last issue of The Crusaders, the team thought they were headed home through the transporters, but instead were sent to some alien land. Thus ended the Impact universe for ninety days.

Then came Crucible.

Crucible was supposed to have been drawn by Joe (Daredevil, X-Factor) Quesada, but due to his heavy schedule, he only did layouts—and only for the first four issues, at that. So, in came Chuck Above is detail from Michael Parobeck’s Fly illustration for Who’s Who in the Impact Universe, Vol. 1 [1991]. Below are the first issue covers for The Fly and The Jaguar.

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6 Brian Augustyn

Creator Chat

An Interview with

Conducted by Bradley S. Cobb [Editor’s Note: Brian Augustyn began his career as editor in 1986 for Tru Studios on their title Trollords. His first work with DC Comics was Sgt. Rock Special #2, but he is best known for his work on Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. In the early ’90s, he became editor of Flash, Justice League, and Justice League Task Force. As co-writers, Augustyn and Mark Waid scripted The Crusaders for Impact Comics.

Currently, Brian is managing editor for Visionary Comics Studios.]

Bradley S. Cobb: What brought you to Impact?

Brian Augustyn: I was a part of Mike Gold’s development group at DC, and we sort of shaped Impact together from the beginning.

We were looking for a line of comics that would be good “entrylevel” super-hero comics for younger readers—which was one of our charges from on high. Gold mentioned the Archie heroes. I recall our thinking being that we could do with them what DC had done with the Charlton heroes. I recall that we looked at acquiring or leasing other preexistent (though dormant) hero universes as well, including (I seem to remember) the Tower Comics’ T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. Obviously the Mighty Crusaders are the ones we went with.

BSC: What was your first introduction to the Mighty Crusaders?

Augustyn: I remember reading the Mighty Crusaders during the post-Batman TV, camp-hero boom of the late ’60s.

As a kid, I guess I didn’t realize that they were weird, goofy comics, because I enjoyed them a lot. I especially enjoyed the Fly and the Black Hood. As a more grownup comic fan, I gained a greater

appreciation when I learned of the Golden Age MLJ comics— and the great Simon and Kirby Fly and Shield (Private Strong) of the late ’50s.

BSC: Why did your editing stint on the Fly end after five or six issues?

Augustyn: I was promoted, plain and simple. I got elevated to editor of DC’s mainstream Universe line. I went on to edit Flash, Wonder Woman, and others (eventually including the JLA franchise).

BSC: Which book that you edited did you feel was the best overall?

Augustyn: Of the Impact books, I enjoyed The Fly the most. This was true both because of my affection for the character, but also because I was working with old friends, Len Strazewski and the late, great Mike Parobeck. Len and I grew up together in Chicago, and I had brought Mike into comics on El Diablo. We later went on to some great fun on the JSA book.

At top is a portrait of writer/editor Brian Augustyn, courtesy of photographer Damian Harris, snapped at the 2014 Phoenix Comicon (with special thanks to Phoenix Comicon and Amanda Kechely). At left is a panel detail of the late Mike Parobeck’s enchanting artwork for The Fly. Pencils by Parobeck and inks by Paul Fricke, from #1 [Aug. 1991].

Next page is Joe Quesada and Joe Rubinstein’s cover for Crucible #1 [Feb. 1993] and the “phase two” Impact Comics logo design.

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An Interview with

Conducted by Paul Castiglia

[Editor’s Note: In the late ’90s/early ’00s, The Fly was pitched as a motion picture series by Batman movie series producer Michael Uslan, which was optioned by noted director Robert Zemeckis.

Ultimately, a movie was never produced. Here, Uslan reminisces about how he brought The Fly to the big screen… almost.]

Paul Castiglia: Can you recall your first experience with or exposure to the Archie stable of super-heroes, and your initial reactions to them?

