back issue #34

MARVELMAN ! NEW UNIVERSE ! CRISIS ! LOGAN’S RUN ! STAR HUNTERSwith STARLIN ! SHOOTER ! GIORDANO ! DAVIS ! LEACH ! WIACEK ! MICHELINIE

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“ N E W W O R L D O R D E R ” I S S U E !“ N E W W O R L D O R D E R ” I S S U E !

J u n e 2 0 0 9

No.34$6.95

Marvel’s soul-searching hero

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Volume 1,Number 34June 2009

Celebratingthe Best Comicsof the'70s, '80s, '90s,and Today!

EDITORMichael Eury

PUBLISHERJohn Morrow

DESIGNERRich J. Fowlks

COVER ARTISTJim Starlin

COVER DESIGNERMichael Kronenberg

PROOFREADERSJohn Morrowand Eric Nolen-Weathington

SPECIAL THANKSMark ArnoldMichael AushenkerPat BastienneJerry BoydEliot R. BrownMike BrowningBruce BuchananRich BucklerGlen CadiganLex CarsonDewey CassellPaty CockrumJennifer ContinoAlan DavisDC ComicsFred L. deBoomMark DiFruscioKirk DilbeckScott EdelmanDanny FingerothRon FrenzJason GeyerDick GiordanoGrand Comic-Book

DatabaseGlenn GreenbergAllan HarveyHeritage Comics

AuctionsTony IsabellaDan JohnsonRob JonesMike KeaneRob KellyDavid Anthony KraftGarry LeachPeter Lee

BACK ISSUE™ is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh,NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury,Editor, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. E-mail: [email protected]. Six-issuesubscriptions: $44 Media Mail US, $60 First Class US, $70 Canada, $105 International First Class,$115 International Priority Mail. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to theeditorial office. Cover art by Jim Starlin. Warlock and Thanos TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All RightsReserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwisenoted. All editorial matter © 2009 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM ofTwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

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BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

FLASHBACK: The Life and Death (and Life and Death) of Adam Warlock . . . . . . . . . . . .3An in-depth look at Marvel’s cosmic messiah, with Jim Starlin and Roy Thomas

INTERVIEW: Jim Shooter’s First Day at Marvel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14The in-between years in the career of comics’ teen-turned-titan

FLASHBACK: Sparks in a Bottle: The Saga of the New Universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21A galaxy of creators explore what went right, then wrong, with Marvel’s ambitious line

PRO2PRO: Dick Giordano and Pat Bastienne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34When worlds collided! Behind the scenes of Crisis on Infinite Earths

GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: The Post-Crisis DC Universe You Didn’t See . . . . . . . .40Our wish list of all-star talent on DC’s books, circa 1986

BEYOND CAPES: Logan’s Run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43William F. Nolan’s future is great—until you turn 30! With George Pérez

INTERVIEW: Bob Wiacek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50The top-tier inker discusses his Star Wars stint—plus Star-Lord, too

FLASHBACK: The Art of Marvel Slurpee Cups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54Ever wonder where the art on those cups came from?

BEYOND CAPES: Star Crossed: Remembering DC’s Star Hunters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59An incisive look at David Michelinie’s short-lived sci-fi series

FLASHBACK: Blood and Sapphires: The Rise and Demise of Marvelman . . . . . . . . . . . . .69Alan Davis, Garry Leach, and Dez Skinn discuss comics’ first “real world” superhero

GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: The Secret History of All-American Comics, Inc. . . . .77Chapter Six of Bob Rozakis’ fantasy comics history spotlights Kirby, King of Comics!

INTERVIEW: The Unique Voice and Vision of Steve Skeates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81Concluding the dazzling dialogue with one of comics’ most diverse scribes

BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88Reader feedback on our “Tech, Data, and Hardware” issue—plus more photos from the Eliot R.Brown archives!

Steve LipskyTony LorenzNigel LowreyHoward MackieAndy MangelsMarvel ComicsBob McLeodDavid MichelinieIan MillstedBrian K. MorrisAl NickersonNightscream

(courtesy ofWikipedia)

William F. NolanGeorge PérezPaul RyanBrian SagarJohn SchwirianRichard A. ScottMarie SeverinJason ShayerJim ShooterDez SkinnAnthony SnyderJim StarlinRoy ThomasTitan BooksJ. C. VaughnKaren WalkerHank WeisingerBrett WeissBob WiacekBill Worboys

PhotographyRob Yancey

The Retro Comics Experience!

N e w W o r l d O r d e r I s s u e • B A C K I S S U E • 1

The character of Adam Warlock has been a mainstay inthe Marvel Comics Universe for over 35 years. Althoughtoday synonymous with cosmic adventure, Warlock isalso a character with a history of transformation.Initially immaculately conceived as a perfect being inthe tail end of the Lee/Kirby era, Warlock went on tobecome a messiah to a planet under Roy Thomas andGil Kane, and ultimately a shattered, conflicted pariahin the hands of Jim Starlin.

Warlock went through two distinctly different phasesin the 1970s. Both of these were remarkably differentfrom the typical superhero fare published at the time.Questions of belief, personal freedom, power, andcorruption—all of these were explored through Warlock.

THE SAVIOR OF COUNTER-EARTHIn the early 1970s, it seemed like Jesus Christ waseverywhere. The terms “Jesus freak” and “born-againChristian” entered the language, and two successfulmusicals, Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell, promotedthe image of Christ in an entirely new and excitingway. Jesus had become a pop-culture icon.

Roy Thomas, writer and editor-in-chief at MarvelComics at the time, had been a fan of the Jesus Christ

Superstar soundtrack and envisioned bringing the storyto comics, but in a superhero context. He did havesome concerns: “Yes, I had some trepidation about theChrist parallels, but hoped there would be little outcry ifI handled it tastefully, since I was not really making anyserious statement on religion … at least not overtly.”However, he did decide that he should isolate thisproject from the mainstream Marvel Universe. At thesame time, though, he wanted to use a pre-existingcharacter, rather than create a brand-new one.

Fortunately, there was a perfect character alreadyavailable. In Fantastic Four #66–67 (Sept.–Oct. 1967), StanLee and Jack Kirby had woven a tale about an artificiallycreated “perfect being.” He emerged as a golden-skinnedman from a pulsating cocoon. His creators wanted to usehim to rule the planet, but he rebelled against them anddestroyed them. He disappeared, only to appear a shorttime later in Thor #165–166 (June–July 1969), where hemade the mistake of kidnapping the Thunder God’sgirlfriend, Sif. Now calling himself “Him,” the traditionalMarvel hero battle ensued, with Him ultimately decidingno girl was worth taking a beating from Thor, and hemade a quick exit. He wrapped himself in anotherprotective cocoon and drifted off into outer space.


Seek andYe Shall Find“The Seeker,” a JimStarlin-illustratedWarlock printthought to be fromthe 1970s. #29/100.Courtesy of HeritageComics Auctions(www.ha.com).© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

by K a r e n W a l k e r

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But this was not the last we would see of Him.Roy Thomas and artist Gil Kane would bring him back,drastically transformed. In Marvel Premiere #1 (Apr. 1972),Him’s cocoon is discovered in space by the HighEvolutionary, Marvel’s resident cosmic-level scientist.The scientist is preoccupied, however, with his latestproject. Previously, he had performed experimentswhere he evolved animals into anthropomorphic,sentient beings—his “New Men.” Now, theEvolutionary is contemplating a grander experiment:the re-creation of Earth!

But he seeks to not merely re-create Earth, but to doit better. His goal is to make an Earth where mankindwould arise without ever knowing aggression or violence.Essentially, the Evolutionary plans to create a paradise.

The Evolutionary uses a small chunk of Earth togenerate his new planet. He dubs his world “Counter-Earth,” as it occupies the space directly opposite theEarth, on the other side of the Sun. As Him watchesfrom within his cocoon, Counter-Earth quickly goesthrough billions of years of progress. As humans appear,the Evolutionary, completely exhausted, collapses intoa deep sleep. It is here that this perfect Earth goesirrevocably off-course. The Man-Beast, an early NewMan creation of the Evolutionary who symbolizes the“fallen angel” of this story, breaks into the Evolutionary’sorbiting home. While the Evolutionary sleeps, the Man-Beast instills violence into the proto-humans. Eventually,the Evolutionary awakes, and discovers with shock what

has been done. He struggles with the Man-Beast and hisfollowers, and is about to be overwhelmed, when Himbursts from his cocoon. He helps the Evolutionary driveback the evil New Men, who flee from the station.

But the Evolutionary is filled with dismay. He hadwanted to give mankind the kind of peaceful life theyhad never had on his Earth. But since the Man-Beasthas seeded the world with evil, he feels it is hopeless.He resolves to destroy the planet.

The newly transformed Him pleads with theEvolutionary to let him save Counter-Earth by drivingout the influence of the Man-Beast. After muchdebate, the High Evolutionary gives Him his blessing,saying that he is like the son he never had. He places asmall jewel upon his forehead and, in a ray of light,sends Him off to Counter-Earth, proclaiming, “Men shallcall you ... Warlock!”

By going this route, Thomas was able to achievehis desire of isolating his new character from the restof the superhero community, although leaving theconnection to and potential to interact with the rest ofthe Marvel Universe. Thomas had liked the name“Warlock” and decided to give it to the reborn Him.Thomas and Kane collaborated on a new look, givinghim a red tunic with a golden lightning bolt, their tipof the hat to the Fawcett Captain Marvel. Kane addedthe gem on Warlock’s brow, which would become farmore significant in Starlin’s run. The story also clearlyset up Warlock as a Christ-like figure.

What’cha GonnaDo About Him

The character whowould ultimately

become AdamWarlock emerged

from a cocoon andwas originally called

“Him.” Covers toFantastic Four #67

(Oct. 1967) and Thor#166 (June 1969),

both penciled byJack “King” Kirby and

inked by Joe Sinnottand Vince Colletta,

respectively.© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

4 • B A C K I S S U E • N e w W o r l d O r d e r I s s u e

Marvel Premiere #2 (also by Thomas and Kane) picks up right where #1 leftoff. Warlock plummets to Counter-Earth and is discovered by a group of fourrunaway teenagers. He is without his memory and is an enigma to himself aswell as the astounded kids. A girl named Ellie Roberts gives Warlock his firstname, Adam, as he is “really one of a kind.” Warlock’s arrival is noted by theMan-Beast, who sends out his minion, Rhodan, to attack him. In the meantime,the teens’ fathers track them down. All are men of “the Establishment.”While the kids explain why they have rejected their parents’ values, Warlocksteps into view, and the adults immediately accuse him of stealing their children.Rhodan then attacks Warlock. After a brief fight, Warlock uses the soul gem torevert the New Man back to his true form—a rat. Warlock tells the teens it’stime to go. When the men object, Warlock tells them to look into his eyes.They see the world that they and other men of power have created. “They seethru the eyes of a starving Biafran … an orphaned child in Asia … a city-dwellergasping unclean air into filth-choked lungs. And they know that this is theirworld … the world which they created … they, and men like them … and sofew of them were bad. So very few.” Having seen this, the men halt theirobjections and Warlock and his flock move on.

