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BLACK CAT • HELLCAT • WILDCAT • JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS • VIXEN • TIGER-MAN THUNDERCATS • WHITE TIGER • SONS OF TIGER • PUMAMAN • and bonus beast BADGER!

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Volume 1, Number 40 May 2010 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, and Beyond!

The Retro Comics Experience!

EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks

COVER COLORIST Freddy Lopez COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Eric Nolen-Weathington SPECIAL THANKS Walter George Alton Jonathan Miller Mark Arnold Mike Nelson Michael Aushenker Chuck Patton Mike Baron Alan J. Porter Mike W. Barr Bob Rozakis Bedrock City Comics Roger Salick Alan Brennert John Schwirian Bruce Buchanan Jason Shayer Mike Carlin Anthony Snyder Ernie Colón Roger Stern Gerry Conway Jim Sukman DC Comics John Wells Tom DeFalco Scott E. Williams J. M. DeMatteis Marv Wolfman Kirk Dilbeck Tom Ziuko Steve Englehart Dick Giordano Grand Comic-Book Database Heritage Comics Auctions James Kingman David Anthony Kraft Selina Kyle Paul Levitz Andy Mangels Bob McLeod Allen Milgrom

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Miss Edgewood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: Foxy Lady: The Vixen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 From cancellation to comebacks, this cat-like crimefighter has legs FLASHBACK: The Domestication of Wildcat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 The Golden Age’s punchiest pugilist refuses to stay down for the count BACKSTAGE PASS: ThunderCats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 This ’80s flashback makes grownups purr like happy kiddies BEYOND CAPES: Josie and the Pussycats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 Long tails and ears for hats, the breakout beauties from Archie Comics FLASHBACK: Catch a Tiger-Man by the Tale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 The short-lived ’70s Colón/Ditko superhero—plus a different kind of Cougar OFF MY CHEST: Cat of Nine Tales: The Reformation and Conflictions of Selina (Catwoman) Kyle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 So, is she a villainess or a heroine? Jim Kingman has his theories… BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: Never Let the Black Cat Cross Your Path . . . . . . . . . .39 The story of Spider-Man’s slinky sometimes-girlfriend BEYOND CAPES: Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 White Tiger and the Sons of the Tiger brought martial-arts action to Marvel ROUGH STUFF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 Pencil art rarities from Tom Ziuko’s vault FLASHBACK: Beware the Claws of Patsy Walker: The Hellcat Cometh . . . . . . . . . .61 Follow her purrr-gression from teen queen to heroine BACKSTAGE PASS: Each Man is a God: The Inside Story of the Pumaman . . . . . .68 Star Walter George Alton shares behind-the-scenes photos of this cult superhero movie FLASHBACK: Cult of Personalities: The Badger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 This issue’s bonus beast, the Badger was America’s first “deconstructionist” hero BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 Reader feedback on “Family” issue #38 BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. E-mail: euryman@gmail.com. Eight-issue subscriptions: $60 Standard US, $85 Canada, $107 Surface International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Joe Staton and Freddy Lopez. Catwoman TM & © DC Entertainment. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2010 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

Cat People Issue

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COVER ARTIST Joe Staton

Miss Edgewood

I’m editor Michael Eury’s kitty, Miss Edgewood, welcoming you to the “Cat People” edition of BACK ISSUE. In the two and a half years since I allowed Michael and his wife Rose to live in my house, I’ve been walking across his keyboard while he’s at work. The moron, he keeps shooing me away. Really gets my dander up. Can’t he see that I’ve been trying to tell him there’s a writer inside me? So now, while he’s not looking, I’m taking over. Like all of us cats will one day. (Watch your backs.) We’ve already taken over the comics and cartoon business. You think I’m yanking your yarn? Just look at how many heroes, villains, and toon characters are based upon felines! This issue’s got a litter of ’em. So many we couldn’t fit ’em all in. Sorry, Sabertooth. And Mister Tawky Tawny. And Puma. And Heathcliff. (I don’t see too many dog-related heroes and villains. Man’s best friend? Feh.) Excuse me. Must groom.

>LICK< >LICK< >LICK LICK LICK LICK LICK< That’s better. Okay, before you start gripin’, “Hey, what’s the Badger doin’ in this issue? He’s not a Cat Person!,” lemme tell you somethin’ about Norbert Sykes. He’s one cool cat. He likes critters. I guarantee you, if the Badger saw some punks chuckin’ rocks at a kitty, or tryin’ to punt a pussycat, he’d shorin-ryu ’em where the sun don’t shine! Whoa! Wait! What’s that? Bug!

>POUNCE!< >SWAT!< Did I get ’im? I think I got ’im. Heh. What? Oh, yeah. This issue, they tell me, features 16 pages in color. Like I can tell. For me, the world’s mostly black and white, with a random hue here and there. Sorta like Frank Miller’s Sin City. But I hope you humans like the color pages. I know I will. I’m gonna curl up on ’em and nap as soon as I finish this. And this issue also came out one month after the previous one. Not that that means much to me, since I sleep about 14 hours a day, but for those of you humans who like BACK ISSUE, you’ve got two more issues per year now. >YAWN!< Sheesh, this is hard work. I’ve been at this editorial for … oh, four minutes now, without a nap. >YAWN!< Time for a well deserved snooze. Enjoy the “Cat People” ish, and our new color pages. ’Night.

S U B M IS S IO N G U ID E L IN E S BACK ISSUE is on the lookout for the following comics-related material from the 1970s and 1980s: Unpublished artwork and covers Original artwork and covers Penciled artwork Character designs, model sheets, etc. Original sketches and/or convention sketches Original scripts Photos Little-seen fanzine material Other rarities Creators and collectors of 1970s/1980s comics artwork are invited to share your goodies with other fans! Contributors will be acknowledged in print and receive complimentary copies (and the editor’s gratitude). Submit artwork as (listed in order of preference): Scanned images: 300dpi TIF (preferred) or JPEG (e-mailed or on CD, or to our FTP site; please inquire) Clear color or black-and-white photocopies BACK ISSUE is also open to pitches from writers for article ideas appropriate for our recurring and/or rotating departments. Request a copy of the BACK ISSUE Writers’ Bible by e-mailing euryman@gmail.com or by sending a SASE to the address below. Please allow 6–8 weeks for a response to your proposals. Artwork submissions and SASEs for writers’ guidelines should be sent to: Michael Eury, Editor BACK ISSUE 118 Edgewood Ave. NE Concord, NC 28025

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John Schwirian

Leaping onto the comic-book racks and newsstands in 1978, Vixen quickly joined such luminaries as Firestorm and Steel as the latest sensation in the budding DC Explosion. As DC Comics’ first female African-American hero, Vixen shone as the newest superstar in DC’s Hall of Fame. Um, well, at least, that’s how the story might have been told, had Vixen #1 ever made it into publication. Unfortunately, circumstances arose that prevented the premiere of DC’s newest character, resulting in the cancellation of the series before the artists could even finish drawing the story. In the late 1970s, writer Gerry Conway was on fire, putting out one new title after another. Firestorm, Steel the Indestructible Man, Secret Society of Super-Villains, and more emerged from Conway’s fertile mind. And, according to the house advertisement appearing

in the November 1978 cover-dated offerings from DC Comics, The Vixen was about to strike back with the first issue scheduled to hit the stands on August 8, 1978. Unfortunately, the Vixen was defeated by the greatest DC villain of 1978—the DC Implosion! In the 1970s, Marvel Comics dominated in sales, and DC attempted to regain its former prominence by increasing the number of titles it put out each year. Unfortunately, blizzards in the winters of 1977 and 1978 disrupted the distribution of DC’s books. Sales dropped severely, and DC executives ordered the cancellation of nearly 30 existing and planned titles. Thus, the first Vixen story was banished to the pages of Cancelled Comics Cavalcade (an in-house collection of photocopied art pages from canceled titles distributed to DC employees), never to be seen by the majority of comics readers.

Cat People Issue

Cat and Woman Joshua Middleton’s astounding cover art for the 2009 Vixen: Return of the Lion trade paperback. TM & © DC Entertainment.

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THE LADY IS A FOX!