Michael Uslan: It was 1959, with Adventures of the Fly #1 and Double Life of Private Strong #1. I thought the Fly was one of the most bizarre creatures I’d ever seen. I related completely to Tommy Troy, and thought it was cool that he turned into an adult super-hero, having not been yet been exposed to Captain Marvel—who disappeared when I was two years old, about a year before I started reading comics.

I also recall the cover of Adventures of the Fly #3—the one where he says, “I the Fly do solemnly swear”—that cover, to me at age eight was photo-real. I had never seen a comic book cover that looked like that, and I was fascinated by how real it looked to me, and how scary. So that’s what drew me to that more than anything.

With Private Strong, it was more of a traditional, just one more super-hero, with a pretty dull title of a comic book. I would have passed it up but for the red, white and blue he was stripping off his shirt that reminded me of Superman, so I wound up picking that one up. I thought it was pretty good but it did not knock my socks off the way that The Fly did.

PC: Did you have a favorite MLJ/Mighty Comics character when you were a kid?

Uslan: It was definitely the Fly and it was also the greatest mystery I had as a kid. I remember, after something like 28 issues or so, the thing just disappeared. There was no comic con, no Internet. I did not know comics got canceled. Distribution was always spotty if it wasn’t a DC book or Dell book so you had to search many candy stores and drug stores to find different comics. I couldn’t figure out why I was missing issues of The Fly and why they weren’t coming out like they used to. Another great mystery for me when I was younger, as that The Fly comic had disappeared for a while, and then I finally found a copy, Tommy Troy was now an attorney, an adult. No explanation. It was just the most baffling thing in the world—I thought, “Well, how could I have missed a thousand issues?”

It was just the most baffling thing in the world. It just made absolutely no sense to me and, while I still bought it, I no

Above is an uncredited publicity photo of Michael Uslan, the Batman movie producer (and longtime comics aficionado and author of the memoir, The Boy Who Loved Batman [2011]), who hoped to bring The Fly to the silver screen.

longer was fascinated with it anymore, and the artwork seemed very bland, very plain all of a sudden. I think I bought it more out of habit—maybe when Cat-Girl showed up, that was a contributing factor, and when Fly-Girl showed up—but outside of that my interest waned.

PC: Once you discovered the Archie heroes, did you go back and try to collect back issues from the Golden Age MLJ days?

Uslan: Well I didn’t know there were any for a period of time, until I became of member of fandom when I was about 13 and started to get the fanzines as well as Jules Feiffer’s book, The Great Comic Book Heroes. That opened my eyes that there was this pre-history in the Golden Age. All of a sudden, things were changing and this whole new world of the Golden Age of comics was opening up to me. I devoured everything I could read or find having anything to do with it. One of the first clues was actually in Fly or Jaguar comics when they would show the

Chapter Seven: The Fly (almost) Goes Hollywood

7 Michael Uslan

Creator Chat

Production Illustrations by Greg & Tim Hildebrandt

Paintings © Greg and Tim Hildebrandt. Images courtesy of spiderwebart.com.

The Fly (almost) Goes Hollywood

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8

An MLJ Hero in the Digital Age

The Archie Comics line had not published their MLJ super-hero characters for over a decade, since the late ’80s. After licensing the properties to rival DC Comics, in the new dot-com era, folks at the House of Archie noticed that one of their classic crime-fighting chums might make a perfect fit by promoting their line-up in a revolutionary medium that was taking over the planet by (digital) storm…

The Web Goes World Wide The Mighty Crusaders Make a Digital Comeback (of sorts) at www.archiecomics.com

by Paul Castiglia In the late 1990s, Archie Comics began work on what would be their first attempt at an official website. My role was to develop content for the fledgling website. As the company was still a few years off from committing to a full-fledged comeback for the Mighty Crusaders in print, keeping the characters alive via a digital portal was the next best thing.