Three months after Marvel Premiere #2, Adam Warlock would shift to hisown title. Thomas stayed on board as writer for the first two issues, and thenhanded the reins over to Mike Friedrich (with science-fiction author RonGoulart filling in on issue #5). Kane would handle the art chores on issues #1,3–5, with John Buscema filling in on issue #2 and Bob Brown handling issues#6–8. Thomas would continue to edit the title throughout its run.

Warlock continued the story of Adam’s attempts to drive the Man-Beast outof Counter-Earth, but drifted toward standard superhero stories with pseudo-biblical references injected into them. Warlock spends much of his time tryingto convince the High Evolutionary not to destroy the planet, and the rest ofhis time battling the Man-Beast and his minions. Although the concept of asuperhero savior was still present, it often came across as forced, and certainlycontradictory to the idea of a pacifistic savior. It’s questionable whether theconcept could really work in a medium driven by physical conflict.

Perhaps the most interesting ideas presented in the book dealt with theCounter-Earth versions of a couple of popular Marvel characters. On Counter-Earth, Adam encounters a Dr. Victor von Doom who is scarred like hisotherworld counterpart, yet uses his scientific know-how to benefit mankind.His colleague, Reed Richards, also made a spaceflight like his counterpart onEarth, but tragically, his Sue Storm fell into a coma, and he began transforminginto a dangerous creature known as the Brute. Doom would become abeliever in Adam, and sacrifice his life in issue #7 to stop the Brute.

Adam does develop a following on Counter-Earth, although the scope ofthe movement is never quite clear. When he prevents the Brute from destroyingthe Golden Gate Bridge, he is hailed as a hero, which worries PresidentRex Carpenter (a name obviously heavy with allusion). In the final issue,Warlock #8, Warlock would battle demons and discover that PresidentCarpenter was actually the Man-Beast in disguise. But their confrontationwas not resolved in the issue—we were told in a caption that this wouldoccur in another title “some time, somewhere.”

That “somewhere” would be in the pages of The Incredible Hulk#176–178, almost eight months later. Roy Thomas was the editor of thatbook, and it seemed as good a place as any to finish the Warlock story.While Warlock had strung some biblical analogies along in its pages, the storyin Hulk would be a nearly literal translation of the death of Christ.

Gerry Conway was the writer for the first two issues, #176 and 177, withTony Isabella helping out by scripting the last issue, #178. Longtime Hulkartist Herb Trimpe would draw all three issues. Editor Roy Thomas wascredited with having conceived the story.


Second ComingArtist Gil Kane paired with writer Roy Thomas to re-create

Him into Adam Warlock. The Counter-Earth Crusader hoppedfrom a two-issue tryout in Marvel Premiere to his own series.

Kane covers (inked by Dan Adkins and Joe Sinnott, respectively)to Marvel Premiere #1 (Apr. 1972) and Warlock #1 (Aug. 1972).

© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

interview

Teenaged writer of the Legion of Super-Heroes.Editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. Editor-in-chief of Valiant.Editor-in-chief of Defiant. Editor-in-chief of BroadwayComics. Once again writer of the Legion of Super-Heroes.Human lightning rod.

Whatever you call Jim Shooter, his career incomic books has taken him as a teenager from hisparents’ home in suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,to the loftiest perches in the industry. His defeatshave been spectacular and well covered.

By any objective standard the writer, editor, and (ifforced by dire circumstances) artist has had a tremendousimpact on fans, fellow creators, and how comics are donefor more than four decades. His original run of “Legion ofSuper-Heroes” in the pages of Adventure Comics is still thestuff diehard Legion fans love to talk about. Critics sneeredat Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars, but it sells outevery time the trade-paperback collection is reprinted.

Many Marvel veterans bristled under what theydescribed as his autocratic leadership, but seminalruns such as Walter Simonson’s Thor, Frank Miller andKlaus Janson’s Daredevil, John Byrne’s Fantastic Four,Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s Daredevil, and ChrisClaremont and Bill Sienkiewicz’s New Mutants,among others, all were published on his watch.

To get to that stage, though, Shooter had to passthrough one of the least documented portions of hiscomic-book career. While both DC and Marvel fans andhistorians have interviewed and editorialized about hisfirst Legion run and his tenure as Marvel’s editor-in-chief,not nearly as much as been written about his earliestdays of his editorial tenure at the House of Ideas.

His stints as associate editor and editor-in-chief certainlyweren’t his first exposure to Marvel, though, perhaps tothe chagrin of his original Legion editor Mort Weisinger.

“Mort taught me a lot, but it was usually ‘Never dothis, always do that,’” Shooter says. “He gave you the rulesand you followed them. Okay. With Mort, if your familydesperately needed the money, you just followed orders.

“But then, occasionally, I’d read a Stan Lee story thattotally violated Mort’s rules and worked,” he continues.“Rocked, in fact. Brilliant. I started to realize that Mort’srules always worked, story-mechanics-wise. Easy,idiot-proof, safe. Trying things that explored the frontiersbeyond the confines of Mort’s rules was tricky—fraughtwith opportunities to fail—but if you were daring, if youhad the necessary depth of understanding and the skills,you could do wonderful things. This revelation led meto seek the underlying logic that explained why Mort’sway always worked, but exceptions could work, too.

“On my own, I started studying story and story-telling,” Shooter says. “And I found out that therewere more things in heaven and earth than were

Back to the FutureWriter Jim Shooter’s return to the Legion

occurred in Superboy starring the Legion ofSuper-Heroes #209 (June 1975) through

#213 (Dec. 1975). Here, minus cover copyand a digit in its issue number, is the original

cover art by Mike Grell to Superboy #211(Aug. 1975), courtesy of Heritage Comics

Auctions (www.ha.com).TM & © DC Comics.

1 4 • B A C K I S S U E • N e w W o r l d O r d e r I s s u e

by J . C . Va u g h n

®

dreamt of in Mort’s philosophy. I slowly grokked and slowly expandedmy horizons. I even got away with a few forays into dangerous territorywhile still under Mort’s thumb.”

Shooter discovered Marvel Comics during a hospital stay asa youngster.

“The Marvel comics I read in the hospital were a revelation,”he explains. “Suddenly, what was lacking in DC comics became veryclear! Marvel comics had much more spectacular action, much morehuman-sounding dialogue, much more credible characterization,and much more relatable characters. And the stories! Wow. Stanabsolutely threw down and danced upon clichés and conventions.”

He describes that as the moment the light bulb went off in hishead. If he could write even a little like Stan, maybe he could sellstories to DC, he thought. “They sure needed help.”

After his initial successes with DC, some there even started callinghim their “Marvel writer.”

“They meant it disparagingly,” he says.As his high school days came to a close, having been accepted at

New York University and under increasing pressure from the relentlessWeisinger, Shooter flew to New York to talk with Stan Lee at Marvel.He had no appointment or knowledge of any particular assignmentsavailable. The student standby fare in those days was $27.50,pretty much everything he had at that point, but he went anyway.

“I called Stan Lee and asked for an interview,” Shooter says. “Idiot.What if he was out of town, or sick that day? Fool. I called from a payphone on Madison Avenue. Miraculously, the receptionist put methrough. Unheard of. No one got to speak with Stan. Did she sense thedesperation in my voice? Whatever. Lucky fool. I told Stan I wrote forDC and wanted to write for Marvel. He said, and I quote, ‘We don’t likethe writing at DC.’ I said, and I quote, ‘I don’t either. The peoplethere call me their “Marvel writer,” and they mean it as an insult.’Stan thought for a few seconds and said, ‘I’ll give you 15 minutes.’

“I showed up at Marvel’s offices at 1:00 PM, as prescribed. I metwith Stan. We started talking comics theory. We agreed on everything.After three hours of conversation, during which, at one point,Stan jumped up on his thankfully sturdy coffee table waving a yardstickas if it were a sword (he’ll deny that, but it happened), Stan hired meas an editor. That was the good news. The bad news was that therewas no way I could do what he wanted and go to NYU at the sametime. I picked Marvel.”

He showed up for work as agreed at Marvel on the following Mondaywith his suitcase and no idea where he was going to sleep that night.

“I worked all day, mostly editing a Millie the Model script—and caught a major mistake. Stan, who wrote the book, was veryimpressed and grateful. Hey, I was a made man on day one,” he said.Lee’s receptiveness, however, wasn’t shared by Weisinger.

“Somehow, Mort had found out that I had taken a job at Marvel.He called me at my desk that first day and proceeded to scream atme for being an ingrate, ‘After all I’ve done for you, retard, imbecile,idiot, blah, blah, blah.’ Ho-hum.”

Shooter ended up staying at the YMCA.“I spent three weeks working at Marvel,” he says. “That would

have been at the end of 1969 or maybe early 1970. I loved it.I co-plotted several stories, I edited lots of comics, I learned paste-up,

sort of, from the great Ancient One, Morrie Kuramoto, I proofread,I did everything. Marvel had a very small staff.”

But he was only 18, fresh from Pittsburgh, with just a few dollarsin his pocket. After just a few weeks he realized he couldn’t survive.

“Finally, I gave up. I went home to Pittsburgh, where at least Icould sleep in a warm place,” he says.

After leaving comics, he worked at a paint and plastics plant as aquality control tech, at a lumberyard, at a restaurant washing dishes,as a security guard, in a payroll office, in a department store, as ahouse painter, as a car re-conditioner, and as a janitor. During thosedays, he also got work doing comics-style advertising concept,writing, and illustration.

“I did work for big clients like U.S. Steel and Levi’s—and madeincredible money, when there was work. The trouble was that suchwork wasn’t steady, hence the parade of low-end jobs to bridge thegaps,” Shooter says.

That led him back to comics, and the entire chain of events led tohis first day at Marvel Comics….

Bouncing BoyYoung Jim Shooter(center) first wroteLegion stories for theLSH’s ’60s editor, MortWeisinger (left), thenreturned in the mid-’70sto write the series foreditor Murray Boltinoff.

