Back Issue #18 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Romita & Conway go “Pro2Pro” on Green Goblin!

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GREEN HORNET • GUY GARDNER • MARTIAN MANHUNTER • GREEN TEAM

The Ultimate Comics Experience!

Volume 1, Number 18 October 2006 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, and Today! EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow

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

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Bob Brodsky, Seastone Marketing Group PROOFREADERS Eric Nolen-Weathington & Christopher Irving COVER ARTIST Neal Adams COVER DESIGNER Robert Clark SPECIAL THANKS Dan Johnson Arthur Adams Dale Keown Jason Adams Jim Kingman Neal Adams Scott Kress Bill Alger Bob McLeod Mike Baron Brian K. Morris Mike W. Barr Al Nickerson Al Bigley Dennis O’Neil Alex Boney John Petty Jerry Boyd Robert Reilly Michael Browning Adam Richards Randy Buccini John Romita, Sr. Mike Burkey Rose Rummel-Eury Jeff Butler Philip Schweier Tony Caputo Scoop Ernie Chan Joe Staton Continuity Studios Brian Stelfreeze Gerry Conway Tom Stewart Nicola Cuti Shannon Wendlick Peter David John Wells J. M. DeMatteis Marv Wolfman Shelton Drum Ed Dukeshire Steve Englehart Steve Erwin Ron Fortier Dave Gibbons Grand Comic-Book Database Mike Grell David Hamilton Jack C. Harris Heritage Comics Adam Hughes

ISSN 1932-6904

INTERVIEW: Peter David on The Incredible Hulk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The celebrated “writer of stuff” surveys his days in Bruce Banner-land NEAL ADAMS GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW ART GALLERY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Four pages of ultra-rare Adams illustrations Original 1993 commissioned drawing of the Hulk by Ernie Chan. From the collection of Al Bigley. © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks

BACKSTAGE PASS: An Afternoon with Neal Adams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 An intimate portrait of the groundbreaking artist YOUR BACKSTAGE PASS TO CONTINUITY STUDIOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 A photo tour that’s the next best thing to being there FLASHBACK: Lone Lantern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 The solo adventures of Hal Jordan after Green Lantern/Green Arrow OFF MY CHEST: Guy Gardner: The One, True Green Lantern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Al Nickerson (with help from friends) reveals why this GL’s his number-one Guy INTERVIEW: Mike Grell on Green Arrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 The writer/artist draws aim on DC’s archer, with never-before-published illos ROUGH STUFF: Dave Gibbons Pencil Art. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 From Albion to Watchmen, “raw” work by a modern master PRO2PRO: Gerry Conway and John Romita, Sr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Revisiting “The Green Goblin’s Last Stand,” and lamenting the death of Gwen Stacy BEYOND CAPES: Now Comics’ Green Hornet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 The story behind the popular and controversial rebirth of the classic crimefighter WHAT THE--?!: The Lost Adventures of the Green Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 “The Comics Savant” examines Joe Simon’s boy millionaires FLASHBACK: The Martian Manhunter Chronicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Making sense of J’onn J’onzz’s ever-changing history BACK IN PRINT: E-Man: Recharged . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Cuti and Staton’s energy man is back on the stands … and we helped put him there! BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Reader feedback on issue #16 BACK ISSUE™ is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 5060A Foothills Dr., Lake Oswego, OR 97034. Email: euryman@msn.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $36 Standard US, $54 First Class US, $66 Canada, $72 Surface International, $96 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Neal Adams. Green Lantern and Green Arrow TM & © DC Comics. The Incredible Hulk TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2006 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

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Michael Eury

This issue has been a pain. No, I’m not grousing about deadlines. Or the tough-to-manage process of producing a magazine in the thick of the rollicking convention season. I’m dealing with an injury that makes onceroutine tasks—from brushing my teeth to loading the dryer to opening a window—annoying and painful. I have “golfer’s elbow,” an overuse of the forearm tendons and muscles in my right arm. Pretentious-sounding malady, huh? Truth is, while I do own a Cutter and Buck shirt and live in a golffriendly community, the closest I’ve come to the sport is a putt-putt game in New Bern, North Carolina, back during the summer of ’92. Mine’s an occupational injury caused by excessive computer use (maybe I’ll write a new Disney movie called That Darn Mouse!). Being middle-aged—an incurable condition shared by many of you who are inclined to read a magazine titled “BACK ISSUE”— I’m discovering what it’s like to have my body slowly decay, despite my eating organic produce, riding a bike and walking for transportation, and going to the gym each morning. It’s difficult for me to type about the return of E-Man when the abhorrent ErgonomicMeddler is firing shafts at my elbow.

TM & © DC Comics.

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Yeah. Okay. You’re right, Ollie. You know what it’s like to overcome an occupational injury. Sorry for whining. Let me soothe my golfer’s elbow by popping one of my favorite painkillers: old comic books. If you’ve got an itch to explore comics from the ’70s and ’80s, then BACK ISSUE is your one-stop pharmaceutical supplier. No prescription necessary, but highly addictive. In these pages every other month, series from comics’ Bronze and early Modern Ages are examined—and sometimes exhumed—with a journalistic balance of careful study and diehard devotion. We do this, as longtime readers know, through these regular and rotating departments: • “Pro2Pro” (dialogues between two or more comics professionals); • “Greatest Stories Never Told” (investigations of lost and unpublished treasures); • “FlashBack” (histories of classic comics stories and series); • “Beyond Capes” (chronicles of non-super-hero comics); • “Off My Chest” (guest editorials); • “Backstage Pass” (behind-the-scenes glimpses at comics-inspired retro cinema, artists’ studios, or other sites of interest); • “Interview” (cozy chats with some of comics’ greatest); • “Bring on the Bad Guys” (super-villain case studies); • “Comics on DVD” (reviews of new releases of interest to the comics reader); • “Back in Print” (reviews or previews of collected editions and revived series); and • looks at the comic-book oddities that make us collectively gasp “What The--?!” And, of course, there’s “Rough Stuff,” our pencil-art showcase that has recently graduated to its own quarterly title! This issue’s Dave Gibbons “Rough Stuff” is the feature’s last outing in these pages … but art fans will be happy to learn that rare comics illos will continue to see print in BACK ISSUE, in articles and in art galleries. Another feature makes BACK ISSUE unique (other than my habit of both capitalizing and italicizing its title): Each issue’s content is structured around a unifying theme. This “Big, Green Issue” you hold in your hands has nothing to do with Al Gore’s environmental crusade—instead, it shines an emerald beam on a gaggle of comics characters with “green” either in their names or as their pigmentation! Effective immediately, my editorials will appear on this page, to provide insight into each issue’s material. While my fingerprints might be all over each issue, this magazine would not exist without our talented team of writers and designers, the contributions of supportive original-art collectors, and the enthusiasm of our readers. Thanks to everyone for helping make BACK ISSUE the comics mag that keeps our competitors green with envy!

Many classic comic-book runs are historically defined by the artists that worked on them: Joe Shuster/Wayne Boring/Curt Swan on Superman, Neal Adams on Batman, or Jack Kirby on darned near everything he did. However, fewer seem to be associated with a single writer, especially if he speaks with an American accent. Peter David’s 12-year association with The Incredible Hulk is one such exception. While still a recognizable figure to pop-culture fanatics outside of comics fandom due in large part to the CBS-TV series featuring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, the Green Goliath’s comic’s sales had plunged dangerously towards cancellation in the 1980s. But just as Frank Miller’s creative input on Daredevil saved that magazine from becoming a trivia question, the self-professed “writer of stuff” pulled The Incredible Hulk from its sales morass. Working with a series of talented artists, David applied a combination of sharp dialogue, dark humor, and innovation to keep the book fresh. Eventually, The Incredible Hulk worked its way toward the top of Marvel Comics’ sales charts. Listing Peter David’s creative output over the last two decades would fill this magazine to bursting! He’s written comic stories for DC, Dark Horse, Claypool, Ocean, and others. He’s also scripted for TV and movies, along with numerous articles and more than 50 books—fiction and non-fiction—carrying his credit, some of which have made the New York Times best-seller list. And fortunately for his loyal fans, Peter David shows no sign of slowing down. —Brian K. Morris

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Gray Hulk vs. Green Hulk Detail from penciler Dale Keown and inker Bob McLeod’s original cover art to the Peter David-written Incredible Hulk #376 (Dec. 1990). Courtesy of Bob McLeod. © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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So naturally there were going to be differences DAVID: Probably Future Imperfect. Loved working and disappointment for some was inevitable. I just with George Pérez. I don’t think my work on the couldn’t let it concern me. Hulk got better than that. MORRIS: Other than crafting a superb MORRIS: On the other side of the coin, story around it, “Nightmare Island” if you had a second chance, what [Incredible Hulk #81, July, 2005] would you want to do differently? seemed like a very convenient way to DAVID: I’d have quit when “Heroes write off creative misfires such as Mike Reborn” happened. Murdock, most of the Spider-Clone MORRIS: What are you working on Saga, or even events that refuse to now that you’d like BACK ISSUE’s jibe with previous continuity. Did you audience to check out? have any further plans for the concept DAVID: Fallen Angel from IDW. or was it for the other Marvel writers Probably my best comic work, ever. I to use? have a book out on writing comics DAVID: Definitely for other writers. called Writing for Comics with Peter And for the readers, for that matter. David [from Impact Books] that people The Bruce Jones continuity—or lack seem to like. And the third book in thereof—was so tangled, that I basically the King Arthur trilogy, Fall of Knight, created it to be an excuse for readers is also on the stands. to ignore what they didn’t like, and for MORRIS: And my most important subsequent writers to have carte question, what did I forget to ask you? blanche to pick and choose what DAVID: I can’t recall. © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. worked for them and what didn’t. The interviewer wishes to thank Peter David MORRIS: Looking back over your 13 for his time and generosity as well as to Michael Eury for years with the character, what stands out as your services above and beyond. favorite story/run/phase?