There were several features on the Archie Comics website that perpetuated the classic heroes. Among those was an overview about the Mighty Crusaders which doubled as an introduction to new fans; “The ‘S’ Files,” a sort of “pot luck” collection of thoughts and articles relating to The Mighty Crusaders; the “Way ‘Un-Cool’ Dude of the Month,” spotlighting the Crusaders’ most memorable villains; and “Web of Intrigue,” a special feature highlighting stories featuring (who else?) the Web! This last feature existed because the Archie company had plans to exploit the Web character in an original online story (AJVB & The Web)—“AJVB” being an acronym for Archie, Jughead, Veronica, and Betty— as well as hopes for optioning the character to movie or TV producers. The

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thought was that the character could be updated so that the Web could cleverly—and quite literally—tie into the World Wide Web. This late 1990s attempt to revive one of the classic MLJ heroes was, for the time, novel indeed: the Web was brought back in a new story exclusively created for and appearing on the official Archie Comics website.

Conceived and written by Chuck Grimes, who for a time became the chief executive officer of the Archie Entertainment Company (a shortlived offshoot of the publisher), the premise was “high

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9

The Archie Gang Joins the MLJ!

The failure of the Impact line caused DC Comics to let their license expire, and as the Millennium began, the publication rights were back at Archie. The company kept the characters alive through a series of guest-star appearances, and in 2009, Archie once again licensed the Mighty Crusaders and related characters to DC Comics, this time under a new “Red Circle” imprint.

MLJ Goes to Riverdale The Mighty Crusaders meet Archie & friends!

by Paul Castiglia The 1990s and first decade of the new millennium were easily the most scattered time for the Mighty Crusaders characters. With projects ranging from a line of licensed comics (DC’s Impact imprint), to new retellings of the heroes’ origins via public service announcements in the style of Batman: the Animated Series, from archive collections reprinting vintage Crusaders stories, to the online-only Web/Archie crossover story, “To Save TomorrowNet,” the offerings were eclectic indeed.

Adding to the variety of projects, and perhaps taking a cue from the online Web-Archie pairing, were a few attempts to integrate the Crusaders characters into the world of Archie and his pals ’n’ gals via team-up stories in the comic books.

conventions, and balloons of The Shield and other Crusaders characters even made it into a parade sequence from the unexpected-and-critically acclaimed Marvel-Archie crossover event, Archie Meets the Punisher.

The first of the official team-ups came in a pair of issues of Archie’s Weird Mysteries.

Based on the animated series of the same name, writer Paul Castiglia (that’s this writer) saw a natural opening to connect the Crusaders and Archie universes using the conceit that in Archie’s Weird Mysteries, anything could happen… and it usually did. The stories were drawn by fan-favorite artist Fernando Ruiz in the Batman: the Animated Series style.

There were baby steps leading to these team-ups. In the ’90s and early ’00s, Mighty Crusaders characters could be seen on Archie characters’ walls as poster art or on the covers of comics they were reading. Sometimes the Archie gang masqueraded as Mighty Crusader characters for Halloween (this happened in several stories, including a pair of Archie Halloween giveaway comics) and comic

Archie’s Weird Mysteries #3 [April ’00] began with Archie excited over filling holes in his Mighty Crusaders comic book collection… but those weren’t the only holes to contend with. It wasn’t long before a literal portal opened up into Archie’s world… a portal to a dimension where Archie’s favorite heroes were actually real! This story established a “substitute Crusaders” concept, wherein the wealth of MLJ/Mighty/ Red Circle characters could all become Crusaders as necessitated by the plot.

It also combined the supernatural Crusaders to form an imposing—and ultimately triumphant—offshoot team.

At right, the Mighty Heroes grace the cover (likely

by Fernando Ruiz) of Archie’s Weird Mysteries #3 [Apr. ’00]. Next page is a panel starring the Jaguar from Sabrina #30 [May ’02]. Art by Dave Manak and Jon D’Agostino. Words by Mike Gallagher.