Beginnings:Legion of Super-Heroes stories in Adventure Comics#346 and 347 (July and Aug. 1966), at age 13

Milestones:Legion of Super-Heroes in Adventure Comics(creator of Ferro Lad, Karate Kid, and Princess Projectra) /Superman and Action Comics (creator of the Parasite) /Captain Action / Superboy starring the Legion ofSuper-Heroes / Super-Villain Team-Up / The Avengers /Dazzler / Marvel editor-in-chief / Superman vs.Spider-Man in Marvel Treasury Edition / Valiant Comics /

Defiant Comics / BroadwayComics / winner of Eagle andInkpot Awards

Work in Progress:Legion of Super-Heroes /DC Comics Classics Library:Legion of Super-Heroes:The Life and Death of Ferro Lad

JIMSHOOTER

Photo by Nightscream, from the Nov. 2008 Big Apple Convention in Manhattan.

N e w W o r l d O r d e r I s s u e • B A C K I S S U E • 1 5

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In 1986, Marvel Comics was coming up on its 25thanniversary as the publisher of the most popular super-hero comics in the world. In 1961, inspired by DC’sJustice League of America, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby tookan idea for a team of superheroes, who in spite ofhaving amazing powers and abilities, had their ownunique hang-ups and quarreled and bickered with oneanother. With the publication of Fantastic Four #1,Marvel laid the foundation for a whole new line ofcomic books that would revolutionize the way fansand future creators would look at superheroes.

For 25 years, the Marvel Universe lived and thrivedand expanded. To mark this milestone, a decision wasmade to do the impossible and try to catch lightningin a bottle a second time. It was a bold concept,and one whose birth and ultimate demise wasfraught with equal amounts of heartache and success,disappointment and glory.

THE BIG BANG THEORYThe New Universe was an ambitious undertaking, butthen so was the man behind this idea, editor-in-chief JimShooter. Initially, Shooter intended something muchmore radical to mark Marvel’s anniversary. Indeed,creating a whole new universe was actually the fallbackplan. “Eighteen months or so before Marvel’s 25thanniversary, there was a meeting called by the president,Jim Galton, to discuss how to ‘celebrate’ the anniversary—that is, how to capitalize on it and make money from it,”recalls Shooter. “Someone must have told Galton thatthe 25th anniversary was coming up, because he knewprecious little about our comics, or anyone else’s,for that matter. It might have been me.

“The meeting included Galton, all the vice presidents,and a couple of director-level people, I think—maybe nine or ten people,” continues Shooter.“The ‘directors’ I’m referring to, by the way, werethe people like Carol Kalish who were below theveeps and above the manager-level people, notmembers of the board of directors—all of whomknew less and cared less about the comics thanGalton did, if that’s possible. I was a VP as well aseditor-in-chief.

“Anyway, at the meeting, a number of fairlypedestrian ideas were put forth—work with Abrams topublish a coffee-table book, do some sort of specialpromotion at the San Diego Comic-Con, etc., etc.,” saysShooter. “Eventually, I was asked whether I had any ideasfor special publishing in honor of the anniversary. I hadbeen thinking about it, and I proposed that we do aBig Bang—that is, bring the Marvel Universe to an end,with every single title concluding—forever—in dramaticfashion in May of 1986 and in June begin relaunchingthe entire universe. We’d start each title again from #1.We’d preserve all that was good about each characterand title and weed out the glitches, bad stuff, and


WorldviewA New Universe montage assembled by BACKISSUE’s dynamic designer, Rich Fowlks.© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

by D a n J o h n s o n

®

stupidities. We’d improve the continuity. It would be a second edition ofthe Marvel Universe that would not track issue-for-issue, item-for-item,event-for-event with the first one, but would draw upon the vast pool ofcreative ideas expressed in the first 25 years, much as Stan had drawnupon the wealth of creativity expressed in the Timely/Atlas/MarvelComics prior to 1961. It could be heavily promoted, and sales, both forthe end of MU1 and the beginning of MU2, would be outstanding, I felt.”

As it was, Shooter had another reason for wanting to relaunch theMarvel Universe, one that would have seen a great injustice corrected.“I also proposed that we could use the universal rebirth of Marvel as aline of demarcation from which to begin paying creators’ royalties toDitko, Kirby, Ayers, and the rest,” says Shooter. “We could just includethem from that point on in the standard creator participation programsthat I’d installed, as each of the characters they had created long agowere re-introduced. Needless to say, that whole idea was shot down.Too risky. Our sales were booming then, by the way, and we held anearly 70% market share. Galton was afraid to mess with success.

“Since they wouldn’t let me do Plan A, I proposed Plan B—celebratethe 25th birthday of one universe by creating another one—a NewUniverse,” says Shooter, revealing how the first brick for the foundationof the line of comics was laid. “That flew. I was given a budget of$120,000—big money in those days—to develop eight new titles withwhich to launch the New Universe and promised a massive advertisingpromotional, and PR campaign as well as other support—staff,bonus money to insure that we’d be able to get top-drawer creators.”

Even before Shooter could get the New Universe underway, the firstof several problems sprang up that worked to hinder the line.“Marvel’s parent company, Cadence Industries, was taken private byits board under the name Cadence Management, Inc.,” says Shooter.“CMI immediately began trying to sell off the pieces of Cadence,including Marvel, to make a quick, windfall profit for themselves.They put enormous pressure on Marvel to cut costs and increaserevenues to maximize profit gained from a sale. (Companies like Marvelare usually sold for a multiple of cash flow.) One of the many casualtiesof that effort was my budget for creating, developing, and establishingthe New Universe. It was simply removed. Cut down to zero.

“We were still obligated to go through with the New Universe,however,” says Shooter. “CMI wanted more revenues, remember.I took over the project personally. I came up with the basic conceit ofthe New Universe, that is, start with the real world and add ‘realistic,’science-fiction-style heroes, i.e., based on real science, as opposed tothe Marvel Universe, which is fantasy/pseudo-science-based.”

ASSEMBLING THE TEAMSWith a reduced budget, Shooter began to form a team that would beresponsible for the creation of the New Universe from his staff at Marvel.These staffers included seasoned pros like Tom DeFalco, ArchieGoodwin, and Mark Gruenwald, and a couple of up-and-comers,Eliot R. Brown and Jack Morelli. Right from the first productionmeeting, the team hit the ground running trying to come up withideas for new books. “Jim was pounding the war drum to getsomething brand new started,” Brown recalls. “I remember we wereat an editorial meeting at the Roosevelt Hotel on Park Avenue and Jimheld up a sheet of paper and said, ‘I have here a proposal to doa brand-new series of books and I want ideas from everybody.We’re going to get this going and it’s going to be something different.’”

As ideas started being bounced around, Shooter started playinghis cards close to his vest. “Jim was playing it very cautious,” says Brown,remembering the initial editorial meetings that brought him onboardfor the New Universe. “Jim was doing that for upstairs. He couldn’t

hire a brand-new editor and he was promoting from within,which apparently is different. He did say, ‘You have to be conditional,you have to be secretive. We’re not telling anybody [what we aredoing],’ and that was fine. I’m thinking this was in November of1985. We had one more big editorial meeting and we were pitchingideas or titles for the books. I remember ‘New Universe’ [for the nameof the line] was not favored at the beginning, but after trying otherideas, it was finally settled upon.”

In spite of the budget cuts, there was a clear need to get NewUniverse up and running. But the clock was ticking and the launch datefor the new line was quickly approaching. Pressure was building to meetthe proposed launch date that was less than a year away. “Because oftime lost at the beginning, everything was late,” recalls Shooter.

“It was a nightmare getting anything out the door on time. All inall, given the circumstances, I thought we did better than anyonecould expect.” To illustrate how diverse the proposals were for theNew Universe line, one need only look at two creations which wouldeventually be published by Marvel, but at the time were considerednot quite right for Shooter’s vision. Those series were Speedball andStrikeforce: Morituri.


Brown Thinks BigEliot R. Brown remarks of his gag memo: “I cannot recallwhether Marvel was still owned by Cadence Industries atthe time, or I had just used some old stationery! Whoeverowned us then, whether it was New World or Cadence, infour short years, we would be owned by Ron Perlman andsee the beginning of the end!”© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

From the Brown Vault(opposite page) From Eliot R. Brown’s files, Mark

Gruenwald’s ideas about the New Universe, and threepages of notes from a developmental meeting.

© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.


Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985–1986),DC Comics’ legendary 12-issue maxiseries

by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez,reshaped the company’s cumbersomecontinuity. Readers still recall today theiranticipation over the series’ “permanent”

revisions and their enthusiasm for Crisis’numerous intracompany crossovers.

It’s no easy task producing a publication of any type, especially aproject of Crisis’ enormity. Crisis’ editorial planning stages—from cameoappearances of the Monitor to the famous character “Death List”—have been well documented (nowhere better than in the superlativecollected edition, Absolute Crisis on Infinite Earths, which comeshighly recommended). But what did it take to get Crisis on Infinite Earths,

the maxiseries and the crossover event of the decade, out the door andto the printer on time? Were there behind-the-scenes machinations—from blown deadlines to temperamental creators—that threatened toimplode this earth-altering project? And over two decades later, howdoes Crisis hold up in the minds of those who helped bring it to life?

To find out, BACK ISSUE has made the interdimensional hop (via e-mail)to the studio of Dick Giordano, that mirthful master of “Meanwhile…”who at the time was DC’s vice president/executive editor (as well as theinker of Crisis on Infinite Earths’ earlier issues), to ask some Crisis-relatedquestions … and joining in on the chat is Pat Bastienne, who during Crisiswas DC’s editorial coordinator—and later became the company’s talentcoordinator (Pat’s participation in this dialogue was limited due to aninjury—thanks, Patti, for doing what you could, and get well soon!). Join usas we pick Dick’s and Pat’s brains and venture back to a time…

Meet the MonitorGeorge Pérez’s take on the

foreboding figure behind Crisis,and (above) the DC Comics

memo spelling out the Monitor’suse in other series.

TM & © DC Comics.

by M i c h a e l E u r yconducted by e-mail on January 25, 2009

®

MICHAEL EURY: Dick, your editorial approach wascreatively nurturing but relatively “hands off.”What was your biggest challenge, as executive editor,to editorially manage such a massive crossover eventas Crisis on Infinite Earths?DICK GIORDANO: Since I wasn’t the editor of Crisis onInfinite Earths, my editorial approach, hands off or on,was basically irrelevant. Marv, and I think George,approached me with the idea and I offered little inputas they pitched a story that I knew would be an“event” of the biggest magnitude. I was one of thosewho believed that our continuity was fast becomingtoo convoluted for our new audience (newsstand saleswere being replaced at a dizzying clip by direct marketsales which attracted older more mature readers) andthat any attempt to simplify and clarify the DCUniverse continuity would be welcomed by some andvilified by others. I fully expect a volley of death threats(kidding! ). I also knew that the project managementwould be a job and a half and could not be run by mealone. For it to work, it had to be a team effort.