Catty Woman (below) The splash page and (right) cover from the unpublished Vixen #1, as culled from the pages of DC’s Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, courtesy of Bill Alter. Art by Bob Oksner and Vince Colletta. TM & © DC Entertainment.

character who hadn’t been used in almost a decade, and I felt my take on So, who was the mysterious Vixen? the idea was different enough to According to her creator, Gerry make Vixen unique.” Conway, her genesis lay in the fact Yes, Vixen was indeed different that comic books were lacking in a from Animal Man. Where Animal specific area. “I wanted to write a Man gained his powers from black female superhero; other mysterious beings from another than Storm in X-Men, I don’t think planet, Vixen’s powers were granted there were any other notable ones by the Tantu Totem, a mystical artifact in the field at that time,” Conway from her African homeland. “I liked says. Knowing that she would be the idea of tying Vixen’s powers to an African-American woman, her heritage,” Conway clarifies, Conway kicked around several Gerry Conway “making her more than just another ideas for superpowers for his new ‘lucky accident’ kind of hero.” hero. “At the time, there were few With a concept firmly in place, it was time to start African-American female superheroes, so there wasn’t much chance of overlapping powers with fleshing out the details. Meet Marilyn McCabe, famous New York model other characters. Quite a few heroes had ‘animal’ powers—Spider-Man, for example, but I liked the and part owner in a fashion designer firm. In addition idea of a hero who’d have many different abilities to her career, Mari has friends—photographer Willie Lockman, business partner Peg, and publisher/ to draw on.” An African-American female superhero, now that boyfriend Solomon Samules. She’s sitting on top of was new, but animal powers? Didn’t DC already have the world and all is wonderful … that is, until she a hero with animal powers—Buddy Baker, a.k.a. sees a news report about the arrival at the United Animal Man, from Strange Adventures? “I was aware Nations building of President Manitoba of the of Animal Man,” Conway explains, “but that was a African nation of D’Mulla. The sight of this man brings back repressed and traumatic memories of Mari’s childhood. Born in Africa, she was orphaned at the age of eight and then adopted by a couple in the United States. Slowly, the memories return, memories of her father, C’Mellu Dantogi, a leader of his people who preached non-violent protest in their struggle for independence. But a soldier attacked their village, burning their huts and killing the people as he sought out Dantogi. Mari was taken to safety, where her father placed her in the care of Reverend Peak. From her shelter, she watched in horror as the

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soldier brutally murdered her father. That soldier was General C’Tanga Manitoba, the self-proclaimed “Lion of Hell.” She also remembered the talisman her father gave her, the Tantu Totem, an ancient mystic artifact that was rumored to grant animal attributes to its wearer. Mari then performed the sacred ritual that bound her to the amulet and activated its power. Creating a costume from clothing leftovers at the modeling firm and adding pieces from an old Halloween outfit, she became the sleek silver-andgolden Vixen, a beast of prey! Seeking out Manitoba, she found him trying to kill Reverend Peak in order to silence the last surviving witness to the massacre he performed all those years ago. The spirits of the lion, the antelope, and the fox aided her as Manitoba attacked her with a machete. Ironically, Manitoba killed himself when he lunged for Vixen, toppling a massive cross that crushed him to death. Strangely enough, it was Manitoba who called Mari a “vixen,” which became her superhero moniker. Feeling reborn, Mari decided that she could not ignore the calling of the Tantu Totem, and the tale concluded with the statement that this was both “THE END ... AND THE BEGINNING.” “The Vixen is a Lady Fox” was written by Gerry Conway, penciled by Bob Oksner (who also

designed Vixen’s costume), inked by Vince Colletta, and lettered by Karisha. Cory Adams was listed as the colorist, but the issue never got to that point, stopping at editor Jack C. Harris’ desk before the last page could be lettered. Nothing further was done with Vixen, even though a second issue was originally scheduled. Conway admits to having a few ideas as to where he might have gone next: Vixen fighting crime in New York, and African politics being left behind with the origin story. “Vixen was always intended to be an US urban superheroine,” Conway elaborates. “The African background was just going to be part of the origin tale, but might have influenced stories in a general (or more specific) way as the series progressed. I hoped to write the series for a long time and develop the character. At that time I didn’t plan a series beyond the first few initial stories, letting the stories themselves suggest future events as I wrote them.” While Gerry Conway never started a script for a follow-up story, DC executives had planned to expand the page count for Vixen #2 in order to include an 8-page story written by Bob Rozakis starring the Harlequin (a.k.a. Joker’s Daughter) from Teen Titans, a story that never made it beyond the script stage. Still, Conway was fond of the Vixen, and hoped to find a way to use the character someday...

Cat People Issue

Cat-Like Reflexes From Vixen #1, (left) a look back at Mari’s past, and (right) Vixen in action. TM & © DC Entertainment.

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BACK ISSUE • 5

Welcome to Justice League Detroit Vixen, with a “Wolverine hairdo and ’dreads” pencil-coiffed by Chuck Patton, takes center stage on the cover of Justice League of America #239 (June 1985, inked by Mike Machlan). TM & © DC Entertainment.

OUT OF THE FRYING PAN After Justice League of America was canceled [but soon rebooted in the wake of the Legends miniseries], Vixen disappeared for a short while, eventually reappearing in the pages of the Suicide Squad by writers John Ostrander and Kim Yale. Following the League’s disbanding, she traveled to Africa to try to make a difference there. However, she soon felt overwhelmed and returned to modeling in America. While she was on a photo shoot in the Caribbean, the crew accidentally filmed a drug transaction at sea. The drug smugglers gunned down everyone on the beach while Mari was safely swimming underwater not far away. Unable to bring in the man responsible due to political immunity, she joined forces with the Suicide Squad to find vengeance. In the course of the mission, Vixen found herself in single combat with the man who had ordered the massacre. As they fought, he stabbed her, and Vixen’s animal instincts took over. Losing control, Vixen struck her foe so violently that the blow broke his neck. Her guilt and fear over how the totem was controlling her led her to stay with the Squad, where she developed a growing attraction to Ben Turner, the Bronze Tiger. She stayed with the team for a long time, but when Bronze Tiger turned away from her due to psychological manipulations by Sarge Steel, Vixen felt it was time to move on and left the Squad to find her place in the world.

NO PLACE LIKE HOME

TM & © DC Entertainment.

more ‘edgy’ was an attempt to bring a different kind of energy to the team.” The next step was to finally get her origin story into print, with several revisions to the original. “As I said, I don’t think I was that happy with how the first issue turned out, and having a chance to revisit the origin story with a fresh take, I took it,” Conway says. This time around, her African homeland was M’Changa and her father the Reverend Richard Jiwe. When Jiwe was elected president, his half-brother General Mustapha Maksai assassinated Jiwe and assumed control of the country after a bloody civil war. Calling himself the Gored Ox, Maksai tracked his niece to America in order to claim the totem for himself. However, the Tantu Totem was created by Anansi the Spider to be used to protect the innocent. When Maksai took the mystic relic, he was transformed into a monstrous man-ox, for his hands were red with the blood of the innocents he had murdered. During the ensuing battle with Vixen, the mad beast fell and was impaled, killing Maksai and avenging Vixen’s father.

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In the years that followed, Vixen would pop up occasionally in various titles, helping out here and there. She worked with Animal Man, the Justice League Task Force, and Oracle’s Birds of Prey, but she never settled anywhere for very long. In the late 2000s, she returned to the Justice League of America and has proven herself to be a dependable and valuable member of the team, and was given her own miniseries. A change in the Justice League’s roster at the hands of writer James Robinson sent Vixen on her own in 2009. But don’t expect Vixen to be absent for very long. A character this rich in potential is bound to find a new niche in the notso-distant future. By day, JOHN SCHWIRIAN is a mild-mannered high school English/ special ed teacher, but by night, he dons the role of comic-book historian. In addition to his passion for all things Teen Titans, he explores the sunken regions of the DC Universe in his self-published fanzine The Aquaman Chronicles.