In August ’01, the Crusaders returned in Archie’s Weird Mysteries #14. The ante was upped as the Eraser

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INTERLUDE The Straczynski Effect

The era of celebrity writers brings Red Circle to DC

by Jon B. Cooke Throughout the ’90s and ’00s, the owners of the Mighty Crusaders were, aside from a handful of “animated style” appearances in the Archie humor books, steering clear of the super-hero game and focusing mostly on the Riverdale gang and licensed books. But, ever amenable when offered a good deal, Archie Comic Publications, Inc., was happy to sign a new contract with DC Comics to once again rent out their crime-fighting characters to the rival company.

“The idea was mine,” Dan DiDio (then DC editorial vice president) recently told this writer. “I was always looking to expand our line and wanted to take another pass at those characters.” He was searching for properties to widen their super-hero universe and so reached out to the respective owners of the Milestone characters, Condé Nast’s pulp headliners, and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents… and to invite the MLJ heroes back into the House of Superman. Of the Crusaders, DiDio told Andrew A. Smith in 2009, “These characters have a very long history, and we want to make sure we’re adding to that… My hope is that this is not a short-term agreement, [but] something that will have a long-lasting effect on the DCU.” Indeed, in contrast to the self-contained Impact Comics Universe of the early ’90s, this new MLJ resurrection would be fully integrated into DC’s super-hero universe.

And the company executive wanted to offer the MLJ characters as enticement to an incoming superstar writer who had just finished an exclusive stay at the House of Superman’s top rival, Marvel Comics.

By the ’00s, both DC and Marvel actively sought well-known writers from outside the field to add literary luster to their books, including luminaries Brad Meltzer, Andrew Vachss, Josh Whedon, and J. Michael Straczynski, who is best known as the creator and showrunner of the fondly recalled science-fiction TV series, Babylon 5. Straczynski had also written epic runs of Amazing Spider-Man and Thor, and also begun a limited series at the House of Ideas, The Twelve, which revived long dormant characters from the Golden Age of Timely, a premise that remained intriguing to the scribe as he ended a long, exclusive stint at Marvel.

Bringing on the MLJ characters would also serve a useful purpose Taken at the 2013 Phoenix Comicon, at top is Gage Skidmore’s photo of J. Michael Straczynski, celebrity writer and architect of DC’s Red Circle line, which brought the MLJ characters into the DC Universe. Above is Jesús Saíz art originally intended for the aborted Brave and the Bold run that was to team up Batman with the Mighty Heroes.

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for the publisher. In his Comics Buyer’s Guide #1658 [Oct. ’09] article, Andrew A. Smith reported: “We went to Archie about this,” DiDio said in a phone interview. “This is something I was interested in for a while. … I just think these are all such strong characters and they still have untapped potential to them… There were some interesting designs, interesting ideas there on the page, and we wanted to see if we could realize them again and integrate them into the DC Universe, so they weren’t just their only little brand off in a corner but actually working and interacting with the DCU proper.”

And some of the characters can plug holes at DC, he said, without having to start from scratch.

“When they have a character as strong as the Shield, and we don’t have that patriotic parallel here in the DC Universe, we could go out and try to create one, but the Shield is probably the second-most recognizable flag-wearing character. So it’s great to be able to bring him into the DC Universe with all his history and established notoriety and then be able to work him into the stories we have got going on right now.”

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10

The Crusaders Return to DC

In 2009, Archie once again licensed the Mighty Crusaders and related characters to DC Comics. Unlike the previous Impact line, DC chose to integrate the Red Circle heroes into their larger cosmos, so that they shared the same universe with such iconic characters as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Flash. The Red Circle project brought not just new heroes to the DCU, but a new writer as well, in J. Michael Straczynski. Originally, the plan was to introduce the characters through the DC team-up book The Brave and the Bold, but a series of one-shots was launched instead. Once again, the DC project failed to hold an audience, and the line was cancelled.

Into the DC Universe…

The Mighty Crusaders on Earth-S (as in Superman) [Editor’s Note: The following creator interviews were originally published in 2009, for promotion as the new DC series were about to launch, and should be viewed in that light.]