I was, for lack of a better term, the project facilitator.EURY: Were there editors used to doing things theirway who resisted across-the-board coordination?GIORDANO: Of course there were. An editor who didn’tbelieve he knew what was best for the characters in hischarge couldn’t have been a very good editor.EURY: So how did you get them to play ball?GIORDANO: I’m happy to relate that at a mass out-of-office meeting attended by all the in-house editors,the writer/editors, Jenette Kahn, Paul Levitz, and myself,a lively exchange of ideas gave us confidence thatall parties would, at least outwardly, participate.There were no threats and Jenette, Paul, and myselfwere there to contribute creatively, not as managers.EURY: Pat, how did DC approach the daunting taskof coordinating all those interconnected stories in itsdifferent series, as well as the Crisis maxiseries itself?

World WatchingThe Monitor’s aideLyla stands up toher boss in thistwo-page spreadfrom Crisis onInfinite Earths #1(Apr. 1985) byWolfman, Pérez,and Giordano.Original art scancourtesy of HeritageComics Auctions(www.ha.com).TM & © DC Comics.

Beginnings:Sheena background art for the Jerry Iger Studio(Fiction House, 1951)

Milestones:Editor of Charlton Comics’ “Action Heroes” line / Sarge Steel /1960s romance comics / editing at DC in the late-1960s on titlesincluding Aquaman and Teen Titans / inking Neal Adams on GreenLantern/Green Arrow, Detective Comics, and Batman in the 1970s /Diana Prince: Wonder Woman / Continuity Associates, with Adamssolo art on Batman tales including “There is No Hope in CrimeAlley” in Detective #457 / the Human Target / Marvel Comics’Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with Roy Thomas / Sons of the Tiger /returning to DC as editor in the 1980s and becoming its editorialdirector for a legendary stint / inking Crisis on Infinite Earths andMan of Steel / Jonni Thunder / Modesty Blaise / Future Comics /

The Phantom / Dick Giordano: ChangingComics, One Day at a Time(TwoMorrows biography, 2003)

Works in Progress:Colony (online comic with Bob Layton,at www.boblayton.com) / The Unseen

Cyberspace:www.dickgiordano.com /www.theartistschoice.com/giordanoindex.htm

dickgiordano

Photo courtesy of Rob Jones.



ACTION COMICSwriter/penciler: John Byrneinker: Karl Kesel

THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMANwriter: Marv Wolfmanartist: Jerry Ordway

AQUAMANwriter/artist: Tim Truman

THE ATOMwriter: Steve Gerberpenciler: Pat Broderickinker: Bruce Patterson

THE ATOMIC KNIGHTSwriter: Mike W. Barrartist: Brian Bolland

BATMANwriter/penciler: Frank Millerinker: Klaus Janson

BLACK CANARYwriter: Howard Chaykinartist: Dave Stevens

BLUE BEETLEwriter: Len Weinpenciler: Steve Ditkoinker: Dick Giordano

CATWOMANwriter: Frank Millerartists: Los Bros. Hernandez

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWNwriter/artist: Barry Windsor-Smith

CLAW THE UNCONQUEREDwriter: Roy Thomaspenciler: John Buscemainker: Tony DeZuniga

THE CREEPERwriter: Steve Gerberartist: Bill Sienkiewicz

His Apokolips Are Sealed!Deadly Darkseid, the nastiest of NewGods, in a Jim Starlin-drawn commis-

sion courtesy of Anthony Snyder.TM & © DC Comics.

John Byrne on Superman? Frank Miller on Batman?George Pérez on Wonder Woman? Mike Grell onGreen Arrow? For the DC Comics reader of the mid-1980s,the news of this quartet of comics superstars taking overfour of DC’s greatest heroes in the wake of Crisis onInfinite Earths induced fanboy heart palpitations!

Dick Giordano, at the time DC’s executive editor,confessed to me that his unfulfilled dream for the post-

Crisis DC Universe was to follow Marv Wolfman’ssuggestion of rebooting the entire DC line. Let’s pretendthat was in fact what DC did, assembling the top talentof 1986 to revitalize not just its core titles, but virtuallyevery title published by the company! Thanks to a pollof BACK ISSUE’s writers conducted by ye editor,BI proudly presents our ultimate wish list of what mighthave been…

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Welcome to the 23rd century. The only thingyou can’t have in this perfect world of totalpleasure is your 30th birthday. Logan is 29.

Such was the tagline of the 1976 science-fiction film Logan’s Run. The film was based

on a novel written by William F. Nolan andGeorge Clayton Johnson and published in 1965.The novel had a curious beginning, as William

F. Nolan relates: “We have to go way back to 1963.There was a science-fiction course being taught byCharles Beaumont at UCLA. It was an evening adult-education class, one of the earliest science-fiction classes.He called me one day—we were very close friends—and said, ‘Would you come down and speak to my class?This is a very basic course and I’m just starting it, so whatI need from you is an example of how science fictiondiffers from social fiction.’ I said, ‘Okay. Let me think itover and I’ll come up with something.’ So, I put thephone down and the next week, as I drove on the freewaytoward UCLA, I was thinking, ‘Okay, I’ve got to have anexample and I still haven’t thought of one.’ Then I thought,‘Wait a minute. That old cliché is that “Life begins at 40.”What if you turned that around? In social fiction,life begins at 40 and a guy turns 40 and runs off with aVegas showgirl. In science fiction, what if you turned 40and you were living in an overpopulated state and itwas against the law to live past 40, so death begins at 40?That might make an interesting science fiction examplefor the class.’ That’s all I ever thought it would be. So, Igave the lecture and I used that example and when I wasdriving home after the class, I thought, ‘You know, I couldprobably sell that and make $100 or maybe even $200 offit.’ I even had a title, ‘Killer Man, Killer Man, Leave MyDoor.’ So, in the future, the K-Men—it was Sandmen inthe final novel—would come to your door on your 40thbirthday and take you away for euthanasia and that wouldbe the end of you. I could write about an ex-K-Man whoturns 40 and is pursued by his own people, but since heknows all the rules and he has been a K-Man, he knowshow to stay one step ahead of them. But in the end, theyfind him and execute him and that’s the end of the story.And I thought, ‘I could probably even make a noveletteout of that.’ That’s as far as it went then, in 1963.”

That was not, of course, the end of the story. Early thenext year, Nolan was visiting with another close friend,screenwriter George Clayton Johnson, who had workedon TV’s original Twilight Zone. Nolan told Johnson of hisstory idea and George loved it, suggesting they write ittogether. Their plan was to write a novel first and then ascreenplay. Before parting, they jotted down some keyideas on index cards, such as lowering the age of death.As Nolan explains, “We cut it from 40 to 21 eventuallybecause we thought death at 21 is far more shocking formost people than death at 40. You’re just achieving your


Running for Their LivesLogan’s Run montage created by George Pérez forthe artist’s 1977 Accent on the First “E” portfolio.Art scans in this article courtesy of Dewey Cassell.Logan’s Run TM & © MGM.

by D e w e y C a s s e l l

®

adulthood, you’ve just turned 21, and suddenly you have todie.” Due to hectic schedules, it was the following yearbefore they were able to set aside time to write the story.To get away from distractions, they holed up in a motel room,cranking out the novel on a typewriter in 21 days. After a fewrevisions, they submitted the manuscript to several publisherssimultaneously and Dial Press made the best offer. Havingsold the novel, Nolan and Johnson then sat down to draftthe screenplay, following a similar writing approach. At thetime, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer became interested in Logan’sRun and ultimately met their asking price of $100,000.

MGM purchased the film rights toLogan’s Run, but rejected the screenplaysubmitted by Nolan and Johnson. The projectwent through a series of screenwriters,including Richard Maibaum, who hadpenned a number of the James Bond films.Irwin Allen also pitched an idea for the film,but MGM did not want to surrender therights to the property. It ultimately took nineyears to bring to fruition. Each year, MGMwould change executives and the newexecutives would have a different idea ofhow to do it. Finally, David Zelag Goodmanwas chosen to adapt the novel to thescreen. Goodman did not have a science-fiction background and the film differedfrom the novel in several significant ways.The death age was changed from 21 to 30.

At the time, teenage actors were less plentiful and it wouldhave been challenging to cast the entire movie with peopleunder 21. Other changes were more capricious. Nolanrecalls his conversation with producer Saul David: “Saul said,‘We’re getting rid of your euthanasia thing, the Sleep Shop.’And I said, ‘What?’ And he said, ‘Yeah. MGM took yourwhole Sleep Shop concept and put it into Soylent Green,another one of our movies. And I said, ‘Oh, my God.’And he said, ‘Well, we own the rights to both books.’

There were additional changes, as Nolan recalls in hisfurther conversation with Saul David: “Saul said, ‘By theway, we’re bringing in an old man.’ And I said, ‘Oh, youmean Ballard, the Sanctuary master.’ And he said, ‘No, we’vegot a contract with Peter Ustinov. He’s going to comeover from England and he’s going to take the part of thisold man who lives in the Senate building with hundredsof different cats and he quotes from T. S. Eliot all thetime.’ And I said, ‘Where’s Ballard?’ He said, ‘We got ridof Ballard.’ And I said, ‘So what does Sanctuary mean?’And he said, ‘There is no Sanctuary.’”

Despite the authors’ objections, MGM proceededwith the film, which proved to be a box-office success.Logan’s Run was directed by Michael Anderson, andstarred Michael York as Logan, Jenny Agutter as Jessica,Richard Jordan as Francis, and Farrah Fawcett-Majors inher breakout film role as Holly. The film won an AcademyAward for Special Achievement in Visual Effects.

Bringing the Novel to the Silver Screen(top) Logan’s Run movie poster, courtesy ofHeritage Auction Galleries (www.ha.com).(inset) 1969 Dell paperback edition of thenovel. (bottom) Scene in the ice cave fromthe film, with Michael York as Logan andJenny Agutter as Jessica.© 1976 MGM.

©19

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interview

Having grown up in the ’70s, I was, as were manykids my age, a huge fan of the Star Wars movies.The Marvel Star Wars comics published following themovie adaptation not only helped to fill the gap betweenfilms, they also fueled the fire of imagination for many ofus as we dreamed of a galaxy far, far away.

Writer Roy Thomas and artist Howard Chaykinhave both discussed their work on the movieadaptation as well as their subsequent stint on theearly “expanded universe.” Although both creatorsliked the original movie, the franchise wasn’texactly their “cup of tea” and they wrapped uptheir work on the series with Star Wars #10.