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An Afternoon with

Every so often, mankind is blessed with an individual who excels in numerous arenas. Legend has it Leonardo DaVinci could simultaneously write with one hand and draw with the other. Thomas Jefferson, besides being one of America’s founding fathers, was an accomplished inventor and architect. In comics, there are a great many creators who write, pencil, ink, and color their own work. But few are known to have moved into other disciplines, such as science or film. It should come as no surprise that comics legend Neal Adams is just such an individual. A graduate of the School of Industrial Arts (now known as the Manhattan School of Art & Design), Adams began his career at Archie Comics, doing occasional pages and backgrounds. At age 20, he was probably one of the youngest artists to capture what was then considered the brass ring for comic artists: a daily newspaper strip. He drew Ben Casey for about three years before moving on to Warren Publications. In the late 1960s, Adams managed to squeeze in the door at DC, starting out drawing war comics, and then working his way into more and more titles, such as The Spectre and Deadman [in Strange Adventures]. “When I came into comic books, one of the things that I discovered,” he says, “was that it wasn’t necessary to design a panel and a panel and a panel and a panel, you could design a page. It wasn’t necessary to use the colors that were available to you. You could use other colors and you could find ways to bring in other colors.” At the time, the [Caucasian] skin tone in comics published by DC was more pink than flesh, because unlike Marvel Comics, DC’s color spectrum did not include a toned yellow. Their four-color printing process used combinations of cyan, magenta, and black in tones of 100%, 50%, and 25%, but only 100% yellow. “That’s the math part of science,” explains Adams. “If you add two more colors and you multiply those colors with all the other colors you have instead of 32 colors, you’ll have 64 colors. To me, science is like anything else. It’s like design, it’s like art. Science is dependable; like math, it works. If you got it right, it makes sense.” He regards this period of comics as something of a dark age. Most readers weren’t very discriminating, and the few remaining publishers felt they were on borrowed time, believing that the demand for comics would eventually dwindle into non-existence. Improving printing techniques wasn’t high on anyone’s agenda. Nevertheless, DC was losing half their available color range.

Philip Schweier

Double Vision Scan of the original art to an unused version of Neal Adams’ cover to Green Lantern/Green Arrow #77 (June 1970). The published version appears in the inset. All original art in this article is courtesy of Neal and Jason Adams, unless otherwise noted. © 2006 DC Comics.

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“So the question was, ‘How do I change it?’, because I’m one of the ***holes. I change it through being clever, by getting the word to the publisher [DC’s Jack Liebowitz], who will be damned if [Marvel publisher] Martin Goodman gets 64 colors and he gets 32 colors and he’s paying the same price to the same separator. He gets mad, goes to Production. I get it to him without him knowing I gave it to him. He goes to the head of Production [Sol Harrison] and says, ‘How come Martin Goodman is getting 64 colors and we’re getting 32 colors?’ ‘Well, because it’s cheaper, boss.’ ‘You’re telling me that that guy, Martin Goodman, is paying more for his color than I am? Are you out of your mind? Call the separator.’ He calls the separator and says, ‘Well, how much more will it cost us to get toned yellow?’ ‘Oh, you want toned yellow? Well, you can have it.’” Adams snaps his fingers: “Less than 14 seconds. ‘Okay, we’ll take it. They’re going to give us 64-colors. Fine.’ “When I said these things, everybody thought I was crazy. And instead of just railing, I went out and proved it,” he says. “I would go off by myself and do the things that I would say because it really became a waste of time to say them, to minds that were closed. Clearly, I was right, but that didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you’re right. It only matters if you prove it. And so I did, and so things changed, and so the business is different than it was, and I’m happy.” Adams has had a fascination for science since he was a 13-year-old. “I loved science,” he says. “I used to read science books like you would read a mystery book. I’d stop off at my local library and they would have books that would have these experiments and then set up the experiment, tell you what chemicals and other things to use, and then they would say, ‘And then you do this, and then you’d pour this into this. What’s going to happen?’ Aw, man, I couldn’t wait to get to that next page. ‘Is it going to boil over? Is it going to turn blue? What’s going to happen?’ They’d tell you and then they’d give you the conclusion. They’d tell you why. It’s like a magic trick, you know? I love science for its discovery.” As much as Adams enjoys the scientific approach, he avoids the technical end. “I don’t touch computers hardly at all, but I know what computers can do. So I’m always constantly telling people, ‘No, that’ll work on that program.’ And they say, ‘No, it won’t work.’ And I say, ‘Yes, it will work.’ They say, ‘No, it’s not going to. Neal, I’m telling you, you don’t know computers. You don’t know what the program will do or doesn’t—you’re not listening to me. You’re not listening to me.’ I say, ‘Look, if it can do this, and it can do this, because it can do this and it can do this, it has to be able to do this. Not because I say so, but because it has to be able to do this or else it couldn’t do this, not because I know. I’m trying to tell you I’m simply saying the

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logic is, you can’t do this without being able to do this. It just can’t be.’ “My daughter says, ‘I hate that about my dad. He’s always right. Makes me crazy.’” Adams’ passion has taken him through many disciplines, from paleontology to cosmology. “I don’t study it deeply because you haven’t got time in your life to do that. I’d just go in like a bird and I’d dive, and I’d get what I need, and I’d go. And if I realized I left something behind and I’d go back and I’d read it. What’s amazing is that all of the information you really need to get is available to anybody. “Unfortunately, it’s not translated into English, which is a real problem because sometimes you have to go to four or five sources to actually know what the heck they’re talking about, because most of the time, it’s in Latin, or six-syllable words, or mathematical formula that only they understand.” Which presents Adams—and most lay people— with a substantial bone to pick with the scientific community. “If I could have a campaign in the world, it would be to make everybody speak English or whatever language it happens to be in, but not to speak that tech talk. I would make doctors, lawyers, and scientists speak regular English. You’re not an otolaryngologist—you’re an ear, nose, and throat man. Get off your high horse. “You can be talking to somebody, not even about technical stuff, but you lose them within a word.

Anybody who doesn’t understand this, to me, doesn’t understand the nature of people understanding and not understanding things. You can have one scientist talking to another scientist. They are of equal skills, this guy uses a term and this guy is expected to understand it, and he doesn’t, he loses the thought. I don’t do that. “I’m a comic-book writer and artist,” he continues. “I talk English. I talk regular talk—what I call regular talk—to people, and that’s the only way I can tell a story. And that’s the way stories have to be told, and that’s the way the story of science has to be told.” Science includes many stories, with varying degrees of believability. For instance, it is commonly believed that at one time the land masses of the world formed one larger continent dubbed Pangaea. However, Adams doubts very much that the Earth was the same size then that it is now. “You know, I’m jinking through space in my Gil Kane Space Taxi and I’m approaching the Earth, and I fly around it and they’ve got this one big, giant island like an iris, sitting on one side. And there’s nothing but ocean, five miles deep—five miles deep—around the rest of the planet. That’s an odd picture.” So odd that he regards it with skepticism. “Now these land masses could not fit together, just like this globe I have here. I mean, it’s not possible, unless they fit together at some point. I could not possibly take those continents that are on that globe down there and magically just go ‘foop’ and they go together. You have to turn them and twist them and find out how they get together.” Adams argues that the land masses could only come together like that if the Earth were 50% smaller. To illustrate his point, he uses a soccer ball as an example. “If you make a soccer ball any bigger, the designs don’t work. They work for this size. Make the soccer ball bigger, keep the designs the same size, it won’t fit because the geometry doesn’t work. If you make the Earth smaller, what happens is things tend to curve, like this, and go like that, and the shapes interlock. “So it’s not if the Earth is the way the geologists say, that these things moved around and crashed into one another, and made mountains, and they made all kinds of configurations. And believe me, I’ve seen all these maps that they have and you would find it incredible the jigs and configurations that, presumably, the Earth went through.” Using a globe, Adams indicates an enormous crack down the center of the Atlantic seabed. “You see that crack? That’s the spreading rift down the Atlantic so presumably, by pushing these two sides together—which they say happened in reverse— you basically move these pieces toward one another to that crack, see? And when you get all the continents together, you make the giant island of Pangaea.” But if the Earth was smaller, how did it get bigger? Did the Earth grow? “Well, for Earth to grow, matter has to be made,” he says. “It’s not blowing up like a balloon, so matter has to be made. If matter is made on the Earth, we don’t see it happening. You know, I don’t see my table growing, so it has to be made somewhere I can’t see it. It has to be made inside the Earth, which we can’t know, so we’d better start studying physics to find out if matter can be made.” Adams explains that if he were to go to a physicist and ask, “Can a rock grow?” the answer would be, “No.”

