back issue #12

TOM DeFALCO& RON FRENZon SPIDER-MAN’sblack costume!

T H E U L T I M A T E C O M I C S E X P E R I E N C E !

SPIDER-MAN AND ELEKTRA TM & © 2005 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC. WATCHMEN, SUPERMAN, AND CAPTAIN MARVEL (SHAZAM!) TM & © 2005 DC COMICS.SPIDER-MAN AND ELEKTRA TM & © 2005 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC. WATCHMEN, SUPERMAN, AND CAPTAIN MARVEL (SHAZAM!) TM & © 2005 DC COMICS.

ROUG

HST

UFF

! MILLER, MAZZUCCHELLI, ANDM

ANYMORE!

ROUG

HST

UFF

! MILLER, MAZZUCCHELLI, ANDM

ANYMORE!

GREATEST

STOR

IES

NEVER TOLD !JOHN BYRNE’S

SHAZAM!

GREATEST

STOR

IES

NEVE

R TOLD !JOHN BYRNE’SSHAZAM!

WAT

CHMEN! POSTMODERN SUPER-HERO

HISTORY

WAT

CHMEN! POSTMODERN SUPER-HERO

HISTORY

FLAS

HBAC

K!SU

PERMAN’S 1970 REVAMP

FLAS

HBAC

K!SU

PERMAN’S 1970 REVAMP

MICHAELCHABON

iKURTBUSIEK

iJonahHex’s

TONYDeZUNIGA

Star*Reach’s

MIKEFRIEDRICH

iDestroyerDuck’sSTEVEGERBER

TheCalculator’s

MARSHALLROGERS&BOBROZAKIS

EXTREME

MAKEOVERS!

O c t o b e r 2 0 0 5

No.12$5 .95

Volume 1, Number 12October 2005

Celebrating the BestComics of the '70s, '80s,and Today!

EDITORMichael Eury

PUBLISHERJohn Morrow

DESIGNER/COVER COLORISTRobert Clark

ASSOCIATE DESIGNERRich J. Fowlks

PROOFREADERSJohn Morrow and Eric Nolen-Weathington

COVER ARTISTSRon Frenz and Josef Rubenstein

SPECIAL THANKSJim AlexanderMurphy AndersonRuss and

Trelina AndersonTerry AustinJeff BaileyMalcolm BourneJerry BoydMichael BrowningMike BurkeyScott BurnleyKurt BusiekJohn ByrneJim CardilloGary CarlsonMichael ChabonJohn CoganLarry CrookRay CuthbertTom DeFalcoTony DeZunigaDanny FingerothRon FrenzMike FriedrichDante GalloCourt GebeauSteve GerberDave GibbonsGrand Comic-Book DatabaseDavid HamiltonHeritage ComicsMark HudsonThe Jack Kirby CollectorDan JacksonDan JohnsonPhil LaubDavid MandelAndy MangelsKelvin MaoYoram Matzin

The Ultimate Comics Experience!

Adam McGovernBob McLeodBrian K. MorrisBill MorrisonJohn MorrowWill MurrayDennis O’NeilJerry OrdwayKeith RichardMarshall RogersBob RozakisRose Rummel-EuryDave SafierPeter SandersonDiana SchutzLambert ShengJeff SinghZack SmithAnthony TollinJohn Wells

E x t r e m e M a k e o v e r s I s s u e • B A C K I S S U E • 1

Get the skinny on character revampsof the ’70s and ’80s in our

FLASHBACK: THE MAKEOVER OF STEEL...................................................................................................................2Behind the scenes of the new Superman of the ’70s, with Denny O’Neiland friends—and Curt Swan art

FLASHBACK EXTRA: MURPHY ANDERSON:REMEMBERING THE “SWANDERSON” TEAM ..................................................................................................11The talented artist discusses his collaborator and friend

TONY DEZUNIGA INTERVIEW: WHEN WESTERNS GOT WEIRD ......................................................14The artist draws a bead on Jonah Hex, with writer John Albano’snever-before-published story breakdowns

GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: JJOONNAAHH HHEEXX SYNDICATED STRIP...........................................20Michael Fleischer and Russ Heath’s collaboration was gunned down by newspapers

ROUGH STUFF..............................................................................................................................................................................22Batman: Year One, Daredevil, Elektra, Spidey, and more—in pencil—by Gibbons, Larsen, Mazzucchelli, Miller, Ordway, Paul Smith, Vess, and Weeks

STEVE GERBER INTERVIEW: THE DUCK STOPS HERE................................................................................32Destroyer Duck flew high for creator ownership and free speech

BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: THE CALCULATOR ..............................................................................................37Bob Rozakis, Marshall Rogers, and Terry Austin on the roots of the Villains United rogue

OFF MY CHEST: MIKE FRIEDRICH ON STAR*REACH...................................................................................44A guest editorial exploring the beginnings of the innovative alternative publisher

PRO2PRO: TOM DEFALCO AND RON FRENZ...................................................................................................46The writer/artist team reveals the story behind Spider-Man’s black costume

PRO2PRO PLUS: DANNY FINGEROTH INTERVIEW......................................................................................55Spider-Man’s former editor on the web-slinger’s ’80s makeover

GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: JOHN BYRNE’S SSHHAAZZAAMM!! ............................................................57Why lightning didn’t strike for this Captain Marvel relaunch, with previously unpublished art

BEYOND CAPES: ARCH HEROES: WWAATTCCHHMMEENN AND THE BIRTH OF THE POSTMODERN SUPER-HERO......................................................................................................................64A fascinating journey through a super-hero transformation, with Kurt Busiek, GaryCarlson, Michael Chabon, Dave Gibbons, and Bill Morrison, and rare Gibbons art

BACK IN PRINT............................................................................................................................................................................80Wein & Wrightson and Wolfman & Colan are together again in Bart Simpson’sTreehouse of Horror, plus Crossfire, Skywald Horror-Mood, and Charlton Spotlight

COMICS ON DVD......................................................................................................................................................................83The latest DVD releases of interest to the ’70s/’80s comics fan

BACK TALK.......................................................................................................................................................................................84Reader feedback on issue #10—plus the Shadow by Alex Toth!

BACK ISSUE™ is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. MichaelEury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 5060A Foothills Dr., LakeOswego, OR 97034. Email: [email protected]. Six-issue subscriptions: $30 Standard US, $48 First Class US, $60Canada, $66 Surface International, $90 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows,NOT to the editorial office. Spider-Man and Elektra TM & © 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. Watchmen, Superman, andCaptain Marvel (Shazam!) TM & © 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective compa-nies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2005 Michael Eury and TwoMorrowsPublishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

As 1970 dawned, post-Great Society America found itself in the throes of change. The Moon seemed not so far away since

mankind took a giant leap to press his footprints onto its surface. Discrimination based on race, gender, or age grates

against America’s collective conscience (although you still couldn’t trust anyone over 30). The Beatles broke up, as did

part of Apollo 13, while the Ford Motor Company unleashed the Pinto on the nation’s highways.

