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BLUE DEVIL PLASTIC MAN STAR COMICS JIM VALENTINO normalman INTERVIEW 11

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THE BRONZE AGE’S GOOFIEST SUPERMAN STORIES MARVEL FUN & GAMES MAGAZINE AND LOTS MORE FUN STUFF!

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY, BACK ISSUE magazine celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments like “Pro2Pro” (dialogue between professionals), “BackStage Pass” (behind-the-scenes of comicsbased media), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more!

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“Bronze Age B-Teams”! Defenders issue-byissue overview, Champions, Guardians of the Galaxy, Inhumans, PETER DAVID’s X-Factor, Teen Titans West, Legion of Substitute Heroes, an all-star chatfest of Doom Patrol interviews, plus art and commentary by ROSS ANDRU, SAL BUSCEMA, KEITH GIFFEN, TONY ISABELLA, PAUL KUPPERBERG, ERIK LARSEN, GEORGE PÉREZ, BOB ROZAKIS, cover by KEVIN NOWLAN.

“Bronze Age Team-Ups”! Marvel Team-Up and Two-in-One, Super-Villain Team-Up, CLAREMONT and SIMONSON’s X-Men/New Teen Titans, DC Comics Presents, SuperTeam Family, HANEY and APARO’s Batman of Earth-B(&B), Superman/Captain Marvel smackdowns, plus art and commentary by BUCKLER, ENGLEHART, GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, GIFFEN, LEVITZ, WEIN, and a classic GIL KANE cover inked anew by TERRY AUSTIN.

“Heroes Out of Time!” Batman: Gotham by Gaslight with MIGNOLA, WAID, and AUGUSTYN, Booster Gold with JURGENS, X-Men: Days of Future Past with CHRIS CLAREMONT, Bill & Ted with EVAN DORKIN, interview with P. CRAIG RUSSELL, “Pro2Pro” with Time Masters’ BOB WAYNE and LEWIS SHINER, Karate Kid, New Mutants: Asgardian Wars, and Kang. Mignola cover.

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“1970s and ‘80s Legion of Super-Heroes!” LEVITZ interview, the Legion’s Honored Dead, the Cosmic Boy miniseries, a Time Trapper history, the New Adventures of Superboy, Legion fantasy cover gallery by JOHN WATSON, plus BATES, COCKRUM, CONWAY, COLON, GIFFEN, GRELL, JANES, KUPPERBERG, LaROCQUE, LIGHTLE, SCHAFFENBERGER, SHERMAN, STATON, SWAN, WAID, & more! COCKRUM cover!

TENTH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! Revisit the 100th, 200th, 300th, 400th, and 500th issues of ‘70s and ‘80s favorites: Adventure, Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Batman, Brave & Bold, Casper, Detective, Flash, Green Lantern, Showcase, Superman, Thor, Wonder Woman, and more! With APARO, BARR, ENGLEHART, POLLARD, SEKOWSKY, SIMONSON, STATON, and WOLFMAN. DAN JURGENS and RAY McCARTHY cover.

“Incredible Hulk in the Bronze Age!” Looks into Hulk’s mind, his role as a team player, his TV show and cartoon, merchandising, Hulk newspaper strip, Teen Hulk, villain history of the Abomination, art and artifacts by SAL BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, PETER DAVID, KENNETH JOHNSON, BILL MANTLO, AL MILGROM, EARL NOREM, ROGER STERN, HERB TRIMPE, LEN WEIN, new cover by TRIMPE and GERHARD!

“Tryouts, One-Shots, & One-Hit Wonders”! Marvel Premiere, Marvel Spotlight, Marvel Feature, Strange Tales, Showcase, First Issue Special, New Talent Showcase, DC’s Dick Tracy tabloid, Sherlock Holmes, Marvel’s Generic Comic Books, Bat-Squad, Crusader, & Swashbuckler, with BRUNNER, CARDY, COLAN, FRADON, GRELL, PLOOG, TRIMPE, and an ARTHUR ADAMS “Clea” cover!

“Robots” issue! Cyborg, Metal Men, Robotman, Red Tornado, Mister Atom, the Vision, Jocasta, Shogun Warriors, and Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, plus the legacy of Brainiac! Featuring the riveting work of DARROW, GERBER, INFANTINO, PAUL KUPPERBERG, MILLER, MOENCH, PEREZ, SIMONSON, STATON, THOMAS, WOLFMAN, and more, behind a Metal Men cover by MICHAEL ALLRED.

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“Batman’s Partners!” MIKE W. BARR and ALAN DAVIS on their Detective Comics, Batman and the Outsiders, Nightwing flies solo, Man-Bat history, Commissioner Gordon, the last days of World’s Finest, Bat-Mite, the Batmobile, plus Dark Knight’s girl Robin! Featuring work by APARO, BUSIEK, DITKO, KRAFT, MILGROM, MILLER, PÉREZ, WOLFMAN, and more, with a cover by ALAN DAVIS and MARK FARMER.

“Bronze Age Fantastic Four!” The animated FF, the FF radio show of 1975, Human Torch goes solo, Galactus villain history, FF Mego figures… and the Impossible Man! Exploring work by RICH BUCKLER, JOHN BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, GEORGE PÉREZ, KEITH POLLARD, ROY THOMAS, LEN WEIN, MARV WOLFMAN, and more! Cover by KEITH POLLARD and JOE RUBINSTEIN.

“‘80s Independents!” In-depth looks at PAUL CHADWICK’s Concrete, DAVE SIM’s Cerebus the Aardvark, and RICHARD AND WENDY PINI’s Elfquest! Plus see ‘80s independent comics go Hollywood, DAVID SCROGGY remembers Pacific Comics, TRINA ROBBINS’ California Girls, and DENIS KITCHEN’s star-studded horror/sci-fi anthology Death Rattle. Cover by PAUL CHADWICK!

“Let’s Get Small!” Marvel’s Micronauts, The Atom in the Bronze Age, JAN STRNAD and GIL KANE’s Sword of the Atom, the rocky relationship of Ant-Man the Wasp, Gold Key’s Microbots, Super Jrs., DC Digests, and Marvel Value Stamps. Featuring the work of PAT BRODERICK, JACKSON GUICE, ELLIOT S! MAGGIN, BILL MANTLO, AL MILGROM, ALEX SAVIUK, ROGER STERN, LEN WEIN, & more. Cover by PAT BRODERICK!

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Volume 1, Number 77 December 2014 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, '90s, and Beyond!