“Physically, you can’t make matter. ‘It’s impossible.’ If I go to a geologist and ask, ‘Can a rock grow?’ he’d say, ‘Define your terms.’ Well, already, this is a different answer.” A geologist would explain that a rock is a crystal. By joining crystal to crystal, a rock will grow, forming crystals in caves and geodes. So scientists in different specialties respond differently, not that anyone says matter is made. Then Adams cites the work of Carl David Anderson, who won the Nobel Prize in 1932 for his experiments with cosmic ray and the discovery of what is known as anti-matter. This research led to further work regarding positrons and the creation of atomic particles. Supporting Adams’ belief is an ongoing debate among paleontologists regarding the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Some scientists claim the T-rex to be a scavenger. Due to its size, a Tyrannosaurus Rex couldn’t run more than ten miles an hour, nor could he swing his head around fast without breaking his neck. An elephant’s bones are structured so that his shoulders protect his neck because his head is too heavy, and it would break its neck if it were to swing its head too quickly. Without similar built-in protection, the same would happen to a Tyrannous Rex, a creature of comparable size. Others who study dinosaurs firmly believe that everything about the anatomy of a Tyrannosaurus Rex—such as its teeth and the length of its stride— say it was a predator. In the film Jurassic Park, a Tyrannosaurus is shown running, illustrating clearly how they may have done it, running 40–50 miles an hour. Adams concedes that both sides of the debate are right. “On a (smaller) planet with less gravity, half or a quarter of the gravity that the Earth has today, a Tyrannosaurus Rex could run and be a predator.” By reducing the size of the Earth, he continues to follow logic. “Okay, you’ve got all the continents, and then you have these lines”— which might resemble stretch-marks—“then you have these cracks, okay? We’re headed for the cracks and you have these lines as if somebody went in and drew them. “So we’ll say, ‘Okay, Scout’s honor, I’m going to follow your lines. I’m going to move the continents

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Jim Kingman

Comic-book historians hold a bright light on the early career of Green Lantern Hal Jordan, who debuted in DC’s Showcase #22 in 1959 under editor Julius Schwartz. Throughout the 1960s, the majority of Green Lantern’s adventures were written by John Broome and Gardner Fox and illustrated by Gil Kane, who also designed one of the best super-hero costumes in comics. These exploits of the Silver Age Green Lantern— the fearless test pilot with the power ring that worked off his tremendous will power, and not to mention a founding member of the Justice League of America—warrant high and justified praise. Green Lantern also maintains a special place in comic-book history as half of the legendary Green Lantern/Green Arrow team depicted by writer Denny O’Neil and artist Neal Adams in the early 1970s. As classic as that then-socially conscious and politically relevant series has become, as numerously reprinted as it has been, it did not sell well at

the time, and we all know what that meant. The cancellation ax did fall on the Emerald Crusader’s magazine, with #89, after a 12-year run. This was not the end of Green Lantern, however, but the beginning of the second stage of his career, a lengthy emerald epoch—once again steeped heavily in science fiction and space opera—that most comicbook historians have not shone a bright light on (it’s pretty dim, at best). That changes as of now. I’m carrying a big, green spotlight that shines brightest on Hal’s solo adventures. Every phase of Green Lantern’s two official solo careers from 1972 to 1976 and 1979 to 1986 has its hits and misses, moments of weirdness, ludicrous debacles, touches of controversy, and just plain fun cosmic drama (which, of course, is the whole point). I have seen and read it all, yet hold this era high in unabashed and unashamed reverence. Green Lantern is my favorite super-hero, and has been since I started

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“I got to work with Gil Kane,” recalls Barr, “and it doesn’t get better than that for a GL fan. GL #158—‘A Loop In Time’—is probably the best story of the bunch, in that it’s an actual science-fiction story, not just a super-hero story with ray guns instead of magic swords. I tried to do the best I could with the legacy of John Broome and Julius Schwartz, and I hope I did a good job. Keith was swell. He was a good storyteller and drew attractive characters. He worked from my plots, and did a great job.” “Concerning the exile into space,” continues Barr, “I wasn’t happy about it, but I was told I had to continue it, even though it had begun only the issue or so before I took over. I wanted to write the GL I had grown up with. I recall giving GL the Dorine character as a temporary love interest just so that he would have some kind of personal stake in the stories.” During his run, Barr scripted one of the most controversial scenes in GL’s solo career. In issue #162, Green Lantern battles his own spaceship, which has stolen his power battery. An innocent ten-year-old boy explodes in space, gruesomely and violently (the scene is even spotlighted on the cover). “Ah, #162,” recalls Barr. “Don Thompson, then-editor of The Comics Buyer’s Guide, hated it, thinking it unnecessarily violent and graphic. I’m no fan of bloody death, but I do recall thinking that once in a while you have to have a villain do something really evil if he’s to remain any kind of threat. Compared with what’s in comics today, it now seems understated.” In the next issue, GL locates and repossesses his power source. While consoling the dead boy’s parents, Hal suddenly disappears. In issue #164 (May 1983), Green Lantern becomes … a barbarian! It is revealed that Myrwhydden, the evil sorcerer who lives in GL’s power ring, was behind the possession of the ship and murder of the young boy. Issue #165 was Barr’s swan song on the book, starring Green Lantern John Stewart (who had moved up in the alternate ranks due to Guy’s ongoing mental and physical disabilities) and Green Arrow on Earth in battle together against a rampaging crystal creature (who had been a sub-plot tease for several issues). For Green Lantern #166–170, Joey Cavalieri, utilizing some of the elements Barr had left behind, stepped in to script a five-issue story arc that for the most part took place in the mind of Hal Jordan. The reason for this

“psychodrama” imposed upon GL by the Guardians of the Universe is a tad contrived, but effective. It certainly sets the stage for GL’s anticipated return to Earth. The majority of the artwork was penciled by George Tuska. Issue #171 (Dec. 1983) was GL’s last adventure as an exile in space. This issue stands out as an odd entity. The tale was written by a “Noel Naïve.” The script is blessed with the artistic teaming of Alex Toth and Terry Austin. According to Mike W. Barr, editor Ernie Colón reworked the story considerably, so much so that the author did not want to have his real name connected with the story, hence the credit “Noel Naïve.” Bob Rozakis reveals, however, that the mystery writer was actually Robin Snyder. No editor is noted on the story or in the indicia. Len Wein brought GL back to Earth in GL #172. Dave Gibbons, later of Watchmen fame, became the artist. Wein brought Hal and Carol back together, and also introduced the mysterious Predator, who had a strong interest in Ms. Ferris. In issue #182, Hal relinquished his role as Green Lantern out of desire to stay with Carol, one of the most controversial actions up until then in Green Lantern’s career (in all fairness, Wein’s plot twist is mild compared to what would befall Hal in early 1994). Backup GL John Stewart was instated as the protector of space sector 2814. Green Lantern #186 (Mar. 1985) was Wein and Gibbon’s last issue. For #187 Paul Kupperberg and artist Bill Willingham provided a seamless bridge that eased the transition between the departing team and the new creators on GL’s block. In Green Lantern #188, writer Steve Englehart began his run on the book. Englehart, and the returning Joe Staton, put added emphasis on members of the Green Lantern Corps (John Stewart, Katma Tui, Guy Gardner), and also expanded the Predator’s role and connection to Carol Ferris. “Steve came into his own with the book in revamping Guy Gardner,” notes Staton. Not that Hal was out of the picture, of course, but it was pretty clear that he had once again become a co-star in his own book. Yet as the Crisis on Infinite Earths raged, Hal would not be relegated to civilian status for much longer. Although under tragic circumstances (the death of fellow Green Lantern Tomar Re), Hal returned to full Green Lantern glory at the end of GL #198 (Mar. 1986). Three issues later, Green Lantern became a team book, The Green Lantern Corps, with #201 (June 1986). Hal would not go solo again until he moved over to the revamped Action Comics Weekly. But that’s the beginning of the third act of Hal’s lengthy GL career. For now, I will dim the green spotlight; the second act of Green Lantern’s history has drawn to a close, at least the predominantly solo act (Green Lantern Corps would continue until #224). There are several reasons why I would begin the third act with Action Comics Weekly in 1988 and not Emerald Dawn in 1990, but that’s the subject of another article. In time, there would be only darkest nights for Hal Jordan, but not on this second stage of GL’s mostly solo career. Although sprinkled with a few strange and wacky moments, it showcased many of Green Lantern’s brightest days.

