TwoMorrows' Back Issue! #92 features an article by me on Phantom Stranger team-ups, and is on sale now!
Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Friday, February 5, 2016
Treasuring The Treasuries
With the announcement of Marvel's first new treasury-sized in comic in over thirty years, Marvel Treasury Edition: Spidey #1, 13thDimension.com asked me to write something about this exciting news, and treasury-sized comics in general. You can check it out here!
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Legion of Super-Bloggers: LCE C-49
I was asked to be a Guest Blogger over at the Legion of Super-Bloggers site, discussing the first LSH treasury comic. Go check it out!
Thursday, June 19, 2014
"4 Reasons Why Aquaman Deserves More Respect: A Fan Speaks Out"
Upon news of Jason Momoa's casting as Aquaman in Batman v. Superman, Yahoo Movies was nice enough to ask me to write an article about why Aquaman is no joke. The piece, "4 Reasons Why Aquaman Deserves More Respect" can be found here!
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Commander Xmas
This Commander Xmas Sunday strip (click to embiggen) was commissioned from Dan and me by Jay Piscopo, the writer/artist/creator of Commander X, Cap'n Eli, The Sea Ghost, and a plethora of other characters.
Every year Jay puts together a Commander Xmas book featuring different creators' holiday-themed interpretations of his character, and over the summer he asked us to come up with a Commander X "Color Supplement", in the same style we've ween doing every Sunday with Ace Kilroy.
Working with Dan on another set of characters was a fun of change of pace, and we're honored to be part of the 2011 Commander Xmas book, which you can find here. We strongly advise you check it out to see the rest!
Thanks Jay, and Merry Christmas!
Friday, February 11, 2011
King Kobra! - 2009
This was the second piece I did for Back Issue!, for an all-villains-themed issue. It was the first full length piece I did, and even though I made a couple of factual errors (corrected here), it gave me the confidence to keep submitting articles for the magazine.
Kobra!
When you see that name, who do you think of?
Well, you probably think of that group of vaguely competent bad guys led by Destro, but that's not who we're talking about--in this case, we're talking about Kobra (also known--mostly to himself--as King Kobra) the DC Comics madman bent on world domination who debuted in his very own title, Kobra, the first issue of which hit the newsstands in November 1975.
Kobra was in many ways your prototypical super-villain: he wants to take over the world, talks about himself in the third person, and murders his own henchmen over their slightest mistake. That last trait sounds a lot like a certain Clown Prince of Crime, doesn't it?
The similarities don't end there--one of the reasons Kobra has always stuck with me as a character is because he was a villain who had his own comic book--something you see fairly regularly nowadays, but was completely unheard of in the 1970s. And while the Joker did earn his own book earlier in 1975, he was then (and arguably still is) the most famous comic book bad guy of all time. Kobra, on the other hand, was a completely unknown entity, yet DC head-honcho Carmine Infantino let Kobra slither past First Issue Special tryout stars like Dr. Fate, Lady Cop, and The Dingbats of Danger Street directly into a solo title.
Maybe that's because Kobra was the co-creation of Steve Sherman and the legendary Jack "King" Kirby, who penciled the first issue's story, "Fangs of the Kobra!" The first story was done (according to the man who would assume the writing of the book, Marty Pasko--more about him in a moment) as a prototype issue, more a proposal for the series rather than an actual first issue. It concerned two men--King Kobra and Jason Burr, twin brothers separated at birth but who retained a psychic connection to one another.
The proposed series (originally to be titled King Kobra) sat in DC's inventory for over a year. In the meantime, Kirby had left DC to return to Marvel. Eventually DC editor Gerry Conway handed the material over to Pasko, who was told "Do something with this." Pasko read the book, and was not impressed, thinking it was little more than a "toss-off" by Kirby, who had one foot out the door at DC (Kirby told Pasko as much a few years later).
Pasko had new stats made of the art, with all the dialog whited out, so he could rewrite the story as much as possible. Necessary art changes were then made by Pablo Marcos. Pasko retained the Corsican Brothers angle, developing a new backstory and details about the cobra cult from his own research on India. Pasko's thinking was that, if Infantino gave him and editor Conway the marching orders to do a regular book, "We wanted to be able to live with it."
Kobra #1 sets up the book's central premise--Kobra and regular guy Jason Burr are brothers, but only Kobra knows this. Burr is approached by a Lt. Perez (who says he is with the NYPD), and is told he is the key to catching international super-criminal Kobra. Burr and Perez are attacked by a giant robot (which fell from space!) sent by Kobra to kidnap him, but they manage to defeat it. We then learn that Kobra and Burr's psychic connection is so acute that when one of them feels pain, the other feels it as well. So as long as Burr stays alive...ssssso doessss Kobra! (sorry, slipped into Kobra-ese for a moment). The first issue ends with Burr and Kobra meeting face to face, but Kobra escapes before the police can apprehend him.
It's at this point that Kobra, as a title, really takes off--Marty Pasko was free to take the story anywhere he pleased, and the book moves at a breakneck pace, jamming more crazy situations, settings, and character asides in six issues than several years' worth of comics do nowadays. In issue #2 we meet Burr's old lady Melissa--and we see that as Burr kisses her, Kobra "feels" it, too (exactly how far these feelings between the brothers can go is something left to the imagination--damn Comics Code). Kobra then runs afoul of another super-villain, named Solaris, whose weapon, the Heliotron, Kobra tries to steal. Perez and Burr get involved, ending with Burr and Kobra, locked in a struggle as they fall from the sky after Kobra saves Burr from getting blasted by the Heliotron.
In #3, the authorities rescue Burr, and they think Kobra falls to his death...but they can't find his body. When dealing with Kobra, you have to remember The Joker Rule: No Body = Still Alive. Shortly thereafter, Kobra shows up at Burr's apartment(!) and Burr's girlfriend Melissa seems to know him! After another tussle with Solaris, Burr learns that Kobra stole a large cache of "illegal cobra venom" from the C.I.A. (even though President Nixon ordered it destroyed!) and that's why the Feds are after him--to keep their illegal activities under wraps. (Hey--say what you want about Richard Nixon, at least he ordered illegal cobra venom destroyed.) Turns out Perez is not from the NYPD--he's C.I.A., and has been lying to Burr all this time. Burr is not amused.
In #4, Burr starts to suspect Melissa isn't telling him the whole truth, and they tentatively break up. Then he meets a mysterious stranger named Randu Singh, who is also after Kobra! Meanwhile, Kobra meets a two-headed alien (what are the odds?!?), who Kobra believes might, if he can experiment on it/them, help him learn how to sever the psychic link between him and Burr.
Kobra sends two of his giant robots, called "Servitors", to find Agent Perez. They find him at an airport, ripping the plane open, crushing him to death! Burr and Singh arrive, the aliens realize Kobra's plan and split, sending Kobra into a rage. He punches Burr out, which should knock him out, too...but somehow it doesn't, and he takes off. Does this mean Kobra is now somehow more powerful than Burr?
In #5, an old star from the DC universe shows up--private eye Johnny Double. Double stumbles onto this Kobra case when he's almost killed by an explosion, the only piece of remaining evidence being part of a suitcase with a Kobra symbol on it. He is apprehended by Kobra and strung up on the Golden Gate Bridge, which will be destroyed, along with all of San Francisco, when the approaching dawn triggers Kobra's new solar-powered machine called The Quaker.
In #6, Double manages to escape, and destroys The Quaker. Kobra gets away, and tracks down Burr, on a plane headed towards San Francisco. Burr is so sick of all this, he's ready to kill himself, as long as it takes his evil twin with him. Kobra then reveals that he has kidnapped Melissa! Meanwhile, Randu Singh and Johnny Double learn of Kobra's newest plan to tap into global communication cables, "bugging" the entire world. Singh and Double find Kobra's secret ship, called The Ark, and sneak on. Kobra blinds Singh with some gas from his glove, and then tries to fly away in the Ark. Double blasts it with a wrist-laser (stolen from Kobra), causing it to crash, seemingly killing Kobra...but that means Jason Burr is dead, too! Doesn't it?
In #7, we learn of course that Kobra survived. Burr, still alive, meets Johnny Double for the first time, and he tells Double the whole story. Kobra then kidnaps Burr, beaming him up into the Ark, where he sees Melissa in suspended animation! As if that wasn't bad enough, Kobra built a machine called The Empathic Magnetizer (patent pending), which "re-routes" pain felt by some of Kobra's minions (used as guinea pigs) into Burr, and Burr only!
Burr learns from Melissa that she knew Kobra years ago and fell in love with him. And even though he's an evil monster, she still does love him, in some way. Burr is convinced Kobra brainwashed her, and he escapes and tries to fight Kobra, who is now working on a plan to resurrect the dead! Kobra pushes Burr off the Ark into the water, and we see Kobra's ultimate weapon--the perfectly-preserved bodies of their parents, which Kobra will bring back from the dead! To be continued...well, sort of.