John Wells

On a cool fall day in 1941, a stranger came upon a little boy crying on the sidewalk. It seems a bully swiped his comic book just as he’d been reading about the Golden Age Green Lantern. When the man confessed bewilderment at the name, the youngster explained that this was a man who put on a mask and costume and went out to fight bad guys. The stranger let that settle in for a moment, specifically the detail that GL’s get-up prevented him from being recognized. Whipping out a dollar bill (a veritable fortune in an era still recovering from the Great Depression), the man told the thunderstruck kid to buy himself a pile of comic books and walked off into the night. Ted Grant had believed all hope was lost that night, but a little boy inspired him toward a path that would change his life in ways he could never imagine. Ted had aspired to a career in public service since his youth, with an eye toward eventually becoming a doctor. Determined that his son not be a studious weakling as he had been, Henry Grant encouraged the boy’s participation in sports from an early age, and in college Ted found a particular proclivity for boxing. But times were tough and Henry’s death left Ted with no more financing for his education. Dropping out of school, the young man came under the wing of heavyweight champ “Socker” Smith and ended up with a boxing career of his own. The friendship ended in tragedy when Smith and Grant’s managers engineered a match between the two and then tried to fix the bout by placing a drugged needle in Ted’s glove that would knock out Socker. Instead, Smith died and his friend stood accused of murder. Fearing that Grant might accuse them, the managers ran the police car carrying the boxer into a gorge, but their target miraculously survived.

THE COMING OF WILDCAT Taking his cue from Green Lantern, the fugitive boxer donned a black costume complete with a cat-head mask including floppy ears, a faux gray whiskered lip, and jowls hanging off each side of his jaw. Declaring himself Wildcat, this two-fisted mystery-man beat confessions out of the two managers in short order before surrendering to the police as Ted Grant. Created by writer Bill Finger (best known for co-creating Batman) and artist Irwin Hasen, Wildcat was the closing feature in Sensation Comics #1 (Jan. 1942), an issue most famously known for its introduction of the ongoing Wonder Woman series. If Wildcat resented being overshadowed by the Amazing Amazon, he never acknowledged it. Instead, Ted Grant persevered, becoming world heavyweight champion in #2 and finding love with Joan Fortune. Issue #4 introduced comic relief in the form of gangly, would-be detective (and later Ted’s manager) Hiram “Stretch” Skinner and, more enduringly, a means of transportation for the feline crimebuster. With handlebars jazzed up to resemble

Purr Box Detail from the Jim Aparo-drawn cover of The Brave and the Bold #118 (Apr. 1975), the Batman/Wildcat/Joker team-up. TM & © DC Entertainment.

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BACK ISSUE • 9

Born to Be Wild Wildcat has become a legacy character, appearing in a range of series including Kingdom Come. Art by Alex Ross. TM & © DC Entertainment.

THE JSA RETURNS

TM & © DC Entertainment.

would be able to defend herself. And later when the teenager developed sonic powers, he simply smiled when her parents wondered how she’d acquired them and never hinted that he might have encouraged his magically empowered teammates to create them. “In that Black Canary origin,” Alan Brennert recalls, “I was trying quite consciously to tie the story into the post–Crisis continuity, specifically that Catwoman series establishing Ted Grant as Selina Kyle’s trainer. I almost didn’t take the assignment when [editor] Mark Waid offered it to me—it was supposed to be the origin of the modern Canary, but when I recalled that the elder Canary hadn’t gone off to fight Ragnarok with the rest of the JSA, I realized this was a loose end just crying out, so to speak, to be tied up, and I jumped at the chance. “The scene in which Ted tells of his kidnapped son was one of my favorites, and I thought it would also serve as the germ for a story later down the line in which Wildcat encounters that son as an adult, perhaps now as an adversary raised by the Wasp. But the incident served a larger purpose, which I thought was important: to illustrate the high cost of being a hero, and the dangers your family is subject to because of your decision to put on that suit and fight for what you think is right.” Although Wildcat never starred in a story of his own in Secret Origins, such a tale was actually prepared but never published before the title’s cancellation. Written by Roy Thomas and penciled by Greg Brooks, excerpts from the origin were published in TwoMorrows’ Alter Ego #14 (Apr. 2002) and All-Star Companion vol. 4 (2009).

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DC thought better of the Justice Society’s retirement in 1991 and brought them back. After killing Yolanda Montez and others in 1993’s Eclipso #13, DC changed its mind about the JSA in 1994 and used the Zero Hour miniseries to shut down the team again. The latter ostensibly stripped Wildcat of any sort of artificial enchantments that had allowed old men to fight crime but absolutely no writers paid attention. By this point, Wildcat had a cool factor earned through a combination of his B&B appearances and JSA mentoring that made him a favorite of fans and pros alike. Beau Smith used Ted as a supporting-cast member in Guy Gardner: Warrior until that title’s cancellation, and then penned Batman/Wildcat and Catwoman/ Wildcat miniseries with Chuck Dixon in 1997 and 1998, respectively. Dixon also cemented Ted Grant’s Gotham connection in Robin #31 (July 1996), with a present-day team-up involving the Boy Wonder and the revelation that he’d trained a young Bruce Wayne. Alternately, Dixon and Scott Beatty’s Batgirl: Year One #2 (2003) asserted that Wildcat tried to talk Barbara Gordon out of costumed heroics with absolutely no success. In a book entitled simply JSA, Geoff Johns included Wildcat, the Flash, and Green Lantern as the three standard-bearers of a revitalized Justice Society that ran with the concept of legacy heroes … and legacy villains. Among the latter was the mutated Killer Wasp, whom Ted suspected of being his lost son Jake. According to 2001’s JSA #21, however, the original Yellow Wasp had come to love Jake as his own even as he experimented on his natural offspring. Overcome with resentment, the younger Killer Wasp claimed to have killed both Jake and his father, but no evidence existed to confirm it. In 2007, Ted’s unspoken desire for a son was finally realized when he discovered that he’d fathered a boy named Tom Bronson years earlier. Learning that he could transform himself into a were-cat, Tom was coaxed into joining the JSA and sharing the Wildcat name with his dad (Justice Society of America [third series] #1–4). Medical student. Boxer. Costumed hero. Has-been. Underdog. Mentor. Comeback kid. Ted Grant has had as many lives as a cat. Indeed, Grant Morrison actually declared outright in JLA #31 that the Feline Fury had magically acquired nine lives years earlier, a revelation expanded upon by Geoff Johns in JSA #53. What’s more important, though, is what he did with those lives. In that respect, Wildcat may have achieved immortality. JOHN WELLS knows more about DC Comics history than just about anyone, and is kind enough to share that knowledge from time to time with BACK ISSUE readers.

For people of a certain age, the sight of a stylized silhouette of a black panther’s head against a red circle brings with it an almost uncontrollable urge to utter one of the most memorable battle cries, pulled from memories of 1980s cartoon watching. “Thunder … Thunder … ThunderCats HO!!”

THUNDERCATS, THE TV SERIES ThunderCats featured a band of humanoid feline warriors fighting for survival on an new planet, the not-soimaginatively named Third Earth, following the destruction of their home planet, Thundera. The series mixed many aspects of science fiction and fantasy along with some familiar comic-book and mythology tropes, and this mix of influences undoubtedly helped its popularity. The level of animation was considered high quality for the time (although it doesn’t really stand up to a repeat viewing 20-plus years later), with the opening sequence and its memorable theme song being a particular standout. Central to the series’ ongoing themes was the struggles of the youngest surviving ThunderCat, Lion-O, to come to terms with his role and responsibility as the group’s hereditary leader, an Arthurian parallel that added yet another layer to what on the surface appeared to be simple kids’ cartoons. The series was created by a prolific inventor named Ted Wolf, in his only screenwriting credit, who saw it as a morality play with human characters in strange feline bodies. After Wolf’s pitch was picked up, the concept was passed to veteran comics and animation writer Leonard Starr to develop for TV production. The series, produced by the Rankin/Bass animation studios, debuted with an hour-long special in January 1985 and was followed by a regular series starting in the following September, and would eventually run for a total of 130 episodes over four seasons as well as a TV movie, until being canceled in 1990. ThunderCats is unusual for animated shows of that period in that it actually had a defined end to the series that brought the whole story arc full circle. Most people’s memories of the series tend to revolve around the 65-episode first season (subsequent seasons were short by comparison with “only” 20 episodes each), which featured the core cast of Lion-O; the fleet Cheetara; the strongman Panthero; the master of camouflage Tygra; the acrobatic twins WilyKat and WilyKit; the obligatory 1980s cartoon comic-relief character, the annoying Snarf; and the equally required ghostly mentor, Jaga. This band of warrior felines battled both their traditional enemies, the Mutants of Plundar, and Third Earth’s resident bad guy, the mummified sorcerer Mumm-Ra. The first season, as well as having the most episodes, was the only season to feature any real sense of continuity with an ongoing arc rather than just a sequence of self-contained single-episode adventures. Key to all these adventures was Lion-O’s magic sword (more Arthurian overtones), the “Sword of Omens,” which as well as giving the bearer the ability to glimpse the short-term future, or “the power of sight beyond sight” as the series termed it, also, in a not-so-subtle Freudian undertone, grew at times of danger and projected a searchlight beam topped by the sigil mentioned at the opening of this article. It was a device designed to alert or summon the heroes in a Gotham–like rallying beacon.