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Guy Gardner: The One, True Green Lantern by

Al Nickerson

Editor’s Note: Comics inker and columnist Al Nickerson (www.yacanteraseink.com) believes that someone other than our cover star Hal Jordan is “the one, true Green Lantern,” and he’s anxious to get his opinions off his chest…

Guy Gardner is my favorite Green Lantern. Thaaat’s right. Guy Gardner. Hal Jordan is cool and all, but Guy has been called (mostly by Guy himself, mind you) the “one, true Green Lantern.” Guy Gardner made quite an impact in the 1980s with his appearances in Legends, Justice League, and Green Lantern. Guy Gardner is strong, confident, boastful, and assertive. Back in the 1980s, Guy was a wonderful symbol for Ronald Reagan’s America. But, let’s start off at the beginning, shall we?

The History of Guy A friendly Guy Gardner was created by John Broome and Gil Kane. Guy first appeared in Green Lantern #59 (Mar. 1968), entitled “Earth’s Other Green Lantern!” As the story goes, Guy was supposed to be Earth’s Green Lantern, but that pesky Hal Jordan got in the way and stole Guy’s glory. As he lay dying, the alien Green Lantern, Abin Sur, sought a replacement for himself in the Green Lantern Corps. Two people were chosen—Guy Gardner and Hal Jordan. However, since Hal Jordan was closer to the dying alien, Hal was selected to be Earth’s Green Lantern. Later, Guy suffered brain damage and, for many years, lay in a vegetative state. In Green Lantern #193 (Oct. 1985), Steve Englehart and Joe Staton brought back Guy Gardner, but here was the imposing Guy Gardner that we know and love today. Two months later, with Crisis on Infinite Earths #9 (Dec. 1985), the Guardians of the Universe made the wise decision of appointing Guy Gardner to be an official Green Lantern.

Who is Guy Gardner? So, is Guy Gardner a hero, a jerk, or both at the same time? Sure, Guy Gardner can be arrogant and annoying, but he’s also been a fearless hero. So, who is Guy Gardner, really? Steve Englehart (writer of Green Lantern) agrees that Guy is “arrogant and annoying.” And that Guy “operates directly from the id—like James ‘Sawyer’ Ford on [the television series] Lost.” Joe Staton (penciler of Green Lantern) says that “Guy is a clean-cut American hero who’s been damaged so that the self-censoring elements of his personality no longer kick in as they do in most adults.” J. M. DeMatteis (writer of Justice League) suggests that Guy is just “a human being who, like most of us, is a mass of incredible contradictions. Hard as he tries to be a total bastard ... and he succeeds more often than not ... he can’t quite hide a (sometimes extremely small) core of decency and humanity. In the end, for all his extreme behavior, he always ends up siding with the good guys. That’s his choice ... and it speaks volumes about his character. (Such as is it!)”

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According to DeMatteis, the change to Guy’s personality was “just a way to play with the character ... and to play on the readers’ expectations. I loved the wholesome Guy. I thought he was totally hilarious.” The change to Guy lasted until Justice League International #18 (Oct. 1988)—too long for me since I liked the obnoxious Guy Gardner better than the sweet Guy Gardner. DeMatteis doesn’t feel the same way. “Considering that we did the book for five years, it really wasn’t all that long. I think we milked it for the right amount of time ... it probably reached the point where many readers honestly believed the change was permanent ... and then we switched him back to the same arrogant idiot he was before.” Guy had some memorable battles while serving in the Justice League. In any given Justice League book, you might find Guy smacking around Despero (Justice League America #39, June 1990), slugging it out with fellow teammate Metamorpho (Justice League Europe

#11, Feb. 1990), and even getting in a scrape with a crazed alley cat (Justice League America #37, Apr. 1990). In Justice League International #19 (Nov. 1988), Guy fought Lobo. During the tussle with Guy, Lobo (an interstellar assassin, mind you) complains of Guy’s fighting tactics: “You’re actually indulging in hair-pulling?! What kind of Green Lantern are you, anyway?” In true Guy Gardner form, Guy responds, “The kind that eats punks like you for breakfast!” DeMatteis points out that, “There were no limits with Guy. He got the job done in any way possible. In his mind, the ends always justified the means.” Now, you wouldn’t ever see Superman pulling the hair of a foe, but this does show us the length to which Guy will go in defeating an opponent.

Guy Gardner: Ladies’ Man? We saw a softer, more sensitive side to Guy in regard to his relationship with his fellow Justice Leaguer, Ice. Ice was Guy’s gal, and he seemed to genuinely care for her. Is Guy Gardner truly capable of loving someone ... anyone other than himself, that is? J. M. DeMatteis believes so. “As events in ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League’ (JLA Classified #4–9, Apr.–late Aug. 2005) proved, Guy’s love for Ice was very deep, very real. As noted earlier, Guy, like most of us, is filled with contradictions. Just because someone is a self-involved, arrogant ass doesn’t mean he’s not capable of truly loving another person.” DeMatteis continues, “The issues that specifically focused on Guy and Ice dating were, I think, among our best ... and the entire Guy-Ice relationship was a high point of the Giffen-DeMatteis Justice League run. It allowed us to add more layers to a character who sometimes seemed like a two-dimensional cartoon. You’d see him soften around Ice then immediately act like a jackass with the others ... and you had to wonder, as you just did, which Guy is for real? The answer, of course, is both of them.”

Guy’s An Alien? With the 1990s series Guy Gardner: Warrior, Guy discovers that he isn’t entirely human; that he is a descendant of an alien race called the Vuldarians. With his alien DNA, Guy possessed weird shape-shifting powers. Least to say, I wasn’t all too happy about that particular change to the character of Guy Gardner. J. M. DeMatteis didn’t follow this part of Guy’s story: “I’m happy to say that I had no clue that any of that was happening! When we brought Guy back for ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League,’ we pretty much picked up where we left off with the character. Keith [Giffen’s] plot made a few (very) minor nods to continuity ... and then we did whatever we wanted. That was pretty much our philosophy for our entire Justice League run; a vague nod here and there to the gods of continuity ... then ignore it all and have some fun.” Steve Englehart has a more diplomatic opinion of the idea of Guy being turned into an alien: “Seems pretty weird to me, and the waste of a good character, but if the story worked, I’m for it.”

Guy Gardner: Rebirth Thankfully, we can now ignore all that junk about Guy Gardner being some freaky alien. With 2005’s miniseries Green Lantern: Rebirth, Guy Gardner has returned to his role as a ring-wielding Green Lantern. Some fans love Guy Gardner. Some fans hate him. As far as I’m concerned, Guy Gardner is still the “one, true Green Lantern.”

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Alex Boney

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When promotional posters for Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters went up in comic shops in 1987, the comics industry was still reeling from the shakeup that DC Comics had initiated two years prior. Crisis on Infinite Earths had realigned DC’s complex mainstream super-hero continuity, but the publisher had actually diversified its line of comics offerings. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns had injected a dose of gritty realism into super-hero comics, Swamp Thing had emerged as the industry’s premier dark fantasy comic for adults, and Watchmen had reimagined what super-heroes really were from the ground up. By the time Green Arrow was launched as a monthly series in early 1988, DC’s checklist consisted of the following: Vigilante #50, Hellblazer #2, Swamp Thing #69, New Teen Titans #40, The Question #13, and Wasteland #3. It was another Golden Age of sorts, and Mike Grell added a touch of green to DC’s rich palette for the next five years. Mike Grell did for Green Arrow in the late 1980s what Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams did for the character in the 1970s. Grell not only redefined Oliver (Green Arrow) Queen’s look and personality, but also made the character relevant to his time. O’Neil and Adams’ Ollie became a radical social reformer who took Green (Hal Jordan) Lantern on a journey of self-discovery across America and across the universe, and both characters learned quite a bit about themselves and their turbulent world along the way. In Mike Grell’s Green Arrow, Oliver Queen and his partner Dinah (Black Canary) Lance relocated from the fictional Star City to “real-world” Seattle, Washington, and examined what America had become by the end of the Reagan era. The three-issue prestige-format Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters (Aug.–Oct. 1987) and the subsequent ongoing Green Arrow series didn’t provide a serious study of super-heroes and super-villains, but instead offered a serious study of politics, justice, and a range of social issues from government corruption to sexual victimization. In Grell’s hands, Oliver Queen was not a super-hero. Rather, Ollie adopted the identity of an urban hunter and tried to become an extraordinary man. —Alex Boney