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Fred Hembeck (a recreation of his cover for Marvel’s Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #86) COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek Jennifer Lambert Louise Le Pierres Marvel Comics Robert Menzies Allen Milgrom Dan Mishkin Tom Orzechowski Martin Pasko Trina Robbins Jim Salicrup Steve Skeates Bob Smith Anthony Snyder Andrew Standish Joe Staton Bryan D. Stroud Andrew Sullivan Ty Templeton Roy Thomas Jim Valentino Woozy Winks John Workman Eddy Zeno And very special thanks to…

Fred Hembeck

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BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 FLASHBACK: Plastic Man in the Bronze Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 The Pliable Pretzel bounced from revival to revival to Saturday morning television WHAT THE--?!: The Goofy Bronze Age Superman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 From burger-binging to super-cigars, the Man of Steel’s most madcap adventures PRINCE STREET NEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 Pull up a stool at Julie’s with Karl Heitmueller, Jr. and a buncha old chums FLASHBACK: Fun and Games Magazine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 The Marvelous world of Owen McCarron—with lots of Marvel puzzles! BEYOND CAPES: Marshall Rogers, Cap’n Quick, and a Foozle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32 This fun little Eclipse series was actually envisioned as a Superman team-up (?!) ART GALLERY: Hembeck’s Best of the Bronze Age Cover and Art Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . .35 Dozens of your favorite Bronze Age moments, in the frantic Fred Hembeck manner! INTERVIEW: Being normal: Jim Valentino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45 Trapped in a world he never made—normalman! FLASHBACK: Circuits & Sorcery: The Honest-to-Goodness Story of Blue Devil . . . . . . . .51 Speaking of the Devil are Mishkin and Cohn, Cullins, Kupperberg, and Gold BEYOND CAPES: Marvel for Kids: Star Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65 Marvel’s all-ages line was home to everything from Spider-Ham to Ewoks GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: Batman and Dick Tracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 Max Allan Collins and Joe Staton discuss the team-up that wasn’t (but shoulda been!) BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 Reader reaction to our Robots issue (#72) and more

BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Six-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 Fred Hembeck. Spider-Man and the Human Fly TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2014 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing, except Prince Street News, which is TM & © 2014 Karl Heitmueller, Jr. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. When Comics Were Fun Issue

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Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham, by and courtesy of Fred Hembeck. Spider-Ham TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Art © Fred Hembeck.

SPECIAL THANKS Cary Bates John Bell Liz Berube Tim Brown Jarrod Buttery Mark Ciemcioch Gary Cohn Max Allan Collins Paris Cullins Daniel DeAngelo Tom DeFalco Scott Edelman Robin Edminston Steve Englehart Mark Evanier Ramona Fradon Stephan Friedt Alan Gold Mike Gold Grand Comics Database Karl Heitmueller, Jr. Heritage Comics Auctions Alan Kupperberg Sid Jacobson

At age 56, I’ve had the opportunity to watch comic books mature along with me. The campy issues of Batman and Not Brand Echh I read in elementary school gave way as I aged into my teens to relevant stories involving topics like poverty and drug abuse. As I hit high school, harder-edged anti-heroes like the Punisher and Wolverine debuted and reflected the brutality of the world of the six o’clock news. During my 20s, in the 1980s, comics had reached adulthood, just like me, with Watchmen and Dark Knight viewing their characters through a realistic prism that took Marvel’s “heroes with problems” model and cranked it up to 11. Much of this metamorphosis was the result of a generation of fans of comic books who became the medium’s writers, artists, and editors, people who made superheroes and supervillains “real.” This street-level perspective has only intensified with the current generation of creators. As a result of this maturation of comics, our little corner of the entertainment world has since enjoyed unparalleled artistic, cultural, and commercial achievements. What once was perceived by intellectuals as the domain of lowbrows, what once was read in private, out of sight of judgmental parents or condescending peers, has now been elevated into a phenomenally successful, publicly lauded art form, in the process spawning one of Hollywood’s most lucrative movie genres, a #1 television sitcom and a variety of hour-long dramas, an explosion of merchandising, and the mushrooming fad of cosplay. Despite these triumphs, comic books themselves have so lost their innocence that we’re now used to heroes that kill without compunction and villains that maim, rape, and torture. That’s okay in some cases, I guess, but it’s become the norm. Even in film, where the premier superhero—one who supposedly stands for hope—snapped the neck of an adversary rather than finding an alternative way to stop him. With few exceptions, the tone in contemporary mainstream comics is depressingly bleak. These are our heroes? You might argue that these stories reflect the harsh realities of the post–9/11 world, that today’s comics offer our cynical culture what it wants, and that I’m a delusional old fart who’s burying his head in the sands of the past. No, my love of nostalgia doesn’t make me view “the good old days” with rose-colored glasses. During my youth, courageous people marched the streets to demand to be treated civilly and tromped through perilous Vietnamese swamps because Uncle Sam asked them to. Many of them died in their efforts, and kids like me could watch it all on the nightly news. The world has always been plagued by cruelty, depravity, and inequity—but previously, we looked to our heroes to inspire us to rise above that, to show us how to be better than those evils. Today’s heroes don’t inspire us, they avenge us. We don’t look up to them, we’re simply glad they’re there to take down the scumbags who are

A pre–Identity Crisis Elongated Man connects with BACK ISSUE’s readers in this sketch by the fun-loving Ty Templeton, from the collection of Tim Brown. TM & © DC Comics. Art © Ty Templeton.

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Michael Eury

dirtier than they. Or we vicariously live out our revenge fantasies through their violence. Luckily, not every comic published today shares these values. There are retro titles starring heroes of yesteryear, and a smattering of humor comics whose goal is to make you smile. If you’re feeling disenfranchised by the mainstream, then seek out and support those series. And if you are longtime comics reader who fondly remembers the era when comics weren’t so darn grim, then this is the issue for you! Join us as we turn back the clock to a time when a publisher would promote a new series as being “fun.” When Fred Hembeck and Jim Valentino tickled our fannish funny bones. When Plastic Man and Blue Devil offered a lighthearted approach to superheroics. When the House of Ideas produced an entire line for kids. Join us as we flash back to a time when comics were fun!

In 1941, superhero comic books were very much in their infancy. Following the breakout successes of Superman and Batman, publishers sprang up like daisies with their own offerings to cash in on the newfound popularity of the union-suiters. Quality Comics was one of the more successful contenders, and in Police Comics #1 (Aug. 1941) a number of new heroes were rolled out in the anthology. While the featured character was Reed Crandall’s Firebrand, another member of the roster would soon dominate the title, pushing his way to the cover beginning with issue #5, never again relegated to the sidelines. Enter Jack Cole’s immortal and perfectly pliable Plastic Man!

THE ORIGIN OF PLASTIC MAN

Bryan D. Stroud

Right from the start, “Plas” was different. Not only did he gain his incredible abilities by accident, he had no notions of becoming a superhero at all, because Patrick “Eel” O’Brian was a criminal. In that debut story, he is in the midst of cracking a safe at the Crawford Chemical Works with other thugs when a night watchman discovers the caper. As Eel and the gang make a break for it, O’Brian suffers a gunshot wound and slams into a vat of acid, spilling some onto himself. Proving that there is no honor among thieves, his fellow partners in crime ditch him when he doesn’t make it to the getaway car in time. Staggering through a swamp and up a mountainside to make his escape, O’Brian grows weaker and weaker, ultimately losing consciousness. The next morning he finds himself being administered to by a kindly monk, who explains that he found Eel on the trail and later turned away the police who were searching for him. When queried, the monk continues that he sensed that, if given a chance, O’Brian could become a valuable citizen. Eel explains that he’d been orphaned and pushed around and decided to begin pushing back, but this act of kindness is changing his outlook. Eel’s outlook isn’t all that’s changed, however, and he soon discovers his body has become incredibly malleable with a nearly limitless ability to stretch. He deduces that the acid entered his bloodstream through the gunshot wound and effected this change. An epiphany strikes O’Brian as he concludes that this new ability would afford him the opportunity to atone and to become a crimefighter. Getting straight to work, he rejoins his gang for their next caper, but only after getting a “suit of rubber.” Biding his time as driver of the getaway car, O’Brian changes into costume, complete with darklensed, white-framed goggles, and the thieves soon see a pair of massive hands on elongated arms reaching for them from an upper-level elevator entrance. Using

Stretching Out Detail from the cover of Plastic Man #11 (Feb.–Mar. 1976), the Pliable Pretzel’s Bronze Age premiere issue. Cover art by Ramona Fradon and Tenny [Teny] Henson. TM & © DC Comics.