Alan J. Porter

Lion-O Says, “ThunderCats HO!” Detail from the cover of Marvel/Star Comics’ ThunderCats #1 (Dec. 1985). Art by Jim Mooney and Brett Breeding. Special thanks to Andy Mangels for this article’s images. © 1985 Lorimar Telepictures/Marvel Comics Group.

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WildStorm and Warner Bros. (left) J. Scott Campbell’s dynamic cover to ThunderCats #0 (Oct. 2002). (right) Lion-O and friends are headed for the big screen! The teaser poster for the forthcoming ThunderCats motion picture. © 2002 and 2010 Warner Bros.

1990. Many of the well known names of the British comics scene got their early starts on the ThunderCats title, including writers Dan Abnett, Mike Collins, and John Freeman. Most of the art on the series was inked by Tim Perkins, to provide a consistent on-model look over a rotating list of pencilers (such as Martin Griffiths, Andrew Wildman, and Doug Braithwaite) needed to keep on a weekly production schedule. The first eight issues of the Marvel UK run were reprints of the US-produced Star Comics, but original stories by UK creators started with issue #9. First up were Simon Furman and Steve Yeowell, who were quickly followed by Ian Rimmer and Martin Griffiths. Griffiths would go on to be the most prolific artist on the title. As the series progressed, original stories would be interspersed with occasional stories from the Star Comics line, but by the end of the series’ 135-issue run, the vast majority of the stories were new, original material. Many issues also include double-page mini-posters of characters, fact files, or maps of Third Earth. In the later half of the magazine’s run, the comic strips started to be split over two or even three issues, with the rest of the space filled with backup text stories, which were presumably quicker and cheaper to produce. Overall, the original UK stories were a little darker in tone than the Star Comics with a more dynamic art style, closer to standard superhero fare. Marvel UK was also more aggressive than its parent company in repackaging the material for different audiences and distribution channels. They produced two Spring Specials and one Winter Special, a ThunderCats Pocket Comic digest-sized collection, and what today we would call a trade-paperback collection. There were also seven hardback annuals (a British tradition) published between 1985 and 1992, the annuals both predating and continuing beyond the official run of ThunderCats comics. Strangely, despite the show’s huge popularity in the UK, which in many ways was greater than in the US, ThunderCats was subject to censorship and irregular scheduling, and several of the final episodes have still yet to air in the UK. When asked about the possibilities of using the UK-produced material in the US market, Carlin explains, “At the time Marvel in the States and Marvel UK were fairly independent—the ocean was a very big hurdle to get over in a timely fashion back then

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(fax machines were just starting to be used … but were still fairly expensive, and there was no Internet)—so there was no interaction. I assume if the series lasted longer and the comics proved immensely popular we would have eventually used each other’s material … but it never made it that far. “Comics in the US were pretty much only comics back then. Digests cost a lot of money to have displayed at the time—comic shops were just starting to open … only years later do Marvel and DC see reformatted collections thriving. So [the ThunderCats trade paperback] was probably a unique situation to British distribution back in the day.”

THUNDERCATS BEYOND MARVEL Marvel’s association with the ThunderCats came to an end after DC Comics’ parent company, Warner Bros., acquired the property as part of its purchase of the Lorimar Telepictures production company. However, it would be another 12 years before ThunderCats returned to the comics in a collection of five miniseries produced under DC’s WildStorm imprint published between 2002 and 2005. I asked Mike Carlin if, when he was working on ThunderCats, did he sense that it had staying power and would be so fondly remembered 20-plus years later, or did he view it at the time as just another Saturday morning cartoon designed to sell toys? “I’m stunned people still care,” Carlin says, “but that’s a good thing. I’m sure I look back on the things I loved when I was a kid for similar reasons. At the time of their youth this was their thing. Not their older brother’s, or their dad’s, or anyone’s. It was new and theirs! So the 20–30-year-olds who now get to wear T-Cats T-shirts are just happy they can buy something that makes them feel ten again!” ALAN J. PORTER has been writing on various aspects of pop culture for over ten years, but somehow always seems to come back to the Beatles, Batman, and Bond. You can find out more at alanjporter.com.

Mark Arnold

Josie started out as an answer to the already-popular Archie series. The character of Josie was created by Dan DeCarlo, who christened the character after his wife, ® Josie DeCarlo, who claimed the inspiration for the fictional Josie: “We went on a Caribbean cruise, and I had a [cat] costume for the cruise, and that’s the way it started.” Josie’s initial adventures were fairly straightforward. It was not until Josie donned cat ears and formed a musical trio with her friends Valerie and Melody that they became the iconic Josie and the Pussycats. Josie as a character premiered in Archie’s Pals ’n’ Gals #23 (Dec.1962), but nothing on the cover indicated this debut and it was just a standard backup story. Josie as a comic book debuted shortly thereafter, coverdated Feb. 1963, but the character was created as far back as 1958. DeCarlo spent several years trying to sell Josie as a syndicated newspaper comic strip, but having no success, he ultimately sold it to Archie. In Dan DeCarlo’s final interview with R. J. Carter, from late 2001, DeCarlo explained the origins of the other characters: “I submitted the Josie strip to [newspaper] publishers and [they] sent it back and said, ‘It’s not what we’re looking for, Dan, but keep up the good work,’ or words of that kind. “Then is when I decided to take it to Archie to see if they could do it as a comic book. I showed it to Richard Goldwater, and he showed it to his father, and a day or two later I got the okay to do it as a comic book. “When they agreed to make it a comic book— because I only had six dailies, and there was just Josie, Melody, and Pepper, the three girls. Then I submitted a model sheet, and I designed all the other characters. I designed Albert; I designed the big, hulking guy (not Alan M.—he came later). “I designed all the characters, anyway, and Frank Doyle was doing all the writing. I didn’t have any more input on what direction they were going to go with Josie.” The success of the group did a few things. First, the title of the Josie comic book changed from She’s Josie to Josie and the Pussycats beginning with the 45th issue. Second, it prompted Archie Comics to create bands for their other titles josie de carlo including the Bingoes for That Wilkin Boy, the Madhouse Glads for Archie’s Madhouse (which was also renamed Madhouse Glads), and, of course, the Archies. [Editor’s note: For more on the Archies, see Mark

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Thrilling Adventure Stories (Feb. 1975), like many an Atlas/Seaboard series, only lasted two issues. But the first issue introduced us to a character which, if you’ve seen him, for better or for worse (mostly worse), you will never forget him: a ludicrous, slapdash-dressed crimefighter called Tiger-Man. Tiger-Man’s saving grace? Half the time, he was drawn by Ernie Colón; the other half, Steve Ditko.