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arrow-guy’… and a reporter with no sense of style.” You know, you’re stuck with it for the rest of your life. So I made a joke about that. In reality, the name Green Arrow was intended to be evocative of the Golden Arrow. BONEY: One of the first super-heroes of the Golden Age. GRELL: Yeah. If you look at the time frame in which the comic book was created, they were looking to do a combination of Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow. Hence the name Green Arrow. That’s really where that came from. But I made it a point not to do that— not to use the name in the comics. I also didn’t do any super-hero stuff. When Hal Jordan showed up, he showed up as Hal Jordan. BONEY: Out of costume. GRELL: Right. And Black Canary didn’t have any sonic scream or anything like that. She was just a superb martial artist. I always thought the canary scream was kind of stupid anyway. I know I’m violating doctrine by saying that, but… BONEY: Because it’s returned. GRELL: Well, there you are. But it was a silly power. Of course, later writers felt compelled to explain why she didn’t have any sonic powers. Somebody even went so far as to say that in the scene in The Longbow Hunters where she was being tortured, someone had jammed a rag down her throat and ruined her vocal cords. Nah ... give me a break. BONEY: That raises another issue I’d like to ask you about. Green Arrow was featured as a backup character in other heroes’ books for years. You mentioned a couple of backups that you drew. So DC had a long-standing tradition of using him as a team-up character. You used Green Lantern, as you mentioned (or at least Hal Jordan out of costume), in a two-part story about Ollie’s descent into alcoholism. But for the most part, these team-ups were limited. Was this a conscious decision or an editorial mandate by DC when you decided to take the book the “mature readers” route? GRELL: Conscious decision. A decision made between myself and Mike Gold, backed up very firmly by Dick Giordano. BONEY: You did manage to write team-ups with some of your own creations, though. Was that fun? GRELL: Ah, that was hysterically funny. We did a Warlord team-up because, back in the old days, Julie Schwartz used to say that Mike Grell’s comics didn’t fit into the DC Universe. So all of Grell’s stories took place on EarthGrell. There’s Earth-One, Earth-Two, Earth-Prime, and Earth-Grell. And that was because I refused to play the game. In The Warlord, for instance, I had to separate the world of the Warlord from the world of Superman because in the continuity of the Superman comics,

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Superman has bored through the center of the Earth— you know, in one side and out the other. Well, if Skartaris existed in Superman’s world, he would have come out into Skartaris. So we had to change that. It was necessary to explain that the reason why that didn’t happen is because it took place on a different world, which was basically Earth-Grell. When Dan Jurgens was drawing Green Arrow, he wanted to do a team-up book. He approached Mike Gold and said, “You know, wouldn’t it be fun if we did ‘Green Arrow meets the Warlord’?’” And I said, “Absolutely no way.” And Gold, being the instigator and the devil’s advocate—I swear to God, he’d make a great professional little brother—says, “Well, think about it this way. It’s based on the concept that you only know how to draw one face.” And I laughed my ass off and I agreed to do it because it was so funny. And of course that particular story is predicated on the resemblance between Green Arrow and the Warlord. BONEY: Right. Everybody’s chasing Travis Morgan, thinking that he’s Ollie. GRELL: Sure. Every place Morgan goes, he gets beat up because Ollie has this uncanny knack for pissing people off. And it’s one of those cases where you finally get to see the two guys side-by-side, face-to-face, and then you can see the differences. But it’s real subtle. BONEY: Travis is a little shorter than Ollie, right? GRELL: You know, I ain’t saying that. All of the DC Comics characters used to be perceived as over six feet tall and under 30. I always saw Oliver Queen as maybe 5'9"–5'10" maximum, maybe 165–185 pounds. On a 5'10" guy, 185 pounds is a lot of muscle. So I saw him as a medium-sized guy, not a big guy, because his skills didn’t involve so much physical strength, although physical strength and coordination are part of it. He doesn’t have to be super-strong in order to be able to do what he does, although physical strength and fitness are by-products of archery. If you shoot a hundred arrows a day, which avid archers generally try to do when they can—and in particular, if you’re shooting an old-fashioned longbow, as opposed to a modern compound bow—just walking back and forth to the target is decent exercise, but you also build a lot of upper-body strength by pulling that bow. It’s a healthy activity. So he’s going to be pretty fit, but he doesn’t have to be huge. Which is another reason why I did the Shado character. She’s tiny by comparison. She shoots a bow that’s scaled to her physical strength and everything else, but she’s every bit an equal to Ollie. BONEY: One of the most memorable Green Arrow partnerships during your tenure on the book was with the Question, but these team-ups occurred in the annuals—and once in the Question monthly—away from the main Green Arrow book and were written by Denny O’Neil. Vic Sage offers an interesting philosophical counterpoint to Ollie. Was there a reason why Vic Sage didn’t make his way into the monthly Green Arrow book? GRELL: Professional courtesy. I didn’t want to tread on other people’s toes. I didn’t feel like it was my right to grab hold of Denny’s character. Certainly, in my view, Denny has more right to the Green Arrow character than just about anybody on the planet. And I thought that Green Arrow and the Question made a great team-up in The Question. But I would have been reluctant to bring him into the Green Arrow comic book, just for that reason. I’ve got too much respect for Denny and his character to wreck him by taking a whack at the guy by attempting to write Denny’s character. I felt proprietary in my own right toward Green Arrow because I had such a long-

standing, vested interest in the guy, but I would have been reluctant to go ahead and do somebody else’s character. BONEY: Given Denny O’Neil’s work with Green Arrow, and given his use of Ollie in The Question, I’m wondering how much he was creatively involved or editorially involved in the direction of Green Arrow. Did he provide much feedback as you were writing? GRELL: No. As a matter of fact, my whole run on Green Arrow, I had virtual carte blanche. There was never any particular criticism or input from editorial beyond the courtesy. I would always run the next storyline past the editor because you have to do that—you know, let them know what it is you’re going to write about. But my relationship with Mike Gold was strong. I decided that I wanted to do a story based on incidents that had happened in the real world involving a white slavery gang from Canada that was selling girls across the border into the U.S. One of these girls wanted to break away, and as a sign of their power, the gang crucified her. They nailed her to the cross as a warning to all the other girls. And I said I wanted to do a story based on this, and Mike Gold— with Dick Giordano’s backing—encouraged me to push the envelope. When it came to the illustration, Dan Jurgens asked Gold how far he should go. And again, they discussed it with Dick Giordano, and Dick said, “Push it.” That was probably the greatest act of faith that anybody could give comic creators. When a guy who’s that high up in a company realizes that you’re trying to do something serious here and says, “Push the envelope,” you don’t get any better situation for creativity. And in fact, the reason why we were able to get away with the storyline that was written and the illustrations that Dan did—that actually showed frontal nudity—was that Dick Giordano, who was number two in the company, was the inker. You look at that finished book and go “Hey, how can they do this?” Well, the answer is, “Because Dick said so.” BONEY: That makes sense. And I remember that it was really a strong, powerful story. GRELL: It made The New York Times and Time magazine in the same week. But unfortunately they didn’t mention my name. BONEY: They didn’t at all? GRELL: No, but they did refer to Green Arrow as “borderline pornography pandering to the prurient interest of today’s youth.” I remember that quote. BONEY: I remember the letters column received quite a bit of a stir after that storyline, but I don’t remember reading those articles. GRELL: Oh, man, I had people criticize me for having come up with such a misogynistic story. I was compelled to point out that I don’t make this stuff up. The fact that I portrayed women as victims wasn’t because I was touting that women should be victims. I was pointing out the fact that most often, in cases of this type of violence, women are the victims. If anything, I’m more of a women’s advocate than most people and a staunch supporter of women’s rights. You’ve got to go a long way to find someone who’s more in their corner than I am. If you take a look historically at all my female characters, they are generally more accomplished, more adept, better-adjusted, and in a lot of ways more compelling than my male characters. BONEY: I agree. And sometimes, you have to raise an issue in order for people to confront it. And a lot of times, people just don’t want to confront the issue. GRELL: Well, they don’t. One lady accosted me, calling me a misogynist, and said “How dare you blah blah blah” and all this other stuff, and she was clearly over the edge—I mean on the verge of hysterics. She was

screaming at me, swearing at me in front of God and everybody, and I pointed out to her that I don’t make this stuff up. I said that I read it in the papers. She said, “Well, not in the papers that I read.” And I said “Well, then, you must read USA Today. Because if you read the real-world newspapers, this stuff goes on all the time.” Years ago, I rescued a crow that was injured and I took it to a wild bird sanctuary. And I was shocked to see the state of some of the rescued animals they had there. And I expressed this to the lady who ran the shelter, and she looked at me and she said, “Honey, you ain’t seen nothing ’til you see what they do to their own children.” And she was right. People do the most horrific things to other people. I don’t have the answers for all of this, but, boy, I’ve got questions. I see my role as a writer as essentially the devil’s advocate. I raise as many sides of the issue as I can, but I get the issue out there. I don’t pretend to have all the answers. Although my characters tend to have a solution to the immediate situation, they don’t have the answer to the problem. That’s for other people to think about. My job is to make them think about it in the first place. BONEY: And one of the most successful things about Green Arrow, at least as I could tell from the letters column, was that it made a lot of the readers think about these things in ways they might not have otherwise.