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covering gunfire they temporarily escape the clutches of Plastic Man, only to be ambushed by a red rug (actually Plastic Man) at the foot of the stairwell. Two members make it to the rooftop and push the pursuing hero over the edge—but, of course, Plastic Man bounces harmlessly against the pavement and swiftly switches back to his Eel persona. The remaining members of the gang pile into the sedan and O’Brian mashes on the accelerator, while his left arm snakes out the window and around the back of the car into the other side, grabbing the henchmen and depositing them at police HQ without the realization that it was their fellow crook acting as “the long arm of the law.”

A GOLDEN AGE HIT

jack cole

Plastic Man’s concept was in enough demand by readers that his own self-titled book hit the stands with a first issue cover-dated Summer 1943 while he continued to appear in the pages of Police Comics. While Plastic Man began as a quarterly, it added up to four new stories per issue to supplement the demand. Initially, Plas’ abilities seemed to be limited primarily to stretching, flattening himself out, and using the gimmick of altering his facial features to become a true master of disguise. It didn’t take long, however, for the imagination of Jack Cole to exploit the endless possibilities available. Soon, Plastic Man was emerging from keyholes and under doors and assaulting criminals from their own gun barrels. His shape-shifting began to become more sophisticated and his body would become hoops or drag chutes as the criminal element grew more and more to be walking caricatures. Plas led a double life for a time, using his Eel O’Brian identity to keep his finger on the pulse of the crime world, but ultimately he retired his alter ego to become a full-time crimefighter. In Police Comics #13 (Nov. 1942), he gained a partner: Woozy Winks. In that same issue, Plas’ abilities evolved further when he changed himself into a chair to do some surveillance and to get the drop on the bad guys. From there, it was no turning back, and any time you saw a lamp, piece of furniture, or other object in a brilliant red color, odds were that Plastic Man was doing some woozy winks detective work and would soon spring into action. Cole eventually left his creation, with TM & © DC Comics. other writers and artists producing Plas stories but never quite capturing the magic the character’s creator had established. Quality Comics was a going concern for over two decades, but as sales began to decline the company decided to throw in the towel. The last comics to bear the Quality logo had a publication date of Dec. 1956. National (DC) Comics then purchased a number of characters from Quality’s inventory and initially continued publication of Blackhawk, G.I. Combat, Heart Throbs, and Robin Hood Tales, but strangely enough, Plastic Man was left in limbo.

A SILVER AGE REVIVAL The first viable stretchable superhero would not lie in wait for long, though, and his first “trial run” was in the pages of the House of Mystery, specifically issue #160 (July 1966), in the “Dial H for Hero” lead feature. Robby Reed uses his strange dial to become a random hero and the

Madcap Master Cover to Police Comics #76 (Mar. 1948), by Plastic Man creator Jack Cole (inset). Cole was a remarkable, yet tragic, figure. We heartily recommend the biographies Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits (2001), by Art Spiegelman and Chip Kidd, and Focus on Jack Cole (1986), by Ron Goulart. (bottom) Woozy drops in on Plas on Cole’s cover to Plastic Man #4 (Summer 1946). TM & © DC Comics.

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story’s third transformation is that of Plastic Man. This story would serve as inspiration for another tale of Plas that we’ll get to later. Later that same year, Plas was again given his own bimonthly DC title, but it was actually revealed that this was the son of the original Plastic Man in the series. He had a recurring battle with Dr. Dome and there were some consistent supporting characters, but after some changes in creative personnel (Arnold Drake’s scripts were drawn by Gil Kane, Win Mortimer, and Jack Sparling), the title was canceled in 1967 after a ten-issue run. Plas also bounced into a team-up with Batman in The Brave and the Bold #76 (above). There is an apocryphal story told that superstar DC editor Julie Schwartz, who helped create the Elongated Man in 1960, either didn’t know or had forgotten that DC owned Plastic Man. Presumably DC wouldn’t have come up with another stretchable sleuth if they’d realized Plas was already in the stable. It did make for at least one memorable exchange between the two characters in the pages of the Justice series of 2005–2007 when Ralph (Elongated Man) Dibny confronts Plas about not being a card-carrying member of the Justice League while Plastic Man retorts that there’s room for two stretchy guys—and to illustrate his point, he shape-shifts into a classic version of Captain Marvel, arguing that perhaps Cap is too similar to Superman to be in the same Justice League. Perhaps this was a wink to DC’s legendary Superman vs. Captain Marvel lawsuit with Fawcett Publishing, or maybe it was a demonstration of the most fundamental difference between the two characters, namely that while they can both stretch, Plastic Man is a true shape-shifter, while the Elongated Man is additionally renowned for his formidable skills as a detective. This fact is even alluded to, albeit somewhat subtly, when Elongated Man took up residence in Detective Comics as a regular backup feature.

B&B SEEING YOU When at last we enter the Bronze Age, Plastic Man makes his debut in a rather unexpected setting. The cover describes it as “The Brave and the Bold’s Most Bizarre Team-Up” and it goes so far as to list it as “Batman and …?”—with only a teaser silhouette of a elongating guest-star to accompany the Darknight Detective on Neal Adams’ cover artwork of issue #95 (Apr.–May 1971). For all intents, this reads like a solo adventure of Batman until well past the mid-point of the book, when the World’s Greatest Detective starts getting some clandestine help from a mysterious figure that apparently has the power to shape-shift. Finally, at the story’s end, Plastic Man reveals himself in order to clear up a mystery and in the process confesses that he longs to be free of his pliable persona: “…how I hated being trapped inside that plastic clown! How I longed to be free … lead a normal life … know a woman’s love…” Plas had assumed a new identity courtesy of his ability to alter his features, in large measure to win the love of the wealthy businesswoman Ruby Ryder, but it had all backfired and the final panel reveals a When Comics Were Fun Issue

Bouncing Back Plas’ DC debut, with Robby Reed becoming the “New Old Hero” via his H-Dial in a story that would inspire a sequel a decade later from writer Steve Skeates. Cover to House of Mystery #160 (July 1966) by Jim Mooney. TM & © DC Comics.

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Recommended Reading Two admirable post-Cole takes on the Pliable Pretzel: (left) issue #1 (Nov. 1988) of a four-issue Plastic Man miniseries, with art by Hilary Barta; and (right) Kyle Baker’s Plastic Man #1 (Feb. 2004). TM & © DC Comics.

