Roy Roy T Thomas homas ’ ’70 ss---Something Something Comics Comics Fanzine anzine
YOU ASKED FOR IT— SO IT SERVES YOU RIGHT!
ROY THOMAS
ON MARVEL IN THE 1970s! $$
6.95
In In the the USA USA
No. 70
1
82658 27763
5
07
July 2007
“ROY THE BOY” TALKS ABOUT WORKING WITH:
PLUS GOLDEN AGE GREAT
ADAMS * ANDRU * BORING * BOTH BUSCEMAS * BRUNNER * BUCKLER LILY RENÉE CHAYKIN * COCKRUM * COLAN * CONWAY * ENGLEHART * EVERETT & GERBER * GOODWIN * KANE * KIRBY * LEE * MOENCH * PÉREZ PLOOG * ROBBINS * ROMITA * THE SEVERINS * SHOOTER * SMITH THORNE * TRIMPE * TUSKA * WEIN * WOLFMAN * WRIGHTSON, & MORE!! Human Torch, Captain America, Sub-Mariner, & The Red Skull TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.
Vol. 3, No. 70 / July 2007 Editor Roy Thomas
Associate Editors
— Contents —
Bill Schelly Jim Amash
Design & Layout Christopher Day
Consulting Editor John Morrow
FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck
Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert
Editorial Honor Roll Jerry G. Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White
Editor Emeritus Mike Friedrich
Production Assistant Chris Irving
Circulation Director Bob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Periodical Distribution, LLC
Cover Artist Tom Ziuko
Writer/Editorial: The Devil Made Me Do It! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 “Writing Comics Turned Out To Be What I Really Wanted To Do With My Life”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
With Special Thanks to:
Roy Thomas talks to Jim Amash about the 1970s at Mighty Marvel.
Dan Adkins Karen Kraft Heidi Amash Bob Layton Nick Arroyo Stan Lee Bob Bailey Bruce MacIntosh Michael Baulderstone Michel Maillot Alan Barger Jonathan Mankuta Allen Bellman Mark Muller Al Bigley Jim Murtaugh Dominic Bongo Jerry Ordway Jerry K. Boyd Tom Palmer Mike Burkey Nigel Parkinson R. Dewey Cassell George Pérez Larry Clay Joe Petrilak Gene & Adrienne John G. Pierce Colan Trina Robbins Teresa R. Davidson Phil Schlaeffer Jack DiMartino John Severin Chris Fama Marie Severin Michael Finn Rick Shurgin Gregory Fischer Keif Simon Shane Foley Anthony Snyder Todd Franklin Flo Steinberg Jenna Land Free Steve Stiles Janet Gilbert Aaron Sultan Arnie Grieves Marc Swayze George Hagenauer Dann Thomas Jennifer Hamerlinck Frank Thorne David G. Hamilton Angelique Trouvere Heritage Comics Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Tom Horvitz Alan Waite Jay Kinney Hames Ware Scott Kolins Nicholas Yutko
Lily Renée At Fiction House—And Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Gene Colan
Cover Colorist
A far-too-brief look at a “Star Woman Cartoonist” by Trina Robbins.
Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Mike Mallet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Michael T. Gilbert presents “The World’s First Adult Comic,” by Bob Powell.
re: [comments, correspondence, & corrections to >ulp!< A/E #57!] . . 74 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #129 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 P.C. Hamerlinck showcases Marc Swayze, John G. Pierce, and Roy the [Shazam!] Boy.
FREE! Rough Stuff #5 preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 On Our Cover: “Gentleman Gene”—“Gene the Dean”—even “Adam Austin”—Stan Lee called Gene Colan all of the above during the early days of Marvel Comics. Other people have called him other things, among them “an artist’s artist” and “a painter with pencil.” Gene and Roy Thomas never worked together on The Invaders—but English collector Michael Finn commissioned Gene to draw this powerful illo of Timely’s “Big Three” facing off with The Red Skull—so, with Gene’s blessing, nothing was gonna stop us from reproducing it as our cover, straight from Mr. C.’s pulsating pencils, with Tom Ziuko adding the colors. What’s more, you can rhapsodize over the penciled original art on p. 31! [Captain America, Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, & Red Skull TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: Gil Kane, who (twice!) came within an ace of becoming the first artist ever to illustrate Conan's adventures in comics form, drew the Cimmerian in this time-tossed setting for the 1976 Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar. Maybe the barbarian wound up at Lexington and/or Concord because of Shamash-Shum-Ukin's fabled Well at the Center of Time from Savage Sword of Conan #7 (Aug. 1975) and What If? #13 (Feb. 1979)! Repro'd from a scan of the original art, as retrieved from the Heritage Comics Archives by Dominic Bongo. [©2007 Paradox Entertainment.] Alter EgoTM is published monthly by TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $9 US ($11.00 Canada, $16 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $78 US, $132 Canada, $180 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada. ISSN: 1932-6890. FIRST PRINTING.