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(right) Alan Moore and I talked over the cover designs for the series one afternoon, and this was done immediately after I hung up the phone.

I blew up the thumbnail and put it underneath the layout paper I drew this on. The pencils were then scanned and printed out in light blue on the final board for inking. 4 6

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ALBION #1 (2005)

Pencil art and captions by Dave Gibbons

This was one of a pair of covers for the collections of Amalgam [hybrid DC/Marvel characters] stories. The crowd of figures took a bit of juggling, and this was the last in a series of layouts I progressed through before settling on the final arrangement.

AMALGAM MARVEL COLLECTION (1996)

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From the time the Green Goblin was introduced in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #14 (July 1964), his and Spider-Man’s destinies were intertwined in a manner readers had never seen before. Their relationship went beyond the standard “good guy versus bad guy” dynamic, as Spider-Man and the Green Goblin were more than just adversaries. They were mortal foes that were engaged on a personal level, both in and out of their masks. After all, Peter Parker was a close friend of Harry Osborn, Norman (the Green Goblin) Osborn’s son. Indeed, when Norman was in his right mind, he was a friend to young Parker. But when under the influence of his darker persona, Osborn, as the Green Goblin, knew all of Spider-Man’s secrets, including his true identity, and he knew how to best strike at the Wall-Crawler. In The Amazing Spider-Man #121 and 122 (June and July 1973, respectively), the conflict between these two characters came to a head when the Green Goblin committed his ultimate sin, one so terrible it sealed the fate of one of Marvel’s most memorable menaces, and also marked a major turning point for Spider-Man. —Dan Johnson

Dan Johnson

cond ucte d Marc h 23, 2006

DAN JOHNSON: Before we discuss the death of the Green Goblin, I think we have to first touch on the death of Gwen Stacy. How did the decision come about to kill these characters off? GERRY CONWAY: [Killing Gwen and then the Green Goblin] were two separate decisions. As I remember, John, I think it was originally your idea to kill Gwen Stacy…. JOHN ROMITA, SR.: Well, we had decided we were going to kill somebody. The original thought that was brought to us was that Aunt May would die. I remember telling Gerry that Aunt May was too important to Peter’s secret identity for us to kill her. I know she was a pain in the neck to a lot of readers, but she was a good foil and as long as Aunt May was around, Peter was going to be a kid. I suggested that if we were going © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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to kill somebody, it should be Gwen or Mary Jane. [This was] based on Milton Caniff’s trick. Caniff used to take very important female characters in Terry and the Pirates and knock them off regularly every four or five years. As a young kid, I was very much into Terry and the Pirates and I remember when Pat Ryan, who was the main hero, lost his girlfriend, there were people on the street the next day talking about how Raven Sherman had died. I thought, “This can’t be! I thought I was the only guy who thought of these characters as real people!” It stuck in my mind that if you’re going to kill somebody, kill somebody very important, make it a real shock. CONWAY: Make it count. ROMITA: That was the only suggestion I made to Gerry when we were plotting this. I thought if somebody was going to die, it should be Gwen. I thought she was so important, [the readers] imagined she would never die. I think it bears out, because 35 years later we’re still talking about it! JOHNSON: Gwen’s death was a major turning point for Spider-Man. Until her death, the driving force for Spidey had been, “With great power comes great responsibility”: When Peter had the power to act, but chose not to do, so he lost Uncle Ben. Now, all of a sudden, Peter does everything he can and yet still fails to save the woman he loves. ROMITA: We were counting on that. CONWAY: That was the idea. This was a more mature Spider-Man, a more realistic Spider-Man. JOHNSON: A lot of people see Gwen’s death as the end of the Silver Age. ROMITA: I don’t think that was expected or planned, was it, Gerry? CONWAY: Oh, no. We were just trying to tell an interesting story, something that mattered. I guess we succeeded. ROMITA: I don’t know if we anticipated that we might have to kill the Green Goblin until after the reaction to Gwen’s death … that is, after everyone in the office realized what we had done. CONWAY: I think it was part of the plan because it was a two-part story. We were going to end up [killing the Green Goblin]. I don’t think we thought any further about the repercussions, like what would these deaths mean. JOHNSON: How did you decide that the Green Goblin would be Gwen’s murderer? ROMITA: Spider-Man was in the middle of a confrontation with Norman Osborn and the Green Goblin anyway. I think he was a natural character to use because of all the intermeshed lives [of the Spider-Man cast]. CONWAY: I don’t think there was any ulterior motive. This was Spider-Man’s main villain and his main girl. For Gwen’s death to have consequence, it had to be tied to Spider-Man’s most potent enemy. For the Green Goblin’s death, it has to be tied to a crime that’s unforgivable.

JOHNSON: I believe this was the first time that a major Stan Lee-and-Steve Ditkocreated character was going to be killed off. What were your thoughts as you plotted the Goblin’s final battle with Spider-Man? CONWAY: I can only speak for myself, but I was, at that time, maybe 20 years old, and I don’t think I had a great sense of history or anything. We were just going to do this and see what happened. It did have some consequences, but I don’t think it was something where we sat down and thought it all the way through. That’s one of the reasons Stan later said that nobody talked to him about it. We talked about it, and it did seem like a big deal, but not like it was a major, life changing event. ROMITA: Supposedly, Stan and Roy discussed this. Stan claimed that he never expected the Green Goblin to be done away with. CONWAY: Well, that was Stan’s memory. ROMITA: Which we know has its faults.

Like Father, Like Son John Romita, Sr.’s original cover artwork to Amazing Spider-Man #136 (Sept. 1974). This issue, written by Gerry Conway, featured Harry Osborn taking on his “late” father’s guise. © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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CONWAY: There’s also a reason, Dan, why the first two Spider-Man movies are [based on] this material. It’s the material that starts the ball rolling for a lot of stories that came after it. JOHNSON: The first Spider-Man film owes a lot to the work you gentlemen did. In the scenes at the bridge and the final confrontation, I could see Gerry’s work in there, and your work, John— ROMITA: —and Gil Kane’s. CONWAY: You know, we can reveal this now. There is one aspect of that second Green Goblin story where John’s contribution is so crucial. In the original art Gil did, the entire battle was done on one page. John had to take it and extend it into a two page sequence so it had some impact. Gil’s one major flaw as a storyteller was that he tended to fill-up the beginning part of the story with a lot of great panels and interesting scenes, but he’d forget to tell the story until the last five pages. ROMITA: That was the Jack Kirby infection. Jack used to do that, too. Another thing, before we forget, on the last page of the second issue, Mary Jane comes to Peter, which is another interesting ramification. CONWAY: And it is also her moment of rebirth. ROMITA: Mary Jane could have walked out the door and just gone to a party [but she stayed with Peter]. She became a responsible citizen in that last page. That was one of the things that Stan and I planned when we first introduced her, she was going to be an airhead and then slowly, but surely, mature. JOHNSON: Considering all that came out of these two deaths, I think you managed to prevent Spider-Man from getting into a potential rut as he entered his second decade. ROMITA: We felt like we needed to shake up the readers to keep that from happening. We were thinking that we were going to start repeating ourselves quite a bit, and I think that’s what we were asked to do. We wanted to prove that everyone is not 100% safe, and it worked. JOHNSON: As important as some characters are for merchandising, I doubt you could do that with today’s comics. For example, you could never have a truly final battle between Superman and Lex Luthor, or Batman and the Joker. CONWAY: Again, Spider-Man was only ten years old, and there wasn’t that much of a sense of permanence. You could kill the Joker off, and I think they did in the early Batman stories, but they would always bring him back and that was sort of where we were. ROMITA: We were a little freer. We were able to do more than people who had 50 years behind them. CONWAY: Nowadays, creators are so tied to the history of the material and to the expectations of the readers, they don’t have that kind of freedom anymore. Lucky us. ROMITA: We were lucky. And also, probably, we had the lack of wisdom which allowed us to be crazy. CONWAY: Naiveté. We were naive, but in a good sense. JOHNSON: I still think it took chutzpah to kill off Spider-Man’s arch-enemy. I mean, what would happen to Superman if Lex Luthor was killed off for good? CONWAY: It would be incredibly liberating. I think DC would finally get back to some serious sales. Part of the problem with Superman and the older heroes, and also with the ones now, is that there doesn’t seem to be a sense of consequence to their stories. They’re just stories. JOHNSON: If you hadn’t killed the Green Goblin off when you did, and say another writer and artist proposed doing the same thing 15 or 20 years later, do you think they would have been allowed to pull the trigger? ROMITA: [They would have said, “No,] there are movies coming out.” CONWAY: One of the reasons we brought back the Goblin was because there was a hole in the dynamic. The perfect replacement was having the new Goblin be Harry. JOHNSON: What did you gentlemen think about the fact that Norman Osborn was reintroduced to the Marvel Universe a few years ago, and the revelation that his death was just part of a bigger plan to keep striking at Spider-Man and his loved ones? ROMITA: I never read any of those. My gut impression of it was that it was a mistake. I also understand what problems they’re up against because when you’re the guy making decisions on future plots, you’ve got your hands full. You don’t want to do repetitious stuff, you want to do something new, something that looks like it was done in the 21st century, not the middle of the 20th century. You’ve got to try and come up with something spectacular, but sometimes you overdo it.