And while not as earth-shattering to the world at large, National Periodical Publications’ (now DC Comics.) principal

icon marked the end of an era with the retirement of Mort Weisinger after 30 years of service to the company.

After The Adventures of Superman television show ran its five-year course in 1958, joining I Love Lucy in eternal syndi-

cation, DC editor Whitney Ellsworth remained in Hollywood. This left his longtime assistant, Mort Weisinger, behind at DC

where he took over full editorial control of the Superman family of magazines (Superman, Action Comics, Adventure Comics,

Superboy, and eventually World’s Finest Comics, as well as launching spin-off books for Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane).

2 • B A C K I S S U E • E x t r e m e M a k e o v e r s I s s u e

by Brian K. Morris

TTHHEE Superman ArtistA glorious 1993 pencil

pinup by Curt Swan.

Art courtesy of

Heritage Comics.

© 2005 DC Comics.

(right top) A 1994

Curt Swan pencil

recreation of his

cover to Superman

#201 (1967), an

issue produced in the

waning years of the

Weisinger editorial

era. Courtesy of

Heritage Comics.

© 2005 DC Comics.


At this point, Weisinger wanted to raise the Super-

titles above the standard hero-meets-then-beats-villain

fare of the day. For that, Superman needed a more

diverse pallet of potential plot elements to work with,

something the Man of Steel might never find on Earth.

With that, Mort Weisinger decided to give the World’s

Greatest Hero his own mythology.

“I Am Superman and I Can DoAnything . . . ”The fact that some stories didn’t fit into the mythos, each

clearly labeled as “Imaginary,” became a selling point (but

as a wise man once said, “Aren’t they all?”). The former

last son of the planet Krypton now became chief among

a plethora of fellow survivors: a dog, monkey, numerous

villains, and two cities—one inside a bottle—while he and

his friends all had robot doubles. Superman’s younger self

and his first cousin each took a monthly break from their

own adventures to travel forward in time, hanging out

with the Legion of Super-Heroes, an intergalactic Boys

and Girls Club. And where kryptonite once came only in

green, now it could produce a number of different effects

and more colors than could be found in a bag of M&Ms.

And the fans just ate it all up. According to novelist

and comics historian Will Murray, “the fact of the TV show

in the ’50s (and still in syndication) may have helped, that

is beside the point. Mort’s ability to make that character

sell in large numbers was just amazing.” Weisinger would

take copies of his comics to the children in his neighbor-

hood, pre-teens who he considered Superman’s prime

demographic, and conducted his own informal market-

ing sessions. He noted what they liked, what turned them

off, and what they wanted to see. In turn, the editor fed

their ideas to his writers. Murray continues, “Whether it

was research or whatever, [Weisinger] was very in-tuned

to his core audience.”

But as Will Murray noted in his contacts with Weisinger,

as pleasant the man could be to some, “I think Mort was

threatened by editors who could outshine him. He was very

insecure.” He controlled Superman with a grip of steel, even

with other editors. Only the publisher’s override allowed

Julie Schwartz to prominently feature Superman in the Justice

League of America.

Just as Leo Marguiles treated Weisinger with a shortage of

people skills [see sidebar], Weisinger continued the cycle of

abuse with his freelancers. Weisinger regularly shot down ideas

from one writer, only to pass those same plot nuggets to

another while taking credit for many of the innovations under

his editorial reign. Legend has it that writer Don Cameron

once angrily attempted to toss the 300-pound Weisinger

from his office window. Roy Thomas began his employ-

ment at Marvel jumping ship from DC after two weeks of

Weisinger’s intolerable attitude. But without a pervasive

reporting presence in fandom at the time, few outside of the

comics industry knew about Weisinger’s abrasive ways.


(below) Swan’s super

cover to Amazing World

of DC Comics #7 (1975).

© 2005 DC Comics.

Meanwhile, like many writers of the pulp era who

wanted to “graduate” from popular literature to more

“respectable” venues, Mort Weisinger sold radio scripts as

well as articles to magazines like Collier’s, Parade Magazine

(where he was a regular contributor), The Journal of the

AMA, Reader’s Digest, and The Saturday Evening Post. His book

1,001 Things You Can Get For Free, first published in 1955,

saw over 40 printings. He plotted and coordinated the ghost

writing of The Contest, for which he sold the movie rights

for $125,000 and, according to Will Murray, pinned the

check to the bulletin board in his DC office for a week “so

that everybody would see how much money he was making.

It was an insane thing to do because what if someone stole

the check?” But who would dare steal that check and risk

his abuse?

“It’s Not Easy To Be Me . . . ”Despite his accomplishments, when people outside of

comic books asked Weisinger about his occupation, he’d

discuss his writing, not his contribution to the ongoing

Superman legend. After developing an ulcer, Weisinger

discovered through psychiatry that his denial was because,

as Weisinger told The Amazing World of DC Comics #7 (July

1975), “subconsciously, if I said I was involved with Superman,

I was a big man—but shining in Superman’s reflected glory,

I was his satellite. Secretly,

I was jealous of Superman

. . . just as Clark Kent is.”

Weisinger realized he had

to leave Superman. “I wanted

to get into a world where I was

my own boss, where I was truly

responsible for my own work...

I wasn’t dealing with some-

thing of my own.” But there

were other unstated pressures

weighing on Weisinger.

While Superman became

more godlike by the late ’60s

under Weisinger’s control, the

comic-book audience changed.

Marvel Comics’ emphasis on

characterization and easily

identifiable personal problems

drew accolades and sales from

an older and better-educated

audience than DC had previ-

ously catered to. Now, a more

sophisticated readership asked

why Superman didn’t tackle

the issues of the day, leaving Weisinger stuck for an answer.

As Will Murray observes, “The audience outgrew [Mort]

and he just wasn’t in touch any more. He had to adjust

and I think he adjusted to the point where he could adjust

no further.”

Frank Gruber, a pulp contemporary and good friend of

Weisinger’s, died around this time. Weisinger considered

this a wake-up call, that even in his mid-fifties, there was

so much more to still accomplish without having to share

the glory with anyone, fictional or otherwise. Even though

Superman’s sales reflected a growing irrelevance to the

comics-buying public, Weisinger couldn’t just walk away

from his greatest success.

Mort Weisinger made a regular ritual of going into

publisher Jack Lebowitz’s office, sharing his observation that

freelance writing could prove more lucrative than editing

comics. Weisinger always left the office with more financial

incentives to stay, making him one of DC’s most prosperous

editors. But when Weisinger went into his publisher’s office

in 1970, this time he left with wishes for a happy retirement.

Old-time radio and pulp expert Anthony Tollin

worked for DC for 20 years as a proofreader and colorist

on books like Justice League of America, Superman, and his

favorite hero, Green Lantern. From his insider’s perspec-

tive, he noted that “Mort’s star had gone down quite a bit

. . . I don’t know what it was, there was something that

soured his friendship with Jack Lebowitz. It wasn’t neces-

sarily that Jack wanted to get rid of him, but Jack didn’t

want to keep him.”