Beginning with issue #11, a whole newcreative team consisting of some of the industry’stop professionals assumed direction of the title.Writer Archie Goodwin, penciler Carmine Infantino, andinker Terry Austin injected a whole new life into the series.As the series continued, inking over Carmine’s pencils washandled alternatively by Bob Wiacek and Gene Day.

Most of the early creators of the Star Wars comic havebeen interviewed about their work with the exceptionof Bob Wiacek. Recognizing this, I set out to provide acomprehensive interview with the inker whose comicscareer has spanned more than three decades. My sincereappreciation to Mr. Wiacek for his taking the time todiscuss his work on the series.

– Mike Keane

MIKE KEANE: Early on in your career, you inked a coupleissues of the black-and-white magazine MarvelPreview featuring Star-Lord (issues #14 and 15, datedSpring and Summer 1978, respectively). It appears thiswork predated your work on Star Wars.BOB WIACEK: It did.KEANE: Both “Star-Lord” and Star Wars were penciledby Carmine Infantino. How did your collaborationwith Carmine on “Star-Lord” come about?WIACEK: The first time I had inked Carmine was on anissue of Iron Man, issue #108, and [Marvel] liked it somuch that it was because of that, that I got to ink the“Star-Lord” stuff.KEANE: Do think that your work on “Star-Lord” was atryout for Star Wars?WIACEK: No, I don’t think that it was because theydidn’t inform me about it. It was only due to the factthat they liked the work that I did with Carmine onthat issue of Iron Man that I got the job [on Star-Lord].KEANE: I enjoyed the work you both did on these twoissues. The black-and-white medium is very conduciveto an epic set in outer space. What media did you usein your “Star-Lord” work? Was it a combination of penand ink, brush, and zip-a-tone?WIACEK: The Star-Lord work was all brush except for a lotof the mechanical stuff. I used a 102 or a Gillott 170 thatI had been using at the time. And I used a Rapidographfor the small, intricate stuff. Except for the small figures,nine times out of ten I would use brush on the figures.I used zip-a-tone, and that was my first serious use of the

CheckmateSigned by its inker, Bob Wiacek, the

Carmine Infantino-drawn original cover artto Star Wars #35 (May 1980). Courtesy ofHeritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

Star Wars TM & © Lucasfilm.


by M i k e K e a n e

medium. Some of it I liked, and some of it I failed at what I was trying todo and it didn’t come out the way I’d wanted it to. On the second one,I used a lot of grease pencil work and I really liked the way that came out.KEANE: One thing that stands out is the difference in techniquesthat were used between these two issues. In issue #14, you primarilyused zip-a-tone for various effects, while in issue #15 a greasepencil is heavily utilized instead. Was this you experimenting withdifferent techniques?WIACEK: Yeah, I was trying out different techniques and trying toget a different look between the two issues. I was heavily influencedby the work that Alfredo Alcala was doing—not capturing necessarilyhis style, but capturing his work using a grease pencil. I had thoughtabout experimenting with ink wash but I wasn’t very comfortablewith it and instead I tried working with a grease pencil.KEANE: There are many similarities between the art and generallook you and Carmine created for both “Star-Lord” and Star Wars.The technology, starships, and even military costumes in both serieswere very much alike. Marvel Premiere #15 and Star Wars #24,for instance, reflect this comparison. As far as your inking, it appearsthat by the time you began Star Wars you felt more comfortable withthe media you had experimented with, and you began merging thedifferent techniques you had used on “Star-Lord.”WIACEK: Yes, I didn’t want them both to look the same.KEANE: To achieve various effects which required white contrastingwith the black background of space (e.g., stars, spaceships racingthrough space), you used a combination of techniques. You usedeither white ink or a razor blade to tear away atthe black-inked pages.WIACEK: Oh, yeah, that was a technique that alot of artists were using. In fact, Jack Abeltaught Terry Austin and me. I didn’t get itdown as good as Terry did until later on,where you’d let the razor skip down the page.I remember Jack doing it a number of times.KEANE: Carmine had taken a break fromStar Wars after issue #15 to work with youon these two issues of “Star-Lord” andreturned to the series with issue #18.Although it went un-credited, your first workon Star Wars would have been assistingTerry Austin by inking a couple of pages ofissue #13.WIACEK: And I had inked an issue of Star Warsthat Walt Simonson penciled [issue #16].KEANE: This would have been your first fullissue [issue #16, “The Hunter,” featured the first appearance of thepopular bounty hunter, Valance the Hunter]. What led to you gettingthis fill-in issue?WIACEK: It was interesting how that came about. Jim Shootercontacted me and said that he had two books that needed to beinked. Back then he was giving out work occasionally. One wasStar Wars over Walt Simonson and the other was, believe it or not,an adaptation of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with pencilsby George Pérez. I’m glad I said yes to Star Wars. I loved Simonson’swork and I don’t think that Sgt. Pepper was ever published. [Editor’s note:Actually, it was, as Marvel Super Special #7 (1978).] I found out laterthat that was my tryout for the series. They liked what I did and Ibecame their regular inker with issue #18.KEANE: What was your opinion of the movie?WIACEK: I loved the film and saw it four times when it was firstreleased. I was just blown away because it was the old serials,

Beginnings:Doctor Strange #4 (1974): background inks asone of the “Crusty Bunkers” / Superboy starringthe Legion of Super-Heroes #220 (1976): firstcredited inks

Milestones:inking Paul Smith on X-Men / inking WaltSimonson on X-Factor / inking Steve Rude onSpider-Man: Lifelines / The Brave and the Bold

Works inProgress:JSA #23–25 (inkingJerry Ordway) / Nexus(inking Steve Rude on aregular basis startingwith #102)

Cyberspace:www.theartistschoice.com

BOBWIACEK


Valance the HunterAn undated Bob Wiacek rendition of the Star Wars

bounty hunter. Courtesy of Mike Keane.TM & © Lucasfilm.

Universal Talent photo courtesy of Bob Wiacek.

©20

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In the mid-1970s, Marvel Comics’merchandising had shifted away frommail-in premiums and dimestorenovelties. One of the first and most fun

marketing concepts given to retailers,which still endures today, were Slurpee

cups. They were primarily distributedfrom large-chain convenience stores such as 7-11. Yes, I’m old enoughto remember begging my mom to take me to 7-11, conning her intobuying me a Slurpee so I could get one of these Marvel cups.

A set of 60 cups were offered to 7-11 retailers in the summer of 1975.The set was so well received that a new set was again created andoffered in the summer of 1977. Maybe you have some of these sittingaround in your attic. Other retailers like Circle-K, Icee, and Kolee alsoissued Slurpee cups. You might even find a few that are blank with avacant spot where the retailer could have their name printed!

But when you look at these cups, a lot of times you could get afeeling of déjà vu, an idea you had seen this art before, and you arecorrect! Almost all of it has been recycled in some shape or form. I havebeen fascinated with the production of these cups and who theiroriginal artists actually were. I knew that Marie Severin worked in Marvelproduction in the early ’70s, and I eventually tracked her down (withthe help of her old friend Herb Trimpe) at her home in New York andwe had a phone conversation about these cups. I think everyone knowsshe is one of the nicest people you will ever meet in the business. Shelistened politely to my ramblings and finally told me, “You need totalk to Paty.” She had to spell the name out for me as I was unfamiliarwith this person who is known only by her first name! I finallyrealized she was talking about Paty Cockrum, a comics creator, as wellas the wife of the legendary Dave Cockrum.

Upon contacting Paty Cockrum, she was able to give me a wealthof information about these cups. She had begun work at Marvel Comicsin October of 1974 shortly after Marvel had signed a contract to producethe 1975 Slurpee cups. Although Tony Mortellaro and MarieSeverin had already begun the project, Paty was quickly brought in.Tony Mortellaro had previously created archived files on some of themore prominent Marvel characters. However, Paty made a discovery:“Some of the lesser characters were not represented in the files. So Istarted building merchandising files with good shots of each character.

“Tony left staff and Marie became busy with other projects,” Patycontinues. “I finished up the run. I began to amass a large file ofaction poses to offer prospective merchandisers. I had access to thearchives at Marvel. They had silverprints of all the books that theyhad printed for decades.”

However, the work was a bit more difficult than that. You will noticesome of the art has additions or subtractions or subtle differences. Patydescribes the process she was presented with in 1974: “Marie [Severin]and Tony Mortellaro were doing the touch-ups … taking out blurbs andword ballons and touching up the holes to form a merchandise image.”It became a fun and creative process. She also mentions, “We played allkinds of games with the figures … flopping them … redoing arms andlegs and wings and heads and expressions. As soon as art came in onmajor characters, I would glom the pages, stat them, give them back,and go do work on the lifted figures … clean it up, stat it down orup to fit the master file, and then add it to the growing collection!”

Paty singularly became the Marvel production department in the1970s and the Slurpee project was one of her biggest. In picking andchoosing the art to use, merchandisers wanted the characters to signifythe heroes’ current look. Costumes might have been recently updated ormodified. The characters’ creative teams may have changed. Most retailershad a desire for John Buscema or John Romita, Sr. art to advertise theirproducts. Paty notes, “Romita’s art was so much more visually attractive… especially to merchandisers who did not understand the stylisticdifference in the art forms. They invariably went to the Buscemas, either one… Romita… Cockrum, Adams, Buckler; good, representational artists.”

The characters on the cups also had to be good representativesof Marvel. Normally a smile was added to each character. None ofthe characters were to give a frightened or confused state. The usuallyscowling Hulk is provided with a John Romita-smile as he rampages

Oh, Thank Heaven……for 7-11. An ad for the 1975 Marvel Slurpee cup collection,including Super-Stan. (Where’s Rascally Roy, we wannaknow??) All images in this article are courtesy of Lex Carson.© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. 7-11 TM & © Sunderland Corp.

by L e x C a r s o n


through a town. My personal favorite is the 1975 Captain Americaimage, smiling as he throws a punch at you.

Identifying the art and artists used for the Slurpee cups has beenand continues to be difficult. A few, such as John Romita’s Invisible Girl,were created for the Slurpee project. Some of the art was presentedin premium magazines such as FOOM or, in the case of John Severin’s1975 Kull image, from a Kull private portfolio printed by Pacifico.Images also came in from “across the pond,” as some have beenfound in the Marvel British issues such as Mighty World of Marvel.There are still a few that have not been identified, and I hope somereaders of this article can help. In particular, the 1977 cup images ofthe Black Widow, Iron Fist, and the Black Panther have been extremelypuzzling. If you know who did this work, please let us know!