2
writer/editorial
The Devil Made Me Do It! W W
ell, not actually the Devil. It was more like John Morrow and Jim Amash.
Cross my heart—doing a second issue of Alter Ego centered around my own career in only two years was not my idea! Jim and I always intended to pick up where we left off in A/E #50, which covered mostly my 1960s work—and a number of readers did ask for the 1970s follow-up—but there was no particular hurry. I was content to toss in occasional articles about the birth of the Star Wars comic (in #68) or my recent “JSA” concept (#69), and to otherwise concentrate on the likes of Ramona Fradon, ACG, and Jerry G. Bails. But then, some months back, the San Diego Comic-Con invited me to be a “special guest” in July of 2007. Since I now live in South Carolina, I’d only attended that mothership of cons once in the 21st century—in 2004, when the Discovery Channel folks flew me out. But when I mentioned the invitation to TwoMorrows’ avaricious publisher (and I use that adjective in only the most positive sense), he suggested that’d be the perfect time to deal with Yours Truly and Mighty Marvel in the 1970s. Jim concurred enthusiastically, even though lately he’s been so busy between A/E gab-fests and inking for Archie and spelling Joe Sinnott as inker on the Sunday Spider-Man comic strip that yet another super-long interview would tax him to the limit. Still, we did it—over several marathon phone calls that left my ears ringing—and naturally realized, when we were finished, that many, many things had not been covered that are of equal importance with what was discussed. Partly, Jim and I wanted to avoid covering too much of the same ground that Jon B. Cooke did in his interview with me in Comic Book Artist (Vol. 1) #2, since that’s been reprinted, as well. The volume of reminiscences printed in this issue and in A/E #50
is there not because I’m some colossus of the comic book world, but because my situation in the 1960s and ’70s put me very much at the center of Most Things Marvel, which meant I’d have at least a few words to say about just about everybody then in the field, as well as about my own two-year stint as Marvel’s editor-in-chief, and about a certain Cimmerian that you and I know well.
We’ve tried to hold down the number of illos—both so the ones we did use could be larger, and so we could also deal with another San Diego Comic-Con “special guest,” the great Golden Age artist Lily Renée. By the time I learned she was invited, I knew we couldn’t do her justice in this issue, as well… so we’re reprinting a few words written about her by Trina Robbins, and Jim is prepping a full-fledged interview with Ms. Renée for the near future. What you’ll see this time around is just to whet your appetite. Oh, and one more thing: because Marvel’s finally leaped with both feet into doing both color and black-&-white reprints of its 1960s+ work (and I personally couldn’t be happier about it, incentive payments aside), we’ve been able to avoid reprinting quite as many 1970s covers and interior pages as you might expect. Instead, you’ll find more original art and sketches, many of which were previously seen only in Marvel’s ’70s fan-club publications Marvelmania and, especially, FOOM (which, in case we don’t mention it anywhere else this month, stood for “Friends of Ol’ Marvel”). So, if you’ve forgiven me for usurping yet another issue of Alter Ego, we can now return you to our regularly-scheduled mag…. Bestest,
COMING IN AUGUST
#
71
THE GREAT CANADIAN COMIC BOOKS OF THE GOLDEN AGE!