Even though it was advertised on the last page of #7, there was no Kobra #8, which promised to guest-star Batman. Luckily, the story did see the light of day, in DC Special Series #1, an 80-page anthology book featuring stories starring Aquaman, The Atom, The Flash, Green Lantern, and Batman.
In "The Dead On Arrival Conspiracy", Batman gets involved in the case, and makes his way to Kobra's secret HQ in the Swiss Alps. Here he finds Burr--who Kobra learned wasn't dead in the ocean after all--and is knocked out by Kobra's goons. He wakes up alongside Burr, dangling over the Lazarus Pit, something Batman is all too familiar with. Kobra plans to kill them both, and have them reborn as his slaves.
He makes the fatal mistake of not seeing his plan all the way through by sticking around, and soon Batman frees himself and Burr. He apprehends Kobra, while Burr takes off with the hypnotized Melissa. As they leave aboard a ski-lift, Melissa stabs Burr in the back, then throwing herself and Burr out of the car, to their deaths! Turns out Kobra killed Melissa, and reincarnated her as a slave, and she has carried out his orders to murderous perfection.
Batman is shocked when Kobra gets free and jumps off a cliff, seemingly to his death. But at the last second, Kobra's Ark ship grabs his falling body with a tractor beam, spiriting him away. We are left with Batman, vowing to never stop hunting Kobra and bring him to justice.
Wow--and that's only half the stuff that goes on in just these eight stories. Kobra has a crazy, movie-serial, what-else-can-they-throw-in next quality to it, and that feeling extends to the book itself. After Kirby, Marcos, and Berry on the art for Kobra #1, #2 is drawn by Chic Stone and Marcos, #3 by Keith Giffen, Terry Austin, and Dick Giordano, #4 by Pat Gabriele and Lowell Anderson, #5 by Rich Buckler and Frank McLaughlin. Only issues 6 and 7 were by the same team--Mike Nasser and Joe Rubenstein. Whew!
As ramshackle as the book is, it is entertaining in a way that not too many comics are anymore. Sure, a lot of it doesn't make sense (Two-headed aliens? Bringing the dead back to life? Nixon banning cobra venom?), but Pasko wrote Kobra as such a classic indefatigable villain that he's still around to this day, causing trouble in the DC Universe. (In 1985 alone, he was a genuinely creepy menace in Batman and the Outsiders, as well as the butt of jokes when taking on Superman and Ambush Bug in DC Comics Presents. Say what you want, the guy is versatile!) As a side note, I can't help but think, with all the accoutrements Kobra carries with him--henchmen dressed like snakes, the floating Ark, the Servitrons, The Quaker, the secret base in the Swiss Alps--Kobra might have made for a kickin' toy line from Mego. Oh well.
Marty Pasko, looking back, says: "I wrote all of Kobra with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek--it was a preposterous exercise dumped in my lap, and it helped pay the rent on a very nice place in the Village. As embarrassing as it is by today's standards, there is apparently still something appealing about the character, because other writers keep digging it out of mothballs every now and then. Nice to know those books are still entertaining somebody somewhere, if not in the manner originally intended."
All hail King Kobra!
When you see that name, who do you think of?
Well, you probably think of that group of vaguely competent bad guys led by Destro, but that's not who we're talking about--in this case, we're talking about Kobra (also known--mostly to himself--as King Kobra) the DC Comics madman bent on world domination who debuted in his very own title, Kobra, the first issue of which hit the newsstands in November 1975.
Kobra was in many ways your prototypical super-villain: he wants to take over the world, talks about himself in the third person, and murders his own henchmen over their slightest mistake. That last trait sounds a lot like a certain Clown Prince of Crime, doesn't it?
The similarities don't end there--one of the reasons Kobra has always stuck with me as a character is because he was a villain who had his own comic book--something you see fairly regularly nowadays, but was completely unheard of in the 1970s. And while the Joker did earn his own book earlier in 1975, he was then (and arguably still is) the most famous comic book bad guy of all time. Kobra, on the other hand, was a completely unknown entity, yet DC head-honcho Carmine Infantino let Kobra slither past First Issue Special tryout stars like Dr. Fate, Lady Cop, and The Dingbats of Danger Street directly into a solo title.
Maybe that's because Kobra was the co-creation of Steve Sherman and the legendary Jack "King" Kirby, who penciled the first issue's story, "Fangs of the Kobra!" The first story was done (according to the man who would assume the writing of the book, Marty Pasko--more about him in a moment) as a prototype issue, more a proposal for the series rather than an actual first issue. It concerned two men--King Kobra and Jason Burr, twin brothers separated at birth but who retained a psychic connection to one another.
The proposed series (originally to be titled King Kobra) sat in DC's inventory for over a year. In the meantime, Kirby had left DC to return to Marvel. Eventually DC editor Gerry Conway handed the material over to Pasko, who was told "Do something with this." Pasko read the book, and was not impressed, thinking it was little more than a "toss-off" by Kirby, who had one foot out the door at DC (Kirby told Pasko as much a few years later).
Pasko had new stats made of the art, with all the dialog whited out, so he could rewrite the story as much as possible. Necessary art changes were then made by Pablo Marcos. Pasko retained the Corsican Brothers angle, developing a new backstory and details about the cobra cult from his own research on India. Pasko's thinking was that, if Infantino gave him and editor Conway the marching orders to do a regular book, "We wanted to be able to live with it."
Kobra #1 sets up the book's central premise--Kobra and regular guy Jason Burr are brothers, but only Kobra knows this. Burr is approached by a Lt. Perez (who says he is with the NYPD), and is told he is the key to catching international super-criminal Kobra. Burr and Perez are attacked by a giant robot (which fell from space!) sent by Kobra to kidnap him, but they manage to defeat it. We then learn that Kobra and Burr's psychic connection is so acute that when one of them feels pain, the other feels it as well. So as long as Burr stays alive...ssssso doessss Kobra! (sorry, slipped into Kobra-ese for a moment). The first issue ends with Burr and Kobra meeting face to face, but Kobra escapes before the police can apprehend him.
It's at this point that Kobra, as a title, really takes off--Marty Pasko was free to take the story anywhere he pleased, and the book moves at a breakneck pace, jamming more crazy situations, settings, and character asides in six issues than several years' worth of comics do nowadays. In issue #2 we meet Burr's old lady Melissa--and we see that as Burr kisses her, Kobra "feels" it, too (exactly how far these feelings between the brothers can go is something left to the imagination--damn Comics Code). Kobra then runs afoul of another super-villain, named Solaris, whose weapon, the Heliotron, Kobra tries to steal. Perez and Burr get involved, ending with Burr and Kobra, locked in a struggle as they fall from the sky after Kobra saves Burr from getting blasted by the Heliotron.
In #3, the authorities rescue Burr, and they think Kobra falls to his death...but they can't find his body. When dealing with Kobra, you have to remember The Joker Rule: No Body = Still Alive. Shortly thereafter, Kobra shows up at Burr's apartment(!) and Burr's girlfriend Melissa seems to know him! After another tussle with Solaris, Burr learns that Kobra stole a large cache of "illegal cobra venom" from the C.I.A. (even though President Nixon ordered it destroyed!) and that's why the Feds are after him--to keep their illegal activities under wraps. (Hey--say what you want about Richard Nixon, at least he ordered illegal cobra venom destroyed.) Turns out Perez is not from the NYPD--he's C.I.A., and has been lying to Burr all this time. Burr is not amused.
In #4, Burr starts to suspect Melissa isn't telling him the whole truth, and they tentatively break up. Then he meets a mysterious stranger named Randu Singh, who is also after Kobra! Meanwhile, Kobra meets a two-headed alien (what are the odds?!?), who Kobra believes might, if he can experiment on it/them, help him learn how to sever the psychic link between him and Burr.
Kobra sends two of his giant robots, called "Servitors", to find Agent Perez. They find him at an airport, ripping the plane open, crushing him to death! Burr and Singh arrive, the aliens realize Kobra's plan and split, sending Kobra into a rage. He punches Burr out, which should knock him out, too...but somehow it doesn't, and he takes off. Does this mean Kobra is now somehow more powerful than Burr?
In #5, an old star from the DC universe shows up--private eye Johnny Double. Double stumbles onto this Kobra case when he's almost killed by an explosion, the only piece of remaining evidence being part of a suitcase with a Kobra symbol on it. He is apprehended by Kobra and strung up on the Golden Gate Bridge, which will be destroyed, along with all of San Francisco, when the approaching dawn triggers Kobra's new solar-powered machine called The Quaker.
In #6, Double manages to escape, and destroys The Quaker. Kobra gets away, and tracks down Burr, on a plane headed towards San Francisco. Burr is so sick of all this, he's ready to kill himself, as long as it takes his evil twin with him. Kobra then reveals that he has kidnapped Melissa! Meanwhile, Randu Singh and Johnny Double learn of Kobra's newest plan to tap into global communication cables, "bugging" the entire world. Singh and Double find Kobra's secret ship, called The Ark, and sneak on. Kobra blinds Singh with some gas from his glove, and then tries to fly away in the Ark. Double blasts it with a wrist-laser (stolen from Kobra), causing it to crash, seemingly killing Kobra...but that means Jason Burr is dead, too! Doesn't it?