episodes of Plastic Man and they ordered a couple of other cartoon shows. One was called Rickety Rocket and one called Mighty Man and Yukk, and they ordered some short cartoons of Fangface to keep that character alive. They rolled it all up into a two-hour block called The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show. “So the initial 13 Plastic Man episodes we did premiered as a half-hour series on ABC and they aired it as part of this big block. We did more episodes of Plastic Man, and I did some Rickety Rockets and other people did Mighty Man and Yukk and others did the Fangfaces, and I think they were viewed as a two-hour block. Then, after a couple of weeks, they decided one of the elements, Rickety Rocket, wasn’t working and they cut that out, leaving a 90-minute show. Then, I think it was the following year, there was a shorter version. The point is that we did Season One and Season Two at the same time. We did Season One and they did Season Two and aired them the same year. [laughs] A season at that time was 13 or 16 episodes, and they ordered Season Two in time to air simultaneously with Season One. The semantics are a little odd on it, but it was on for a while and it was a modest hit.” As discussed way back in BACK ISSUE #3, around this time Plastic Man also appeared on television in live-action—yes, you read that right, live-action. “Then they put [the Plastic Man cartoons] into syndication and they did some live-action wraparounds,” Evanier explains. “They got an actor and made him up to look like Plastic Man and then taped segments where he introduced the cartoon in syndication and almost nobody saw them. They did exist. “There was also a Plastic Man primetime special which I did write which aired once on the Sunday before the show debuted on ABC [on the following Saturday]. That Sunday night, they ran an episode like a preview special and I wrote that one. It only aired once and never reran. I may have only copy that exists in the world. “I was writing Plastic Man and some other shows and Steve Gerber was out of work, having been fired by Marvel,” Evanier remembers, “and I went to Joe Ruby and said, ‘Hey, this guy’s good. You should use him.’ Joe said, ‘Okay, if you say he’s good and if you’re willing to re-write his work if it isn’t to standards.’ ‘Okay, fine.’ So Steve wrote a couple of them and Steve in turn recommended Marty Pasko and a few other people in the comic-book business. That’s how Marty got involved with Ruby-Spears, although he didn’t do any work on Plastic Man.” 16 • BACK ISSUE • When Comics Were Fun Issue

While very different from DC’s or Jack Cole’s Plastic Man comic books, ABC-TV’s Plas on occasion referenced the comics, thanks to Mark Evanier. “The Plastic Man TV show didn’t have that much to do with the comic books,” he says. “I actually snuck in a few references to the books. For example in this one episode I named a character Jack Cole and in another episode Plastic Man decides to disguise himself as a gangster and I named that character Eel O’Brian. Just a couple of things to make people in the know who were watching the show think, ‘Oh, these people have actually read the comic book.’ In one of the episodes Gerber did, I think they adapted an idea from the DC version that was done by Arnold Drake. They used one of his villains. Dr. Dome, I think it was. “The problem with writing a cartoon show is that you write them and by the time they’re done, you’ve forgotten the whole show. You’re on to other things. So I didn’t read Gerber’s scripts when he did them and by the time they aired, Plastic Man was history to me. I wasn’t doing it any more. So I didn’t pay attention to the other episodes, I just watched mine to see how they’d botched them up. [chuckles] They did a good job, generally speaking.” After the Bronze Age, Plas has bounced in and out of DC continuity on several occasions, including his own 1988 miniseries, as a Jim Carreylike member of the Justice League, and in a Kyle Baker-produced series which ran 20 issues beginning in 2004. Whether in animated form or on comic-book pages, Jack Cole’s Plastic Man has kept us entertained for over seven decades with absurd adventures, outrageous villains, and unending fun as he molded himself into whatever would best deal with the situation at hand. So the next time you see something familiar, yet a bit out of place, and in a bright shade of red, you can bet that Plastic Man is on the job. BRYAN STROUD is a longtime fan of DC Comics, particularly the Silver and Bronze Ages, and has been contributing to the website of his lifelong best friend, Ron Daudt, for over a decade, doing reviews of those classics. Beginning in 2007, Bryan seized an opportunity to begin interviewing the creators of the comics he’s loved and has been fortunate enough to conduct over 70 to date at www.thesilverlantern.com.

A COUPLE NOTES OF EXPLANATION

Eddy Zeno

Thanks to Superman sporting a lion’s head, an ant’s head, or Newman’s head (Alfred E. Newman, not Seinfeld’s neighbor), the word “goofy” has a longstanding tradition in the Man of Steel’s history. There were many silly foils, as well—including frequent flyers Mr. Mxyzptlk, Bizarro, and Ambush Bug. Mxy, Jerry Siegel’s derby-wearing, World War II comicrelief jokester; Bizarro, borne from Alvin Schwartz’s existential, “Beat”-writer mind; and Ambush Bug, Keith Giffen’s satirical, postmodernist villain-turnedcrimefighter: each fit his original era’s zeitgeist and all three continued through, and beyond, the years of BACK ISSUE’s purview. But instead of rehashing those long-running goobers’ appearances, this article instead chooses to explore the tales of characters and situations less likely to be skewered in the future. One more thing: a Silver Age comic-book story, titled “The Goofy Superman,” is certainly an inspiration for the many shenanigans rehashed herein. It appeared in Superman julius schwartz #163 (Aug. 1963): Clark winds up in an insane asylum after a loony spree caused by red kryptonite. That form of K itself was a harbinger of some of the looniest ideas ever and was rightfully banned from the Bronze Age. In spite of that, many Bronze-era tales share a crazy, if more nuanced, climate.

NEW PATHS, NEW NUTTINESS Scarfing burgers long before the Wally West Flash had to feed his raging metabolism; depriving a Popeye wannabe from his spinach-like sustenance; flying around with Super Perry White; and bursting onto the television set of Johnny Carson … er, Johnny Nevada: these were hints of the goofier things taking place in the main Superman titles during Julius “Julie” Schwartz’s editorial reign. But the quest for chuckles was often only part of what Julie wanted in a story. The same was true for most of his writers, as well. Cary Bates, for instance, liked a good mystery and the occasional science-fiction hook, and he definitely enjoyed throwing some pop-culture references into the mix. Cary also relished a little wackiness. Perhaps the most ludicrous recurring villain created by Bates was Terra-Man, born from the Spaghetti Westerns of 1960s cinema. Possessing 19th-Centurylooking gadgets like six-shooters and branding irons

You Want Fries with That? Superman’s burger binge (and a bevy of cute carhops) as seen in this detail from Bob Oksner’s cover to Action Comics #454 (Dec. 1975). TM & © DC Comics.

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which housed ultra-scientific innards, he was one tough hombre. He was also a goofy desperado out-of-time with his Old West lingo, magical chewin’ tobacco, and flying steed. In his first appearance (Superman #249, Mar. 1972), the Man of Steel had to defeat him while flying upside-down and spitting a bullet back into T-M’s gun barrel. The story even had an appearance by Archie and Edith (named Eydie in her cameo) Bunker from TV’s hit show of the time, All in the Family. Of his many showings, the gunslinger’s finest moment of absurdity occurred in Action Comics #469 (Mar. 1977), whose cover pictured Terra-Man riding a certain costumed hero while super bronco-

busting. Terra-Man was reincarnated with jetpacks and armor in the Modern Age. Now, that’s less fun! In an October 1980 interview that appeared in Comics Feature #8 (New Media Publishing), Bates related the need for humor to highlight the differences between Superman and his alter ego: “I remember the Clark/ Superman distinction started to be concentrated on again as early as 1973 or 1974. We decided to pay more attention to it. We brought in Steve Lombard to focus attention on Clark’s klutziness…” Recurring character Lombard was a retired NFL quarterback-turned-sportscaster. Always the popular jock, this Metropolis flirt was modeled after “Broadway Joe” Namath. Steve strived to show he was the bigger man via the practical jokes he played on news co-anchor Clark Kent. cary bates

SUPER-CIGARS AND PUFFS OF PERIL

When conniving an offbeat focus, writer Elliot S! Maggin used humorous elements for scene-stealing plot drivers. For instance, his super-cigars exploded onto the scene twice as cover props. The first time was in Action Comics #436 (June 1974). In “The Super-Cigars of Perry White,” Superman’s Daily Planet boss was gifted special smokes by mutants. And while one of Marvel Comics’ X-Men, Wolverine, enjoyed a good cigar as much as anyone, this was no crossover event between companies. Instead, Perry’s mutant benefactors were four-thumbed kids from outer space. Switching their power-granting cheroots for the ones sitting in his office, when White inhaled, he could have any ability he wished. Having no idea why he was suddenly super but taking it all in stride, Perry was down to one final stogie by the time he discovered the source of his power. So he locked it in his safe for some future emergency. A sequel of sorts occurred eight years later, in Superman #376 (Oct. 1982). Maggin’s writer-caused crisis began when a so-called supervillain shot an electrical discharge of tri-oxygen molecules from his hand into Perry White’s chest. The critically wounded Daily Planet editor was lying in a Metro General infirmary bed till the last of his super-smokes restored his vim and vigor. If flying skyward, hospital gown flapping in the wind, wasn’t embarrassing enough, the hyper-baddie that Perry and Superman defeated was named ... Ozone-Master. Hey, at least it was ozone and not methane gas emanating from the guy’s fingertips.