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Michael Browning

In the 1980s, all the buzz about the Green Hornet was dead. For nearly two decades, the TV show had been off the air, except in cable-television reruns. The most popular member of the TV show’s cast, Bruce Lee, who played Kato, had died in 1973. The radio show had been off the air for 40 years. A Green Hornet comic-book series hadn’t been published since 1967, although several comics companies had tried to get the rights to put the Hornet back in print. A new Green Hornet comic book, it seemed, just wasn’t in the cards. No one seemed to care about the Green Hornet, except for writer Ron Fortier, artists Steve Erwin and Jeff Butler, and Now (NOW) Comics publisher Tony Caputo. Back in the mid-1980s, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had started an independent-comics revolution that saw numerous comic-book companies spring up. Now Comics, then owned by Tony Caputo, opened its doors in 1985. Now became a major publisher when it acquired the license to do new Speed Racer comics and a series based on James Cameron’s first Terminator movie, and soon published comics such as Ralph Snart, Syphons, Mr. T and the T Force, Fright Night, Vectors, and Married... With Children (and its many spin-offs and one-shot tie-ins). But the company struck gold (or, rather, green) with the Green Hornet.

The New Buzz Begins Ron Fortier, a longtime fan of the Green Hornet of the TV show and the Gold Key comics series, actually had the idea for a new Green Hornet series in the late 1970s. But it didn’t catch on until 1989, when Now published the first issue of the new Green Hornet series. “What started the whole process of getting the Green Hornet back into print as a comic book was a meeting between myself and artist Steve Erwin,” Fortier says. Erwin is best known for his art on New Teen Titans, Deathstroke the Terminator, and Checkmate, all at DC in the early- to mid-1990s. He later went on to work on Star Trek comics for different publishers and now works in advertising and does commission art for fans. “Steve had hooked up with a small, independent comic company in Texas; Lonestar, I believe they were called,” Fortier continues. “They started putting out a few books. Supposedly, they got together and decided they were going to do a cross-country tour of comics shops to promote their books. This was a small outfit and they scrounged up a lot of money and everybody put in their own two cents for gas. Steve and three or four other guys loaded up in this jalopy and started driving across the country from Texas, just basically using The Buyer’s Guide to Comic Fandom’s [precursor to The Comics Buyer’s Guide] list of comics shops, stopping in and visiting with the fans. Ultimately, they wound their way up here to New Hampshire and showed up at a local comic shop that I frequented at the time. The guy who ran it, a friend of mine, had known they were coming up. They had called ahead and made arrangements and said they were going to

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funny book do at BACK ISSUE, at the very obscurity of the things we write about, and ask, “Isn’t there anything you don’t like?” Well, of course. Many things. That question, for one. I, too, sometimes wonder at the teary-eyed romantics who defend anything their favorite artist/writer did (I’m looking at you, Ms. Mystic fans), overlooking any flaws in the material on the theory that “Well, but this is the guy who did X, so Y must be good!” Besides, it’s old! This is a problem here in the mighty comics nostalgia press, the never-ending ability to see anything old as “good” or at least “fun,” and anything new as “bad,” or the dreaded “disrespectful of past creators.” Let me break this cycle. The Green Team is not very good. There, I said it. The art is fine (you either like Grandenetti or you don’t; I do); the story is silly; and the concept—well, there we have a problem. Even as a kid, I found it hard to care about a bunch of rich kids blowing stacks of money to have a good time. I could take it from Richie Rich, in doses, but a whole team of spoiled millionaires so bored with their money and lives that they offer people money to find ways to entertain them? I know my grandmother wouldn’t approve. It would have been passable if the stories were good, fun adventure yarns, but they weren’t.

The Lost Adventures of Joe

“talent” seems to be Wall Street wizardry) and joins in the first issue with barely a million to his name. In that issue, the boys fund Professor’s Dinkle’s Great American Pleasure Machine, a sort of really, really fun carnival ride that drives one man mad with … well, pleasure. The boys were off and running! All the way to Cancelled Comic Cavalcade. Their first meeting happened to be held in the mid-’70s dumping ground, First Issue Special. Those issues may have been first, but there was usually nothing special about them. It was a graveyard for projects that never got off the ground, or for orphans, not of the scrappy, kid gang variety, but of the ‘Well, we paid for it, we might as well use it’ variety. The boys were right there with Lady Cop, Atlas, and the Outsiders; some good, some bad, almost all doomed before even being printed.

Green Team Returns (above) The nearly forgotten rich kids made an appearance in Adventures of Superman #549 (Aug. 1997).

Comics Nostalgia Ain’t What it Used to Be Now, there are those … those spoilsports we see at conventions, in comics stores, and sometimes at family reunions, who will sneer at the writing, or rather, the subject of the writing we slaves of the

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In the two unpublished issues, the boys met giant lobsters, Russian sailors, and an old man who has made it his job to defend the lobsters from the Russian sailors. The boys offer to buy their way out of danger, to buy the lobsters, then stand by as the lobsters attack the Russians and solve the problem themselves. Buying your way out of trouble is fine in real life, but in adventure fantasy? Gabby of the Newsboy Legion would never do that. In what was meant to be the third issue, J. P. Huston and Abdul go undercover in the slums to try to better understand how to help the poor. They end up buying the neighborhood just to take over the local mission that is being run by a less-thancompassionate owner, and hiring the Paperhanger to spruce the place up. He turns out to be a Hitler look-alike and an insane wallpaperer to boot, who uses his special evil wallpaper to grow huge plants that threaten to take over the city. They defeat the mad wallpasterer, and his super trees, and head off to their next adventure, and next million-dollar thrill. It wasn’t to be. Maybe if there had been a Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #3. The series had been an attempt to return to the fun comics of the ’40s, but it just didn’t work. The humor was off and the concept was old fashioned, clichéd, and weird. Joe Simon stayed on at DC for a little while, but the romance comics were being phased out. By the end of ’75 Simon was gone. His time at DC in the ’70s would be just a blip, a fond, can-you-believe-it type of memory of one of comics’ founding fathers.

John Wells

Everything you know is wrong. Now there’s a concept fans have gotten to know quite well over the past few decades (even if some have never gotten used to it). Whether it’s the 1986 revamp of Superman or the 2006 swing backward of the pendulum in the latest Wonder Woman relaunch, the rewriting of super-hero history has been with us nearly as long as there have been superheroes themselves. What’s changed is the assumption of writers and editors that readers would neither notice nor object. The events of Justice League of America #71 (May 1969) may represent one of the last major instances where that actually held true. Fourteen years earlier, “John Jones, Manhunter from Mars” had debuted as a backup feature in Detective Comics (’Tec) #225, joining such stalwarts as Roy Raymond, TV Detective and the book’s real moneymakers, Batman and Robin. Created by writer Joe Samachson and artist Joe Certa, the series revolved around a green Martian scientist accidentally teleported to Earth by the “Robot-Brain” of a scientist named Mark Erdel. With Erdel’s death, J’onn J’onzz found himself stranded and took the persona of police detective John Jones while he bided his time for a means of returning to Mars. Over time he’d develop a small supporting cast that included Captain Harding (beginning in #228), police officer Diane Meade (#246), and an other-dimensional childlike creature named Zook (#311). His base of operation—Middletown—would not be named until ’Tec #322.

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Fight Club Detail from Nick Cardy’s cover to World’s Finest Comics #212 (June 1972), featuring Superman and—make that versus—Martian Manhunter.