• A nifty North-of-the-Border cover by GEORGE FREEMAN, from a layout by JACK KIRBY—featuring Canada’s greatest super-heroes! • The Great Canadian Comic Books! The full text of the milestone 1971 book by MICHAEL HIRSH & PATRICK LOUBERT on the World War II action tales produced by Bell Features—showcasing rare art of such heroes as Mr. Monster, Nelvana of the Northern Lights, The Penguin, Thunderfist, The Dreamer, The Brain, Johnny Canuck, and many others! • “One Minute After!” What happened sixty seconds after the cover scenes of the most memorable 1970s issues of The Invaders—as depicted by JOHN BYRNE, MIKE GRELL, ERNIE CHAN, RON LIM, & others! • AL SCHUTZER, Golden Age scripter of Superman, John Wayne, Hopalong Cassidy, Straight Arrow, etc., interviewed by JIM AMASH! • Plus: FCA with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK, & Colonel Porterhouse—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on early “Kooky Krossovers” of the Quality & Archie/MLJ heroes—& MORE!! Edited by ROY THOMAS TM & ©2007 Marvel Vindicator & Wolverineheroes TM & ©2007 Nelvana r ©2007 Comely Comix; Captain Canuck TM & ster TM & ©2007 Michael T. Gilbert; othe Mon Characters, Inc.; Mr. ved. Limited. All rights reser
SUBSCRIBE NOW! Twelve Issues in the US: $72 Standard, $108 First Class (Canada: $132, Elsewhere: $144 Surface, $192 Airmail). NOTE: IF YOU PREFER A SIX-ISSUE SUB, JUST CUT THE PRICE IN HALF!
TwoMorrows. Celebrating The Art & History Of Comics. TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com
3
“Writing Comics Turned Out To Be What I Really Wanted To Do With My Life” ROY THOMAS Talks About Writing—And Editing— For Marvel During The 1970s
I
Interview Conducted by Jim Amash NTRODUCTION BY JIM AMASH:
Transcribed by Brian K. Morris Sol Brodsky was there—right before he left for Skywald and was succeeded by John Verpoorten. As production manager, Sol ranked me in certain ways, and I had no problem with that—but he wasn’t involved in editorial decisions except from a scheduling angle, so the three of us took care of things… well, in a sense maybe there were four of us, because Stan relied on John Romita in certain areas concerning Spider-Man and even art direction and corrections. JA: Now, as you rise in the company, is your compensation rising that much? THOMAS: I was doing okay. Is anybody ever really ever paid what they’d like? I was working, really, for [Marvel publisher] Martin Goodman, and he wasn’t somebody you could go to directly and say, “I’m worth more money.” Remember, Flo Steinberg quit in the late ’60s because she couldn’t get a $5 raise, because Goodman felt secretarial positions paid a certain salary and not a penny over that. But, between Goodman and Stan, I got raises from time to time, when sales were fairly good. There were sometimes Christmas bonuses, too. And, unlike back in the ’40s or ’50s, they never had to lower my salary, although back around ’68 they probably came close to doing that across the board when sales went soft, right after they turned the three anthology titles into six solo hero titles. JA: How did other people react to your rising in the company? THOMAS: I probably had more friends than I’d had before. [mutual laughter] JA: That’s what I figured.
“By The Middle Of 1970, I’d Been At Marvel For Five Years” JIM AMASH: All right, so it’s 1970 and you’re the second “head writer” of Marvel Comics, with Stan [Lee] being #1. And you’re editing, so you’re the #2 editor, too. THOMAS: That’s like saying you come in second in a horse race. You don’t get nearly as much money. [mutual laughter] Actually, it was a nice situation to be in. By the middle of 1970, I’d been at Marvel for five years, just picking up whatever little tidbits or reins Stan let fall, sometimes at his direction, sometimes at my own initiative. And I just became “#2 editor”—my real title was “associate editor”—by default.
THOMAS: Well, I had more people suddenly finding excuses to hang around with me. I’m not saying they were always doing that consciously. You naturally gravitate towards somebody in a situation like that, as I’m sure I’ve done myself. I never had to work hard at that, because when I was dealing with pros earlier, it was most just writing fan letters to Julie Schwartz or Gardner Fox or Otto Binder. And, with the exception of once or twice with Julie, I wasn’t really thinking in terms of getting into the field professionally. Some people probably accepted what you call my “rise” in the company, and some people didn’t. I wasn’t handing out assignments directly at that stage, but I had some growing influence, and Stan often listened to my suggestions. Sometimes he’d ask who should do this or that. It was a case of a gradual evolution. If I’d looked from one year to the next, I was probably handling a little more and I was having to deal with a few other writers and a bit more with the art—less with the art than with the writers. But I wouldn’t have noticed from day-to-day or week-to-week.