Had something changed their friendship toward the

worst? Tollin recently asked Jack Adler, DC’s innovative

colorist and former production chief about the Weisinger/

Lebowitz relationship and reports, “Jack had no recollec-

tion of any particular trouble between Weisinger and

Lebowitz, but also says he wouldn’t be surprised if such

existed, considering the type of person Weisinger was.”

When Weisinger was shown the door, it was a moment

of liberation. At last, he was free to return to his freelance

writing and to travel the lecture circuit, which he did until

his passing in 1978. But most of all, he was out from under

Superman’s shadow.

Regardless of Weisinger’s treatment of his creative per-

sonnel, no one could deny how solidly he’d built the

Superman mythology. With the image of the nearly

omnipotent Man of Steel imbedded in the world’s collective

consciousness, Mort Weisinger could walk into the new

phase of his life, secure both financially and in the knowl-

edge of his place in the history of one of America’s most

enduring icons.

4 • B A C K I S S U E • E x t r e m e M a k e o v e r s I s s u e

Curt Swan penciled

and inked this late-1970

DC house ad signaling

the upcoming changes

in the Superman family

of titles.

© 2005 DC Comics.

Weisinger and

Schwartz in 1975.

From Amazing World

of DC Comics #7.

Photo © 1975 DC Comics.

1 4 • B A C K I S S U E • E x t r e m e M a k e o v e r s I s s u e

You can’t mention Tony DeZuniga’s name without

someone bringing up the name of Jonah Hex. After

writer John Albano thought up the character of Jonah

Hex, a bounty hunter whose path you didn’t want to

cross, DeZuniga took Albano’s tight, cartoon script

and put pencil to paper and created the look that

made Jonah Hex so popular. Jonah Hex first appeared

in All-Star Western #10 (Feb.–Mar. 1972), made his

second appearance in DC Comics’ All-Star Western

#11 (Apr.–May 1972), and was responsible for the

comic’s title changing to Weird Western Tales with

issue #12 (June–July 1972). He completely took over

the book, running the other Western heroes out of

Weird Western with issue #18, and graduated to his

own title after issue #38. Jonah Hex lasted 92 issues

before he was sent to the Mad Max-like, post-apocalyptic

future in a book simply called Hex [which BACK ISSUE

will spotlight in #14]. That lasted for only 18 issues.

Jonah Hex was resurrected for three 1990s Vertigo

series written by Joe R. Lansdale and drawn by Tim

Truman and Sam Glanzman.

But it was those original Jonah Hex tales in All-Star

Western and Weird Western Tales that forever changed

the comic-book Western. —Michael Browning

A Tony DeZuniga-drawn

Jonah Hex portfolio plate;

original art courtesy of

Heritage Comics.

© 2005 DC Comics.

interviewby Michael Browning

conducted by phone on March 13, 2005

E x t r e m e M a k e o v e r s I s s u e • B A C K I S S U E • 1 51 4 • B A C K I S S U E • E x t r e m e M a k e o v e r s I s s u e

MICHAEL BROWNING: Let’s talk about Jonah Hex

and the impact he had on Westerns then and now.

Do you think he changed the face of Western comics

and brought more reality to them, made them more

like the spaghetti Westerns?

TONY DeZUNIGA: Definitely. Most definitely. That

was a time when Clint Eastwood was making those

anti-hero, spaghetti westerns. John Albano, when we

talked together, he was telling me, “Hey, Tony, let’s

get away from like the Rawhide Kid and all those

Western super-heroes because, you know, they’re

shooting the guns out of the hands of the bad guys

and all that.” I said, “I agree.” To answer your

question: I think it’s a far cry from the typical Western

heroes. Those remind me of the Roy Rogers Western

hero, only in comic-book form . . . you know, they

always had a beautiful horse.

BROWNING: So, you wanted Jonah Hex to be dirtier

than the Western heroes who had come before him?

DeZUNIGA: Jonah Hex is an anti-hero, like John was

telling me. Even the towns in those days, they

weren’t all asphalt roads. They were dirt roads. The

cowboys really dressed really, really rugged—I would

say filthy and dirty—and I liked doing it that way.

BROWNING: When you look at the comics of that

time period, there was a lot of diversity. The 1960s

had been primarily super-heroes. But along comes the

1970s and things started to change. Jonah Hex was a

big part of that. Can you tell me what the atmosphere

was like then? Comics were becoming “weird.”

DeZUNIGA: I felt good about it. Any change is good

for me. You’re right, there were a lot of books that

came out during those years that I really liked. I liked

what happened. Even doing characters today, I think

it’s a takeoff of that period, even the science-fiction

characters. It has an effect on the stories today and

how they create the characters today. I may be

wrong, but that’s how I feel. You know, like Star Trek

is a far cry from Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

BROWNING: There was a lot of realism in your work

on Jonah Hex. Did you have to reference old photos

and articles to get such graphic realism?

DeZUNIGA: When I was really young, we used to copy

a lot of swipes from photographs. What happened

was, later on, it paid off, because I used to light the

lighting from my head because I had copied so many

photographs when I was younger and practicing how to

draw. Everybody thinks that I was copying photographs.

Maybe now and then, but not all the time. We had

learned how to place the shadows because we had

copied photographs. That’s why it looks real.

BROWNING: What was [then-DC publisher] Carmine

Infantino’s reaction to Jonah Hex? Did he like your

version or did he ask for changes?

DeZUNIGA: Carmine is a great guy and a great

artist. He wanted [Jonah Hex] real bulky. Remember,

in the very first issues of “Jonah Hex” [in All-Star

© 2005 DC Comics.

Beginnings:Girls’ Love Stories #153 (1970) (inksover Ric Estrada’s pencils)

Milestones:Dr. Thirteen in The Phantom Stranger /Jonah Hex / Black Orchid in AdventureComics / Conan the Barbarian / X-Men/ Star Wars / Incredible Hulk / ThePunisher

Works in Progress:Enjoying retirement but occasionallyillustrating covers.

Cyberspace: www.dezunigaart.com

Phot

o by

Lar

ry C

rook

.

TONYDeZUNIGA

From the collection of

Michael Browning, writer

John Albano’s script rough

for the very first appearance

of Jonah Hex in All-Star

Western #10, and Tony

DeZuniga’s gritty

interpretation of same.

© 2005 DC Comics.

© 2005 DC Comics.


LE

E W

EE

KS

• D

AR

ED

EV

IL

FR

AN

K M

ILL

ER

• E

LE

KT

RA

A rare example of

Frank Miller’s rough

pencil work—here,

from his Elektra mini-

series (1984). This

Miller-created charac-

ter—first seen in

Marvel’s Daredevil—

was the basis for a

2005 motion picture.

And now, we’re in the

afterglow of Frank’s

second creation to go

to the big screen: Sin

City (a Dark Horse

publication).


by David “Hambone” Hamilton

(and friends)

© 2

005

Mar

vel C

hara

cter

s, In

c.