ENTER THE TIGER-MAN Written by Jonah Hex co-creator John Albano and drawn by Colón, “Tiger-Man and the Flesh Peddlers,” as you can guess from the story’s title, is a couple of notches grittier, grimier, less inhibited than the forthcoming Comic Code–approved standard comic-book spin-off advertised at tale’s end. In this magazine format, Tiger-Man stalks the underworld with eye-gouging, throat-slashing ferocity. “The violence was a reader-grabber, as most pop violence is––movies or TV or whatever,” says Colón, who also penciled Tiger-Man #1 (in which he and writer Gabriel Levy were uncredited). “Personally, I liked working on [Atlas Comics’] The Grim Ghost better. It seemed a little more brainy, more thoughtful.” Colón turned in an uncluttered, well-told inaugural story with his sketchy characters bursting out of the confines of their panels: the black boot legs of a dead prostitute, the legs of a lifeless thug drained of life by the Tiger-Man, listlessly hanging out of the panels. A thug gets punched out so hard by the wildcat superhero, he flies back beyond the panel’s borders. Within the magazine, “Flesh Peddlers” appeared in good company, published in an issue which contained the Nazi camp breakout piece “Escape from Nine by One” by Russ Heath, the Frank Thornedrawn “Lawrence of Arabia,” and Jack Sparling’s “Kromag the Killer.” (The mag also included an article hyping Warner Bros.’ then-upcoming Doc Savage movie.) Not an origin story, “Flesh Peddlers” finds Tiger-Man on the trail of the prostitution ring overlord Hecht, the fat cat behind a rash of killings, including Tiger-Man’s sister. Tiger-Man brutally wrings information out of Hecht’s thugs to get to the crimelord himself. Once at Hecht’s mansion, he violently dispatches the mansion’s security guards. The superhero evades explosions with the alacrity of a cheetah and the fury of “a frenzied demon” (Hecht’s words). When Tiger-Man finally reaches him within his estate, Hecht backs up in fear and falls into a pool of piranha. Concludes Tiger-Man: “It’s strange how the forces that govern men’s destinies. On your end, Mr. Hecht, you fed off the flesh of others and now … those tiny cannibals can feed off your flesh.” Revenge exacted with EC Comics-worthy irony. End of story.

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Michael Aushenker

EARNING HIS STRIPES After a grotesquely violent debut in the magazine Thrilling Adventure, Tiger-Man #1 (Apr. 1975) arrived, in standard color comic-book format. In Tiger-Man #1, Dr. Lancaster Hill (partially named after actor Burt Lancaster) isolates the tiger chromosome while encamped at an African village. In an effort not to lose a life (or his medical license) with his experiment, Hill injects himself … with obvious results. Soon, he can kill a tiger with his bare hands, and an African chief (alternately referred to as Chief “Junka” and “Jnuka”) gives Hill a costume fashioned from the very beast Hill had snuffed. Clearly, Chief Junka or Jnuka never majored in fashion design, and the piss-poor outfit–– a tiger mask-and-unitard combo (anticipating the movie Flashdance, he appears to wear tiger-striped leg-warmers)––is the hardest element of Tiger-Man to overcome. Even in the superhero genre, where suspension of disbelief is routine, Tiger-Man is a hard pill to swallow, looking as downright dopey as his name. And so, dressed like a cast member of the Broadway musical Cats, Dr. Hill experiences his first test as a newly minted crimefighter when a pair of rodeo cowboy scum (!!) slays his sister, Anna Hill. With his garbage costume and his tiger-scent powers, he tracks the killers down and lays some feline smackdown on ’em. Tiger-Man #1, as rendered by Colón in an impressionistic realism that combined early-Moon Knight Bill Sienkiewicz with Spectacular Spider-Man-era Sal Buscema, rises above what would otherwise be a rote revenge tale (with its garden-variety origin) and transcends most of the snoozy books released by Atlas.

ONE COOL CAT: STEVE DITKO For many, the Tiger-Man journey truly begins with issue #2 (June 1975) and ends with #3 (Sept. 1975), a pair of issues scripted by Gerry Conway that is worth discussing for two reasons only: “Steve” and “Ditko.”

As Ditko comes aboard with Tiger-Man #2, the series abandons Colón’s semi-realism, and Ditko’s inimitable style, with its surreal edge, takes over. Whereas Colón’s Tiger-Man looks like a man with a mask, Ditko’s appears organic and anthropomorphic. Many of #2’s pages conform to that meticulous Ditko grid, as the master artist tells his story cleanly and intensely, panel by panel, the action almost animated. Issue #2, “Stalker in a Concrete Jungle,” pits Tiger-Man against his first supervillain. As Ditko presumably designed Blue Leopard, the antagonist’s costume looks better than the series’ protagonist, although it’s a throwback to the camp era of Batman. In “Stalker,” what starts out as a crook ring bust-up leads to Professor Anderson Hobart, who supplied the criminals with high-tech suits of armor. Suddenly, the Blue Leopard materializes to assault Tiger-Man. He has arrived all the way from Africa to seek vengeance against Dr. Hill for crimes related to his visit in issue #1 on behalf of Na’ Bantu, witch doctor of the village in Zambia. According to Blue Leopard, more than Cat People Issue

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Atlas Cat, Take Two: The Cougar Back in 1975, when the word “cougar” was simply another name for mountain lion, Atlas Comics unleashed a second superhero with a feline moniker. Debuting with the same cover date (Apr. 1975) as Atlas’ striped-andwhiskered counterpart Tiger-Man, The Cougar contained a different set of thrills and suspense. For starters, the Cougar’s name was not literal but symbolic. Unlike Tiger-Man, who possessed all sorts of powers attributed to the species of wildcat he was named after, the Cougar was more human—a man named Jeff Rand, to be exact, who once portrayed a costumed hero called the Cougar in a failed film and, afterwards, vowed to fight crime in real life as his movie persona. It’s a fatuous concept, akin to Robert Townsend fighting crime as the Meteor Man or Damon Wayans taking on supervillains as Blankman after their films had tanked.

by Michael Aushenker

That silly premise notwithstanding, The Cougar was not as unreadable as other Atlas titles published in the company’s year-long pursuit to topple Marvel. The Cougar resembled Mark Evanier and Dan Spiegle’s Crossfire meets Kolchak, The Night Stalker. The Cougar #1 saw the erstwhile screen hero defeating the vampire Krolok drawn by Frank Thorne’s hand, while in The Cougar #2 (July 1975), drawn by Dan Adkins, the villain pitted against our hero essentially leapt from Dracula to the Wolfman; this time, it’s a werewolf hunting down our hero. Cougar #2 culminates with a Cougar/werewolf smackdown, in which Rand gets tossed across a room, smashing into a wall. A doctor gives his grave diagnosis of the pummeled Rand. He tells Rand’s lady friend that the Cougar’s spine was snapped and that he is now paralyzed and he may never walk again. In the last panel of what became the series’ final printed issue, the teaser points to an issue #3 which never saw publication. The teaser reads: “NEXT ISSUE: A crippled Cougar—helpless in a Jungle of Evil?! Don't miss ish # 3—introducing the most devastatingly different superhero of all time!!” So did Cougar #3 ever make it to the writing/art stage? Or were the cool cats behind this series leaping before they were looking? The teaser is an intriguing one. It suggests, of course, that they wanted to take Jeff Rand/Cougar in an unorthodox direction for superhero comics with this paralyzed character. Did the writer intend to rebuild him with bionics? Or leave him wheelchair-bound? Or was the entire paralyzed bit just a big ol’ red herring? Somewhere out there is the answer. If any former Atlas employees or informed readers have the info, please let us know. Curiosity can not kill this cat … Atlas already took care of that!

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Jim Kingman

1) CATWOMAN’S A VILLAINESS, SHE CAN’T GET NO REFORMATION “I don’t want to sound egotistical, Robin—but I’ve come to the conclusion that Catwoman is in love with me!” – Batman, the World’s Greatest Detective “Of course she is! Everybody knows that—but you!” – Robin, no slouch at deducing the obvious, either The above revelatory exchange between two renowned crimefighters in Batman #197 (Dec. 1967) focused on but one of the emotional conflicts, spanning over 20 years, between Selina (Catwoman) Kyle and the man/men of her affections, Bruce (Batman) Wayne. Theirs was a romance compounded by contradictions and connections, mysteries and secrets, commitments and betrayals, tension and tragedy, and punctuated by doses of madness, magic, and science fiction to often resolve matters or muck up their relationship even further. After Catwoman’s male-bashing, mensmashing escapade in Batman #210 (Mar. 1969), wherein she donned a new, hip-for-then blue bodysuit costume complete with bouncy cat tail and a shorter hair style, Selina decided to stay clear of Batman and pursued criminal activity outside of Gotham City. As chronicled by writer Denny O’ Neil, she crossed paths with Black Canary (Adventure Comics #418–419, Apr.–May 1972) and Diana Prince, Wonder Woman (Wonder Woman #201–202, July–Aug. and Sept.–Oct. 1972) before returning to Gotham, disguised as a tiger trainer to infiltrate a circus she felt was abusing a tiger (Batman #256, May–June 1974). While she encountered Batman during this exploit, the Caped Crusader was investigating a murder and not seeking her. When the murder was solved and the tiger freed from captivity, Selina’s personality, for the first time in years, had been given some depth. Batman pointed out to Robin that Selina caused “evil,” even when she didn’t intend to. Selina had always been an adventuress and a thrillseeker and had chosen villainy as the best route to pursue those desires. She was equal parts compulsive and independent, stubborn and devoted only to herself, but she also had,

Can Catwoman Change Her Stripes? A gorgeous 1989 specialty piece by the legendary Gray Morrow (for more of the late Mr. Morrow, join us in two issues for our Vigilante article). Special thanks to Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com) for the art. TM & © DC Entertainment.