Buckin’ Bronco of Steel (top) And y’all thought that the Vigilante was DC’s only singing cowboy! Terra-Man carries a tune in this detail from the splash page of Superman #250 (Apr. 1972). (left) José Luis García-López’s absurd (but nicely drawn) cover to Action #469 (Mar. 1977). TM & © DC Comics.

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In Superman #346 (Apr. 1980), scribe Gerry Conway had Superman nearly incinerating Jimmy Olsen, Lana Lang, and Perry White, who was non-super this go-round. The joke was when Perry uttered, “Great Caesar’s ghost! My cigar can use a light—but this is ridiculous!” at the overkill of a flame-breathing Man of Steel. It was penciler Ross Andru and inker Dick Giordano’s overthe-top cover that sold the goofiness. Though interior artists Curt Swan and Frank Chiaramonte portrayed Supes subtly spouting his acetylene torch-breath over the heads of three Daily Planet and Galaxy network staffers, the cover’s hero instead was an infernobarfing Man of Tomorrow. Kal-El himself explained how such a barn-burning snafu likely occurred: from sucking the flames away from a burning dirigible, combined with the “freakish combination of chemicals I’ve inhaled…” Hey, it made sense at the time (???)! This same story also boasted a Johnny Nevada appearance. Nevada and his typical talk-show shtick appeared both during and after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, beginning in Action Comics #420 (Jan. 1973). It seems pretty silly to imagine a real-life Superman appearing with Johnny Carson during The Tonight Show host’s long tenure, and I don’t mean a thespian-like Christopher Reeve appearing in costume. Perhaps the closest thing to an actual network appearance occurred when George Reeves showed up in hero-togs and in character (without reference to the name of the actor listed as a guest star) on the I Love Lucy show back in 1957. So how did such a thing occur in the Conway-written Superman #346? It was courtesy of another bombastic

villain, Amos Fortune. Amos was the infamous comic-book discoverer of twin glands we humans possess, one which controls the good fortune we encounter and the other, the bad. Since Conway’s was a more sophisticated tale from the Bronze Age, instead of using a “stimoluck” device to affect the bad luck glands of several superheroes as he had way back in Justice League of America #6 (Aug.–Sept. 1961), this time the nefarious gambler invented the “Murphy machine.” Capitalizing on Murphy’s Law—that if anything can go wrong, it will—Fortune hid three of the contraptions inside the television cameras on Johnny Nevada’s latest stage. Reminiscent of Johnny Carson, who hosted Who Do You Trust before The Tonight Show, Nevada was now emceeing a charity TV program called The Money Game. When the Metropolis Marvel discovered how he’d been adversely affected by the Murphy machines, he crashed through the studio wall, where an audience member yelled the obvious but with added flair: “Wowza! It’s Superman!” Other fun dialect included “shtumies,” “spiel,” and “shlumps.” The story also boasted athletic schlemiel Steve Lombard and harried, dyspeptic WGBS news director Josh Coyle for further comic relief. Even Amos Fortune’s original bad haircut a là Roman emperor Nero was brought back in this champion tale of whimsy.

Ssssmokin’! (left) Perry White lights up for action on this splash to Action Comics #436 (June 1974). (right) The Action Ace flames on in Superman #346 (Apr. 1980). Cover by Ross Andru and Dick Giordano. TM & © DC Comics.

“I’M POPEYE/HORATIO/BIBBO THE SAILOR MAN” Popeye-inspired Captain Horatio Strong first appeared in Action Comics #421 (Feb. 1973). Just as super-cigars fashioned by space aliens could empower Perry White,

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Jarrod Buttery

Marvel’s Puzzle-Master Owen McCarron (1929–2005), the man behind Marvel Fun and Games Magazine. Photos courtesy of John Bell, from his book Invaders from the North, and an anonymous member of the McCarron family. Cover and characters TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel’s comic-sized Fun and Games Magazine premiered with a cover date of September 1979. Issue #1 advertised “Word Games, Puzzles, Riddles, Surprises” and proclaimed, “All you need is a pencil.” The comic was packed with puzzles—all based on Marvel characters. There were mazes, spot-the-difference tests, word finds, trivia questions, coded messages, character identifications, and more—although for this first issue, the only riddle was, “Why does Iron Man want to be on Broadway?” (He thinks he can win a Tony Award.) The first issue naturally featured heavyweights like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Storm, and the Thing, but lesser-known characters were also featured prominently. We had to navigate a maze through Stingray’s wings, decipher character names partially rubbed out by the Living Eraser, and match secret identities to Torpedo, Blackout, and Thunderbolt, among others. The Hulk asked us to circle the issue number (multiple choice) in which listed characters—such as Jarella, Wendigo, Captain Omen, and Klaatu—made their debut. Fortunately, all the answers were provided at the back of the book. A much-wrinkled Stan Lee greeted us on the first interior page— wrinkled because his face had been turned into a maze. Underneath, we were told that “Our talented titan of trickery, good ol’ Owen McCarron, has created some of the most dynamite brainteasers you’ve ever tackled— so what are you waiting for? Grab yourself a pencil and go! You’re gonna flip over every far-out page!” Indeed, the only credits for the comic were: “Written, drawn, and edited by Owen ‘Puzzle-Master’ McCarron.”

THE PUZZLE-MASTER Owen McCarron was born in 1929 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Straight out of school he entered the newspaper industry, where he worked for many years, and which allowed him to pursue his love of 26 • BACK ISSUE • When Comics Were Fun Issue

comics and drawing. Owen passed away at home on June 27, 2005, at age 76. Providing an insight into his early life, and the profound effect that supportive educators can have on young minds, Owen McCarron bid farewell to his favorite teacher in The Chronicle-Herald newspaper on January 31st, 1995: “On January 16, Eileen Burns passed away. She had been one of my many teachers in high school— with a major difference. While she was a great teacher, I certainly wasn’t much of a student. I was killing time and I lived to draw. The two of us would be drawn together because of this. “She ran the school library—she WAS the school library. It was her passion. Because she was aware of my love of drawing, she invited me to do a number of posters for her library to promote reading. She liked what I did and rewarded me with a book entitled Comics and Their Creators. This was back in 1946. The book has never left my sight. It was my bible— my inspiration. One day, if only my name might be in such a book. “As fate would have it, that summer I left school and was lucky enough to land a high-paying job ($15 per week) in the display advertising department of The Halifax Herald Limited. The die was cast.” (The Herald later merged with The Chronicle, becoming The Chronicle-Herald.) “In 1978, I thought I would call Miss Burns. I said to her, ‘I had to call you. You are always in my thoughts. I know you won’t remember me. My name is Owen McCarron.’ But she did remember; she had seen a lot of my work over the years and was very proud of me. We talked for a half-hour. She wanted to know everything; I told her everything. “In her obituary, dozens of things were outlined that were close to her heart, and many of her achievements, too. One achievement was absent: ‘She inspired Owen McCarron to do what he was born to do.’ Goodbye, Miss Burns.”