Rachel Gluckstern Conducted by Rik Offenberger [Editor’s Note: Rachel Gluckstern was an editor at DC Comics from 2010-2015. She worked in the Batman office and was the editor for the Red Circle line at DC Comics. This interview was conducted on Aug. 24, 2009.]

Rik Offenberger: DC licensed all the Red Circle heroes from Archie Comics.

Will we be seeing more of those heroes showing up in The Web and The Shield?

Rachel Gluckstern: Most definitely! And in the Inferno and Hangman co-features, too. With such a rich array of characters available, you can bet we wish to take full advantage of the opportunity to build up a new corner of the DC Universe.

In that vein, I’d like to encourage readers to keep an eye out for the second wave of characters to cameo somewhere in issues #4–6 of both the Shield and Web. Each feature will have a new Red Circle hero popping up somewhere, but I’m not going to say where. It’s going to be like a scavenger hunt, and the prizes are the Black Hood, the Jaguar, the Comet and Mr. Justice!

RO: Will we see some of the Red Circle heroes join existing teams, similar to the way Static Shock has joined the Teen Titans?

Gluckstern: As the most public figure, the Shield will definitely clock some hours with existing DCU teams. I hear the JSA will be looking for some new members soon, and there’s a Kryptonian situation that the U.S. military is monitoring very carefully.

The other three aren’t exactly team players, but they have some encounters waiting in their future for sure.

RO: When will we be seeing some of the DCU heroes guest-starring in the Red Circle titles?

Gluckstern: Pretty much right away! Inferno will run into both Green Arrow and Black Canary as he hits the road; the Web has a painful encounter with the new Batgirl coming up; and the Shield has to cross paths with former Marine Corps Officer Magog. It is the law. And I think we know just how well Army personnel and Marines tend to get along.

Above is a custom-made “imaginary” Red Circle logo, concocted to resemble the ’60s DC “bullet.” At left is detail of The Red Circle: The Web, the DC Oct. 2009 one-shot. Art by Jesús Saíz.

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Across this spread are character designs for the “Red Circle” incarnations of the classic MLJ characters, including Mr. Justice and the Comet

by Duncan Rouleau, the Black Hood by Talent Caldwell, and the Jaguar by Marco Rudy.

I’ve written 80-odd comic books at this point, but this is my first super-hero story.

I’m planning to enjoy writing every page of it.

Tom Derenick Conducted by Rik Offenberger

before I started drawing it I really got into the ideas in it.

RO: Joey Cavalieri is your editor on the series. What did he tell you he wanted from the series?

Derenick: Well, it’s not exactly a Hangman series. Red Circle is a group of interconnected one-shots. They stand alone very well, but fit together beautifully for a bigger picture. I only draw the Hangman and a page in The Shield, but I’ve read all the scripts and I was impressed.

[Editor’s Note: Tom Derenick was the penciler on DC Comics’ version RO: J.G. Jones did the character designs for some of the Red Circle of the Hangman which ran as a co-feature in a series of comics from heroes. How much freedom do you have with the design of Hangman 2009–2010.] in the monthly comic?

Derenick: I did change J.G.’s look slightly. My Hangman’s a bit beefRik Offenberger: How did you get the job on Hangman? ier and his cloak and belt have been altered. Just little tweaks. He’s Tom Derenick: Joey Cavalieri called me up and asked me if I’d be essentially J.G.’s design but made to work better in my drawing style. doing one of the Red Circle books, and when you get a chance to work with J.M. Straczynski, you don’t turn it down.

RO: What type of reference material did you get for the Hangman RO: You have a long history with Golden Age hero revivals, going back to your days on The Protectors. Had you been a fan of the Hangman prior to getting the assignment?

Derenick: I was aware of him, but I never read any of the comics.

So, no, I wasn’t a fan.

RO: Would it be safe to say with all the changes, “This isn’t your father’s Hangman”?

Derenick: As I said, I hadn’t read the old Hangman stuff. The new version seems like a JMS-style tweak much like he did with Squadron Supreme. I have to say though after reading the script and even The Crusaders Return to DC Comics

stories?