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Whip It! From the Heritage Comics archives, Eduardo Barreto’s original art to a Batman/Catwoman pinup. TM & © DC Entertainment.

though I doubt she’d take many of them to bed. On Earth-One the fact that the relationship was never consummated gave it a great deal of its charm. Pop culture deals heavily with the guy trying to get the girl into bed, so reversing the relationship, making the male the reluctant conquest, gave the whole affair a great deal of zest. Adding Robin to this, and his uncertainty if Catwoman’s relationship with Batman is going to drive a wedge between Robin and his father figure, and you can have a lot of fun. I certainly did for those two issues.” I believe it’s safe to assume that Catwoman and Batman’s long-standing, albeit complicated, relationship was the troubled romance of the Bronze Age of Comic Books.

9) REFORMATION AND CONFLICTION REBOOTED

memory of all that knowledge anyway, at story’s end she no longer knew, whether she had ever known or not. “As to Selina’s mental state,” continues Barr, “I always thought she was ‘simply’ a very good thief who didn’t want to have a real job, though her skills were such that almost any real job she took, she would excel at. Of course, the fact that she so enjoyed being a thief also implies a somewhat anarchic, at least morally neutral, role toward society, mitigated in the reader’s eyes by the fact that Batman was such a straight arrow that she would enjoy having him as a boy toy, at least for a little while. It’s interesting to speculate what would come about if she ever actually achieved her goal. Would she become bored with Bats, or would their relationship grow, changing her mind-set as well, paralleling the Earth-Two versions of the characters? Of course, Batman and Catwoman also made an extremely attractive couple physically, which was also part of Selina’s attraction to him. Her nature would be such that she’d flirt with almost any attractive male who crossed her path,

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In “Batman: Year One” (Batman #404–407, Feb.–May 1987), by writer Frank Miller and artist David Mazzucchelli, Catwoman began anew in the post–Crisis universe, reintroduced as Selina Kyle, prostitute, working the Eastside of Gotham City with her younger pal, Holly. As Bruce Wayne was inspired by a bat to become a bat-man, Selina would be inspired by the early exploits of Batman to become a cat-woman. “Frank Miller posited, in a way, that Selina had sadomasochistic tendencies,” suggests Conway, “and I think that’s probably true. In which case her relationship with Batman was, in some part, sadomasochistic, with Selina alternating between the sadistic and masochistic roles.” Writer Mindy Newell then followed Miller’s reinterpretation with a Catwoman story set in then-present Batman continuity for Action Comics Weekly #611–614 (Aug. 1988), wherein Selina’s friend Holly was killed. As part of her means to avenge Holly, Catwoman, in disturbing Brave and the Bold #131 fashion, murdered two men (they were bad men, but pointlessly murdered all the same). Newell then wrote the outstanding Catwoman miniseries (four issues, Feb.–May 1989), which expanded on Selina’s origins from “Batman: Year One”; introduced Selina’s sister, a nun; and featured a dramatic confrontation between Catwoman and Batman in the final issue. Although Newell’s Catwoman tales would be revamped in later DC continuity, she set the stage for Selina’s strong resurgence and, of course ongoing—at times still pensive— relationship with Batman throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century. JIM KINGMAN purchased his first comic book, DC’s World’s Finest Comics #211, on a family road trip in March of 1972, and has been reading and collecting comic books ever since (with no end in sight). He has been writing about comics since 1993, and currently edits and publishes Comic Effect, a small press fanzine emphasizing the fun in reading comics.

Jason Shayer

There are villains that you love to hate, villains that are plot-device punching bags, and villains you truly sympathize with. Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, is one of the latter. Classifying her as a villain is a bit of a misnomer, though. While she’s broken the law as a cat burglar, Felicia is more of a self-absorbed rogue than your typical Spider-Man villain. Throughout the Spider-Man titles of the 1980s, the Black Cat’s life became intertwined with Spider-Man’s. As with all good characters, she was defined by her weaknesses and flaws and how she dealt with them. Her all-too-human side was no better portrayed through her efforts to cope with a variety of psychological issues. To properly understand who the Black Cat is, let’s start at the beginning and explore the forces that shaped her.

ORIGIN The Black Cat pounced on to the scene in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #194 (July 1979). Classic 1970s artist Dave Cockrum provided the initial design for the Black Cat, bringing her to life in a voluptuous, fur-lined, skin-tight costume and collar. While Felicia Hardy’s costumed feline persona might remind you of DC’s notable cat burglar, Catwoman, Felicia is her own woman. While they share some obvious characteristics, such as being thieves and deriving pleasure from playing cat-andmouse games with superheroes, the Catwoman actually wasn’t the inspiration for the Black Cat. “Oddly, I hadn’t even thought of Catwoman,” creator Marv Wolfman admits. “If I had, I wouldn’t have done it. I was watching a Tex Avery cartoon called ‘Bad Luck Blackie’ [about a cat] that caused bad luck to a pursuing dog and thought that would make for a great villainess for Spider-Woman, which was where I was going to use her.” “We did a cover (Spider-Woman #9, Dec. 1978), but before I wrote the story I decided to quit the book so I moved [Black Cat] over to Spider-Man. I made her more of an action character, where the Spider-Woman character was designed to be a mystery villainess, very 1940s in design and very noir in approach. You can see the original Spider-Woman cover in the letters column of the first Black Cat story [Amazing Spider-Man #194].”

Pounced and Bounced Keith Pollard and Bob McLeod’s cover to Amazing Spider-Man #194 (July 1979), premiering the Black Cat, was scrapped for the version in the inset, by Al Milgrom. © 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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PARENTAL LOSS Amazing Spider-Man #195 (Aug. 1979) provides us with some insight into what molded Felicia’s Black Cat persona. Felicia grew up believing that her father, Walter Hardy, a world-famous cat burglar, had died in a plane crash. Parental loss can leave a child, such as Felicia, with lingering doubts about their own self-worth. Children can cope with the loss of a parent by idealizing that person. From Fathers and Adolescents: Developmental and Clinical Perspectives, “The centrality of the father figure and a continuous need for the idealized father is evident even in cases where the father is not necessarily positive (…) even in cases where the father was absent or abusive, children exerted enormous efforts to preserve the ideal image. The negative image of the father may even be reconstructed into a positive and idealized figure.” In Felicia’s case, she over-identified with her absent father. She developed an idealized fantasy life and drove herself to emulate that fictional lifestyle. This coping mechanism allowed her to deal with this emotionally traumatic event. She learned everything she could about her father and was particularly interested in his criminal exploits. She used these elements to build her idealized fantasy. Later, Felicia learned that her mother had lied to her about her father’s death. Walter Hardy was in fact still alive, but in jail. She took a bold step, making her debut as the costumed Black Cat to break him out. An important facet of her idealized view of her father was how it altered her morality. Despite his criminal tendencies, in her eyes he could do no wrong and she applied that perspective to her own criminal actions.