COMIC BOOK WORLD Alter Ego #36 (May 2004) featured the fascinating article, “The Golden Age of Canadian Comic Books and Its Aftermath.” Therein, John Bell described the rise and fall of the 1940s–1950s Canadian comic industry. From the late 1950s through the ’60s, the only original Canadian comic books were giveaways, often commissioned by corporations and government agencies. Both Ganes Productions and Comic Book World produced dozens of these educational giveaways. Bell stated: “Comic Book World was the brainchild of Owen McCarron. Unlike Ganes’ comic books, which were often smaller than regular comics and generally devoid of word balloons, McCarron’s giveaways more closely resembled conventional newsstand comics. Comic Book World produced mostly full-color comics that were distinguished by bold, engaging artwork and reasonably solid storylines. This professionalism would eventually bring McCarron to the attention of Marvel Comics and Whitman Publishing in the US.” John Bell is the author of the books Canuck Comics: A Guide to Comic Books Published in Canada (Matrix Books, 1986) and Invaders from the North: How Canada Conquered the Comic Book Universe (Dundurn Press, 2006). He spoke with McCarron a few times on the phone, and met him once, and kindly shared his recollections with BACK ISSUE: “Owen worked for more than 30 years in the advertising department of Halifax’s leading newspaper, The Chronicle-Herald, where he developed considerable expertise in the area of production, including design, layout, and coloring techniques. “In 1965, McCarron, together with a friend, the writer Robin Edmiston, launched a studio, Comic Page Features (later renamed Comic Book World), that was designed to produce promotional and educational materials aimed primarily at children. One of their first publications was a giveaway comic for the Australian-Canadian magician, Reveen. Dozens of giveaways for businesses and various levels of government soon followed. In addition to more than 30 comics, they produced numerous coloring books and fun books, as well as newspaper supplements that combined puzzles, games, comics, and coloring pages.” Robin Edmiston elaborates: “Owen McCarron and I worked together at The Halifax Herald Ltd. I joined the firm in 1953. Besides our work in the advertising department, we collaborated (on our own time) on a number of comic books—me writing and roughing out the pages, Owen doing the art and production— for clients such as KFC, Gulf Oil, Stan also wrote: “I just can’t sign Ski-Doo, and Wayne and Shuster. off without first thanking our owen mccarron Owen retired from The Herald in titanically talented Canadian cousin, 1978 and I in 1991.” Owen McCarron, for the brilliant job he did in formulating and illustrating the material for MIGHTY MARVEL SUPERHERO FUN BOOKS With his dual loves of comic books and entertainment this book. His clever concepts and delightful drawings for children, McCarron had big plans. In 1975, he travelled make me wish I were a kid again.” The first Fun Book was filled with mazes, word to New York to sell his idea to Stan Lee. The meeting was obviously a success. 1976 saw the publication of games, riddles, and puzzles; a Rhyming Romp with Dr. the first black-and-white Mighty Marvel Superheroes Doom (how many words can you rhyme with DOOM?); Fun Book—written and illustrated by Owen McCarron. and the eyebrow-raising “Change Stan Lee to Lady Sif” Stan Lee’s preface stated: “On each of the following (in 7 easy steps)! Fun Book #2 followed in 1977, and #3 pages you’ll find Marvel’s greatest costumed characters, in 1978. In a Chronicle-Herald article from September 3, the most famous superheroes of all, waiting to help 1977, McCarron explained, “The Fun Books are written, you sharpen your wits with some of the cleverest designed, and illustrated by me. I have to produce some kind of concept for a puzzle page, research it through puzzles, riddles, and games you’ve ever seen!” back-issues of their magazines to see if it is workable, When Comics Were Fun Issue

You Probably Missed These Two… (top left) Cover of Comic Book World’s Auntie Litter, with art by Robin Edmiston and Owen McCarron. (top right) McCarron’s Reeveen and Sons Unlimited comic book. Who’s this magic man, you ask? Jarrod Buttery provides this info: “Peter Reveen was born in South Australia in 1935. In 1961, he traveled to Canada, soon finding fame as an illusionist and stage hypnotist. His website proudly proclaims: ‘He was immortalized in a 1960s comic book, Reveen & Sons Unlimited.’” (bottom) McCarron’s 2006 Joe Shuster Award. © the respective copyright holders.

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It all started in Eclipse Comics’ Eclipse, the Magazine #1 (May 1981) … a 19-page black-and-white story entitled “The Slab” … written by Steve Englehart, drawn and inked by Marshall Rogers, and lettered by Tom Orzechowski. That’s how the readers were first introduced to the characters, but the story actually started before that. Steve Englehart gives us the origin: “Well, let’s see … I wrote a story for DC Comics Presents starring Superman and the Creeper. I had written one before, and this was a new one. But before I turned it into Julie Schwartz, a good editor, I discovered that the editor of another title had offered me more money than he was supposed to, and management wouldn’t come through even though I’d done the job, so I took all my stories and walked. “I had no plan—What was I going to do with DC-specific stories if I didn’t sell them to DC?—but that very afternoon, Jan and Dean Mullaney bought them for the price DC had promised to start their new [Eclipse] magazine line. “So Marshall Rogers, who was going to draw the Superman/Creeper story, sat down and riffed on it. He steve englehart turned Superman into a little girl and the Creeper into the Foozle, and I rewrote dialogue as needed. Marshall later spun the Foozle into his own series, which he wrote himself, and since it was pretty much his creation, I renounced my rights to him … er, it…” (Excerpt from www.steveenglehart.com, reprinted with permission.) Steve further elaborates for BACK ISSUE: “Well, I’d been out of the country when [Marshall] and Terry [Austin] drew the Batman [in Detective Comics], and I returned from Europe to California, while Marshall was in New York, so I’d only known him briefly at this time. But I was in New York for some reason when I turned down DC’s offer to pay me less than they’d agreed to for the scripts I’d written, so I called Marshall to tell him what DC had done (DC being the source of our connection, obviously). And I’m pretty sure he said something like, ‘I know the Mullaney brothers and Eclipse. Let’s see if they want to buy them and I’ll draw them.’ I met up with him and we went to the Mullaneys’ apartment, where they agreed on the spot to buy the scripts, the same day DC tried its bait and switch. “Since the scripts involved DC characters, they had to be reworked. I was more committed to [our] mystic character (Madame Xanadu, who became Scorpio Rose) than the Superman/Creeper one-shot, so I reworked Rose, while I gave the team-up script to Marshall and told him to do whatever he wanted with

“A Funny Fantasy” Cover to Marshall Rogers’ Cap’n Quick and a Foozle #1 (July 1984), from Eclipse Comics. All scans in the article are courtesy of Stephan Friedt. © Marshall Rogers Estate.