Derenick: I pulled together a group of Civil War reference books.

The first chunk of the one-shot follows that time period.

RO: After working on Shadowpact and Reign in Hell, have you become the supernatural guy at DC? Derenick: It does seem that way sometimes, but no. If I were to label myself at DC it’s the “books with a million people in them” artist.

Seems more like I’m drawing the most populated books more than anything. Love drawing for DC though. The company’s been great to me.

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INTERLUDE Full Circle at DC Comics The Mighty Heroes retreat back home… yet again

by Jon B. Cooke

goals I had for the series was to see how far we could push the general level of weirdness and very classic two-fisted superhero action; I think Brandon executed on that magnificently.”

In Feb. 2010, early on during the Red Circle run at DC Comics, Vice President Dan DiDio, the creative exec who ushered the line-up, ascended to become co-publisher of the company. In a congratulatory announcement, Jon Goldwater, the joint chief executive officer of Archie Comic Publications, sent his kudos and added, “Archie is thrilled with the job that DC has done with our Red Circle super-heroes and couldn’t be happier [about Jim Lee and DiDio’s promotions]….”

In retort, Trautmann’s Red Circle writing partner, Brandon Jerwa, shared, “Always with the humility and compliments, this one. It was teamwork all the way. We had to take the classic idea and work it from both ends; we go big and go home, with alien invaders, pocket dimensions, family drama, crazy huge boom-boom, and the most important thing: resolution.”

Alas, over the next few months, the writing was on the wall and, by December, the last of the Red Circle titles, The Mighty Crusaders, was on the chopping block. Earlier, DiDio had expressed to Newsarama, “What I’m hoping for is that people get excited by them, and then we can grow out and tell more stories with these characters.”

Asked about whether the writers had achieved any objectives they had set for themselves, Trautmann said, “I can’t speak to higher-level goals; that’s the province of the publishers. For me, I wanted to tell a certain kind of story, and I was fortunate enough to be able to do so, on The Shield, and then The Mighty Crusaders Special, and the [Crusaders] mini-series. I wanted to take these fairly familiar archetypes and push them in directions that made sense, honored the source material and the work of creators who preceded us, and still deliver some surprises and shocks along the way. So, in that sense, yes, I think our goals have been met.”

Yet, despite a promotional blitz and integration into the regular DCU line, as well as the involvement of writer J. Michael Straczynski, RC conceptualizer, and artist J.G. Jones, designer of many RC characters, not enough excitement was generated.

By the end, Newsarama contributor Vaneta Rogers asked DC for comment about the line’s cancellation, but there was no official word, so she asked two of its creators for a post mortem on the demise of Red Circle.

Mighty Crusaders co-writer Eric Trautmann said, “One of the 264

In contrast to the Impact Comics line of the ’90s, DC made the decision to include the MLJ heroes into their DC Universe continuity, initially in a series of cameos.

Jerwa added, “This is the end of the Mighty Crusaders story, but it’s also the last chapter in the story we’ve been writing from Day One with The Shield and Inferno. We’ve tried our damnedest to offer some payoff for the folks who were with us when we started, and do right by the fine work of [fellow RC The MLJ Companion

11

Red Circle’s Fox & New Crusaders

After the second failure of DC Comics to find success with the MLJ super-heroes, Archie Comics once again welcomed home their characters and, with the arrival of former pop music manager Jon Goldwater, son of founder John L. Goldwater and now co-chief operating officer, a progressive decision was made to explore new modes of distribution and formats for the comics line. A brighter future just might be found in the book trade with new formats, including trade paperbacks, children’s books, and reaching audiences through the Internet with e-book sales. “It’s about demand,” Goldwater told Publisher’s Weekly, in 2013. The Archie line is “seeing steady growth in print and digital. They both feed off of each other. It’s a win-win.” Naturally, the MLJ super-heroes would be part of any digital subscription service.