LE

E W

EE

KS

• D

AR

ED

EV

IL

From the (terribly) underrated Lee Weeks’

run on Daredevil—doing what may seem like

triple duty here for Ol’ Hornhead’s 288th cover:

namely, first producing a rough layout design

(done with various pens and markers), then forming

his (totally) finished pencils from the pen/marker piece,

and then, of course, completing the cover by inking

it (not shown). He does it all—and with a rare

degree of professionalism!

© 2

005

Mar

vel C

hara

cter

s, In

c.

E x t r e m e M a k e o v e r s I s s u e • B A C K I S S U E • 2 3

inte

rvie

wby

Dan

John

son

cond

ucte

d on

Apr

il 28

, 200

5

Want to talk extreme make-overs? In the grand scheme of

things, new costumes and rebooted

origins don’t hold a candle to

the radical changes that took

place behind the scenes of the

comics industry in the late

1970s and the early 1980s.

This was a time when writers

and artists were finally taking a

stand to protect their rights,

both to safeguard their financial

interests and the destinies of

their creations. It took a while,

and the road they traveled was-

n’t an easy one, but the actions

of a few brave souls back then

altered the way the business is

run today, ensuring that cre-

ators were finally given their

fair share for their hard work.

Steve Gerber’s landmark lawsuit against Marvel Comics over his creation, Howard the Duck, brought

this issue to the forefront. Gerber’s case was a long-fought battle, but thankfully he had some friends

to help him get through it, including a certain web-footed firecracker that was tired of the little guy get-

ting the dirty end of the stick. This is the story of that feathered friend to the oppressed, Destroyer Duck.

—Dan Johnson

Altered DrakesJack Kirby’s pencils for

an alternate, unpub-

lished version of page

1 of Destroyer Duck #2

(1983). The pencils for

the published version

appear on page 36.

Courtesy of The Jack

Kirby Collector (TJKC),

with special thanks to

John Morrow.

Destroyer Duck © 2005 Steve Gerber.

Art © 2005 Jack Kirby estate.

Des

troy

er D

uck

© 2

005

Stev

e G

erbe

r.


DAN JOHNSON: Most everyone is aware that Destroyer

Duck came about to finance your lawsuit with Marvel

over Howard the Duck. Whose idea was it to publish the

comic?

STEVE GERBER: I’m not sure. The idea may have origi-

nated with Dean Mullaney at Eclipse [Comics], or Mark

Evanier, or maybe with me. At some point, though, one

of us came up with the idea of a “benefit” comic to help

keep my attorney and my case afloat. At one point, I

know I toyed with the idea of printing only 250 copies

and selling them for $100.00 each as collector’s items.

We decided to go with a more standard publication,

though.

JOHNSON: You also had a living legend of the industry,

Jack Kirby, working on Destroyer Duck. How did Kirby

come to be involved?

GERBER: That’s a really funny story. At the time, I had

known Jack for maybe a year. He was working at

Ruby-Spears doing designs for shows like Thundarr the

Barbarian, and we had gotten to know each other a lit-

tle. When the idea of this book came up, Kirby seemed

like the natural person to draw it. Jack, of course, had a

huge beef with Marvel, so his drawing the book would

make a major statement. Also, at that time, it was still

Jack’s work that defined the Marvel style. To this day, it

remains the guiding dynamic behind almost everything

Marvel does, but in the mid-1980s the connection was

closer and clearer in readers’ minds.

I frankly didn’t have the nerve to approach Kirby

alone, so I asked Mark to come out to Jack’s house with

me to lend some moral support. I knew I could not do

that alone—I mean, asking the King of the Comics to

draw a comic book for free, as a favor, was the height

of presumption. Mark and I drove out to Jack and Roz’s

home in Thousand Oaks and we sat down with Jack and

we then explained the whole thing to him. We proba-

bly jabbered on for about half an hour, going into detail

about the lawsuit with Marvel, the rights situation for

creators, the rationale behind doing a new duck char-

acter, and on and on. Finally, one of us popped the

question and asked if Jack would consider drawing the

book. Jack just kind of sat back and said, “Sure. Sounds

like fun.” I was stunned.

Beginnings: Incredible Hulk #157, Marvel Comics (1972) (script over Roy Thomas’ plot)

Milestones:Man-Thing / Defenders / creation of Howard theDuck / co-creation with Mary Skrenes of Omegathe Unknown (the version you can get as an illegalInternet download, not to be confused with Marvel’s current reanimation of the corpse) / Phantom Zoneminiseries / creation of Thundarr the Barbarian /creation of Nevada / creation of Hard Time

Works in Progress: Hard Time, DC Comics

Cyberspace:SteveGerblog, my almost-daily online journal(www.stevegerber.com/sgblog) SteveGerber.com, my website(www.stevegerber.com), currently undergoing a major overhaul


Phot

o co

urte

sy o

f ste

vege

rber

.com

.

From Destroyer Duck #1

(1982), a graphite

glimpse of Kirby’s

art, with the artist’s

personal touch, the

GodCorp motto.

Courtesy of TJKC.

Destroyer Duck © 2005 Steve Gerber.

Art © 2005 Jack Kirby estate.

Des

troy

er D

uck

© 2

005

Stev

e G

erbe

r.

WWhhoo is the Calculator?

Is he:

•The top information broker for super-villains in the DC Universe?

•A disgruntled Golden Age sidekick?

•The leader of a criminal organization plotting against Robin?

•A friend of best-selling author Brad Meltzer?

•Wizard magazine’s “Mort of the Month”?

•DC’s second-most-popular villain of 1978?

Or . . . is he all of the above?

The Calculator has one of the more unusual histories of a DC super-

villain. He’s gone one-on-one with many of DC’s greatest heroes . . . all

in the same book. He’s been rendered by some of DC’s most popular

artists before they were well-known. He’s been outfitted in one of comic-

s’ strangest costumes, and now wears no costume at all. And, until recent-

ly, he’s been one of the few villains to have almost all his adventures script-

ed by the same writer—his creator, Bob Rozakis.

Rozakis is a true veteran of DC comics, having written many of the

company’s major characters, and created such books as ’Mazing Man and

Hero Hotline. He’s also served as the longtime head of DC’s production

department and as the DC “Answer Man,” helping resolve questions

about DC’s sometimes-messy continuity.

Now one of his first creations for DC has made a major comeback,

reintroduced as part of DC’s best-selling crossover Identity Crisis and poised

to become an important figure in the DC Universe.

But before all this . . . who was that masked man with the keypad on his chest?

For the answer, you’ll have to go back to Bob Rozakis, and legendary DC editor Julius Schwartz.

“It started with the idea of a villain who would battle the various backup heroes in Detective Comics,” Rozakis

explains. “His gimmick was that he would steal things when they were most valuable. For example, he would

steal the instruments from a rock group moments before their big concert was about to start and sell them

back for a high price.”

It was Schwartz who wound up giving the character his name. “When I was explaining this to Julie Schwartz,

I said something like, ‘He calculates the precise moment when something is worth the most,’” Rozakis says.


Crisis on Earth-LCDJim Aparo’s original art

to the Calculator vs.

Batman and friends

cover of Detective

Comics #468 (1977).

Art scan courtesy of

Lambert Sheng.