In #7, we learn of course that Kobra survived. Burr, still alive, meets Johnny Double for the first time, and he tells Double the whole story. Kobra then kidnaps Burr, beaming him up into the Ark, where he sees Melissa in suspended animation! As if that wasn't bad enough, Kobra built a machine called The Empathic Magnetizer (patent pending), which "re-routes" pain felt by some of Kobra's minions (used as guinea pigs) into Burr, and Burr only!
Burr learns from Melissa that she knew Kobra years ago and fell in love with him. And even though he's an evil monster, she still does love him, in some way. Burr is convinced Kobra brainwashed her, and he escapes and tries to fight Kobra, who is now working on a plan to resurrect the dead! Kobra pushes Burr off the Ark into the water, and we see Kobra's ultimate weapon--the perfectly-preserved bodies of their parents, which Kobra will bring back from the dead! To be continued...well, sort of.
Even though it was advertised on the last page of #7, there was no Kobra #8, which promised to guest-star Batman. Luckily, the story did see the light of day, in DC Special Series #1, an 80-page anthology book featuring stories starring Aquaman, The Atom, The Flash, Green Lantern, and Batman.In "The Dead On Arrival Conspiracy", Batman gets involved in the case, and makes his way to Kobra's secret HQ in the Swiss Alps. Here he finds Burr--who Kobra learned wasn't dead in the ocean after all--and is knocked out by Kobra's goons. He wakes up alongside Burr, dangling over the Lazarus Pit, something Batman is all too familiar with. Kobra plans to kill them both, and have them reborn as his slaves.
He makes the fatal mistake of not seeing his plan all the way through by sticking around, and soon Batman frees himself and Burr. He apprehends Kobra, while Burr takes off with the hypnotized Melissa. As they leave aboard a ski-lift, Melissa stabs Burr in the back, then throwing herself and Burr out of the car, to their deaths! Turns out Kobra killed Melissa, and reincarnated her as a slave, and she has carried out his orders to murderous perfection.
Batman is shocked when Kobra gets free and jumps off a cliff, seemingly to his death. But at the last second, Kobra's Ark ship grabs his falling body with a tractor beam, spiriting him away. We are left with Batman, vowing to never stop hunting Kobra and bring him to justice.
Wow--and that's only half the stuff that goes on in just these eight stories. Kobra has a crazy, movie-serial, what-else-can-they-throw-in next quality to it, and that feeling extends to the book itself. After Kirby, Marcos, and Berry on the art for Kobra #1, #2 is drawn by Chic Stone and Marcos, #3 by Keith Giffen, Terry Austin, and Dick Giordano, #4 by Pat Gabriele and Lowell Anderson, #5 by Rich Buckler and Frank McLaughlin. Only issues 6 and 7 were by the same team--Mike Nasser and Joe Rubenstein. Whew!
As ramshackle as the book is, it is entertaining in a way that not too many comics are anymore. Sure, a lot of it doesn't make sense (Two-headed aliens? Bringing the dead back to life? Nixon banning cobra venom?), but Pasko wrote Kobra as such a classic indefatigable villain that he's still around to this day, causing trouble in the DC Universe. (In 1985 alone, he was a genuinely creepy menace in Batman and the Outsiders, as well as the butt of jokes when taking on Superman and Ambush Bug in DC Comics Presents. Say what you want, the guy is versatile!) As a side note, I can't help but think, with all the accoutrements Kobra carries with him--henchmen dressed like snakes, the floating Ark, the Servitrons, The Quaker, the secret base in the Swiss Alps--Kobra might have made for a kickin' toy line from Mego. Oh well.
Marty Pasko, looking back, says: "I wrote all of Kobra with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek--it was a preposterous exercise dumped in my lap, and it helped pay the rent on a very nice place in the Village. As embarrassing as it is by today's standards, there is apparently still something appealing about the character, because other writers keep digging it out of mothballs every now and then. Nice to know those books are still entertaining somebody somewhere, if not in the manner originally intended."
All hail King Kobra!
Monday, January 3, 2011
Marvel Monster Power Records - 2009
As anyone who reads Back Issue already knows, the relaxation of the Comics Code in the early 1970s allowed comics companies to start filling their pages with all sorts of monsters previously verboten--vampires, zombies, werewolves, Richard Nixon, etc.
No one took more advantage of that new opening than Marvel, who in a short time flooded the newsstands with all sorts of monster mags, even giving the big three--Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man--their own titles, albeit in the Mighty Marvel Manner (starring in Tomb of Dracula, Frankenstein, and Werewolf By Night, respectively).
But monsters didn't just start showing up in Marvel's comics--no sir, they became part of the company's regular roster of "stars." When it came to merchandise, Dracula, Frankenstein, et al, were treated just like Spider-Man or Captain America, and soon they started showing up on Slurpee Cups, stickers, and, most memorably, book-and-record sets.
Yes, when the kid-centric Peter Pan Records label started creating book-and-record sets starring various DC and Marvel heroes (under their "Power Records" imprint), they decided to produce a sub-group, called The Monster Series, titled Dracula, The Curse of The Werewolf!, The Monster of Frankenstein, and Man-Thing. Each book was a reprint of a Marvel comic, accompanied by a 45" record starring a full cast acting out the story.
I had these (and all the Power Records, except for that damn Shazam! one I could never find) as a kid, and when you're a kid, you sort of just accept stories told to you. You don't have the critical faculties to step back and wonder, wow, aren't these stories a little grim? Should I even be listening to these? No, you just drop the ol' Tone Arm Cobra onto the wax, and for a few minutes allow yourself to be transported to a world of blood-sucking vampires, a man made from dead people's body parts, and suicidal clowns. So let's take a look at what the oh-so-innocent-sounding Peter Pan Records foisted on a whole generation of comics fans:
In Dracula, (reprinting Tomb of Dracula #19), we find The Prince of Darkness lost in a harsh winter storm with his nemesis, Rachel Van Helsing. By page four, Dracula has attacked a nearby ram, and we get to see him dig his fangs into its neck and drink it's blood. Fun!
Later, even though Dracula has saved her life, Rachel tries stabbing him in the back (literally), only to miss, which causes Dracula to slap her in the face. Later still, another ram attacks Dracula, and Rachel shoots it dead. At the end, Rachel is rescued, and the story ends with her firing at Dracula from a helicopter, hoping she's killed the Prince of Darkness once and for all!
In The Monster of Frankenstein, (reprinting Frankenstein #1), we open on Victor Frankenstein, about to be attacked by his creation, The Monster, who promises to kill his creator--but first, a flashback!
We see how The Monster was created, and his rejection by Victor. This causes The Monster to run out into the night, where he goes on a murder spree, killing two innocent people. The Monster wanders in the snow-covered forest for days, alone, and only survives by attacking and eating a bear (featuring The Monster chowing down on a bloody piece of meat). Later, The Monster stops a wolf from killing someone by snapping its neck, and is then chased away by shoot-first-ask-questions-later villagers.
Eventually, The Monster wanders onto an ice floe, where it gives out from under his feet, causing him to plunge into the freezing water below. It ends with The Monster freezing to death, as he "[S]ucked the freezing, salty waters inward...and peace at last was his!" Emphasis Marvel's!
In Curse of The Werewolf! (reprinting Marvel Spotlight #2), the cover alone is enough to make a little kid join The Rubber Sheet Brigade--it features a four-panel sequence, drawn by Neal Adams at his peak, of a wolf man about to attack a young woman. This can only get better!
Inside, the story opens with our hero(?) running away from police after being caught attacking someone. He wakes up the next day, in his alter ego of Jack Russell, who is tearing his family apart with his strange behavior (disappearing suddenly, killing and eating people, etc.). To make things worse, Jack's mother is hurt in a car accident while searching for him, which puts her in the hospital. Later, as she lays dying, she tells Jack their family history--how his father was a werewolf, and how perhaps the answer to his curse resides in...Transylvania! Yes, Transylvania--and you know what that means: Dracula will be showing up soon!
And indeed he does, with the story ending with a donnybrook between Drac and the werewolf. They bite into each other, and Dracula, showing very sportsman-like behavior, decides to call the fight a draw, and takes off. As the narrator informs us: "Dracula rises into the night...and the curse of the werewolf remains bloodied...but unbroken!"
Has any of the above convinced you that the producers over at Peter Pan were the same guys that made Black Sabbath records? If not, then listen to what happens in the last of the Monster Series records, The Man-Thing in "Night of the Laughing Dead!"