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Stephan Friedt

it. One of the things he wanted was to turn the Creeper into the tables and a filing cabinet. He’d cut a square out of the center of his table Foozle and Superman into a little girl (typical Marshall), and I was and put a piece of glass there, with a florescent light mounted behind. good with that, so he did his thing and the Foozle was born. This supplied a lightbox at a whim, the better with which to do those “Later, we agreed that he could have all rights to the Foozle and I’d complicated cityscapes. Marshall liked his easy vices, with coffee and a have all rights to Scorpio Rose, since that reflected our amounts of input.” cigarette always at hand. He had the best smile I think I’ve ever seen. In that first Foozle story (originally in black and white in Eclipse, Life was good; the work offers were frequent, diverse, and satisfying. the Magazine #1; reprinted in color in The Foozle #3), we start out in an “His focus on detail went beyond the cityscapes. One job, which advanced city on an unnamed futuristic alien world and are introduced may have been Howard the Duck, featured a shark. While I worked to Klonsbon the Foozle and S-329, Agent of Storbor. Thanks to all that night on an X-Men book, Marshall labored on every panel, advances in science, both are disguised as female adults. Klonsbon is loading that shark down with scales. The next morning, one of the disguised as “Sweeny,” a reporter for a tabloid in search of stories guys pointed out that sharks don’t have scales. Oops. I’m pretty sure exposing the “Big Blue Boss” running the society. In reality, Klonsbon it went to print that way. is a big, black bird that looks like a cross between a dodo and “I don’t think I heard about the brainstorming behind large, pudgy, talking crow the size of a bulldog … playing Eclipse Monthly magazine’s Foozle story, which Steve the part that would have been the Creeper. Englehart scripted over Marshall’s art. All I remember S-329 is an agent for the ruling faction, “Storbor,” is that it was totally nuts … and a splash page with a disguised as “Hanna,” a Global News anchorwoman large Foozle figure banking as it flew toward us, a but in reality the young girl playing the part that detailed cityscape dominating the background. The would have gone to Superman. deadline was so close that I’d hand the lettered After a brief confrontation, our two main pages to Marshall and he’d ink them immediately. characters part ways. Klonsbon runs into an old friend, I commented to Marshall at the time that the guy an investigative photojournalist, who will further who was inking the second half was much better intertwine their destinies. The photojournalist is soon than the guy who’d inked the first. I was rewarded caught in a chemical explosion while spying on with another of those trademark smiles. criminals and transformed into our main protagonist. “It was a strange but comforting reality bubble, Meanwhile, S-329 has shed her disguise and that little studio. If it measured more than 5' x 10', marshall rogers heads out on her aerial patrol of the city and soon I’d be surprised. When you’ve got the patience and investigates the appearance of “the Slab,” a man Portrait by Michael Netzer. intellectual capacity to draw a city in three-point made of what appears to be molten steel, who needs to absorb minerals perspective, the size of the studio room is just a background detail, I guess.” on a regular basis … apparently in the form of human beings … or he Author Don McGregor further expounded on Marshall’s love turns into anti-matter and explodes (our unfortunate photojournalist). of cityscapes in his remembrance published in the deluxe edition How these three characters intertwine is the rest of the story. of Detectives, Inc. (Excerpt reprinted here by permission. © 2014 That first story was lettered by professional letterer Tom Don McGregor.) Orzechowski. Tom reminisces with BACK ISSUE about those days: “Marshall was fearless in his art. I had come to realize during my “Marshall and I shared a small studio room at Continuity Associates first years of creating comics that it wasn’t only publishers or editors for a year or so, somewhere between ’78 and ’81. At this time, he drew who could limit what you could do in this medium, sometimes it the Detectives, Inc. graphic novel, as well as his story for Howard the Duck could come from the artist drawing the script. Marshall never Magazine #8, both of which I lettered. We often worked into the wee flinched when it came to sexuality in the strip, straight or gay; he hours, as the passage of time was a fairly abstract thing in an area with illustrated it honestly and daringly. late-night delis. The room was exactly large enough for two drawing “I couldn’t know, then, how lucky I was on another front, because Marshall had such a background in architecture, but I wanted the New York boroughs to be an integral part of the series. You want to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood see Manhattan and environs in the 1980s, just look at Marshall’s renderings of the Weather Castle in Central Park, or a housing tract (below, left to right) Dean Mullaney, Tom in Queens, or 42nd Street. Orzechowski, and Marshall Rogers in the apartment “His sense of design was wondrous. When I gave him simultaneous events alternating with each other, he embraced and embellished shared by Marshall and art dealer Tony Dispoto. upon it. When I asked for ten panels on page, and thought he’d Photo by Jan Mullaney, courtesy of Dean Mullaney. want to kill me, he gave me 15, because he knew it would add to the effect, the flow of narration, of character and movement. I had (right) From Eclipse Monthly #1, page 1. a sequence with flashbacks in it, sometimes from one character, Cap’n Quick and a Foozle © Marshall Rogers Estate.

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DAREDEVIL #175 (Oct. 1981) After Frank Miller and Klaus Janson TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Art © Fred Hembeck.

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Michael Eury

conducted by email in January 2014

In late 1983, a really funny superhero parody from a brand-new creative talent premiered as a backup in a couple issues of Dave Sim’s Cerebus the Aardvark (which we covered two issues ago)—not necessarily as much of a stretch for the long-running indie title as you might think since Cerebus itself, in its earliest days, was known for its take-offs of sword-and-sorcery and superhero comics (with characters like Red Sophia and Wolveroach). It wasn’t long before this backup—Jim Valentino’s normalman (yes, with lower-case “n”)—took on a life of its own, spinning off into its own series, with normalman #1 being released in January 1984 (the same month the creator’s first son, Aaron Valentino, was born). normalman’s titular star was a CPA’s son who was rocketed from the planet Arnold before it exploded … only it didn’t explode, ticking off the now-childless Mom in a big way. Two decades pass and the alien, now grown, lands on a world where his abilities make him unique among its populace—although in an inspired twist on Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s Superman origin, Valentino’s normalman is the only person on his new world—Levram (read it backwards, Zatanna)—who does not have superpowers. normalman ran for 12 issues plus a 3-D annual in 1984 and 1985, and the hero resurfaced a few other times for team-ups and specials. The series wasn’t merely a parody of comics and pop culture—it provided a narrative that included struggles for identity and love. “norm” was accompanied by a large and fluid cast including mainstays Captain Everything, Sophisticated Lady, the Ulra-Conservative, and Sgt. Fluffy, Agent of S.C.H.M.U.C.K. And it had a lot of running gags (the Legion of Superfluous Heroes’ never-ending roll call, for example). It was a delightful romp from a writer/ artist who would later achieve acclaim on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and his own creation, Image’s ShadowHawk, and it was collected in 2007 in the meaty (436 pages!) Image/Shadowline trade paperback, The Complete normalman. Jim Valentino was kind enough to clear away the cobwebs of 30 years of living and producing funnybooks to revisit his breakthrough series with BACK ISSUE and shed light on questions that have plagued readers for jim valentino decades—like, “What does S.C.H.M.U.C.K. stand for??” Photo by Luigi Novi. – Michael Eury MICHAEL EURY: What’s the origin of normalman, the concept? How and when did you come up with the idea? JIM VALENTINO: There was this guy I knew in San Diego named David Clark. David was a frequent collaborator of John Pound’s, their most infamous creation being a funny-animal character named Flip, the Bird (gotta love that name!). At any rate, David told me of this idea he had for a series of vignettes called “Tales of the Innocent Bystander.” This series would be about a nebbish of a guy who was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. When Deni asked if I had any ideas for a series I recalled David’s idea and asked him if I could appropriate it. I placed it in a world full of super-beings and named it after the part of San Diego I used to live in, Normal Heights. EURY: Were you published before your first normalman story? VALENTINO: Yes, I’d been published for a few years—both selfpublished in what’s now called small press, then called mini or new-wave comix, some undergrounds, and various and sundry other places. I’d also been published in Cerebus prior to it. EURY: How did you hook up with the folks at Aardvark-Vanaheim, normalman’s original publisher? Describe how you sold A-V on your series.