She wasn’t afraid to cross the line into unlawful territory, and proved to be resourceful, recruiting a criminal crew to assist her in the jail break. However, things aren’t always as they seem. Her father’s jailbreak wasn’t motivated by any criminal intent or desire, but rather by love. It was only when she heard Walter was dying that she selflessly decided to break him out. She’s emotionally deeper than her flashy exterior might convey, and that’s what keeps the reader and Spider-Man so interested in her. What Felicia didn’t know was that her father was the one who wanted her to believe he had died in a plane crash. Walter didn’t want Felicia tainted by his lifestyle. Unfortunately, his efforts resulted in the exact opposite. Still deluded, she told her father that “you would have been proud of the way I trained (...) I perfected your every move. Learned your every trick.” Dr. Ayala M. Pines, in her book Romantic Jealousy: Understanding and Conquering the Shadow of Love, tells us an “internalized romantic image” is developed “very early in life, based on powerful experiences we had during childhood. Our parents and other adults involved in raising us influence the development of our romantic image in two ways: the way they express, or don’t express, love toward us; and the way they express, or don’t express, love toward each other.” Felicia’s carefree and thrill-seeking rogue persona is an internalized romantic image of her father. Her attraction to a masked adventurer, like Spider-Man, follows that romantic image. Similarly, you don’t have to look far down her relationship list to see that pattern: the Foreigner, Thomas Fireheart (the Puma), and even the heroic jock, Flash Thompson.

OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE? The Black Cat returned almost a year later, in Amazing Spider-Man #204 (May 1980), when her criminal exploits once again caught Spider-Man’s attention. Her interest in Spider-Man escalated and bordered on obsessive-compulsive as she stole a variety of loveinspired object d’art to add to her Spider-Man collection. In the following issue, when cornered by Spider-Man in her hideout, Felicia proudly displayed a shrine devoted to him. Spider-Man was caught off guard by her obsession. Looking at this development, it isn’t hard to conceive that her emotional balance was shattered by the death of her father. Her mother didn’t approve of her following in her father’s footsteps, so there was no doubt Felicia was carrying around a lot of emotional baggage. A reasonable way to deal with such stressors was to turn towards the only other person she looked up to. “I like the men in my life to be a little mysterious!” Felicia remarked about SpiderMan in Amazing Spider-Man #194. How can you get more mysterious than a masked superhero? With her father dead, Spider-Man became a substitute father figure and new role model in the fictitious world she chose to wrap around herself. However, on another level, you can put together a theory that she was merely feigning her emotional issues to try and get out of having been caught. Former Spider-Man writer Roger Stern fills us in: “The Black Cat had already been shown to be clever and conniving, right up until the end of Amazing Spider-Man #205. That’s the issue where Spider-Man cornered Felicia in her lair, and discovered that she had a whole wall of photos devoted to him. He jumped to the conclusion that she had a psychotic obsession with him.

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Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend Black Cat at her slinkiest, in a 1986 Marvel poster illustration painted by Joe Jusko. Scan of the original art courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). © 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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“When three are called and stand as one … as one they’ll fight, their will be done … for each is born anew, the Tiger’s Son.” – Sons of the Tiger oath The Sons of the Tiger first appeared in The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #1 (Apr. 1974). Deadly Hands was a black-and-white anthology magazine that attempted to capitalize on the kung-fu craze of the early 1970s, most notably captured in the song “Kung Fu Fighting.” The first issue, edited by Don McGregor, included the origin story of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin, a non-fiction feature on kung-fu film legend Bruce Lee, and even an amazing Bruce Lee cover by Neal Adams. Also featured in this first issue was a story about a three-man martial-arts team called the Sons of the Tiger. This feature was written by Gerry Conway, who at the time was in the middle of his instantly classic Amazing Spider-Man run, and drawn by Dick Giordano, who already had achieved fame as an editor at Charlton and DC and as an artist on Batman. Giordano explains how he received the assignment: “Someone from Marvel called and asked if I would be interested in doing the assignment. I don’t recall who called but it was most likely Gerry or Roy Thomas. I said I was interested and that I liked working on Gerry’s scripts. The script arrived by mail at my studio.” While Giordano created the look of the characters, he says that he and Conway didn’t do much back-andforth collaboration in creating the Sons of the Tiger. “We didn’t come up with the characters,” says Giordano. “Gerry did. We actually did very little work together on Sons of the Tiger. I lived and worked in Connecticut and Gerry in New York. The characters were fully realized in Gerry’s script, and I created the visuals for them. Artists and writers seldom get together and hash out concepts or characters together. “I liked Gerry, still do when we meet. I will always accept assignments, sight unseen, when written by writers that I have enjoyed working with in the past.”

Barroom Brawl White Tiger shows ’em who’s the top cat in this dynamite painted cover by Earl Norem from the black-and-white Marvel magazine Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #27 (Aug. 1976). Special thanks to Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com) for the original art scan. © 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Bruce Buchanan

Working in a black-and-white magazine format presented its share of challenges and opportunities, as Giordano explains: “The page size is different—bigger—allowing for more room to spread out a drawing, and because there is no color, it is necessary for the artist to do additional rendering either by adding tonal values or rendering more heavily in ink. I chose the tone route because I had done some Dracula pages for Marvel in tone and enjoyed the experience. Other than that, the storytelling problems are about the same, as is the drawing skill set you bring to the table.” Giordano adds, “A side benefit of the B&W format magazines is that your work is reproduced bigger, looks better, and often is more dramatic, but this is just a show-off benefit!” The Sons of the Tiger returned to the pages of Deadly Hands in issue #3 (Aug. 1974), again with a story from Conway and Giordano. Conway worked with Don Perlin in the subsequent issue for a story entitled “Night of the Death-Dream.” The Sons of the Tiger got their first cover story in issue #6 (Nov. 1974), in a tale called “The Way of the Jackal” by Denny O’Neil (under the pseudonym of Jim Dennis) and a young, then-largely unknown artist named George Pérez. Marv Wolfman, the editor of the book, would later pair with Pérez on their now-legendary New Teen Titans run. Even at the time of “Sons of the Tiger,” Wolfman knew Pérez was something special, as he told BACK ISSUE back in this magazine’s first-ever issue: “You can teach perspective, you can teach anatomy, you can teach all that stuff, and a good artist is going to learn that fairly quickly, once they get a steady diet of work,” Wolfman said. “But, boy, there are people who have been in the business 30 years who still don’t know how to tell a story, and George had that from Day One.” In all, the Sons of the Tiger appeared in of 21 the 33 issues of The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu. Many of these stories were written by workhorse Marvel writer Bill Mantlo, who often teamed with Pérez.

Eyes of the Tiger

MY THREE SONS The Sons of the Tiger are Abe Brown, Bob Diamond, and Lin Sun. The three martial artists studied at the Tiger Dojo in San Francisco under Master Kee. One day, they return to the dojo to find that the place has been ransacked and Master Kee mortally wounded. Master Kee tells his disciples to open a box containing a set of jade tiger amulets—a tiger’s head and two tiger claws. These amulets give the three men increased power and martial-arts skill when they join hands and speak the above incantation. The three then set out to avenge their master and defeat the Silent Ones, an evil underground sect that murdered Master Kee. The Silent Ones are a mystical race of beings bent on world domination. All was going well for the Sons of the Tiger—until a woman came between then. The beautiful and dangerous Lotus Shinchuko showed up out of nowhere in Deadly Hands #8 (Jan. 1975) to help the boys in a fight with the Silent Ones. She explains she had escaped from the Silent Ones, but it turns out she really was still under their mental control and turns against the Sons of the Tiger. However, once the Sons remove the mind-control device from her neck, she truly joins the team and helps them destroy the Silent Ones once and for all. Along the way, Lotus and Bob Diamond become lovers. Cat People Issue

(left) Early George Pérez art on a Sons of the Tiger pinup. (above) Artist Dick Giordano’s textured art enlivened this Sons page from the black-and-white Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #1 (Apr. 1974). © 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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With this issue’s “Rough Stuff” we celebrate our furry, feline friends—both two- and four-legged. Didja ever notice that most characters associated with cats are usually of the villainous sort? Oh, sure, you’ll have the the occasional Felix the Cat or Wildcat, but for the most part, if there’s a cat involved, there’s sure to be trouble ahead. Take this nasty fellow, for instance—Mr. Jinks. He’s the bane of Pixie and Dixie’s existence, but not exactly the brightest bulb in the box. Here we have some preliminary pencil art for a Hanna-Barbera VHS collection of episodes by the wonderfully talented Len Smith.