Later, even though Dracula has saved her life, Rachel tries stabbing him in the back (literally), only to miss, which causes Dracula to slap her in the face. Later still, another ram attacks Dracula, and Rachel shoots it dead. At the end, Rachel is rescued, and the story ends with her firing at Dracula from a helicopter, hoping she's killed the Prince of Darkness once and for all!
We see how The Monster was created, and his rejection by Victor. This causes The Monster to run out into the night, where he goes on a murder spree, killing two innocent people. The Monster wanders in the snow-covered forest for days, alone, and only survives by attacking and eating a bear (featuring The Monster chowing down on a bloody piece of meat). Later, The Monster stops a wolf from killing someone by snapping its neck, and is then chased away by shoot-first-ask-questions-later villagers.
Eventually, The Monster wanders onto an ice floe, where it gives out from under his feet, causing him to plunge into the freezing water below. It ends with The Monster freezing to death, as he "[S]ucked the freezing, salty waters inward...and peace at last was his!" Emphasis Marvel's!
Inside, the story opens with our hero(?) running away from police after being caught attacking someone. He wakes up the next day, in his alter ego of Jack Russell, who is tearing his family apart with his strange behavior (disappearing suddenly, killing and eating people, etc.). To make things worse, Jack's mother is hurt in a car accident while searching for him, which puts her in the hospital. Later, as she lays dying, she tells Jack their family history--how his father was a werewolf, and how perhaps the answer to his curse resides in...Transylvania! Yes, Transylvania--and you know what that means: Dracula will be showing up soon!
And indeed he does, with the story ending with a donnybrook between Drac and the werewolf. They bite into each other, and Dracula, showing very sportsman-like behavior, decides to call the fight a draw, and takes off. As the narrator informs us: "Dracula rises into the night...and the curse of the werewolf remains bloodied...but unbroken!"
Has any of the above convinced you that the producers over at Peter Pan were the same guys that made Black Sabbath records? If not, then listen to what happens in the last of the Monster Series records, The Man-Thing in "Night of the Laughing Dead!"
In this story (reprinted from Man-Thing #5), we see The Man-Thing stumbling through the swamp, as he is wont to do. At the same time, we see a sad clown, sitting on the bank of the river. He puts a gun up to his head, and The Man-Thing hears the shot. Before I go on, let's recap: this children's record opens up with a clown shooting himself in the head.
Anyway, Man-Thing arrives, only to find the clown face down in the water. This makes The Man-Thing sad, so sad he recalls his own tragic story--experimental chemicals, car crash, burning hatred towards that big show-off Alec Holland, all of it.
As Man-Thing scoops up the clown's body to give it a proper burial, we see what's going on in the nearby town. Two hippies overhear some carny talking, and it turns out the carnival's clown--named Darrel--has gone missing. A young woman named Ayla is very upset over what Darrel might do, and tries to convince the owner, Mr. Garvey, to look for him.
Garvey slaps her(!), which causes one of the hippies to intervene. After punching Garvey in his big fat handlebar-mustached face, they offer her a ride to help her find Darrel. On the trail, she reveals that she rejected Darrel's love, which caused the little clown to stop laughing.
They find Darrel on the riverbank, sort of--he bows to them and wanders off, across the water. Walking onto the main road, he causes Garvey and his Rondo Hatton-like henchman to crash their pick-up truck!
This is where we get to hear Darrel talk for the first time, and he says stuff like "You'll kill me haha make me die haha where's Garvey hahaha"--all without punctuation. Creepy!
The three young people discover Man-Thing with Darrel's body, and one of them notices the gunshot, and surmises that the Darrel they saw was...a ghost!
Soon, the henchman finds them, gets in a fight with Man-Thing, which he of course loses, ending with the big galoot lying face down in the swamp. But they all manage to see something truly amazing: Darrel's spirit, rising from his body! He tells Ayla that "What does any clown want but to make people happy! But I could not go on making others laugh, when all I felt inside was pain...when the love I gave was not returned! But now, my soul is free! I shall feel mortal pain no more...and I can laugh...laugh forever!"
The narrator--who has been speaking to Man-Thing throughout the story--says: "You look and listen to the spector[sic] of a clown before you...and all that you know, Man-Thing, is that never has laughter made you feel so sad!!"
Wow.
So let's review: in just these four "children's records", we see three animals meet bloody deaths, two women get slapped around, two innocent people get murdered, one man under severe psychological trauma, a suicidal clown, and two stories that end celebrating the Sweet Release of Death. Yep, it was the 1970s all right.
If there's any lesson to learn from these records, its that there was a time, long before "Won't somebody think of the children?!?" became a fixture of American discourse, when kids were allowed to encounter material that was way beyond what they might be ready for emotionally, to occasionally see the darker sides of life. And Marvel Comics and Peter Pan Records were there, ready to provide that kind of material. Why they chose such particularly dark stories, out of Marvel's entire "monster" catalog, to dramatize is a mystery lost to the ages. But they did.
And for that, I thank them.
Anyway, Man-Thing arrives, only to find the clown face down in the water. This makes The Man-Thing sad, so sad he recalls his own tragic story--experimental chemicals, car crash, burning hatred towards that big show-off Alec Holland, all of it.
As Man-Thing scoops up the clown's body to give it a proper burial, we see what's going on in the nearby town. Two hippies overhear some carny talking, and it turns out the carnival's clown--named Darrel--has gone missing. A young woman named Ayla is very upset over what Darrel might do, and tries to convince the owner, Mr. Garvey, to look for him.
Garvey slaps her(!), which causes one of the hippies to intervene. After punching Garvey in his big fat handlebar-mustached face, they offer her a ride to help her find Darrel. On the trail, she reveals that she rejected Darrel's love, which caused the little clown to stop laughing.
They find Darrel on the riverbank, sort of--he bows to them and wanders off, across the water. Walking onto the main road, he causes Garvey and his Rondo Hatton-like henchman to crash their pick-up truck!
This is where we get to hear Darrel talk for the first time, and he says stuff like "You'll kill me haha make me die haha where's Garvey hahaha"--all without punctuation. Creepy!
The three young people discover Man-Thing with Darrel's body, and one of them notices the gunshot, and surmises that the Darrel they saw was...a ghost!
Soon, the henchman finds them, gets in a fight with Man-Thing, which he of course loses, ending with the big galoot lying face down in the swamp. But they all manage to see something truly amazing: Darrel's spirit, rising from his body! He tells Ayla that "What does any clown want but to make people happy! But I could not go on making others laugh, when all I felt inside was pain...when the love I gave was not returned! But now, my soul is free! I shall feel mortal pain no more...and I can laugh...laugh forever!"
Wow.
So let's review: in just these four "children's records", we see three animals meet bloody deaths, two women get slapped around, two innocent people get murdered, one man under severe psychological trauma, a suicidal clown, and two stories that end celebrating the Sweet Release of Death. Yep, it was the 1970s all right.
If there's any lesson to learn from these records, its that there was a time, long before "Won't somebody think of the children?!?" became a fixture of American discourse, when kids were allowed to encounter material that was way beyond what they might be ready for emotionally, to occasionally see the darker sides of life. And Marvel Comics and Peter Pan Records were there, ready to provide that kind of material. Why they chose such particularly dark stories, out of Marvel's entire "monster" catalog, to dramatize is a mystery lost to the ages. But they did.
And for that, I thank them.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Mego Teen Titans - 2009
I was incredibly nervous about this being my first time in the magazine as a writer (I had been a reader and LOC writer since the first issue), so I must have gone over it half a dozen times trying to make it flow as well as possible. It must have gone over okay, since I did a number of articles for Back Issue! after this.
Contradictions.
If one word could sum up the legendary Mego toy company, that would be it. Capable of producing breathtakingly cool plastic reproductions of kids' favorite comic book, movie, and TV characters, they just as quickly could make something so pathetically cheesy that Santa wouldn't have dared leave it for you under the Christmas tree.
And no Mego line is a better microcosm of those inherent contradictions than Teen Titans. Produced in 1977, the Teen Titans line consisted of four figures--Wonder Girl, Speedy, Kid Flash, and Aqualad (Robin having been Mego-ized in 1972). Despite being established characters in the DC universe, Mego chose not to brand them with their massively popular World's Greatest Super-Heroes label, and their packaging was different than the standard WGSH design, even though in trade ads they were sold alongside the WGSH line.
Within the line itself, quality varies wildly. While Kid Flash, Speedy, and Aqualad are spitting images of their comic book selves (and Speedy coming with a full complement of detailed accessories), Wonder Girl has the creepy, dead-eyed visage of a baby doll, something I doubt any young boy would've been caught dead buying. At least you could buy Batgirl or Supergirl because you had feelings for Babs or Kara that you were too young to understand, but Wonder Girl looks like she wants to help you whip up some brownies in your sister's Easy-Bake Oven.
Also, Teen Titans would become victims of Mego's cost-cutting practices at the time. They used an inferior, cheaper plastic on them, causing "molting", where the caucasian skin tones eventually turn a sickly grey, making the kids look like they're the stars of Teen Titans Zombies.