© 2005 DC Comics.

by Z a c k S m i t h

“Julie responded with, ‘So you have

to call him The Calculator.’ Using the

keypad on his chest to generate almost

anything with it evolved from there.”

The Calculator’s look was designed by

a young Mike Grell. Grell based the design on

the description in Rozakis’ script, and Rozakis

was pleased with the result. “It was pretty close

to how I’d envisioned him,” Rozakis says. “He

looked like many villains of the period, where

you’d come up with a gimmick and it was up to

the artist to realize it.”

With the Calculator’s look in place, it was

time for his reign of terror to begin.

The mystery started in June 1976, with

Detective Comics #463’s six-page backup fea-

ture entitled “Crimes by Calculation,” written

by Rozakis with art by Grell and inks by Terry

Austin. In it, the Calculator invaded Ivy Town to

steal an earthquake-preventing device invented

by a friend of one Ray Palmer, aka the Atom.

With his chest-keypad, the Calculator was able

to create solid objects projected from the LCD

screen on his head to battle the Atom, and even

succeeded in getting Atom’s friend

swallowed by a fissure.

A furious Atom managed to defeat

the Calculator, but later, in a cell, the

Calculator gloated that next on his list

would be Black Canary. . . .

Thus began one of the most

unusual crime waves in DC Comics

history. Each month, the Calculator

would return to fight a character starring

in the backup story in Detective

Comics, and he battled some of DC’s

best-known heroes.

As promised, the Calculator next

fought Black Canary in Detective Comics

#464’s “A Hot Time in Star City

Tonight” (by Rozakis, Grell, and Austin

co-written by Roazakis’ wife Laurie).

After the Black Canary story, Grell

dropped out as artist to focus on his


Detective Comics #463

(1976), debuting the

Calculator in the

Atom backup.

© 2005 DC Comics.

The Calculator started

small by attacking the

Atom first.

© 2005 DC Comics.

Black Canary encountered

the Calculator in chapter

two. Art by Grell and

Austin, with the original art

courtesy of Terry Austin.

© 2005 DC Comics.


I’ve been asked to describe what I think the

transformative elements were in the publications

of Star*Reach in the 1970s. Of course, it’s for

the historians to answer that question, as I

can only write about what I intended to do

and what I strived for; however, there are

now so many years between then and now,

I can somewhat look at that time distantly.

I identify three areas where Star*Reach

contributed to significant changes.

First, I started out as a super-hero reader in my

teens, and then became a super-hero writer through

college and beyond. Initially I didn’t pay

much attention to comics that

weren’t about super-heroes. But

then around 1972 I was exposed to

the principal underground publishers

in the Bay Area: Last Gasp, Rip Off

Press, and Print Mint. What I noticed

was that it was pretty much the

artists themselves who decided what

stories to tell; there was little editor-

ial direction like the way super-hero

comics were produced in New York.

Meanwhile, I tended to hang out

with Marvel writers and artists in New

York who chaffed a bit at the restrictions

the company put on them. There was

always the feeling that to get something

interesting to adults into a Marvel story,

the talent had to sneak it in.

Lastly, I’d seen Jim Steranko leave Marvel and set

up his own publishing company. While what he

published were not comics, nonetheless his action

was an inspiration to go out on my own as well.

The combination of these strands led me to think

that maybe I could publish Marvel artists who would

be interested in drawing stories that didn’t have the

Marvel restrictions. So when I started soliciting material

I went to people I knew in the Marvel scene: my

former roommate Jim Starlin and a friend I’d hang

out with at Neal Adams’ studio, Howard Chaykin.

They in turn brought in a then-brand-new artist,

Walt Simonson. In subsequent issues I went to Dick

Giordano, Frank Brunner, Mike Vosburg, Len Wein,

Craig Russell, Steve Leialoha, and Paul Levitz (who

brought along Steve Ditko).

What I discovered was the tradeoff one engages

in when there is little editorial direction.

Unfortunately, for the most part the material main-

tained professional craftsmanship, but not a lot of

interesting stories. There’s an exception or two; a

wonderful piece comes to mind by Steve Englehart

and Mike Vosburg entitled “Skywalker.”

I think it’s significant that the only material from

that era still in print are the fantasy and opera

adaptation works of Craig Russell, which were—and

are—truly unique.

In contrast to the stories I solicited, the more

memorable material came from artists who submitted

their stories to me: Robert Gould’s version of “Elric,”

Michael Gilbert, Ken Steacy, pre-Cerebus Dave Sim,

and last but not least, Lee Marrs.

In hindsight, I think my initial impulse failed in

one sense and succeeded in another. I failed to create

an alternative creative space for Marvel artists, but

succeeded in providing that alternative for artists

disinterested in super-heroes.

It wasn’t until the emergence of Image Comics

over a decade later that Marvel artists published their

own super-hero material. I like to think that

Star*Reach laid the groundwork for that event.

Mike Friedrich, circa 1976.

Photo courtesy of Mike Friedrich.

Howard Chaykin’s Cody

Starbuck helped launch

Friedrich’s Star*Reach #1

(April 1974).

© 2005 Star*Reach Productions.

guest editorial by mike friedrich


The second transformation I brought from underground

comics into the alternative press was the copyright-

ownership model. Unlike super-hero publishers (or Archie

Comics for that matter), the artist owned the material. As

publisher I controlled the rights that I specifically contracted

and paid for, but nothing else. I followed traditional book

publishing and paid royalties for each copy sold (the

“page rate” became an advance payment of those royalties).

While Star*Reach did not itself transform comics

with this change, I was not alone in using this

method; other alternative publishers followed with

similar terms. Eventually in the ’80s Marvel and DC

had to respond and added per-copy bonus payments

to their flat per-page fees.

The first two changes I’ve discussed were quite conscious

on my part. The third transformation turned out to be the

most significant, yet it developed organically. This was

marketing my comics primarily toward the then-new

comic-book stores. At the time, these stores had new and

back-issue Marvels as their mainstay, but I knew there was

demand in them for stories for older readers that Marvel

wasn’t recognizing. It was these readers that Star*Reach

artists appealed to.

When Star*Reach collapsed, I was able to take the

marketing and sales experience I’d gained in the comic

store market and bring that to Marvel, where I set up

their so-called “direct sales” department. This channel of

distribution by the late 1980s overtook the previous

magazine-based channel to become the dominant form

of comics distribution to this day.

There’s a postscript: The way manga has washed

across America in recent years leads me to suspect that

one transformation of Star*Reach wasn’t recognized by

anyone, including myself, at the time. According to

Frederick Schodt, in his seminal book Manga Manga,

Star*Reach became the first publisher of Japanese comics

in America, when I printed the submissions of Hiroshi

Hirota. Hirota can best be described as a talented fan

artist who uniquely combined traditional manga art with

Neal Adams-influenced American art. I found his work

intriguing, little knowing that it was the first dribble in

what has decades later become a flood.

© 2005 Star*Reach Productions.

Comics publisher

Friedrich in a mid-1970s

Bay-area newspaper

spotlight.

Photo courtesy of Mike Friedrich.