Distinguishing a 1975 Slurpee cup from a 1977 cup is a veryeasy task. The 1975 cups presented a single action pose of a character.A set of 60 was created, complete with a numbered checklist. The backof the cup had a head image of the character and a word balloontelling their origin and background. Today’s comics strive to havea “jumping on” point for the reader. The 1975 Slurpee cup givesits owner an immediate idea of who the character is. This was anelementary but effective marketing concept. The 1975 cups areprimarily printed in two colors and black. The 1975 cups also comein two styles. Some are wide while others are slightly taller (I preferto have the taller ones as they appear thicker and are more durable).The word balloons on the back of the cup are usually black ink on thewhite plastic surface. However, you will find some cups that hadblack ink in a yellow word balloon.

The 1977 cups are wild in design. Paty was provided with a muchwider color range to work with, and to say the least, she got very creativewith background scenarios and even paneled sequences. The result isa panoramic scene with multiple characters which is not easily capturedby the camera. With two more years of experience in productionand many more images in her archives, Paty’s 1977 set is a verygroundbreaking piece of work. Forty cups were issued in 1977.

You probably wonder, if Marvel had a bigger budget with the secondissue, whey were there not more cups? Each cup for the 1977 issue,with more color and multiple images on each, were simply moreexpensive. Paty explains, “If we wanted more color and more interestingpossibilities with the designs, we had to go for less cups in the run.”

Of course, Paty was working at Marvel with a budget of her own.“Any time I could get my hands on extraneous art,” she recalls,

“like spots Dave [Cockrum] did for fun … or Buscema did on the backof pages, I would stat them and add them to the masters in my files.”

People also ask if some cups are more sought after than others. I thinkthat is a topic open to debate. Some have said the John Buscema 1975Doc Savage cup is difficult to find,but I really see no scarcity in its supply.

There is also a strong interest inthe Dave Cockrum X-Men cup. Yes,it is the only one with a Wolverineimage. There were multiple cupsmade of some of the more popularMarvel characters such as Spider-Man, Captain America, and FantasticFour, but the X-Men hadjust recently relaunched its“new” lineup and Marvelwas unaware that it wouldbecome such a major partof its universe. The imagePaty uses for the X-Mencup was somewhat difficultto find. Dave Cockrumdrew it for the letterspage of a black-and-whitemagazine: Rampaging Hulk#2. The team is shown onthe letters pages on page40 and 41, but there is onlyan exploding cloud ofbrimstone signifying that

Nightcrawler has “bamfed” or teleported out of the picture. You’ll besomewhat amused to find the image of the teleported Nightcrawler onpage 65 of this Hulk magazine. This gag took me over 30 years to figureout and Paty and Dave Cockrum both had a laugh at how slow I havebeen to discover the subtle humor involved. The X-Men cup is theonly one you’ll find in either issue that is signed by the artist.

Another unusual cup with quite a bit of history is the 1975 runningSpider-Man. This image was originally done by Steve Ditko. It is a panelfrom one of the early Amazing Spider-Man comics. Marie Severin sharedwith me that a Marvel staffer cut out the image and reattached the armsto fit onto a poster in the 1960s. My guess would be the staffer might

have been either Sol Brodsky or Frank Giacoia. The curvesof the legs and the shinbones on Spider-Man arevintage trademarks of Steve Ditko. For the Slurpee issue,John Romita presented Paty with a similar image formarketing. Paty recalls, “John told me that is was a redoof a Ditko running pose that had been lifted from thebooks and monkeyed with to a degree. He just redid itso we could have a good vertical action pose of Spidey.”

Of course, no marketing project could be completewithout an image of the master of self-promotion:Stan Lee. Marvel’s head honcho adorns one of the1975 cups with original art as an amalgamation ofseveral of the Marvel characters under the guise of“Super-Stan.” His body image was created by JohnRomita. Lee, who has always had a fondness for theway Marie Severin drew his face, allowed her to createthe head for his likeness.

Drawing Bead on a SlurpeeInterior art images from FOOM #7 (Fall 1974),

with art by Dave Cockrum; and the 1975 Hawkeye cupusing the Cockrum art. All Slurpee-cup photos were

produced by Bill Worboys Photography.© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.


DD SlurpeeThe Gil Kane-drawn Daredevil image from thecover to Marvel Two-in-One #3 was recycledfor the Man without Fear’s 1975 cup.© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Donovan Flint,Star of “TheSurvivors”……the working titlefor Star Hunters,in this early DonNewton/Bob Laytonpinup signed byboth artists. Sadly,Flint did not survivethe DC Implosion.Art courtesy ofAnthony Snyder(www.anthonysnyderart.com).TM & © DC Comics.

by M a r k D i F r u s c i o

®

With those words, a young filmmaker named GeorgeLucas introduced moviegoers to a scrappy band ofspace-faring freedom fighters trying to overthrow anevil Galactic Empire in his sci-fi blockbuster Star Wars.Released in May of 1977, Star Wars quickly went on tobecome a cultural phenomenon, adding a slew of newterms to the English lexicon, including “Death Star,”“the Force,” and “Darth Vader.”

However, in the fall of that same year, DC Comicsintroduced its own scrappy band of space rebels warringagainst interstellar tyranny in the form of a new comicseries called Star Hunters. Over the next three decades theStar Wars franchise would spawn two sequels, threeprequels, countless comic-book tie-ins, and enoughmerchandising sales to surpass the GNP of a small country.Meanwhile, Star Hunters has largely been relegated to therole of a footnote in comic-book history as one of theapproximately 30 titles given a speedy demise during thenow-infamous “DC Implosion” of 1978. Despite its all-too-brief sojourn through the galaxy, Star Hunters remainsa book that was as far ahead of its time as the hit moviethat would forever eclipse it in the popular consciousness.

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY“Beginning an epic of space and time,” proclaimed theopening page of DC Super-Stars #16 (Oct. 1977), whereinthe Star Hunters made their debut. “Step 150 years intothe future,” beckoned the first caption, “into a world ofgalactic flight and interplanetary intrigue, of alien culturesand death at the speed of light! A world whose greatesthero speaks with an unmistakable Irish brogue—”While that last line might prompt contemporary readersto conjure up sound bytes of Colin Farrell or U2 frontmanBono, the origins of this Irish space hero actually stemfrom a bygone era of swashbuckling adventure filmsthat were akin to the Star Wars of their day.

Created by writer David Michelinie, Star Hunterswas first conceived of back in 1975 when Michelinie wasscripting The Unknown Soldier and Claw the Unconqueredfor DC. In a text piece entitled “The Story Behind theStory,” printed alongside the Star Hunters’ firstappearance, the details of the development processillustrate just how Michelinie’s concept evolved over aprolonged period of editorial reshuffling and creativesetbacks. That evolution first began during the fall TVseason of 1975 when Michelinie noted the gainingpopularity of science-fiction television series such asSpace: 1999 and reruns of Star Trek. From this trendMichelinie came to believe that the time might be ripefor a similar resurgence in the world of comics.

Reflecting on the creation of Star Hunters some threedecades after the fact, Michelinie recalls that his interestin science fiction began at a young age. “I was a hugescience fiction fan, both books and movies,” Michelinieremembers. “My favorite movie of all time is ForbiddenPlanet, which I saw when my age was still in single digits.Most of what I read was science fiction. Robert A.Heinlein, Clifford D. Simak, and Fredric Brown werestaples throughout high school, with Harry Harrison,Harlan Ellison, and Michael Moorcock added duringcollege. Novels that I loved and undoubtedly helped formmy creative direction were Starship Troopers by Heinlein,Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, The ShrinkingMan [more famous by its film adaptation’s name,The Incredible Shrinking Man] by Richard Matheson, StarBorn by Andre Norton, Time is the Simplest Thing by Simak.[I also] clearly remember some of the short stories Iabsorbed then, even after all these decades, like “Thirdfrom the Sun” by Matheson, “All Summer in a Day” byRay Bradbury, “The Waveries” by Brown, and “A Wind isRising” [by science-fiction humorist Robert Sheckley].Those kind of stories kicked my imagination into highgear and made me want to make up stories of my own.”

Obviously, science fiction has always been a part of thecomics medium as well, going back to the early days ofBuck Rogers and Flash Gordon, and carrying throughto the pantheon of DC’s Silver Age sci-fi heroes such asAdam Strange, the Atomic Knights, and Captain Comet[see TwoMorrows’ Silver Age Sci-Fi Companion for acomprehensive exploration of this era in DC history].Nevertheless, as the “Story Behind The Story” explains,“science fiction had not traditionally done well in comicbooks.” In fact, just a year earlier DC had canceled itsscience-fiction anthology series Weird Worlds, whichadapted such sci-fi adventure classics as Edgar Rice

Burroughs’ John Carter of Marsand David Innes of Pellucidar,as well as serving as the launchingpad for Howard Chaykin’s short-lived Ironwolf saga. Despitethese recent sci-fi failures ina marketplace increasinglydominated by superheroes,Michelinie continued to wonderif, “Perhaps the time had comewhen it could succeed.”

During this same period, teambooks were coming into vogueacross the comic-book landscape,prompting Michelinie to conceiveof the potential series as a teambook set against the backdrop of

space. After developing the idea further with editor JoeOrlando, Michelinie brought the pitch to DC Comicspublisher Carmine Infantino.


Shaping AnImaginationThe 1956 sci-fi

masterpiece ForbiddenPlanet imprinted the

imagination of writerDavid Michelinie.

Forbidden Planet © 1956 Loew’s/MGM.

com

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hist

ory

“The sodium-lit hour before dawn…”

At the Larksmere nuclear power station,terrorists drag the near-unconsciousform of journalist Mike Moran.Between half-closed eyes Moran

glimpses a sign on a glass door from the wrong side.The letters appear reversed: “Atomic” has become“CIMOTA”… Whispering this word, Moran explodesin a fury of light and noise; in his place stands a godlikebeing dressed in blue, an “MM” logo on his chest.Smiting the terrorists as he ignores the ineffectivegunfire bouncing bullets off his skin, this near-perfectman takes to the sky in orgiastic release.

“I’m Marvelman…” he cries, the curve of planetEarth far behind him. “I’m back!!”

And indeed he was. Not that anyone had evermissed him. In fact, someone opening the first issue ofWarrior magazine would have been forgiven for havingnever even heard the name “Marvelman.”

Marvelman was that most rare of beasts: a Britishsuperhero. While superheroes had come to dominateAmerican comics, costumed do-gooders had never takenhold in the UK. British children preferred the cozy cartoonhijinks of Biffo the Bear, Dennis the Menace (the Britishone, not the Hank Ketcham kid), and the Bash Street Kids;or war and stirring adventure stories based on good oldBritish values and derring-do, featuring such luminaries asUnion Jack Jackson, Morgyn the Mighty, and Alf Tupper.