Originally operating invisibly, the Manhunter from Mars was forced to reveal his existence in 1959’s Detective #273, conveniently right about the time he joined the fledgling Justice League of America in The Brave and the Bold #28. By this point, the beetle-browed depiction of his face had given way to a more human look, all the better to help him fit in. Over the first several years of the strip’s existence, J’onn had made multiple attempts to return to Mars and finally succeeded in Detective #301, where a scientist reconstructed the Robot-Brain. Having now formed an attachment with Earth, J’onn didn’t stick around long but was heartened by the fact that he could visit his parents and brother whenever he wanted. Following a story in which Detective Jones was killed by a menace released by the Idol-Head of Diabolu (’Tec #326), the series was spun off as the lead of House of Mystery, starting with #143 (June 1964). Finally defeating the threat of the Idol Head in #158, J’onn took the new persona of billionaire Marco Xavier to investigate the crime combine Vulture (#160) and wound up unmasking their leader as the real Xavier in the last issue of the strip (#173, Mar.–Apr. 1968). Shortly thereafter, the first two Manhunter from Mars stories were reprinted in World’s Finest Comics (WFC) #175 and 176 (May and June 1968), and they were likely the only exposure Denny O’Neil had to J’onn’s past prior to writing him out of the Justice League in the aforementioned JLA #71. Suddenly, the Manhunter was a military science leader in exile who was only now returning to Mars to oppose the threat of Commander Blanx and his pole-dwelling White Martians. In the end, Blanx used the planet’s previously-

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unheard-of Blue Flame to all but obliterate the Martian population, and J’onn resigned from the Justice League to accompany the handful of survivors as they sought out a new planet to call home. Despite the wholesale contradiction of the Martian Manhunter’s established history, few, if any, readers objected. Most fans—and writers—got their knowledge of J’onn J’onzz from Justice League of America and perhaps the occasional origin reprint. Indeed, though telepathy is now regarded as one of the Manhunter’s foremost abilities, it was used in a mere four Silver Age stories—but two of them were the oft-reprinted origin of the JLA (Justice League of America #9) and the aforementioned Detective #225. O’Neil belatedly penned a follow-up in 1972’s WFC #212, where the Martian refugees found sanctuary on the world of Vonn even as they were secretly imperiled by J’onn’s traitorous girlfriend Bel Juz, and a rather inconsequential reunion with the Justice League in 1974’s Justice League of America #115. Also during 1974, an abortive attempt at a consecutive reprinting of the original John Jones series was attempted, with only the stories from ’Tec #225–227 being reprinted in WFC #226–227 before DC abandoned its 100-Page Super-Spectacular format. O’Neil’s final contribution to the Manhunter from Mars came in the form of a three-issue backup series published in late 1976 and early 1977. After his friend R’es Eda was mortally wounded by an unknown assassin alleged to be from Earth, J’onn came to the unlikely conclusion that one of his former Justice League comrades must be responsible. Setting a course for Earth over the violent protestations of his people, the Manhunter was pursued by army commander N’or Cott (Adventure Comics #449). After confrontations with Supergirl (#450) and Hawkman and Hawkgirl, J’onn finally came to his senses but an attack by N’or Cott threatened to kill them all (#451). The action concluded in World’s Finest #245 (June–July 1977), edited by O’Neil but scripted by Bob Haney with art by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson. Returning to Mars with Superman and Batman, the Manhunter learned that R’es Eda had faked his death, intent on sidetracking J’onn while plotting a raid on the wealth of the ancient Vonn city of Baltaz. The invasion plans came to an abrupt halt when N’or Cott, who had entered Baltaz earlier, died from exposure to the city’s atmosphere, toxic to the Martians. Justice League of America #144 (July 1977), published just a month after WFC #245, offered perhaps the most affecting portrait of the Martian Manhunter to date. Scripted by Steve Englehart, the story flashed back to 1959, bridging the divide between the Certa era and O’Neil’s JLA #71 backstory. Here was a John Jones living in a vacuum, frustrated that he couldn’t take credit for his victories or confide in anyone or even repair the Robot-Brain that had stranded him on Earth. A John Jones who didn’t need the nightmare of being approached by Commander Blanx and his Pole Dwellers. Though J’onn was unaware of it, he’d actually succeeded in partially repairing the Robot-Brain, something Blanx had tested by allowing the device to pull a cache of Martian weapons to Earth (as seen in ’Tec #264). The White Martians were ready the next time the teleportation ray struck Mars—and ready as well to invade Earth. “Martians!” One word spoken in an interrupted exchange between a fleeing J’onn and a visiting hero

named the Flash was all it took to trigger full-blown panic in Middletown. One word that brought J’onn’s old Detective co-star Roy Raymond to town and who, in turn, used his TV show to alert more than two dozen heroes of the era. Breaking into teams, most of the heroes wound up chasing false leads wonderfully tied to comics of the era. It was a different story for the group that went to Cape Canaveral, flushing out the White Martians and discovering a captive invisible man left behind, his presence made known only by “water droplets gleaming in the searchlights’ glare.” Freed by Batman and Robin, J’onn J’onzz assured the Dynamic Duo that he was “not a Martian such as they. And to prove it, I’ll tell you the most closely guarded secret known to any Martian—our one fatal weakness!” The Pole Dwellers felt the burn courtesy of Superman’s heat vision—and the Man of Steel prepared to take everyone back to Mars. J’onn, surprisingly, declined. “Once I would have sold my soul to return home. Now, I see the truth—the truth I should have seen years ago. The Mars I loved is gone. It is a world of lost causes and dead dreams. Evil triumphed over good there. But here, on Earth, the eternal struggle continues. Here one such as I—and ones such as yourselves—can still tip the balance the right way. I love my adopted world. It needs—a Manhunter from Mars.” Superman, more than anyone, could relate. A discussion among the heroes present ensued, speculating that J’onn might go public several months down the road—after the hysteria had faded—and that he could do so with the backing of these well-established super-heroes. The seeds of the Justice League of America had been planted. And after J’onn went public in ’Tec #273, they bore fruit. The newfound buzz surrounding J’onn was due in no small part to the sleek, angular stylings of the Mike Nasser/Terry Austin art team on the initial Adventure trilogy. Most significantly, they restored the longabsent jutting brow of the 1950s stories. There was also a striking new logo, one designed by Nasser himself (falling back on his early career as a sign painter). The Manhunter from Mars had an undeniable cool factor, one that DC intended to capitalize on. Gerry Conway planned to get the ball rolling with a serial pairing J’onn with a succession of DC heroes (starting with Green Arrow and Black Canary). Originally slated to begin in Super-Team Family #15, Part One was pushed back to #17 and left for dead after the book was cancelled. So a Cary Burkett/John Fuller/Bruce Patterson solo series was scheduled as a 1978 backup in Aquaman, rescheduled for Adventure Comics #461–463 and finally abandoned altogether when the latter title became a repository for higher-profile inventory left in limbo by the “DC Implosion.” Consequently, the Manhunter didn’t return until 1980’s Justice League of America #177–178, challenging Despero in a reprise of JLA #1’s cosmic chess game. In that summer’s DC Comics Presents #27, J’onn was cast as guardian of yet another secret of his new solar system: a key that could unlock a planetary doomsday weapon called Warworld. Len Wein and Jim Starlin’s new powerhouse Mongul, unable to wrest the key from the Manhunter himself, coerced Superman into doing the job for him. At the end of 1980, Detective Comics celebrated its 500th issue with a plethora of commemorative stories,

Branded! The Mike Nasser-designed Manhunter logo.

among them a Paul Levitz/Joe Kubert piece wherein Hawkman and Hawkgirl opened a cold case and investigated the suspects in “The Strange Death of Doctor Erdel.” Turns out he was killed by the RobotBrain, which had gained sentience and subtly administered an electric shock while Erdel was distracted by the Martian in his midst. And finally, in late 1981’s Justice League of America #200, an ensorcelled J’onn was thrown up against a fitting if surprisingly ineffectual opponent in the form of Firestorm. Gerry Conway intended to return the Martian Manhunter to the fold immediately thereafter, following, according to The Comic Reader #197 (Dec. 1981), an Earth/Mars war. Once again, the revival was stuck in limbo but the persistent Conway finally got the story into print two-and-a-half years later, using it as the impetus to radically shake up the Justice League. The sparks were the Viking Landers, innocuous NASA probes whose 1976 arrival on the red planet had dire consequences in the DC Universe. Echoing moments in Earth’s own history, “a minor military figure” named the Marshal played on his people’s sense of pride, characterized the probes as an invasion and an act of war, and used his Red Brotherhood to seize control of the Martian government. Such were the dire tidings delivered to Earth by J’onn J’onzz in “War of the Worlds 1984” (Justice League of America #228–230). The Justice League, no surprise, provided a strong defense though the invaders from Mars very nearly destroyed the JLA’s satellite headquarters. Revealed to have pressured the Marshal into starting the war, the traitorous Bel Juz finally received her long overdue comeuppance and was returned to Mars II for punishment along with the other war criminals. Ostracized from his people (including his new love, J’en), J’onn had no choice but to remain on Earth and rejoin the Justice League—on the eve of being reconstructed as a haven for mostly third-tier heroes and teenagers. Though remembered primarily as an ill-advised melding of early 1980s clichés, the retooled Justice League of America (dubbed “Justice League Detroit” by some) was pivotal in addressing the Martian Manhunter’s place in a world far removed from Middletown and ancient Idol-Heads. Conway wisely refused to allow J’onn to be defined by Superman, employing instead the unique mimicry, elasticity, invisibility, and intangibility that were rarely considered in the Silver Age JLA. And as illustrated by Chuck Patton, J’onn was fully a head taller than any of his teammates, an imposing presence for friend and foe alike.

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