Spider-Man andHis Amazing Frenz

The splash page to

the groundbreaking

Amazing Spider-Man

#252 (May 1984),

penciled by Ron Frenz

and inked by Brett

Breeding. Original

art scan courtesy

of Dante Gallo.

© 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc.

When Marvel released Secret Wars

in 1984, the comic-book miniseries—

originally conceived as a tie-in to

Mattel’s Secret Wars toy line—prom-

ised sweeping changes for some of

the company’s most popular charac-

ters. The most controversial result

was Spider-Man’s new costume, a little

black-and-white number that would

become a major wardrobe malfunc-

tion for the wall-crawler. In time, the

new costume was revealed to be an

alien symbiote which eventually

became one of Spider-Man’s dead-

liest foes, Venom.

While some fans to this day still

like to nitpick over the decision to

introduce Spidey’s new threads,

there is no denying the fact that the

vast majority were in favor of the

creative team that arrived on The

Amazing Spider-Man at the same

time the black costume first made the scene.

During their run, writer Tom DeFalco and artist Ron

Frenz, through their brilliant exploration of

Spider-Man and his supporting characters, quickly

reminded Spider-fans that it isn’t the clothes that

make the man, or in Spider-Man’s case, the hero.

—Dan Johnson

DAN JOHNSON: Spider-Man’s costume change coincided

with you two coming on board The Amazing Spider-Man.

How did you each come to be involved with the book?

TOM DeFALCO: By default. I had been editing the

Spider-Man titles for a while, and I was working with

Roger Stern and John Romita, Jr. on Amazing Spider-Man.

Marvel promoted me to executive editor, and shifted my

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Black andWhite andRead AllOver:

duties, so I had to give up the Spider-Man books.

RON FRENZ: Then Danny Fingeroth coerced you into

doing fill-in scripting—

DeFALCO: He really didn’t coerce me. At one point Danny

came into my office and said, “Roger Stern has been

offered The Avengers, so he is going to leave Spider-Man.

I need someone to write Amazing Spider-Man, do you have

any suggestions?” I got out a list of creative people, and

went down the list, trying to give Danny the names of

people that I thought could do a good job. He got this

goofy grin on his face and was looking at me. I asked him,

“Aren’t you going to take any notes?” He goes, “Nah, I

don’t need any notes. I already have somebody in mind

for the job.” Me, always being the master of diplomacy, I

say to him, “So why the hell are you wasting my time!?!”

Danny says, “I want to get someone who knows the char-

acter very well and has experience with Spider-Man. I

was thinking of you writing the book.” My first reaction

was, “I can’t write Spider-Man!” Spider-Man needed a certain

kind of personality, a witticism that only Roger Stern could

capture. I wasn’t sure I could do it. Danny, who really

should have been a used-car salesman, convinced me to

take a shot at it.

Ron, speak of how you became the artist.

FRENZ: At that point, I was just going from freelance

project to freelance project. I had been the “regular” artist

on Marvel Team-Up for, like, three or four issues, none of

which ran concurrently, so it really didn’t look that way,

under Tom DeFalco as editor—

DeFALCO: That’s “the Legendary” Tom DeFalco—

FRENZ: Sorry. “The Legendary” Tom DeFalco was taking

over his duties as executive editor, and was handing

Spider-Man off to Danny. This was around Amazing

Spider-Man #248. The first part of that was a wrap-up

story with Thunderball, and the second part was “The Kid

Who Collects Spider-Man.” I got “The Kid Who Collects

Spider-Man,” then they called and said they needed some

fill-in issues on the book for six issues. [Then-regular

Amazing Spider-Man artist] John Romita, Jr. was going to

go do X-Men, and the original plan was he would get that

book on schedule and come back to Amazing Spider-Man

in about six months time. Basically, Amazing Spider-Man

#252 was done by a fill-in artist, because I came in with

#251 and did #252, and Rick Leonardi did issues #253

Beginnings: Miscellaneous Archie Comics gags and stories (circa 1972–73)

Milestones:Thor / Thunderstrike / Amazing Spider-Man /Fantastic Four / Spider-Girl / former Marvel Comicseditor-in-chief

Works in Progress: Spider-Girl / Last Hero Standing / Khan: The Legendof Genghis Khan (Moonstone) / Fantastic Four: TheWorld’s Greatest Guide (DK) / Comic Creators onFantastic Four (Titan)

Cyberspace:Spider-Girl Message Board at Comicboards.com


�

RON FRENZ

Beginnings: Ka-Zar the Savage #16–17 (1983)

Milestones:Ka-Zar the Savage / Star Wars / Marvel Team-Up /Thor / Amazing Spider-Man / Superman

Works in Progress: Spider-Girl

Cyberspace:www.catskillcomics.com

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by P e t e r S a n d e r s o n

Back in the Golden Age of Comics, the original Captain Marvel was so popular that his comics even outsold

Superman’s. So it is little wonder that Superman’s owners, National Periodical Publications (now DC Comics),

took Cap’s publishers, Fawcett Publications, to court, alleging that the Big Red Cheese was merely a plagiarized

version of the Man of Steel. Captain Marvel vanished into legal oblivion for two decades.

But in the 1970s, DC itself revived the character under the series title Shazam! The first issue explained

that Cap and most of his supporting cast had been trapped in suspended animation all that time.

And that, indeed, was the problem: Captain Marvel had not evolved with the times, as had characters

that had been published continuously over the decades, like his old rival Superman. Despite the

Captain’s exalted place in comics history, none of the attempts at reviving him for a modern

audience have lasted for long. How could Captain Marvel ever catch up with Superman’s sales now?

Perhaps it would be by entrusting the Captain to the writer/artist who was most responsible

for revamping the Man of Steel for a new generation. Toward the end of the 1980s, John

Byrne tried his hand at reworking Shazam! for a modern audience.

Byrne recalls that “Jonathan Peterson, who was going to be the editor, was looking around

for something for me to do. He got put in charge of [the Shazam! property] and he asked me if

I’d like to do it. And I thought about it.

“I’d never had much interest in Captain Marvel, because he seemed like a watered-down Superman,”

Byrne says. He had not read many Captain Marvel stories before this. “The most I had read was the new

stuff that had come out in the ’70s when the character was brought back.” Drawn by Cap’s co-creator

C.C. Beck, and another of his Golden Age artists, Kurt Schaffenberger, these stories were more like

the 1940s Captain Marvel stories in look and tone than the later versions of Shazam! As for the

Captain’s actual Golden Age stories, Byrne had read “just a little bit here and there.

”But a lot of different ideas suddenly popped into my head, especially in the way everything was

having to be done grim and gritty back then. Well, how can I do a grim and gritty Captain Marvel

without completely betraying everything that the character is all about? And when I came up with the

way to do that. I thought, ‘Y’know, this could be a fun series.’ So I agreed to do it.

“When I figured out how to handle the character, that was when I really started exploring

who Captain Marvel himself was,” Byrne says. He did more research into the Captain’s past

stories: “I was doing reading as I was getting into it.”


The Big Red CheeseThe John Byrne Captain

Marvel that never was.