Perhaps publisher Dez Skinn is correct when hesuggests that superheroes “aren’t really needed in acountry already full of legendary characters. Swingingacross a London skyline on a Bat-rope or spider-webbingnever felt right to me.”

Instead, during comics’ Golden Age, UK publisherssuch as Len Miller turned to the US and reprintedAmerican wares for the home audience. He publishedweekly reprints of such US fare as Don Winslow, SpySmasher, and Lash LaRue, though Captain Marvelproved most popular. But in 1954, Miller foundhimself with a problem: Fawcett, the US publisher ofCaptain Marvel, was getting out of the comics businessfollowing a decade of legal battles with DC Comicsover the allegation that the Captain was plagiarizedfrom Superman. Miller’s well had suddenly run dry.

Many comics publishers used the services of packagersto compile their comics, while they concentrated on thebusiness aspects. Mick Anglo was one such packager,and Miller asked him to create a new character toreplace Captain Marvel, with the idea that the newcharacter would be similar enough that the audiencemight not realize there had even been a change.

Anglo altered the costume from red to blue;removed the cape; changed dark-haired Billy Batson toblond-haired Mike Moran; and the old wizard mentorShazam became super-scientist Guntag Borghelm.


You’ll Believe a Man Can FlyThe final page of Marvelman from Warrior #1.Art by Garry Leach. All art scans in this articleare courtesy of its writer, Allan Harvey.© the respective owner.

by A l l a n H a r v e y

Thus was Captain Marvel transformed into Marvelman.From issue #19 of Miller’s weekly Captain Marvel andCaptain Marvel, Jr. titles, readers were informed thatthe heroes had decided to retire so new Marvel heroeswould replace them. With #24 of their respective titles,the original Marvel Family bowed out.

One week later (February 3, 1954), Marvelman #25and Young Marvelman #25 duly appeared, and continuedvery successfully for the next half-decade. In 1956,a third title was added, The Marvelman Family,which saw the debut of Kid Marvelman. For thesethree titles Anglo assembled a small studio of artistictalent that produced strip artwork, covers, and puzzlepages. Amongst those delineating Marvelman’sadventures were future comics historian Denis Gifford,and Don Lawrence (who went on to become one ofthe big names of British comics adventure art).

The practice of repackaging US comics took asevere hit in 1959 when the UK government changedthe law to allow the importation of US comics. Childrenabandoned the black-and-white reprints for the four-colorexcitement of the new imports, and sales declined.

Miller canceled the Marvelman Family title, switchedMarvelman and Young Marvelman to monthly frequency,and filled them with reprints of older adventures.

Succumbing to the inevitable, Miller ceasedpublication in 1963 (both titles having reached a fairlyimpressive #346) and filed for bankruptcy. Marvelmanquickly faded into obscurity.

MARVELMAN RECYCLEDBut Dez Skinn remembered.

By 1981, Skinn had decided to quit his role as theeditor-in-chief of Marvel UK. Marvel had begun its UKpublishing venture in 1972 with Mighty World ofMarvel #1, a weekly title reprinting Hulk, Spider-Man,and Fantastic Four adventures. More titles followed,and initially sold very well, but by the late 1970s, saleswere down, and cancellations and series mergers hadoccurred. New ideas and a new approach were needed.On a business trip to the UK, Stan Lee hand-pickedSkinn to head up the new operation.

Skinn had worked professionally in comics since1969, and had published his own magazine, House ofHammer (later Halls of Horror), that focused on theoutput of the famed horror-movie studios. Each issueincluded a comic-strip adaptation of one of themovies. Later Skinn founded Starburst magazine,which had as its focus the newly emergent science-fiction movie scene.

On taking up the reins of Marvel UK, Skinn beganusing homegrown talent to produce the new materialrequired to fill out the reprints (new covers, storyrecaps, etc.), and initiated the new titles Hulk Comicand Doctor Who Weekly, which featured brand-newstrips by British creators. Dave Gibbons, Brian Bolland,Steve Dillon, Alan Davis, and David Lloyd producedwork for Skinn during this time.

But working for a huge machine like Marvelbrought its frustrations. As Skinn explains, he finallydecided to leave due to an “inability to maintain anyquality control [when producing] 1400 pages amonth. When I took the job on, after an arm-twistingweekend from Uncle Stan—where he wanted me tocarry out the suggestions in my report on turningaround the fortunes of his US-led UK reprint line—I had sufficient staff to fulfill my suggested changes(‘the Marvel Revolution’ as I named the sweepingoverhaul we were implementing). But the problem withsuccess is large companies always want to replicatesuch until you become your own competition at thecost of a dwindling return on individual investments.

“Because part of my brief at Marvel UK was to createnew material that the US could reprint,” Skinn continues,“to make it more of a two-way street I brought my oldteam in (from HoH) and ultimately believed we shouldbe doing it for ourselves instead of others.”

Earlier, Skinn had published a shortlived reprintcomic called Warrior. Now, having divested himself ofhis Marvel duties, and itching to get started on a newventure under his own Quality Communications brandutilizing the very best British talent available, he recycledthat venerable title.

“Britain’s always had dynamic one-word titles forits comics,” he explains, “with no need for the asininesuffix the US seemed to need. Where they had ActionCOMICS, Detective COMICS, ad infinitum, our shoreswent for emotive key words like Lion, Tiger, Victor,Valiant, and such. So Warrior seemed an obviouschoice nobody else had picked up on—both times!It fit perfectly as a newsstand logo.”

No MarvelFamily Retread

The very firstpage of Marvelman

from Warrior #1,showcasing the new,

realistic art approach.Art by Garry Leach.

© the respective owner.


BOB ROZAKIS: Stealing Jack Kirby away from Marvelmust have been quite a coup back in 1970.TED SKIMMER [longtime AA Comics employee]:Oh, absolutely. It was the equivalent of the Yankeesgetting Babe Ruth from the Red Sox. Even though Jackhad worked with Joe Simon for DC in the ’40s andthen by himself for AA in the ’50s, he was just anotherartist back then. But after he and Stan Lee “created”Marvel Comics, he was elevated to a whole new level.

By 1970, Marvel had made serious inroads into oursales. They were expanding their line in leaps andbounds and the older readers would drop our books infavor of new Marvel titles.ROZAKIS: But it wasn’t just Jack’s art that was thecause of that…SKIMMER: Of course not. It was the whole Marvelmystique that Stan had propagated. But Jack had definedthe look of the books. They were bringing in new artistsalongside the old-timers and every one of them was tryingto make their books look like Kirby was drawing them.

Billy knew he needed to shake up the staff and thebooks. When he pulled in Joe Orlando to handle thehorror books, he was addressing one niche in our line.Same thing when he signed Joe Kubert to co-edit thewar books with Bob Kanigher.

But Kirby—that was a whole new ballgame. Jack start-ed out with a wide variety of books and changed them all.ROZAKIS: How much of it was Jack’s doing? As opposedto Bill giving him instructions on how to change things?SKIMMER: Oh, it was almost all Jack.

Billy gave him Young Love and said, “You and Simonstarted this 20 years ago. What if you were startingit now?” Jack started doing the “Soul Love” series in thebook, featuring black people, then brought in Hispaniccharacters, and, after that, Asians, Indians, Eskimos …you name it. He did the first interracial love stories incomics. He did stories about married couples havingaffairs and going through divorces. He did stories aboutpremarital sex, birth control, out-of-wedlock pregnancies,and even sneaked an abortion in one time.ROZAKIS: As I recall, that did not play well in someparts of the country.SKIMMER: No, it didn’t. In fact, it got all our booksyanked from some stores in the Bible Belt. But it alsogot us a lot of publicity and what we lost in those areaswas more than made up for by the sales in urban areasand in college towns. Very quickly, the general publicwas reminded that Stan Lee and Marvel were not theonly comic-book game in town.ROZAKIS: Why did Bill give him Doiby Dickles?


What if … instead of selling his share of All-American Publications to Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz in 1945,Max Charles “Charlie” Gaines had purchased National Comics (DC Comics) from them? That’s the premise of thisfantasy series being divided between the pages of BACK ISSUE and its TwoMorrows big-sister mag Alter Ego and set on“Earth-22,” where things in the comics business happened rather differently than the way they did in the world we know.

Just imagine: a comic-book industry in which the Golden Age Green Lantern and Flash, rather than Supermanand Batman, are the premier heroes of comics, media, and merchandising. The author, Bob Rozakis, a longtimewriter, editor, and production manager for DC Comics, has imagined just that in…

The Secret History of All-American Comics, Inc.The Story of M. C. Gaines’ Publishing Empire

Book Two – Chapter Six: Kirby: King of Comicsby B o b R o z a k i s

Fantastic FiveJack Kirby’s return to AA Comics brought a revitalization to characters he

had created during his previous tenure in the company. The Challengers ofthe Unknown traded in their purple jumpsuits for cosmic costumes and

weaponry and were enmeshed in a war between old and new gods.Art courtesy of Shane Foley. (All comics images in this article are © DC Comics.)

SKIMMER: Even after Mort [Weisinger] left, the Green Lantern books werestill the best-selling ones we had, but they were lagging behind some ofthe Marvel titles. Overall, Billy liked what Julie Schwartz had done toupdate the character, but he wanted to see what Jack would do. So hegave him the worst-selling book of the lot and said, “Do it your way.”ROZAKIS: So if it didn’t work out, the main titles, GL and All-American, were unaffected.SKIMMER: Exactly. Jack had some big ideas for where hethought superhero comics should be going and this gavehim a way to introduce those concepts into the AA Universe.ROZAKIS: What he did with Challengers of theUnknown, for example. That was quite a change fromfour guys in jumpsuits fighting the monster of the month.SKIMMER: The first editorial meeting that Jack came to,we were sitting around the table and he started talkingabout his ideas for grand cosmic adventures and epic sagas.You would have thought he was speaking a foreign language.Billy loved the ideas and Jack’s enthusiasm, but the other guys… well, Julie [Schwartz], Murray [Boltinoff], and [Robert]Kanigher had been editing comics since the ’40s and each ofthem had his own approach. Kubert and Orlando, being artists,could relate to what Jack was saying about making the storytellingmore dynamic, but they weren’t quite sure what he meant either.ROZAKIS: There was certainly a lot going on in his books, what withhis new race of gods that had replaced the old ones—the combinationof the Greek, Roman, and Norse gods who had battled one anotherinto oblivion—and the intermingling with the superheroes of the AAUniverse. And he seemed to be pulling characters out of everywhere.SKIMMER: Billy gave him pretty much free rein. Jack started byreinventing a lot of what he had done in the past. He and Joe Simonhad created the Boy Commandos for DC back in the ’40s; he brought

them back in Doiby Dickles as the DNA Commandos, making themclones of the original kids and putting them in the slums of GothamCity rather than in World War II Europe.ROZAKIS: I remember when he started using the concept of clones in

the book. I wrote a letter saying that he was pushing thesuspension of disbelief a bit too far. Who knew how

right on the money he actually was! He was yearsahead of Dolly the sheep.