Digitizing MLJ’s Heroes Making a niche in the new publishing paradigm

by Jon B. Cooke The announcement coming from the publisher was big enough to receive notice from the most prestigious newspaper in the country. Archie Comics was getting into the digital comics game with material specifically created to be downloaded through a new app. New York Times senior editor George Gene Gustines reported, on Oct. 9, 2011: At the New York Comic Con this week, Archie Comics will reveal its next step in the digital frontier. In spring, the company will bring back its line of super-hero characters in a subscription model that will offer an original six-page story and access to an archive of past adventures.

“It’s very exciting to be creating the first brandnew digital comic book label,” said Jon Goldwater, the co-chief executive of Archie Comics Publications.

Besides the possibility of reaching an audience beyond the comic book stores, there was a second advantage to this digital model. “Financially, it makes sense,” Mr. Goldwater said. “We are not going to have any print costs. To be a slave to printing prices when you’re starting a new venture is a tremendous concern.”

According to the Times, the publisher had entered the digital realm in 2008, and so, by 2011, “Between comics available for free, and those that have 266

been purchased, Archie is closing in on three million downloads.” With such success for their digitized print archives, publisher edict came down to produce new material specifically for the digital marketplace through a new Red Circle tablet/smart phone app.

Thus was developed the concept of New Crusaders. “The premise of the digital series,” writes Gustines, “begins with the [MLJ] heroes largely in retirement in a suburb called the Red Circle. Their enemies find and dispatch the heroes, forcing the next generation, who will be overseen by the Shield, to save the day, thus paving the way for the New Crusaders….”

To infuse the series with an all-ages appeal, the creators— Archie higher-ups, writer Ian Fleming, and artist Ben Bates—found inspiration in the Pixar movie, The Incredibles. “They are not going to be water-downed super-heroes,” Goldwater said, “but they are not going to be dark either.”

Archie Comics President Mike Perellito told Comic Book Resources, “My kids love super-heroes and Archie and all this stuff, but I can’t give them most [contemporary] super-hero books. This new series is for Daddy, but I can leave it out, and my six-year-old can also pick it up,

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12

Dawning of The Dark Circle

Inspired by the breakout success of Afterlife with Archie and subsequent introduction of the Archie Horror line, the comics publisher made the decision to re-tool the Red Circle Comics imprint as Dark Circle and, in essence, create a new crime comics category. Still, the return of the Fox and introduction of a new Shield indicated the MLJ characters’ super-hero roots were not being totally abandoned.

Red Circle Goes Dark

The MLJ heroes experience a drastic tonal change [Editor’s Note: Following is a 2015 interview with Alex Segura, noted novelist who is also known for his comics writing, and editorial/publicity work for both Archie and DC Comics. Segura now serves as senior vice president of publicity and marketing for Archie and is editor of the latest berth for the MLJ heroes, the Dark Circle Comics line, a rebranding (and then some) of Red Circle.]

Alex Segura Interview

by Rik Offenberger While the characters contained within the Dark Circle began life as traditional super-heroes, there is little that is traditional about this exciting new imprint. For starters, the titles in Dark Circle aren’t a “shared universe” the way the DC and Marvel Universes are shared. In Dark Circle, the super-hero dramas play out in a variety of different genres. In that regard, “Dark Circle” becomes a branding much the way HBO presents Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Sopranos, and Game of Thrones—all different genres, but all known as high quality entertainment.

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“Each book has its own, distinct personality and flavor that gives readers a unique take on the super-hero concept, by some of the best writers and artists I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with,” says Segura.

“As these books develop, we’ll continue to explore the Dark Circle library and find ways to reintroduce these great concepts—and create some new ones.”

The Dark Circle line kicks off with The Black Hood, written and drawn by Duane Swierczynski and Michael Gaydos, respectively. The title is unlike anything seen before. The series starts off with Philadelphia police officer Greg Hettinger being shot in the face and accidentally killing Matthew Burland, the previous Black Hood.