4
Roy Thomas Talks About Writing—And Editing—For Marvel During The 1970s
“[Readers] Were Mostly Saying ‘Do Conan!’” JA: Now, Conan the Barbarian starts in 1970, and I know you’ve talked about how you got Marvel to publish Conan. THOMAS: I may have spoken about that somewhere once or twice, yeah. [laughs] I’ve written all those articles in the past few years for Dark Horse’s Chronicles of Conan reprints, and before that for Marvel—and even something like 100 such articles that were printed only in Spanish, in Barcelona, back in the ’90s. Of course, when I was writing such articles for Marvel, I was a bit more constrained about what I might say. Stan and Goodman wouldn’t have liked it if I’d mentioned another company’s comic books, or a policy of theirs I was unhappy with—that kind of thing. And I accepted that. But I never really had to lie. So I guess I can save most of the Conan talk for the upcoming Alter Ego issue on the history of sword-and-sorcery comics.
Roy The Beverly Hills Barbarian! (Above:) One of the few photos of himself Roy really likes is this one, taken at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, circa 1977. He and friend Alan Waite, a producer of TV commercials, were waiting to interview comedy legend Phil (Sgt. Bilko) Silvers about his latest—and sadly, as it turned out, last—role, in the movie The Chicken Chronicles, for Marvel’s new magazine Celebrity. (The latter was a well-named but under-funded People-style brainchild of Stan Lee’s.) Right after Alan snapped this pic, the Lounge’s personnel descended on them to inform them that photo-taking was verboten in the fabled watering-hole. Silvers soon arrived and kept his interviewers in stitches for an hour—and the guys took photos of the comedian in his Century City digs a few days later—but alas, Celebrity died after only an issue or two, as that piece was literally on the presses. [©2007 Alan Waite.] (Right:) Barry Smith’s powerful pencils for the cover of 1970’s Conan the Barbarian #1 as they first appeared in print—on the cover of Marvelmania Magazine #2, the Marvel-published fan club mag, that same year. [©2007 Paradox Entertainment.]
JA: In the early ’70s, I know Stan was often only coming in like two days a week. THOMAS: Two, three days tops, even back when I started in 1965. He’d already worked things out with Goodman so he could work at least two days a week at home. And soon I worked it out with Stan so I could work a couple of days a week at home, and still get paid freelance for pages I wrote there, just as he did. It was like a de facto raise. You’d think Stan would’ve wanted to stagger it so I was there days when he wasn’t, but Stan preferred me to be there the same days he was, for conferences and the like. So the days we weren’t there, Sol and Flo kept things moving. Sometimes they or some assistant editor made a phone call to me or to Stan, depending on what the situation was, and asked, “What do we do?” I don’t even know who the assistant editor was, except when Gary Friedrich was there from 1966 to 1968. In 1970, Allyn Brodsky was on staff for a while, and was spelling me when [my first wife] Jeanie and I went to England that summer. But Sol—later Verpoorten—they were mostly just interested in getting the books out. They both knew what they could do without checking, and what they couldn’t, just as I did.
JA: Right. But I still have a couple of questions that I don’t think I’ve seen in print. THOMAS: Okay, shoot. JA: By the time you pitched Conan to Stan
“Writing Comics Turned Out To Be What I Really Wanted To Do With My Life”
Lee, how often were you pitching ideas for series? THOMAS: Good question. Not that often, because Stan was really the guy who generated the ideas, and I don’t think he pushed us to come up with new characters in the early days, except for villains. If something came up, he was open to it. As I’ve often said, I didn’t like creating many characters for Marvel, because I knew I wouldn’t own then… not that I advertised that feeling to Stan or Goodman! Besides, we already had a fair number of books. Marvel over-expanded in ’68, the field got overcrowded, and there was a brief downturn in sales. By 1970 or so, we started expanding again. Stan was very open to what readers wanted. So, when fans wrote asking us to pick up properties from outside the comics field—especially Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Conan/Robert E. Howard material, Doc Savage, and Tolkien—we were open to that. At one time or the other between 1970-75, we went after each one of those. And, except for Tolkien, whose people turned us down flat, Marvel did end up eventually doing all of them.