As many toy manufacturers have learned, kids are an inscrutable bunch, and you never know what will sell. While the WGSH line was a monstrous, industry-changing hit, the Teen Titans line flopped. According to Benjamin Holcomb, author of the ultimate WGSH reference work, Mego 8" Super-Heroes: World's Greatest Toys, "The Teen Titans had an extremely short production life, offered to retailers only once, at Toy Fair in February 1977. With no marketing support, the Teen Titans failed." (Yet the line lasted long enough to produce one tiny packaging variant and two different sets of arms--one that bent, one that didn't--for Wonder Girl)
Also, Teen Titans would become victims of Mego's cost-cutting practices at the time. They used an inferior, cheaper plastic on them, causing "molting", where the caucasian skin tones eventually turn a sickly grey, making the kids look like they're the stars of Teen Titans Zombies.
As many toy manufacturers have learned, kids are an inscrutable bunch, and you never know what will sell. While the WGSH line was a monstrous, industry-changing hit, the Teen Titans line flopped. According to Benjamin Holcomb, author of the ultimate WGSH reference work, Mego 8" Super-Heroes: World's Greatest Toys, "The Teen Titans had an extremely short production life, offered to retailers only once, at Toy Fair in February 1977. With no marketing support, the Teen Titans failed." (Yet the line lasted long enough to produce one tiny packaging variant and two different sets of arms--one that bent, one that didn't--for Wonder Girl)
One of the other things going against the line was Mego's (usually excellent) timing. In 1977, there was no Teen Titans cartoon or movie, and the Teen Titans comic was heading for its second cancellation. Ironically, the Titans would take off to nearly unrivaled heights of popularity under the genius hands of Marv Wolfman and George Perez just a few years later.
Partly because of their unusualness (face it, you don't see a lot of Speedy toys out there, even in a post-DC Direct world) and the fact that they weren't collected en masse like a lot of the other WGSHs, the Teen Titans now go for hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to collectors. Teen Titans Go!
Partly because of their unusualness (face it, you don't see a lot of Speedy toys out there, even in a post-DC Direct world) and the fact that they weren't collected en masse like a lot of the other WGSHs, the Teen Titans now go for hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to collectors. Teen Titans Go!
Monday, December 27, 2010
Tex And Me - 1999
Tex taught at the school two days a week, so he would stay at the Clinton House on Thursday nights, which means on Thursday and Friday afternoons the dozen or so of us who lived in the Clinton House would have a garrulous, chain-smoking, and profane giant of a man sitting at our kitchen table, working, smoking, and telling stories. (Pictured above with Tex is, L to R, me and two fellow Kubies, Sean Murphy and Dan O'Connor)
When Tex died in 1999 I was deeply saddened, and more than a little mad at myself I didn't take the time to get to know Tex better. Figuring his death might not even be mentioned in the various comic book zines at the time, I decided to write a letter to The Comic Buyers Guide, which they printed in their April 30, 1999 edition.
I've been fortunate enough to have had a lot of my work--both art and writing--see print over the years. But this remains one of the things I am the most proud of, even over a decade later.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Captain Action & Aquaman - 2010
I was only happy to do so (because I don't write and talk about Aquaman enough), and was thrilled to see the piece in print when I met Ed at the 2010 New York Comic Con, where he had me autograph some copies.
I didn't want to post the piece on any of my blogs while the book was out, but now that a few months have passed I figured it was okay--brief as it is, I thought it came out well and looks good (which is why I'm posting it in its original form instead of as text). I'm posting it today because I'm hoping Santa will read it and leave me a MIB Mera Super Queens doll under the tree.
Click the above graphic to see a more readable version, and thanks again Ed!
Monday, December 20, 2010
"Richie Rich Meets Frankenstein" - 2009
Richie Rich meets The Frankenstein Gang!
Yes, the Poor Little Rich Boy's adventures did go beyond just looking for places to store his money. In Richie Rich Vault of Mystery, (one of approximately 10,000 different Richie Rich titles) Richie and his less solvent pals had all kinds of adventures, none as exciting for monster fans as this issue, when he encountered Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man!
This story opens with Richie and his pal Freckles visiting "The famous old Castle Theater!"
They decide to split, but on the way out they encounter...The Wolf Man! (Freckles calls it "The Ghost of the Wolf Man!"--why it couldn't just be The Wolf Man, I don't know. Maybe Freckles knows something we don't). He begins to chase them, throwing stage pegs at them. He hits a lever on the wall, causing a trap door to open underneath Richie and Freckles, who fall down into it:
After a break consisting of two one-page Richie gag strips, we're back to our main story:
Hmm, these monsters seem pretty clumsy. I wonder...
Anyway, Richie's pants get stuck on a nail, and in his rush to escape he tears off his pocket, leaving a trail of money in his wake. While Freckles runs away, Richie stops to notice that the monsters are happily scooping up the cash! What kind of monsters are these?
Richie and Freckles hide in a nearby sarcophagus (you'd think this would be a perfect time for the Mummy to make an appearance, but no). The monsters think they've scared the kids off, so they resume their "plan", which involves them heading down yet another trap door. Richie and Freckles follow them, and we see that the monsters are in the middle of digging through a wall, into the bank next door!
Richie is now convinced these aren't real monsters, or ghost monsters, or whatever--they're just crooks in make-up! Freckles asks what he and Richie can do to stop them, but Richie says they don't need to do anything!
Freckles is confused at that, as the monsters drill make it through to the bank:
Anyway, Richie's pants get stuck on a nail, and in his rush to escape he tears off his pocket, leaving a trail of money in his wake. While Freckles runs away, Richie stops to notice that the monsters are happily scooping up the cash! What kind of monsters are these?
Richie and Freckles hide in a nearby sarcophagus (you'd think this would be a perfect time for the Mummy to make an appearance, but no). The monsters think they've scared the kids off, so they resume their "plan", which involves them heading down yet another trap door. Richie and Freckles follow them, and we see that the monsters are in the middle of digging through a wall, into the bank next door!
Richie is now convinced these aren't real monsters, or ghost monsters, or whatever--they're just crooks in make-up! Freckles asks what he and Richie can do to stop them, but Richie says they don't need to do anything!
Freckles is confused at that, as the monsters drill make it through to the bank:
...the end!
While its disappointing to this monster fan that Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man aren't real, merely crooks involved in a Scooby Doo-esque plot, I am intrigued at the notion that these (or any) monsters do, in fact, exist for real in the universe of Richie Rich. After all, Richie and Freckles don't immediately come to the conclusion that these are just guys in costumes--for a moment, they believe they are the real deal, which I find an intriguing footnote to the world of Richie Rich.
Like most Richie Rich stories, there are no writing or art credits on this story, although its safe to assume that this was penciled by the great Ernie Colon, at least. He does a great job rendering the three monsters, especially on the cover, which is about as moody as Harvey was going to allow a Richie Rich comic to get.
One other interesting note: in this story, Dracula is clearly the ringleader, yet the group is called "The Frankenstein Gang." We know who the real star is, don't we?
While its disappointing to this monster fan that Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man aren't real, merely crooks involved in a Scooby Doo-esque plot, I am intrigued at the notion that these (or any) monsters do, in fact, exist for real in the universe of Richie Rich. After all, Richie and Freckles don't immediately come to the conclusion that these are just guys in costumes--for a moment, they believe they are the real deal, which I find an intriguing footnote to the world of Richie Rich.
Like most Richie Rich stories, there are no writing or art credits on this story, although its safe to assume that this was penciled by the great Ernie Colon, at least. He does a great job rendering the three monsters, especially on the cover, which is about as moody as Harvey was going to allow a Richie Rich comic to get.
One other interesting note: in this story, Dracula is clearly the ringleader, yet the group is called "The Frankenstein Gang." We know who the real star is, don't we?
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Spider-Man and His Amazing Power Records - 2010
It should come as no surprise that the Amazing Spider-Man was unquestionably the "marquee" character for Power Records' book-and-record adaptations of Marvel Comics characters, taking up the majority of vinyl real estate alongside his fellow stars Captain America, The Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Conan the Barbarian, and assorted "monster" characters (whose Power Records we discussed back in Back Issue #36).
But, despite being the headliner of over a dozen different Power Records releases (in both 45" and LP format), when you're talking about Spider-Man as Power Records star, you're really only talking about six stories: "Mark of the Man-Wolf", "Invasion of the Dragon Men", "The Mad Hatter of Manhattan", "Return of the Conquistador", "The Bells of Doom", and "The Abominable Showman." Power Records never met a story they couldn't repackage, and they got a lot of mileage out of these six audio adventures.
Undoubtedly, the most famous of these stories is the book-and-record adventure "The Mark of The Man-Wolf" (an abbreviated version of The Amazing Spider-Man #124 by Gerry Conway, Gil Kane, John Romita, and Tony Mortellaro), where we learn that J. Jonah Jameson's astronaut son John, having brought back a mysterious, glowing rock from a recent trip to the moon, is turning into a snarling, savage man-wolf at night.