As a result of his injuries, Greg becomes addicted to painkillers… and also decides to don the Black Hood. He is hunted by both the police and the underworld. As described in the solicitation copy, “The new Black Hood may not have to be stopped. He’s coming unglued all on his own!” As the series unfolds, it becomes clear it is more crime drama than super-hero story.

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Collecting the Milieu of the MLJ Comics Univ verse An intervie ew with comics expert Jeffrey C. V Vaughn aughn Conducted by Rik Off ffeenberger [Editor’s note: JJ.C. Vau Vauughn is Gemstone’s E Execut xecuttive Eddiitor, and no one knows th the whole ran rang ange of colllecttibles better tthhan he. H Hee eeddits tthhe most weell ll respect specteed and w weell ll known colllecttible price gguuiddes, and wa was kind enouugh to to sharre his insights on tthhe M MLJ LJ line of comiccs.]

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THE MLJ COMPANION

the first patriotic super-hero, who pre-dated Captain America by a full year), THE SILVER AGE (spotlighting those offbeat, campy RO: With ArchieMighty bein ng g succhissues, a do dand omThe inan t part of THE MLJ M LJ history, is tthhere Comics Fly and Jaguar), BRONZE AGE ther-h RedeCircle and a marrkket ffoor tthhe eear arrly(with suppe ro ccooline, mic cs?the !MPACT imprint published by DC Comics), up to THE MODERN AGE, with its Dark Vaugh hn n: DefinitCircle elyy. A t th(featuring is poinsuch t it’fan-favorites s not neaseries rly asas“The harFox” dcore as the imprint MARK Plus: “MLJ” market for the Aby rch ie-rWAID elateand d tDEAN itles,HASPIEL). but mo deLearn rn awhat udie nces are once stands for! Uncover such rarities as the Mighty Crusaders board again beginning tgame, o unde rstShadow’s and thshort-lived at MLJcareer herasoaesspandex-clad have had some ffaairly and the line lof classic material insuperhero! their vDiscover ariouthe s itill-fated eratioSpectrum ns. The aucomics, nch that of the Dark was abruptly halted due to its violent content! See where the super-heroes crossed over into Archie, Betty, and Veronica’s Circle line has usworld! all cu riou aboutwith whet r moDICK re foAYERS, lks wRICH ill BUCKLER, come toBILL DUBAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, JIM And readsinterviews IRV he NOVICK, VALENTINO, know earlier versio ns. JIMMY PALMIOTTI, KELLY JONES, MICHAEL USLAN, and others who chronicled the Mighty Crusaders’ exploits from the 1940s to today! By RIK OFFENBERGER, PAUL CASTIGLIA, and JON B. COOKE, with a cover by RICH For instance, DBUCKLER ean Hand aspJOE ielRUBINSTEIN. ’s first miINCLUDES ni-series The F Fox ox o PAGES led OF toKEY us MLJ STORIES! 60 of FULL-COLOR

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RO: Are just tthhe key issuees colllect ectiible or is th the entiree line in ddeemand?

Vaugh hn n: Just like anything else, it depends on a lot of ffact actors. Once some collectors want something , they want all of it. Others just want key issues. With the Archie titles, there are more completists out there. With the MLJ super-heroes, I don’t think I could accurately g uess.

RO: The Canad Canaddian FE EH H vvarian ariants, with Roly P 280

Comicss, and Black Beauty arree ffar ar moree scarce. e or lleess colllecttible?

Canadian editions are becoming more and orth talkkiing about. We’ We’vve added a handful erstreet advisors in the Great White North will be exxpploring this and other questions the months and years ahead. It’ss not the hottest of hot fields, but it’’ss defi d nitely underdocumented and deser ving of exxpploration.

RO: Are C Canad anaddian W Whi hites a respectted ggeenre of comiccs, or are tthhey considdered reprints?

Vaugh hn n: First, there are plenty of reprints that are considered resspected genres of omics. I think it’’ss safe to say that many le—including me—were either entirely or irely unaware of the early horror work at ntil some of that old material ran as reprints in T H E MLJ C OM PA N ION