5
our super-hero comics, elements which would appeal to the same readers. One was a strong, action-oriented hero—another was colorful villains and, I probably emphasized, monsters. The other thing I stressed was that there would be lots of beautiful women. I probably glossed over the fact that such a comic would look as if it were set in the ancient or medieval world, because that wouldn’t have had an innate appeal to Martin Goodman. After all, Black Knight never went anywhere in the 1950s, nor did most other Timely/Marvel comics that were set in the real or imagined past, except for World War II or the American West. Goodman liked the memo and authorized us to go after a character. I first went after Lin Carter’s Thongor, who was a quasi-Conan with elements of John Carter of Mars, partly because Stan liked that name the most.
JA: I had seen pages in Comic Book Artist where you and Barry Smith made up a team, I think it was Bucky and Quicksilver and Red Raven. THOMAS: I think that’s something Barry and I were just kicking around. Maybe Barry was looking for some extra work. It wasn’t Bucky, though; it was actually Rick Jones. Barry drew up a handful of pages, most of which have been reprinted somewhere-or-other, because, if we were going to talk Stan into it, it’d be better if he saw some pages. But whether we actually ever showed the pages to him and he said no, I don’t recall. JA: Did you ever talk to Martin Goodman about Conan? THOMAS: I didn’t talk; I wrote. When I think about things I wish I’d saved to document my career, such as it was, one of them is the memo Stan suggested I write to Goodman to see if he’d allow us to license an existing sword-and-sorcery hero, such as our readers were asking for. Not that readers were really saying, “Do sword-and-sorcery.” They were mostly saying, “Do Conan,” or “Do Robert E. Howard,” or something like that. Just like they weren’t saying, “Do jungle comics”; they were saying, “Get Tarzan or John Carter,” and “Get Doc Savage,” “Get Tolkien.” It wasn’t all just hype when Stan said Marvel’s readers were the real editors. Maybe that’s the reason why I don’t believe Stan and I ever discussed the possibility of making up a new sword-andsorcery hero. If we had, I suspect we’d have made it quite different from Robert E. Howard’s. I don’t think it would have worked out as well, so we were all winners on that one—Marvel, and myself, and the Robert E. Howard heirs. So Stan suggested to me, while we were kicking around the swordand-sorcery thing: “Why don’t you write a memo to Martin Goodman, to explain why we ought to license one of these characters?” It was left up to me because I was collecting a lot of the paperbacks—mostly for their covers, then—to decide which one. I felt that bringing such heroes into Marvel would upgrade comics. I wrote that memo, two or three pages, telling Goodman that sword-and-sorcery stories contained several elements in common with
Not To Mention Buscema The Barbarian! It’s well-known that the artist originally intended to launch Conan the Barbarian was Big John Buscema—seen above at the All Time Classic New York Comic Book Convention held in White Plains, NY, in summer of 2000. (Photo courtesy of host Joe Petrilak.) The original Buscema/Montano art for the splash page of Conan Annual #2 (1976) headed an interview with Roy T. conducted by Ralph Macchio that year in the 4th issue of FOOM, the second Marvel-published fan club magazine. At that time or soon after, newcomer Ralph was assistant editor on such mags as The Savage Sword of Conan—and today he’s a senior editor at Marvel, and has Roy happily adapting such classics as The Last of the Mohicans, Treasure Island, and The Man in the Iron Mask for him and the ambitious new Marvel Illustrated line. What goes around, comes around! (But Crom—didn’t either of those geniuses notice that the word “under” is missing in the last line of Robert E. Howard’s famous “Nemedian Chronicles” prologue? It got printed that way in the comic, too!) [©2007 Paradox Entertainment.]