Later, J.Jonah gets his son to tell him how all this came about, and even though John warns him to leave, Jonah doesn't listen. Sure enough, John Jameson turns into a werewolf again, ready to attack his father. Spider-Man, never one to listen to JJJ, shows up and tests a "theory"--that the moon rock around the Man-Wolf's neck is causing the transformations. In a wonderfully vivid, genuinely frightening (to the then-nine-year-old me, at least) moment, we hear Spidey forcibly rip the moon rock pendant off of the Man-Wolf's neck, sounding like it took a nice hunk of skin along with it:
Later, J.Jonah gets his son to tell him how all this came about, and even though John warns him to leave, Jonah doesn't listen. Sure enough, John Jameson turns into a werewolf again, ready to attack his father. Spider-Man, never one to listen to JJJ, shows up and tests a "theory"--that the moon rock around the Man-Wolf's neck is causing the transformations. In a wonderfully vivid, genuinely frightening (to the then-nine-year-old me, at least) moment, we hear Spidey forcibly rip the moon rock pendant off of the Man-Wolf's neck, sounding like it took a nice hunk of skin along with it:
The actor playing the Man-Wolf (sadly, uncredited) lets loose a piercing howl, a moment as powerful anything Power Records ever produced.
Now back to normal, JJJ is unwilling to bring his son to a doctor, because of the publicity that might generate. Spider-Man, disgusted, walks away, ignoring Jameson's protests---a typically downbeat ending for a Power Records Marvel Comics story.
While the other Spider-Man stories don't quite reach the level of oomph that "Mark of the Man-Wolf" does (maybe because "Man-Wolf" is the only Spider-Man story adapted from an actual Spidey comic book), they all have their moments of fun, excitement, and pure goofiness that were the hallmark of Power Records.
Now back to normal, JJJ is unwilling to bring his son to a doctor, because of the publicity that might generate. Spider-Man, disgusted, walks away, ignoring Jameson's protests---a typically downbeat ending for a Power Records Marvel Comics story.
While the other Spider-Man stories don't quite reach the level of oomph that "Mark of the Man-Wolf" does (maybe because "Man-Wolf" is the only Spider-Man story adapted from an actual Spidey comic book), they all have their moments of fun, excitement, and pure goofiness that were the hallmark of Power Records.
In "Invasion of the Dragon Men" (the only other Spider-Man story to be produced as both a book and record set), an astronomy class heads out into the woods to do some star-gazing. Two kids, Jimmy and Sue, sneak off to neck in the woods (although from the way the voice actors play it, it sounds like its a bit more than that!).
As written, Jimmy's an unfunny jerk, but for some reason he's able to talk Sue into making out (Sue, you can do better). A few moments later, the young couple come across a small army of reptile men, led by an actual fire-breathing dragon! The dragon in question is named Draco, self-described "King of the Dragon-Men!"
The next morning, Peter Parker's Spidey-Sense goes off, and (after giving Mary Jane the brush-off), he investigates as Spider-Man. He finds Draco and his men operating in an underground base. Despite Draco's impressive size and strength, Spider-Man continually mocks Draco throughout the story, culminating in a battle atop the Empire State Building. We learn that Draco is not an alien, but a human named Demosthenes Drake who had his blood mixed with a giant species of iguana. Draco lunges for Spidey, only to seemingly plummet to his death. I say "seemingly", because Spider-Man does find a tiny iguana, just as it crawls away into a hole in a wall. Does this mean Draco might return some day? We'll never know, since Power Records didn't do sequels.
The other Spider-Man adventures were audio stories only, appearing all together on an LP, as well as on individual 45s. In "The Mad Hatter of Manhattan!", a Batman-esque crook goes on a crime wave, using a hat of his own invention that gives the wearer almost superhuman powers. In "The Return of the Conquistador", an ego-centric Spanish History professor believes he is the reincarnation of an ancient conquistador, bent on taking over the world, one murder at a time. In "The Bells of Doom", Spidey meets a super-villain named Ultra-Sonic Man, who is bent on getting revenge against members of the recording industry (and that makes him a super-villain how?), but decides to try and take out Spider-Man first. Good plan!
Finally, in "The Abominable Showman", Peter and Mary Jane go to see a magic act by a guy named Merlin. It seems harmless enough, but nevertheless Peter's Spidey-Sense tells him there's danger. Turns out Merlin's three "assistants" (a rope, a monkey, and a robot) are helping Merlin get revenge on the university eggheads that didn't recognize his vast intellect. Thankfully, Spider-Man puts a stop to all of it before Merlin's plan can come off.
Spider-Man was played by two different actors (one in "Man-Wolf", and one in the other recordings), both of them doing a solid job in the dual role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man (each use the old voice actor's trick of dropping their voice an octave when meek Parker changes into the heroic Spidey).
The sound effects are uniformly powerful and evocative (even though the sound of Spider-Man swinging away is the same one as Superman flying into the sky--Power Records knew how to save money), and there are some just plain odd and/or heavy moments for what are meant to be children's records--in "Return of the Conquistador", two cops discuss a victim that's had his ear sliced off(!), in "Bells of Doom", there's a reference to poet Rod McKuen (kids love poet humor), and I have to wonder what a parent might have thought if the only part of "Invasion of the Dragon Men" they overheard was Jimmy and Sue getting hot and heavy.
The two book-and-record sets make for great packages, featuring top-flight creators (the aforementioned Conway, Kane, and Romita on "Mark of the Man-Wolf", and Larry Hama, Dick Giordano, and Terry Austin on the art for "Invasion of the Dragon Men") on the accompanying comic book. For whatever reason, Power Records did not see fit to put that kind of effort on the jacket art for the LP-only Spider-Man records; both front and back sleeves feature sloppy, sketchy artwork that looks like it was done in-house rather than by anyone at Marvel.
I was curious whether Gerry Conway had any hand in the adaptation of his story for the Power Records version, and here's what he said, giving us some additional insight as to how the Power Records came about in the first place: "No, I had nothing to do with the adaptation or the record, sorry to say. I do recall that this was the product of a deal made by Martin Goodman's son, Chip Goodman, while Martin was out of town. Apparently Chip sold all media rights for all Marvel properties to some guy who offered him a $5000 advance, with a five year term, and no guarantee that he'd actually produce anything. This record, and a couple of other things (Stan Lee at Carnegie Hall, I believe, was one) were the only projects that ever went anywhere as a result of that deal. Needless to say, I heard Martin wasn't too happy with Chip as a result."
Sadly, none of the Power Records material has ever been collected onto a modern platform; apparently various copyright issues prevent it. Which is a darn shame, because the material, with its corny jokes and audio pops and hisses, still works on modern audiences--on my Power Records blog (powerrecord.blogspot.com), I've posted entire book-and-record sets, along with mp3 audio files, and on almost every one there's a comment by some now-grown comic fan who says they play the records for their kids, who love them. Power Records truly were powerful!
The next morning, Peter Parker's Spidey-Sense goes off, and (after giving Mary Jane the brush-off), he investigates as Spider-Man. He finds Draco and his men operating in an underground base. Despite Draco's impressive size and strength, Spider-Man continually mocks Draco throughout the story, culminating in a battle atop the Empire State Building. We learn that Draco is not an alien, but a human named Demosthenes Drake who had his blood mixed with a giant species of iguana. Draco lunges for Spidey, only to seemingly plummet to his death. I say "seemingly", because Spider-Man does find a tiny iguana, just as it crawls away into a hole in a wall. Does this mean Draco might return some day? We'll never know, since Power Records didn't do sequels.
The other Spider-Man adventures were audio stories only, appearing all together on an LP, as well as on individual 45s. In "The Mad Hatter of Manhattan!", a Batman-esque crook goes on a crime wave, using a hat of his own invention that gives the wearer almost superhuman powers. In "The Return of the Conquistador", an ego-centric Spanish History professor believes he is the reincarnation of an ancient conquistador, bent on taking over the world, one murder at a time. In "The Bells of Doom", Spidey meets a super-villain named Ultra-Sonic Man, who is bent on getting revenge against members of the recording industry (and that makes him a super-villain how?), but decides to try and take out Spider-Man first. Good plan!
Finally, in "The Abominable Showman", Peter and Mary Jane go to see a magic act by a guy named Merlin. It seems harmless enough, but nevertheless Peter's Spidey-Sense tells him there's danger. Turns out Merlin's three "assistants" (a rope, a monkey, and a robot) are helping Merlin get revenge on the university eggheads that didn't recognize his vast intellect. Thankfully, Spider-Man puts a stop to all of it before Merlin's plan can come off.
Spider-Man was played by two different actors (one in "Man-Wolf", and one in the other recordings), both of them doing a solid job in the dual role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man (each use the old voice actor's trick of dropping their voice an octave when meek Parker changes into the heroic Spidey).