Art courtesy of Byrne

Robotics (www.byrne

robotics.com).

© 2005 DC Comics.


Byrne asserts that “One of the hurdles that I was looking

at when I was thinking about this character [was that] the

world has definitely changed since he was created; the world

has changed since the last time we saw him.” Characters

such as Captain Marvel and his sister Mary Marvel were

created at a time when comic books were more innocent.

Why not make the contrast between that innocence and the

grimness of late 1980s comics into the point of the new series?

“The way to do that was to keep Cap and Mary exactly

as they were, but make Fawcett City the nastiest place on

Earth,” Byrne says. “The line I came up with for the cover

copy, the way I wanted it described, was, ‘In the city of

ultimate darkness, there is a new light.’ And that was going

to be my Captain Marvel.”

Byrne’s concept was actually true to the very first

Captain Marvel story, which, after all, was written and

drawn during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Billy

Batson, the young boy who will be transformed by the

wizard Shazam into the adult Captain Marvel, starts out as

an impoverished, orphaned newsboy, and the unnamed

city in which he lives (now called Fawcett City, after his

original publisher) was a dark, ominous place.

Byrne’s reworking of the Captain Marvel legend would

have made some surprising departures from the original

saga. “So we’re going to mess around with some of the

basic principles,” Byrne asserts.

For example, in the Golden Age, it was a few years

before Billy was reunited with his twin sister Mary, who also

gained super-powers. In Byrne’s version, “Mary and Cap

were going to be together right from the start.” Billy and

Mary were still orphans. “What I‘d fiddled around with is

they are in a street gang. They’re sort of the good kids in an

otherwise bad street gang that is run by a somewhat older

kid by the name of Adam Black. Get it?”

In case you don’t, Adam Black is Byrne’s reimagined

version of one of Cap’s arch-foes, Black Adam. In the

original Golden Age continuity, Black Adam was an adult

Egyptian whom Shazam had endowed with super-powers

in ancient times, but who proved to be evil. Byrne’s version,

however, was thoroughly contemporary.

Byrne kept the eerie underground tunnel from the original

story through which Billy traveled to meet Shazam. But in

Byrne’s retelling, it is Adam Black who first makes this journey.

“He goes down the tunnel first. And Shazam greets him and

gives him powers, and he runs off and starts doing bad

things, and Shazam goes, ‘Oh! Guess he wasn’t the one.’”

So Shazam then “finds Billy, and gives Billy the powers,”

whereupon Billy becomes the adult Captain Marvel. Later,

“Captain Marvel gets in trouble, and eventually Mary gets

the powers,” to rescue her brother.

Now, obviously, Shazam was not the best judge of character

in either version of Black Adam’s origin, bestowing such

immense power on someone so unworthy of them. Byrne’s

version in particular doesn’t make Shazam look too smart, giving

super-powers to the first person who happens to find him.

“Well, I never thought he was that smart, quite frankly,”

Byrne remarks. “I always got the impression that Shazam

was vaguely sort of doddery, that he was thousands of years

old and sort of losing it a little bit.”

Not only would Billy become an adult as Captain Marvel,

but, in contrast with the original stories, so would Mary

when she turned into Mary Marvel. “One of the things I was

looking forward to exploring was that whole notion of, if

you’re a kid and you can turn into a grownup, why would

you ever turn back?” Byrne says. “And I was going to

explore that mostly through Mary, who was going to really

enjoy getting boobs [laughs] and that kind of stuff.” Byrne

says he would have had Mary “putting on inappropriate

makeup and inappropriate clothing because she still thinks

like a teenager. ‘I’m a grownup now.’ Not really, no.” Byrne

says that Mary’s situation would be “very much” like that of

Jennifer Garner’s character in the recent movie 13 Going on

30, “which was quite a good movie, by the way,” he adds.

“Most people were dismissing [13 Going on 30] as Big in

drag,” Byrne continues, “but it isn’t. And what makes the dif-

ference is that in Big, Tom Hanks becomes a grownup

overnight, but without any grownup sensibilities. So he’s still a

kid, he’s just in a grownup body. In 13 Going on 30, Jennifer

Garner’s character skips 17 years of her life, so it’s suddenly 17

years later, and those 17 years have happened, but she wasn’t

there for them. They’ve happened to her character, and her

character was there, but she wasn’t inhabiting her character at

the time. She’s turned into somebody other than who she

knows herself to be. So there’s a lot of dealing with ‘Oh, look

at the nasty person I’ve become,’ at least by this kid’s standard.

So that was kind of interesting, I thought. It made it not Big.”

Of course, Byrne was starting work on Shazam! a decade

and a half before 13 Going on 30 came out. So how would Mary

and Billy have decided they didn’t want to be adults all the time?

“Unfortunately, I never got that far!” he replies, laughing.

DC’s Shazam! #1 (Feb.

1973) revived the original

Captain Marvel for the

audience of the 1970s.

© 2005 DC Comics.

Harmony Books’

1977 hardcover reprint

compilation Shazam!

From the 40’s to the 70’s

has escalated in value

during recent years.

© 2005 DC Comics.


Byrne’s opening page

to Shazam! #1 reveals

an awe-inspiring look

at the urban density

of retro-metropolis

Fawcett City. Photocopy

of the original art cour-

tesy of Jerry Ordway.

© 2005 DC Comics.

Shazam!: The New

Beginning (1987), a

four-issue miniseries

by Roy Thomas and

Tom Mandrake, was

a Legends spinoff.

© 2005 DC Comics.


Something old, something new, something borrowed, something red-yellow-and-blue—

comics have always been an orphan artform adept at using whatever’s at hand and arriving

at significant concepts and contributions against all odds. Invented by Jews, a refugee people

expert at adopting the culture around them while traveling into unknown territory, the

medium’s two most signature characters drew on as many precedents as they set:

Superman took a little of the Moses myth, some trappings of the Flash Gordon future, and

no small amount of both Philip Wylie’s novel Gladiator and the pulp hero Doc Savage to

fashion Siegel and Shuster’s still wholly original interplanetary messiah; Batman took the

literally moonlighting vigilante aristocrat model of Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel mixed

with the costumery of Mary Roberts Rinehart’s The Bat and the grim night-phantom persona

of the pulps’ Shadow to end up with Kane and Finger’s definitive urban avenger.

Comics have thus been a hybrid artform from their earliest days, as referential as they are

revolutionary, though it wasn’t ’til a half-century into their history that they would start

becoming a medium whose creators wanted you to be as aware of their sources as they were.

Growing Up, Up, and Away

The turning point came in 1986 with Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. That was

the same year as Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, another miniseries considered

equally groundbreaking. It was with these two books that the super-hero was seen as

coming of age. At the time, both books’ gloomy exposure of super-heroes’ flaws was seen

as the major departure. But the “grim ’n’ gritty” sensibility these books are credited with

introducing—and that would dominate comics for a decade or two afterward—was older

than the medium itself (remember the Shadow), and frankly, flawed heroes were as old as

the early-’60s Marvel Age.