To m Z i u k o

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This is a great example of the awesome cover pencils of the King, from later in his career—Jack Kirby’s take on Tigra, the Were-Woman [in Marvel Chillers #7, Oct. 1976], locked in battle with one of the Fantastic Four’s deadliest enemies, the Super-Skrull. TM & © 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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“It’s not the sight they expect to see! The rumpled girl in the borrowed costume is gone! Crouched in her place, claws gleaming in the feeble lamplight, is a far more impressive form … a far more sinister form. Even Iron Man catches his breath.” With the preceding words from The Avengers #144 (Feb. 1977), Captain America, Iron Man, and the readership of The Avengers were introduced to the Hellcat, Marvel Comics’ latest attempt to create a strong, independent female character who reflected the attitudes of and toward women in the 1970s.

TEEN QUEEN TIPTOES INTO THE MARVEL UNIVERSE by

Jonathan Miller

It was not the sight anyone had “expected to see.” Author Steve Englehart had taken 1940s teen-romance queen Patsy Walker and had her step into the role of the Cat, an ill-fated character that had debuted in her own title in 1974, which was subsequently canceled after only four issues. Despite having starred in her own title and numerous others for more than 20 years (see inset), Patsy Walker was probably unfamiliar to readers of superhero comics, coming from the world of romance (read: girls’) comics, and never theretofore had the two met. She was an unlikely candidate to become an action hero, but in two concurrent plotlines that had Marvel’s prestigious superteam meet the company’s greatest Western stars in addition to the former queen of its romance line, Englehart blurred the distinctions between genres and expanded the bounds of the Marvel Universe. Patsy and her best friend and erstwhile co-star Hedy Wolfe— Veronica to her Betty—made a cameo appearance as spectators at the wedding of Reed Richards to Sue Storm in 1963’s Fantastic Four Annual #3, establishing that they were part of the same continuity as the immensely popular line of superhero titles that ushered in the extinction of the genre the girls belonged to. Such a nod to the other types of entertainment the company produced was a knowing wink reminding readers that, whatever the style or subject matter, comic books were all essentially just lighthearted entertainment, not to be taken too seriously, and that regardless of one’s respective preference for talking animals, teen angst, or fantastic adventures, it did not exclude the enjoyment of the rest. Englehart took the idea one step further when he added Patsy to the supporting cast of Amazing Adventures with issue #13 (July 1972), in which the Beast, formerly of the X-Men, was appearing in an

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SWIMMING THROUGH THE AIR With the new costume in place, principal photography marched on without a hitch and, soon enough, most of the cast and crew departed for new adventures. Alton, however, remained, spending the next few weeks strapped into a harness in front of a blue screen, filming perhaps the movie’s most memorable scenes: the flying sequences. The summer before production started on The Pumaman, Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie promised audiences, “You will believe a man can fly.” Sure enough, that film’s revolutionary special effects gave motion-picture audiences the most realistic portrayal of a man in flight to date. Not to be outdone, director Alberto De Martino and his specialeffects team sought to bring the same sense of wonder to The Pumaman. Unfortunately, the results were not quite what they hoped for. Alton’s initial idea was to play the flying scenes much as Christopher Reeve had, with his body still and graceful. De Martino, however, had other ideas. “The director kept saying, ‘Kick your legs! Kick your legs!’” recalls Alton. “Their aim was to have the flying look pretty real. Unfortunately, the director was worried that, if I didn’t move, it would look fake, so he wanted to have me kick my legs and move my arms, like, and he would even say this, swimming through the air.” Sadly, the resulting image looks less like “swimming through the air” than it does desperate flailing, resulting in a much more comedic than graceful effect. “If you want the film to be a little funny or tongue-in-cheek or camp, then maybe that would be appropriate,” muses Alton, “but that’s not what they were thinking at the time that they shot it.”

THE LEGEND OF THE PUMAMAN With the flying scenes finally wrapped, Alton returned to America. Throughout production, the crew had been abuzz with the thought of a Pumaman 2 and even Pumaman 3, but no sequel ever materialized. The movie was rarely seen in America and proved even harder to find on video than in theaters. Alton himself did not get to see the finished product for quite some time, ultimately having to go to the trouble of converting a European PAL VHS tape to the North American NTSC standard in order to see it. As the years went on, The Pumaman became a more and more distant memory. Still, according to Alton, this fun, crazy movie has its fans: “I’ve gotten a couple of e-mails from people asking, ‘Are you 70 • BACK ISSUE • Cat People Issue

the fellow who played the Pumaman? If so, I want you to know that I grew up with the film and I’ve always loved it and I still watch it today with my kids and they love it,’ and I think that’s great.” Despite these fans, The Pumaman seemed destined to fade ever further into obscurity. That is, until 1998, when the cult-favorite cable TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000 featured The Pumaman in one of its more memorable episodes. For those readers who have never seen it, Mystery Science Theater 3000 features a man and two robots making wisecracks while silhouetted against a movie screen. Head writer and host Mike Nelson recalls particularly enjoying The Pumaman: “Every writer had his favorite movie, one that only he liked, and I liked The Pumaman. When a movie is dull and is just people talking and not lit well, it’s just not as fun. It’s fun to see when they stretch for some big concept, like The Pumaman, and actually go for it.” Nelson is also pleased that his show has helped bring The Pumaman and many other forgotten films back into the public eye: “I enjoy being somewhat of a curator and finding things that you think to yourself while watching it, ‘I think people would get a kick out of this.’ Most people don’t go out of their way to find really odd films, so it’s fun to find a movie like The Pumaman, where your jaw drops and you think, ‘How has nobody ever seen this? This must be shown to the world.’” And so, The Pumaman has returned to the public consciousness with a bigger splash than ever before. Clips of the movie, particularly the flying sequences, are favorites on the Internet, where the modern Pumaman fan can even buy everything from Pumaman T-shirts to bumper stickers. With Pumaman arguably more popular than ever, and with other ’80s films like Tron and the Indiana Jones series only now receiving long-awaited sequels, can it be long before Pumaman 2? ERIC HOUSTON is the author of The Comic Book Podcast Companion, also available from TwoMorrows, and while he does believe in the gods who came from space, it’s really more of a Christmas/Easter thing.

Scott E. Williams

The 1980s—a decade of buzzwords and catchphrases. Movies gave us the “mockumentary,” a type of comedy in which part of the joke was pretending that what we were seeing was real. TV gave us “dramedy,” a type of show that fell between drama and comedy without fitting nicely into either niche. For comics in the 1980s, the word was “deconstruction.” French writer Jacques Derrida apparently coined the word in the 1960s, using it to describe a difficult-to-define system of exhaustively examining a writing, in order to determine its various meanings. For Derrida, deconstruction was a means to an end— the end being showing that nothing had absolute meaning. In comics, the word came to represent an approach that would examine what motivates heroes and how their antics would play out on a world more realistic than the one Silver Age heroes had occupied. Two seminal works of the 1980s—Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen and Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns—would come to embody this approach. However, in Wisconsin, one American hero had beaten them to the punch. Moore’s Marvelman explored the real-world effect of a Superman–like character in a non-super world, starting in 1982, in Britain’s Warrior comics anthology. The character did not appear stateside until 1985, as Miracleman, published by Eclipse Comics. By the time Miracleman had debuted in the USA, the Badger had been kicking butts and deconstructing the superhero for two years.

“HE’D HAVE TO BE CRAZY” Initially published by Capital Comics, The Badger (inset) was a follow-up to Nexus, Capital’s science-fiction book about a man with vast powers who must use those powers to execute mass-murderers, regardless of mitigating circumstances. The ensuing examinations of complex moral choices and the consequences thereof rendered Nexus a successful and critically acclaimed comic. In 1983, Nexus co-creator (with artist extraordinaire Steve Rude) Mike Baron had an idea for a new book, one that would ask, “What would motivate a man to put on a colorful costume and fight crime?” Baron’s answer inspired The Badger, a book that would enjoy a 70-issue run, an oversized graphic novel, a four-issue miniseries, and a 1991 one-shot. “All the elements that made The Badger came together from a lot of different angles,” Baron says. “The first was that very question—why would someone

Crazy Cat Detail from Steve Rude’s cover art to The Badger #32 (Feb. 1988). Unless otherwise noted, Badger scans in this article are courtesy of Jim Sukman. Badger TM & © Mike Baron.

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Back Issue #40