A San Diego Comicon Special Treat Robert Beerbohm Comic Art Presents In Booth #5414 “From The Collection of Jerry Bails” June 26, 1933-November 23, 2006
His Fabled All Star Comics Run including •Church, Larson & Other Pedigrees • • And Scarce JJSA Artifacts! •
Plus Select Silver Age JSA Art By Anderson, Infantino, Sekowsky, Etc.
www.BLBcomics.com
63
Lily Renée At Fiction House —And Beyond A Far-Too-Brief Look At A “Star Woman Cartoonist” by Trina Robbins
II
NTRODUCTORY NOTE: On July 26-29, 2007, Golden Age comic book artist Lily Renée will be a special guest at the San Diego Comic-Con International. This will be her first appearance ever at any comics convention. In honor of that landmark event, Trina Robbins has granted us permission to reprint the paragraphs below, slightly edited, from her prior coverage of Ms. Renée’s career and the world in which she worked from 1943 to 1948. This material originally appeared, in a somewhat different form, in Trina’s invaluable 2001 book The Great Women Cartoonists, from Watson-Guptill Publications, and is ©2001, 2007 Trina Robbins. We’re pleased to announce, as well, that Lily Renée has consented to be interviewed at length by Jim Amash for a near-future issue of Alter Ego!) Of all the comic book companies in the 1940s, one publisher hired more women cartoonists than any of the others. That was Fiction House, a company whose comics line was launched in 1936 by Jerry Iger and Will Eisner, artist/creator of The Spirit comic strip. The six longest-running Fiction House comic book titles—Jumbo Comics, Jungle Comics, Fight Comics, Wings Comics, Rangers Comics, and Planet Comics— specialized in luridly sensationalistic stories with strong and beautiful female protagonists. And they were likely to be drawn by women.
Señorita Renée (Top right:) Lily Renée circa 1947-49, the years when she drew for St. John Publishing—and (above) a splash page from one of her signature series, “Señorita Rio”—in this case from Fiction House’s Fight Comics #41 (Dec. 1945). Thanks to Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., for the scan. The photo is courtesy of Trina Robbins. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]
Unquestionably, the star woman cartoonist on the Fiction House staff, and the only woman who ever drew a cover for them, was Lily Renée. From 1943 through 1948, her elegant art graced the pages of their books. Although she contributed some light and cartoony filler pages, such as “Tex Taxi,” her best work could be seen in “The Lost World,” “Señorita Rio,” and “Werewolf Hunter.” “The Lost World,” the lead feature in Planet Comics, took place in a post-apocalyptic future. Amid ruins of
The WHO’S WHO of American Comic Books (1928-1999) FREE – online searchable database – FREE http://www.bailsprojects.com No password required
A quarter of a million records, covering the careers of people who have contributed to original comic books in the US. Created by Jerry G. Bails 1987 commission art by Dan Adkins. Thanks to Anthony Snyder. [Sub-Mariner TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]
All Mike Mallet material in the following six pages ©2007 Estate of Bob Powell.]
COMICS’ GOLDEN AGE LIVES AGAIN! SPY SMASHER BLACK TERROR • AVENGER PHANTOM LADY • CAT-MAN DAREDEVIL • CRIMEBUSTER CAPTAIN FLASH MR. SCARLET • MINUTE MAN SKYMAN • STUNTMAN THE OWL • BULLETMAN FIGHTING YANK PYROMAN • GREEN LAMA THE EAGLE IBIS
Art ©2007 AC Comics; heroes TM & ©2007 DC Comics.
The above is just a partial list of characters that have appeared in AC Comics’ reprint titles such as MEN OF MYSTERY, GOLDEN AGE GREATS, and AMERICA’S GREATEST COMICS. Virtually all issues published to date are available at $6.95 each. To find over 100 quality Golden Age reprints, go to the AC Comics website at <accomics.com>. AC COMICS Box 521216 Longwood FL 32752 Please add $1.50 postage & handling per order.
83
Of Men And Marvels (And Some Bunny-Rabbits, Too!) The First True Team-Up Of Superman And Captain Marvel by John G. Pierce
Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck
B
ack in 1980, when I heard that Roy Thomas was about to jump ship from Marvel to DC, and that one of the features he wanted to write was “Shazam!,” I became excited. On other occasions I have written of how Roy was important in my own development as a Capfan, especially his outstanding article about The Marvel Family in “One Man’s Family” way back in Alter Ego (Vol. 1) #7, 1964. So, the logical thing when I heard the news was to write to him about it. His reply to me, dated Oct. 10, 1980, both dismayed and excited me. Since this article deals with the exciting part rather than the dismaying, let me dispense rather quickly with the latter. I was somewhat dismayed with Roy’s then-tentative plans (which later came to fruition, though only briefly) for a new Captain Marvel, created on Earth-One by the wizard Shazam (“I did it before and I can do it again!”). “Gone, I’m afraid, would be much of the Parker/Binder feel, except in broad outlines, if I handled the character...” I felt then, and still do, that this would be wrong for the character.