SKIMMER: Jack’s imagination seemed to knowno boundaries. Not in his storytelling and not inhis artwork. Those photo-collage backgroundshe started using in the books, they were a realchallenge for the production department.ROZAKIS: That was back in the daysbefore Photoshop and computer imagemanipulation…

SKIMMER: Oh, yes. Jack would cut picturesout of magazines and paste them on a board,

then draw the characters, and cut and pastethem onto the montage. Unfortunately, with the

type of separations and printing we were doing, a lotof those pages ended up looking like mud.

I remember coloring one of the books that had a photo backgroundand not being able to tell what was in it. When I asked Jack how I shouldcolor it, he told me, “Just add some shapes and things.” So I threw somegreen here, some magenta there. When it printed, my crazy colors made itlook even more bizarre and Jack told me it was exactly what he’d wanted!ROZAKIS: [laughs] How were the sales?SKIMMER: Some were better than others. When there was a minimaltie to the mainstream AA characters—or no tie at all—the booksseemed to do better. The core Green Lantern fans weren’t so happywith what Jack did with Doiby Dickles.ROZAKIS: Is that why the book was folded with Girl Lantern andCathy Crain into Green Lantern Family?SKIMMER: That was part of it. None of the three books was sellingparticularly well. Interest in the two “girl” books was dwindling; I thinkour audience was probably 95% male by then. Joe Orlando was editingGirl Lantern, but he never liked superhero books. And Billy was veryunhappy with what Nelson [Bridwell] was doing with Cathy Crain.ROZAKIS: Nelson was trying to tie all the continuity together. Unsuccessfully.SKIMMER: So Billy decided to put the three features together. He madeMurray Boltinoff responsible for the “Doiby” and “Cathy” stories andgave Julie “Girl Lantern.” Nelson was in charge of reprints.ROZAKIS: Which made up the bulk of the book.SKIMMER: Right. There was only one new story per issue and itrotated among the three “stars.” So the extra burden on Julie andMurray was minimal.ROZAKIS: What was Jack’s reaction when Bill took Doiby away?SKIMMER: He didn’t seem to mind much. Jack was trying all sorts ofthings in the book and each issue seemed wilder than the last.ROZAKIS: Like the Don Rickles guest appearance?SKIMMER: Precisely. Don Rickles … Doiby Dickles … the team-upseemed perfectly logical. To Jack, anyway.ROZAKIS: I loved the line on the cover. “Kirby says: Don’t ask, just buy it!”SKIMMER: Jack never wanted to do long runs on any of the booksanyway. He had so many ideas; he just wanted to get them rolling andhave others take them over. He was a fast worker, but there was no wayhe was going to write and draw all the books he was coming up with.


The King and His Creations(above) Jack “King” Kirby. (left) AA house ad announcingthe return of an old title as a home for myriad Kirbycreations. Jack’s 14-issue run on the title ran thegamut from revamped Golden Age heroes tobrand-new concepts. Art courtesy of Shane Foley.

inte

rvie

wJOHN SCHWIRIAN: After your time off from comics, youreturned in 1980 to write a lot of strange humor for Marvelincluding the way-out “What If Aunt May Had Been Bittenby the Radioactive Spider?” [What If? #23] and theadventures of Bucky Bizarre. How did Marvel lure you backinto writing comics?STEVE SKEATES: When I left the comic-book industry indisgust over the Isis debacle, I didn’t exactly get totallyimmersed in being a bartender whilst trying to forget allabout comics, although on certain levels that might wellhave been what I should have done! Instead, I spent a lotof time (while admittedly rather heavily sampling thosewares my place of employment was peddling) devisingvarious surefire story ideas as I plotted my next comeback,reemergence having become for me more or less a way oflife—my career supposedly over before it had hardly begunback when Stan Lee fired me, the revitalized versionthereof biting the dust when Dick [Giordano] gave up hiseditorial position at DC, then assignments getting wayscarce due to Conway’s departure and Orlando’s utterlystupid decision to have his pal John Albano write PlasticMan, and now this!

It took (this time) merely a single trip to NYC for me tosuddenly find myself once again busy being a fulltimecomic-book scripter! The best of the story ideas I took with me,a little something called “The Whole Tooth,” was immediatelygrabbed up by Lynn Graeme, who made it a part of[Marvel Preview #23’s] Bizarre Adventures 2 (a particularlyfine collection of off-the-wall stuff by O’Neil, Roger Stern,Frank Miller, and various others, with my piece therewithinnot only having a great plot but also possessing—at leastin my opinion—some of the best-written captions anddialogue I’d ever constructed!) while (to get back to Ms.Graeme) also asking me to write a 25-page story for thenext issue of the Howard the Duck magazine.

All in all, no doubt about my having shown up atexactly the right moment, seeing as Larry Hama had justinherited Crazy magazine and noticing me wandering thehalls there at Marvel, he immediately decided that Ishould play a major role in this new venture of his!Furthermore, though I had no idea what sort of a shake-uphad happened back at DC during my two-year-plusabsence, I now found O’Neil working for Marvel, andMarvel indeed seemed to agree with him—he was morelaidback than ever, more relaxed, even friendly and wasno longer strictly enforcing any silly arbitrary rules! Truly,a nifty development!!SCHWIRIAN: What was the premise behind Bucky Bizarre?SKEATES: Ultimately, O’Neil inherited from Lynn Graeme(who was departing for some sort of greener pastures)the Bizarre Adventures book, which the big boss-man JimShooter never saw as having all that much sales potential—to Jim, this book was more like a toy that he was givingas a gift to O’Neil, something for O’Neil to play aroundwith, something to help keep Denny happy while hewas simultaneously hopefully being productive withinother less-pleasing arenas! To Denny’s way of thinking,Bizarre Adventures (as he himself had developed it) was

Master of Weird HumorSteve Skeates juiced up editor Joe Orlando’soffbeat title Plop!, especially with his tale“The Gourmet,” which ran in this issue(#1, Sept–Oct. 1973). Cover art by Basil Wolverton.TM & © DC Comics.

by J o h n S c h w i r i a n



simply too dark—he wanted to throw in there atthe end of each issue a short light humorous entity thatperhaps would even offset any suicidal urges broughtabout by the rest of the stories in that particularlydepressing magazine, and he even figured that I’d be theperfect person to devise such a series. I came up withsomething called “Buck Bizarre,” a square-jawed, overlymuscular time-traveling pseudo-hero-type who lived in aworld of puns, but that wasn’t quite cutesy enough forO’Neil, so he added a “y” to the guy’s name, and hadHama work up a visual idea for the character, making himlook more like a cute kid than like a muscular hero. Hey,fine by me! As a matter of fact, although there wereindeed some clunkers, I do believe this baby had a betterrecord of being spot-on than most other series of this ilk!SCHWIRIAN: The Generic Comic Book and PeterPorker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham are fun reads—like your Gold Key material—yet they are pretty muchthe last of your mainstream comic-book material.What happened here?SKEATES: Larry Hama asked me to write something calledThe Generic Comic Book—I have no idea whose idea thiswas (perhaps Tom DeFalco’s, perhaps Hama’s)—but whatthis baby essentially ultimately turned out to be was anold-style ’70s sort of comic: clichéd, humorous, even silly,and with a what-if-superheroes-existed-in-the-real-worldrefrain. Wow, yes, I hadn’t had so much fun writing a comicbook in something like five years, all of which convincedme that I really didn’t care where comics had gone, didn’treally care what editors now expected—this (the ’70s sortof comic) was what I wanted to write! And, if this sort ofcomic essentially didn’t exist anymore—well then, that wasit for me! I wasn’t gonna struggle trying to write stuffI neither understood nor cared about! If the fun-to-writestuff no longer existed, then I was outta here! I quit!

And that would have been it, too, if it hadn’t beenfor a phone call from Larry Hama. It seems, you see,that upon the demise of Crazy (which had never reallysold well anyway), Hama had been given to edit a certainStar Comic featuring the antics of a funny animal withthe unlikely moniker “Peter Porker, the SpectacularSpider-Ham,” a character created by Tom DeFalco, whorecently had replaced the departing Jim Shooter asMarvel’s editor-in-chief. DeFalco had told Hama thatif he [Hama] couldn’t find someone else to writeSpider-Ham, then he [DeFalco] could do the job. No waydid Hama want his boss to be [on this particular project]working under him—you can just imagine the sorts ofproblems this could cause! So Hama had been askingeveryone he knew if they’d please, please write thisseries. Thing is, this was during that period when Marvelwas offering a nice piece of change to those writerswhose books really sold, and everyone knew Spider-Hamstood no chance at all of selling even modestly well, soHama (so far) had gotten no takers whatsoever! Finally,he thought about me, called me up, and literally beggedme to take the job. Actually, it didn’t sound all that bad—a book I could easily twist around so that I was parodyingSpider-Man’s adventures from the ’60s and ’70s ratherthan reflecting anything that was happening in thefunnybook field at that particular time and place, so Ieasily gave in to all Larry’s sniveling pleading.SCHWIRIAN: Mary Skrenes is credited with workingwith Steve Gerber on several projects (mainly Omegathe Unknown), but you’ve revealed that she co-plottedwith you on several series. Can you give me a littlebackground on this lady of mystery?SKEATES: Had Mary gone to the same high school as I,or even attended the same college, surely the two of

Marvel No Frills(right) Skeates wrote

Marvel’s GenericComic Book #1

(Apr. 1984). Cover artby some old hack.

(above) Bucky Bizarreappeared in this issueof Bizarre Adventures

(#34, Feb. 1983).© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Beginnings:Scripting Larry Lieber’s plots in Two-Gun Kid #79 and80 (Jan. and Mar. 1966)

Milestones:T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (Tower Comics) / Abbott & Costello /The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves / Sarge Steel backupsin Judomaster / Aquaman and Aquaman in AdventureComics / The Hawk and the Dove / Teen Titans / Kid Flashin The Flash / Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella / Plop! /assorted DC mystery stories / Crazy / Plastic Man /Dr. 13 in The Phantom Stranger / Challengers of the

Unknown in Super-Team Family /Blackhawk / Peter Porker,the Spectacular Spider-Ham

Work in Progress:“Possessions,” drawn by DickAyers, featuring the adventuresof Tepeth-tet, forthcoming inAll-Smash Funnies #2 (ComicEnterprise Publishing Group)

steveskeates

© 2009 Marvel Characters Inc.

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