The sound effects are uniformly powerful and evocative (even though the sound of Spider-Man swinging away is the same one as Superman flying into the sky--Power Records knew how to save money), and there are some just plain odd and/or heavy moments for what are meant to be children's records--in "Return of the Conquistador", two cops discuss a victim that's had his ear sliced off(!), in "Bells of Doom", there's a reference to poet Rod McKuen (kids love poet humor), and I have to wonder what a parent might have thought if the only part of "Invasion of the Dragon Men" they overheard was Jimmy and Sue getting hot and heavy.
I was curious whether Gerry Conway had any hand in the adaptation of his story for the Power Records version, and here's what he said, giving us some additional insight as to how the Power Records came about in the first place: "No, I had nothing to do with the adaptation or the record, sorry to say. I do recall that this was the product of a deal made by Martin Goodman's son, Chip Goodman, while Martin was out of town. Apparently Chip sold all media rights for all Marvel properties to some guy who offered him a $5000 advance, with a five year term, and no guarantee that he'd actually produce anything. This record, and a couple of other things (Stan Lee at Carnegie Hall, I believe, was one) were the only projects that ever went anywhere as a result of that deal. Needless to say, I heard Martin wasn't too happy with Chip as a result."
Sadly, none of the Power Records material has ever been collected onto a modern platform; apparently various copyright issues prevent it. Which is a darn shame, because the material, with its corny jokes and audio pops and hisses, still works on modern audiences--on my Power Records blog (powerrecord.blogspot.com), I've posted entire book-and-record sets, along with mp3 audio files, and on almost every one there's a comment by some now-grown comic fan who says they play the records for their kids, who love them. Power Records truly were powerful!
Monday, December 13, 2010
Interview with Gerry Conway - 2008
Initially, I didn't plan to include interviews on my writing blog, but I really am quite proud of some of them, if for no other reason than I was able to keep my composure with people whom I idolized. Almost all my blogs have featured interviews with writers, artists, editors, and more, and they are some of the things I'm most proud of as a blogger/writer/historian.
Some interviews I've done via email, and some live over the phone. For the most part, I prefer to do them via email because transcribing a live conversation is so tedious it drives me crazy. That said, I have to admit that with a few exceptions, live interviews come out much better, since its an actual conversation which inevitably yields more interesting observations.
Case in point: the time in 2008 I got to interview one of my comic book heroes, Gerry Conway. I was in the middle of my run on my JLA Satellite blog, and growing up Gerry Conway simply was the JLA writer, period, clocking in more years and issues than any other writer for the team, before or since.
Gerry was incredibly generous with his time, answering some of my geekier questions with charm and humor. I knew as soon as I first posted it back in July 2008 that this was one the best interviews I had ever conducted.
Growing up when I did, Gerry Conway simply was the writer of Justice League of America, always had been the writer, and always would be the writer. The JLA was under his authorship when I first discovered the book, and he was responsible for almost all the stories I think of when I think of the book.
Since Gerry had left the world of comics to write for television, he was (for me) tough to get a hold of, so I resigned myself to not being able to talk to him directly for the blog.
Luckily, he started his own blog, Conway's Corner, and through that I was able to contact him and ask him if we wouldn't mind talking to me for JLA Satellite.
He generously said yes, and I got to spend part of an afternoon doing something I never would have dreamed of when I was a kid reading his comics: sitting around talking JLA with the Gerry Conway:
JLA Satellite: After writing issues in between other writers like Martin Pasko, Cary Bates, how did you end up writing JLA full time?
Gerry Conway: Well, let's see...to begin with, I did those [early] issues during my second run at DC.
I worked at DC three separate times, first time was in the late 60s where I broke in, basically trying to get every assignment I could. The second times was after I had spent five years at Marvel, and I sort of brought in as a Great White Hope by Carmine Infantino, to offset the fact that Marvel was doing very well, so I was kind of a feather in his cap.
Julie brought me aboard to write some issues, and at that point he was casting about, trying to decide who was going to be the regular writer on the book.
I then went back to Marvel for about a year, maybe less, and when I came back to DC, it was under terms of an exclusive contract, for which they were going to guarantee me a certain amount of writing each month. By that point Julie decided he wanted me to be the regular writer for JLA.
JLA Satellite: I ask this of everybody--Len Wein, Frank McLaughlin, because unfortunately he's not around to talk about it--what was it like working with Dick Dillin? Even then, his run on the book was astounding, but nowadays, if an artist is on a book for six months, that's a huge deal...
GC: Dick was one of the old pros, he'd been around a long time, and the old pros, they looked at it as a long-term commitment. In fact, they were glad, because it meant they didn't have to hustle, and they could just concentrate on doing good work.
I never actually personally met Dick. We collaborated in the traditional DC format of me writing the scripts in advance, and they would be filtered through the editor, and the writer and artist, for the most part, unless they were personal friends, didn't connect up. It was kind of a hands-off system.
But as I worked with him, and I discovered what were his strengths, what he enjoyed doing, how could I focus my writing on things that would bring out the best in him.
He brought his own take to each of the characters without ever giving the sense it wasn't the same character [that you knew]. It as quite an accomplishment.
JLA Satellite: Did you have any expectation you'd be on the book for so long?
GC: You know, I actually enjoyed working on the book so much that it never occurred to me I would leave it [laughs]. Short of leaving the comic book business, I thought I would be writing the book. It felt like this was my home.
JLA Satellite: It certainly was an extraordinary run. I mean, as far as I ever knew, you always wrote the JLA!
GC: [laughs] I had written it longer than any other writer to the point I left--I wrote it even longer than Gardner Fox.
JLA Satellite: I was about six or seven when I first discovered the book around 1978, so you were The Writer, so, okay, Gerry Conway Writes the JLA, sort of a fait accompli.
GC: Yeah, it's just part of the Natural World. [laughs]
JLA Satellite: [laughs] Yeah, exactly--I was like "That's who writes this book." Anyway, something else I've wondered about--when you created Firestorm, he joined the JLA not too long after. Was that something you had in the back of your mind as you were creating him, that you'd use him in JLA, too, or was that sort of an accident?
GC: I didn't think of it in those terms. I believe I brought him into the JLA after his own title had been canceled.
JLA Satellite: Yeah, it was in between his book ending and his back-up strip in The Flash.
GC: I just wanted to keep writing him. I thought he fit into the group really well because they didn't have a really young member.
I realize this is very obscure, but I'm sort of fascinated--how closely would you guys follow that? What would happen if the people who bothered to write in picked the most ridiculous character, and you'd be stuck with them?
GC: Well, I think we would've found a way to make it work, but the reality is the reason these characters would be the favorite choice is because that's the character we did the best, or had the most intriguing back story.
So, it wasn't likely they'd pick somebody out of left field.
JLA Satellite: [laughs] You'd be stuck writing Ragman or the Queen Bee or somebody like that...
GC: Well, you'd have to admit, that could've been kinda cool [laughs], to bring in somebody...and this is what happened later, after I left the book, that they brought in some really left field characters, and that can be fun, that can be a way to really pump up the excitement.
But I think we knew it was a fairly safe bet that we'd have the most likely candidates.
JLA Satellite: I had a contest on the blog, asking people to pick the best character who should've joined but never did, and someone sent in Shade, the Changing Man.
When I first saw it, I thought, that's the stupidest...but then when I thought about it, I thought, that would've been really interesting!
GC: Exactly.
JLA Satellite: To throw that bomb into the book like that, so I said, ok, that's the winner.
GC: Exactly, and it should be fun like that, otherwise why do it?
GC: The treasury-sized books were dropped because of mediocre sales versus expensive printing costs. I don't know who thought to use it in the regular books later, but it certainly made sense not to waste the material.
GC: I hate to say it, but it's so long ago, I don't really remember the circumstances.
I know I was having some trouble at DC, in and around that period, and there was some interest in changing up the title in some way. I don't really remember the exact circumstances, I'm much clearer about why I left the book ultimately [laughs].
JLA Satellite: [laughs] Yeah, well, well get to that in second. But you left at the end of #216, co-wrote the JLA/JSA team-up with Roy Thomas [JLA #'s 219-220], wrote the ""Beast Men" story [JLA #'s 221-223], which was very intense, much more intense than anything I had seen in the book before. And then JLA Detroit kicked in not long after that.
What was the genesis for that change? Was JLA not selling well, so DC would've been open to that kind of experimentation?
GC: There was a sense, at that time, that they needed to shake things up.
It was right about that time that John Byrne was doing Superman [actually, that was two years later--Rascally Rob], new editors were being brought in, and regardless of what sales of the title was, they felt they needed a change.
The book had been doing very well. The sales took a hit when we did JLA Detroit, but before that I don't think they had been doing particularly badly. I think it had been doing fine.
But there was this sense that it needed sort of a revamp--and I didn't necessarily disagree, one way or the other, but I saw an opportunity to do something new for me--by that point I had been writing the book nearly ten years--but here was an opportunity to bring in some new characters, and it seemed like it might work.