But happily, that’s not what I’m here to write about on this occasion. Instead, I’ll cover the other exciting news that letter contained, as introduced to me by Roy with these words: “Still, just to be inconsistent, I took the opportunity in DC [Comics] Presents #34 to toss Superman and Captain Marvel (whom I’m trying to forge into fast friends, since they have far more in common than Superman and Batman, say) into a funny-animal dimension, while using Hoppy the Marvel Bunny for the first time in 30 years.” (Actually, it was rather more than 30 years.) The exciting part of this news was not so much the team-up between Superman and Captain Marvel, as that had already been done twice, first in Justice League of America #135-137 (1976), in the threepart story which brought together the JLA, JSA, and the former Fawcett heroes (then still located on Earth-S), and secondly in 1978’s All-New Collector’s Edition #C-58 (“Superman vs. Shazam!”), a Gerry Conway-authored tale in which the two heroes met, with able assistance provided by Supergirl and Mary Marvel. However, the centerpiece of both of those tales had been battles between the two characters, with the actual team-ups coming only briefly near the conclusions. It could be argued that there was actually an earlier crossover, in Superman #276, the Elliott Maggin-authored, Curt Swandrawn 1974 tale entitled “Make Way for Captain Thunder!” in which Superman met up with an alternate-Earth’s Willie Fawcett, who could magically change into Captain Thunder (which in 1939 had been Captain Marvel’s original, pre-publication name). This sort of “two steps removed” tale was done because, for legal reasons, DC could not co-utilize Cap and Superman at that time. There are many who believe that this was the best of all the crossovers, and that Captain Marvel and Superman, ideally, simply don’t belong in the same story. (It should be noted, also, that this story was a battle more than a team-up; the story I’m about to review marked the first actual team-up of the two characters.)
Of Cheeses Red And Blue The Rich Buckler/Dick Giordano cover of DC Comics Presents #33 (May 1981) was the first comic to be scripted by Roy Thomas under his new three-year contract with DC, upon leaving Marvel after 15 years. Where did he dream up this notion of Superman and Captain Marvel switching costumes? Read on! [©2007 DC Comics.]
In any event, Roy’s brief description whetted my appetite for his forthcoming tale, not so much for the team-up aspect, but for the return of Hoppy the Marvel Bunny. Hoppy had debuted in Fawcett’s Funny Animals #1 (Dec. 1942), where he starred for a number of years, as well as appearing in 15 issues of his own title. In “real” life, he was Hoppy Rabbit, who, upon reading a Captain Marvel comic, wistfully remarked that he wished that he, too, could become strong just by
BOB McLEOD I don’t know what this was used for, but it’s large features a much more detailed inking style than he employed later in his career. Like many artists, he pared his
GIL KANE
in size (20" x 30") and
style down to more essential techniques as
Heritagecomics.com
he matured.
BOB McLEOD Tarzan While drawing his own Star Hawks newspaper strip, in his spare time Gil also took on the Sunday Tarzan strip from 1979-1981, following Russ Manning. I always enjoyed Gil’s jungle technique. As usual, he made everything look easy in this sequence, but just think of what he was asked to draw in each panel here. Panel three alone Courtesy Matt Huesman
would challenge most artists: “Show Tarzan in the jungle battling a tribe of great apes”. He probably batted it out in an hour.
92
ROUGH STUFF #5 PREVIEW
the legend of
By MICHAEL BROWNING
L
ong-time comic book writer John Albano was working for DC Comics in the early 1970s when editor Joe Orlando came to him with a
request: Create a new western hero for DC Comics’ All-Star Western, which was soon changing to Weird Western Tales. Albano created Jonah Hex, a ruthless bounty hunter who had been scarred during the Civil War, to fill a spot in All-
ROUGH STUFF #5 PREVIEW
93