Masterworks like Miller’s Dark Knight (as well as his and David Mazzucchelli’s Daredevil:

Born Again) can be seen more as the culmination of such tendencies and the grand finale

of the Silver Age stars as we knew them. Watchmen marked what would take their place.

Days of Future Past

Throughout comics history we’ve heard of arch-villains, arch-foes, and arch-fiends; the

type of character Watchmen pioneered could be called “arch heroes” for their clever self-

consciousness—their knowing pastiches and remixes of classic comics conventions, which

honor and add to that history while commenting on and even criticizing it.

Before Watchmen, comics fans and pop-culture watchers would speak of knock-offs

(Aquaman being “DC’s Sub-Mariner,” etc.); after Watchmen, comics fans and pop-culture

scholars would speak seriously of hero “archetypes.” It’s now legendary that Watchmen’s

Not Your Father’sSuper-Hero

A deathly serious illustration

of the Comedian, by

Watchmen co-creator

Dave Gibbons. Courtesy

of the artist.

© 2005 DC Comics.


by A d a m M c G o v e r n

vividly original cast evolved after Moore was denied use

of both the Archie and Charlton Comics heroes to

remake into a serious super-novel. This has long set

observers to speculate on the characters’ sources, and on

the surface it’s an easy game: the moral absolutist

Rorschach “is” Steve Ditko’s unyielding avenger the

Question; the high-tech nocturnal crimestopper Nite Owl

“is” Blue Beetle; etc. But it’s really not that easy at all, and

this was Moore and Gibbons’ innovation: Rorschach, in

addition to being an inspired variation on Ditko’s pioneering

practice of basing whole super-heroes around abstract

concepts and symbols, was an embodiment of every all-

or-nothing vigilante that had come before him (and

anticipated many that would follow); his creators had

elevated him to an archetype. The wealthy Nite Owl, in

his creature-of-the-dark regalia and paradoxically flashy

gadgetry, was the synthesis of dilettante do-gooders as

disparate as the gloomy Batman and the gleaming Iron

Man, an entirely fresh embodiment of an eternal type.

By the 1990s, other Moore series would practically be

identifying actual species of super-hero. In Moore’s

masterful run on the Rob Liefeld-created Superman

archetype Supreme, the character encounters a celestial

intelligence, clearly identifiable as the spirit of Jack Kirby,

who recognizes Supreme as “a Wylie”—that is, a scion of

the super-heroic strain that stretches back to Philip

Wylie’s Gladiator (if not indeed Jesus and Apollo) and

runs through Superman, Fawcett’s Captain Marvel, and

beyond. By the time this story appeared it would be

common for comics fans to consider characters like

Supreme, Prime, Mr. Majestic, Icon, and others not

imitations of Superman but “archetypes,” and to be

conscious of a pop history being played out by such

characters in a rolling process of innovation and self-

reference that could only be called postmodern (and

now is, from the ivory tower to the local comic shop).

Long-time comics fans might feel this diminished the

medium they love by over-thinking it and declaring it a

stand-in for something other than its own straightforward

charms. But the “arch heroes” and their fans actually see

comics as tied into an evolution of folklore and a continuum

of myth that solidifies their cultural worth as well as

validating their simple fun. The power-postmodernists,

their creations, and their critiques help make it more likely

that super-heroes will be here to stay because they bolster

the argument that super-heroes, in one form or another,

have always been here.

Everything Old

True to this creed, Watchmen may have set the standard

for postmodern heroes but was hardly the series that got

them started.

The first stirrings were arguably amongst a group

unequivocally out to put an end to super-heroes as we

knew them: the Crime

Syndicate, an evil

alternate-earth Justice

League who first

appeared in 1964

(Justice League of America

vol. 1 #29–30). Mere

opposites had long been

a staple of pulp-culture

conflict (evil-genius

Moriarty vs. benevolent-

genius Sherlock Holmes

in the 1890s; water-

elemental Sub-Mariner

vs. fire-elemental the

Human Torch in the

1930s), but the Crime

Syndicate went further

by remixing the traits of

their opponents into

broader types, and types

which caused questions

about the nature of the

originals (accidents of

fate seemed to have turned the Syndicate members bad

at crossroads the heroes could have taken too); and they

otherwise were wholly separate characters: “Ultraman,”

not Superman; “Owlman,” not Batman (the night-crea-

ture substitution is salient and the influence on Moore

and Gibbons’ Nite Owl is obvious); etc. These were one-

shot characters (at least until their recent revival by Grant

Morrison in another one-shot), but they built toward

something more longstanding.

The next “arch heroes” worth noting deserved the

second part of that name, anti-heroes though they might

have been: The Doom Patrol (like the Crime Syndicate, a

DC creation, debuting in My Greatest Adventure #80,

1963) were a familial team of misfits who clearly referenced

A flashy Rorschach proto-

type illo by and courtesy

of Dave Gibbons.

© 2005 DC Comics.


© 2005 DC Comics.

In BACK ISSUE #6, 2004’s

“Halloween Issue,” we brought

together Len Wein and Bernie

Wrightson for a “Pro2Pro” on their

celebrated Swamp Thing collaboration,

and provided an up-close-and-

personal gaze into Marv Wolfman

and Gene Colan’s unforgettable

The Tomb of Dracula.

Bongo Comics has one-upped

BI #6 with this year’s Bart Simpson’s

Treehouse of Horror annual

Halloween special, a flip book

with Len and Bernie joining forces

for a Swamp Thing parody called

“Squish Thing,” and Marv and

Gene lampooning their

“beloved” bloodsucker in “The

Sub-Basement of Dracula.” And

that’s just one half of the book!

The other side features a full-

length EC Comics parody with

chapters by John Severin,

Angelo Torres, and the team

of Mark Schultz and Al

Williamson, and a bookend

drawn by regular Simpsons

and Futurama artist James Lloyd. “This is an amazing

roster of talent, and their work is spectacular!” says Treehouse editor Bill (Radioactive Man)

Morrison. “You can tell that these guys had a blast writing and drawing these stories. I still

can’t believe that I got to serve as editor for so many of my heroes!”

Bill was kind enough to share with BACK ISSUE sample pages from the Swampy and

Dracula parodies . . . enjoy!


Wein & Wrightsonand Wolfman & Colan

Reunited!

Wein & Wrightsonand Wolfman & Colan

Reunited!by M i c h a e l E u r y

Bart Simpson’sTreehouse ofHorror

Bongo Comics •56 color pages •ships Sept. 28,2005 • $4.99US/$6.99 Can.

new

comi

c PRE

VIEW


(previous page and

left) What th’ muck?

It’s Squish Thing, by

Len Wein and Bernie

Wrightson!

© 2005 Bongo Entertainment. TheSimpsons © & TM TwentiethCentury Fox Film Corporation. AllRights Reserved.

(below) Marv Wolfman

and Gene Colan skewer

their famous vampire

series in "The Sub-

Basement of Dracula."

© 2005 Bongo Entertainment. TheSimpsons © & TM TwentiethCentury Fox Film Corporation. AllRights Reserved.

back issue #12

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