And we had a new artist, Chuck Patton, and we had a new editor, and sense of, let's try something a little different.
After five or six months, I'm not sure how long it lasted, but I was starting to campaign to change it back--"You know, this was an interesting experiment, but I don't think it's working. Let's go back to the formula that had worked and find some way to revamp it."
But by that point, they felt the problem wasn't with the book, it was with me. That was the problem, so they decided just to replace me.
JLA Satellite: I was going to ask you about that--you were gone in the middle of a storyline. All of a sudden, someone else was writing the book. There was no discussion of it on the letters page, and I remember thinking, what the hell's going on here?
GC: These things happen. I was burning out, as a writer. I had a lot of resentment over the way I was being treated at DC, by some of the people there. I felt I had been scapegoated for policy changes that hadn't anything to do with me.
I had been hired to put out a lot of writing--you know, that was what they wanted when they brought me on. And then I became criticized for...putting out a lot of writing.
JLA Satellite: [laughs]
GC: No one said, hey, we'd like you to cut back a bit and focus on a handful of titles, and we'll work with you on that. They decided I couldn't do it; I was old news and they didn't want to hear it.
They pushed me out; first they fired me off the editorship of [Fury of] Firestorm, then I was pushed off that book, which I had created, and then they took me off JLA, a book I'd been writing for ten years.
Then they basically started cutting my assignments without replacing the work that they had guaranteed me, and that they were paying me for. And then they wanted me to give money back!
At the end of the year, they had guaranteed me X number of pages, writing during the course of the year, and paid me for that, and then when they hadn't given me the assignments to do it, they said I had failed to deliver.
It became really rancorous, it was really bad--
JLA Satellite: Hard to believe you left to work in Television instead.
GC: Yeah, certainly, you get treated just as badly, but...
JLA Satellite: ...you're paid a lot more.
GC: I did go back and write for Marvel; they thought I was doing a pretty good job.
And you know, all the people that were involved with that are no longer with the company. Today, I don't have any resentment over it because its, what, twenty-five years ago? And I certainly had my share of the blame.
JLA Satellite: I specifically wanted to ask about Aquaman, because this [JLA Detroit] was a big moment in the character's history. Here was a character not in the book that much, and here he is taking the reins and taking charge.
When you were scoping out the plans for changing the book, was Aquaman someone you wanted to write more of, and this was the way to do it, or was it more of, "Hey, I have this idea to rejigger the team, and this character, because he's not appearing anywhere else right now, would be the most logical candidate"?
GC: Yeah, it was that.
The goal was to have a group of characters who could relate to each other, specifically in this title, and we could do continuity within this title. That's why I started focusing on Red Tornado, say, and Zatanna, for story lines before this because they didn't have series anywhere else. And it made it easier to develop personal conflicts and personal storylines.
JLA Satellite: Looking back over your run, I was reminded how much of Red Tornado's story you built up in JLA--you developed his relationship with Kathy, you introduced the orphan girl, his adopted daughter Traya; a lot of the stuff that people would use when they were writing Red Tornado. So I wondered if you were looking to do that for Aquaman.
GC: I really like Aquaman, I really loved the Steve Skeates and Jim Aparo run in the 60s. I thought what they were doing was just awesome.
So I thought he had a lot of potential, it's just at that time--it really makes no sense for an ocean-based character to lead a team that's based on a lake.
JLA Satellite: [laughs]
GC: You know, if you think about it, it's really dumb, but hey! It seemed like a good idea at the time.
If I had to do over again, and I thought about it the way people think about it today, I would've picked a character like Martian Manhunter, but he wasn't as interesting a character as he would become later on.
JLA Satellite: You did that two or three-parter, where Aquaman goes to look for Mera [JLA #'s 241-243], and he quits! He finally says, you know, I need to be with my wife and I'm gonna leave.
That was very abrupt, because he sort of burnt a lot of bridges with this group, saying "You need to have commitment, commitment", dragged them all the way out to Detroit, and then goes "Naah, I'm gonna leave."
GC: At that point, I was being told what to do. My autonomy on the book--whenever I had any--probably ended around the time I left the book that first time, and after that I was basically trying to manage my way within the DC system.
I don't think [Aquaman leaving] would've been my goal, leaving a group he had brought together.
JLA Satellite: [laughs] Yeah, I have to say, when I read those issues, I was fourteen or fifteen, I was really mad--"Gerry, you've made Aquaman a big jerk!"
But they had that Neal Pozner mini-series that I really loved, just a few months later, and I eventually I figured, oh, okay, this was probably some edict from DC, saying, we gotta get him out of this book.
When you're a kid, you tend to think the writer and artist are running everything, you think everyone is Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, totally running the show. Later on, you go, ok, I see what's going on.
GC: Nowadays they coordinate things a lot more, and I think it works a lot better. But back then you had a very weak management team at the top of things, and you had editors that have never done this kind of work before.
JLA Satellite: I have one other nerdly question, and then I'm done with these sorts of questions--when you were coming up with the idea for JLA Detroit, a lot of the characters that bailed out were not appearing anywhere else--Green Arrow, Black Canary, the Hawks, was that your choice not to include them, or was it...
JLA Satellite: Right, Captain America.
That was the plan, but it never coalesced.
JLA Satellite: Wow, I've waited all these years to learn these things!
GC: [laughs]
JLA Satellite: Looking back...when I talked to Steve Englehart, he was really happy to talk about his year on the JLA. Because most of the time when he's interviewed, he's asked about his Batman stuff with Marshall Rogers or his Marvel work, but he was very proud of his JLA work, and he didn't get asked about it much.
Do you look back at your JLA run, and say "That was some of my best stuff"?
GC: There were a handful of titles I was really connected to as a writer and a fan, of course one being [The Amazing] Spider-Man, another was Firestorm, because I had created him and felt paternal about it, and JLA, because it was one of the first books I can remember being a fan of.
I can still remember the first three or four I bought off the newsstand, one with Kanjar Ro, or maybe even Despero, it was really early. And so I was always a fan of the book even though I lost track of it a bit when I became a Marvel fan.
I felt, you know, a personal commitment to it, and I really enjoyed writing the stories. I really enjoyed the "here's the group, let's split up into smaller teams" stories, I enjoyed coming up with the Crisis each year, trying to top the previous year. The more complicated...
JLA Satellite: Poor Dick Dillin!
GC: Yeah..."What can we do now?". That was a lot of fun for me...once I found a way to hook into individual characters and develop stories for them, like The Red Tornado, then it really felt like a personal book.
Plus it was an ego trip...after a certain point you realize, "Wow, I've been doing this longer than anybody...this is cool! I want to see if I can break some records..." So there was a certain amount of fun doing that.
JLA Satellite: Are there particular ones you look back on and think "Those were the best ones I did"?
GC: Yeah, I think most of those would be the "Crisis" stories I did, I'm particularly fond of the crossover with the western characters [JLA #'s 198-199] because that to me was fun...doing Jonah Hex [laughs]...it was strange doing that.
JLA Satellite: Yeah. I've mentioned here before, and on your blog, that--and I am barely kidding when I say--that I think that JLA #200 is the single greatest piece of literature ever produced by Western Civilization.
JLA Satellite: Let's see...1981, so I would've been ten years old.
GC: I figured it would've been around that time.
JLA Satellite: This probably won't make the interview, but I have to mention this--years ago, I had a girlfriend who also read comics.
Now that's rare enough, but she didn't like superhero comics. I guess if you don't first find them as a kid, they don't resonate with you, so she couldn't understand why I liked them so much.
So one day we decide to exchange comics we each liked, and she asked me for one comic that summed up what I liked about superhero comics. So I bought her a copy of JLA #200.
GC: Wow.
JLA Satellite: So anyway, I give it to her, its in a bag and board, and she puts it off to the side.
She lived in another part of the country, so we only saw each other every few months. I go back, a month or two later, and there's the book, in the same spot it was when I left, completely untouched.
And I thought to myself "This relationship's doomed! She can't find the time to read one measly 72-page superhero comic!"
And you know what? I was right! We eventually broke up.
GC: [big laughs].
JLA Satellite: I thought "How can you not read this?" Its so much fun, it moves so fast, the artwork is so nice..."
Really, I'm like, "If Gerry Conway only wrote one comic book in his life, this would be enough." This thing was the most tremendous comic ever.
JLA Satellite: I'm going to leave it at that. I cannot express how much it means to me to get to talk to you. I appreciate all the work you did, its so beloved to me, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me for the blog.
GC: Oh, it's been a pleasure. Thanks so much for remembering.
I can safely say there probably wouldn't be a JLA Satellite blog without Gerry Conway. His run on JLA gripped my then-seven-year-old imagination, introducing me me to a world of heroism and camaraderie that has stuck with me, all these years later. This blog is in part a tribute to how much I loved those books, and Gerry Conway was the creative drive behind most of them. Thanks--for everything--Gerry!
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