The normalman Family Our harried hero and his supporting cast, as seen on the Jim Valentino cover to Slave Labor Graphics’ 1987 normalman – The Novel, the first collection, featuring everything up to the normalman Annual. normalman TM & © Jim Valentino.

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Completely normal The Complete normalman cover, with colors by Eric Stephenson. “One of my favorites!” says Jim. normalman TM & © Jim Valentino.

they thought there would be drama over the A-V-Renegade split, but to his credit, Dave did as promised, which he pretty much always did in my experience. EURY: DC, Marvel, EC horror comics, Elfquest, the Smurfs, Hostess snacks, Richie Rich, Mickey Mouse, The Spirit, DNAgents, superhero teams, Star Wars, Asterix, Cerebus, American Flagg!, and Archie Comics—Holy Moley, normalman #1–12 took on just about everything in comics! Was each issue’s spoof planned from the get-go, or did your subjects evolve along with the storyline? VALENTINO: I’d filled up a sketchbook and written a rough outline before the concept was even shown to Deni. There was a takeoff I’d done of Dave Stevens’ Rocketeer which she showed to Dave, and when he laughed she was sold on publishing it. Somewhere along the way, and I can’t recall when, I decided not to do any company twice—so there may have been a lot of covers that were switched or tossed or whatever as the narrative became more focused. But, honestly, I couldn’t tell you what. EURY: In retrospect, was there anything you wish you would’ve spoofed that you didn’t, or anything you would’ve done differently in your overall story? VALENTINO: Not in the story, I don’t think, but in the covers and the spoofs and in a few of the issues. I wouldn’t have placed the DC and the Marvel issues one right after the other. I always thought a few of the issues were pretty weak. They just weren’t jelling for one reason or another. The problem was that I was locked into 12 issues, so I had to use them, even if they were padded. Hindsight is always 20/20 as they say, but if I’ve learned anything over the last hundred years is to let misgivings like that go—it is what it is, I did the best I could do at the time. 50 • BACK ISSUE • When Comics Were Fun Issue

EURY: Of all of these take-offs, were they well received by the creators of the comics you were lampooning? Or did anyone ever object? (Is there any p-o’ed creator you duck at conventions?) VALENTINO: If anyone was angry I never heard about it. Jerry Siegel loved the book, so that was good enough for me! EURY: You also snuck in tons of cameos amid the heroes flying the skies of Levram. Ever get a cease-and-desist letter from a publisher that didn’t share your sense of humor? VALENTINO: No, those cameos are all under the fair use clause. I don’t think most of the majors were paying much attention to it; why would they? It was a modest little book from a very small company by a relatively unknown creator. It would have been far more trouble than it could have possibly been worth to send a C-and-D. EURY: Your biggest jam project was the normalman-Megaton Man Special in 1994, with norm sharing pages with Don Simpson’s Megaton Man, Bob Burden’s Flaming Carrot, and Larry Marder’s Mr. Spook. What was the creative process like in this group collaboration? VALENTINO: Well, we met originally as a group at a convention in Texas, but nothing came of that. Then a year later I was in New York for an extended stay and I brought Don Simpson up for a couple of days. We hatched out a basic plot while walking through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I rushed through about half of it in a frenzy over the next couple of days—writing and roughing the layouts. Don wrote the Understanding Mayan Lawn Sprinklers page but got worried that it might offend Scott McCloud, so we called him up. I read it to him and Scott couldn’t stop laughing. We knew we were on the right track. I roughed in the rest of it at home— penciling in the other guys’ characters and roughing in their dialog. I sent it to them with instructions to rewrite and re-draw, which they did. I took the jam pages to a convention or two and got everybody who was attending to add their character to it. So it was actually kind of fun and I have those jam pages framed and hanging in my home to remind me of it. EURY: normalman 20th Anniversary Special #1 was published in 2004. Other than this interview in BACK ISSUE, is there anything planned for normalman’s 30th? VALENTINO: I was toying with the idea of redrawing the stories from Cerebus #56 and 57 and AV in 3-D as a single narrative and calling it normalman Zero, but I only got as far as a cover, which is a spoof on Amazing Fantasy #15. Maybe I’ll do it in time for the 31st anniversary, although I can’t imagine any more than a dozen people actually wanting it. EURY: If you were to do a normalman book today, what current comics would you parody? VALENTINO: Oh, gosh, I don’t know. When I did the series I was an outsider looking in, so the parody was a lot softer—it was through a fan’s eyes. But the later stories-the ones in Epic Lite, normalmanMegaton Man, and the 20th Anniversary—were written through the eyes of a seasoned vet, so they were a lot more cynical. That said, while I can’t pinpoint which individual comics I’d do, I can say that the first company on my crosshairs would be Image Comics. And, boy, those guys would never talk to me again. I can guarantee that! EURY: C’mon, won’t you please tell me what S.C.H.M.U.C.K. stands for? VALENTINO: Okay, I’ll tell you! Are you sitting down? Are you sure you’re ready for this? Please understand that I cannot be held responsible for what might happen to you or your readers, but it actually stands for—* BACK ISSUE editor-in-chief MICHAEL EURY once had a letter published in normalman’s “Let’s Conform with norm” lettercol, in issue #4!!

Daniel DeAngelo

When Comics Were Fun The 1984 poster promoting the lighthearted new DC series, Blue Devil. Art by Paris Cullins and Gary Martin. TM and © DC Comics.

In 1984, DC Comics boasted, “We’ve Made Comics Fun Again!” in imprisonment in another dimension. When Nebiros tries to eat Sharon, advertising for a new title called Blue Devil, created by the writing Cassidy dons the Blue Devil costume and attempts to save her, but team of Gary Cohn and Dan Mishkin, along with artist Paris Cullins. Nebiros zaps him with a mystic blast. BD is stunned but soon recovers Stuntman and special-effects artist Daniel Cassidy creates a and manages to force Nebiros back through the doorway in special costume and trident for a horror movie called the temple with his trident. Later, a weary Cassidy returns “Blue Devil.” Both have a variety of special effects built to his trailer, only to discover that he cannot remove his into them, and the costume’s exo-skeleton increases costume. He is now and forever after a … Blue Devil! Dan’s strength and agility to superhuman levels. DEVIL IN THE DETAILS BD debuted in a 16-page preview in Fury of Before they became writers, Cohn and Mishkin had Firestorm #24 (June 1984), in which the Flash’s old been friends since eighth grade. “To say that Gary foe, the Trickster—himself a former stuntman and and I shared a lot of the same interests would be an associate of Dan Cassidy—reads about the costume understatement,” Mishkin recalls. “Comics and science and decides to steal it. The Trickster’s appearance fiction were a big part of the connection, and we both in the preview had one significant impact on our had fertile imaginations. Gary was the one who was hero: “I did imagine [BD] a darker blue and was bold enough to say, however, that he was going to surprised when the preview came out,” Cohn says. make a career of writing. I didn’t have the self“I’ve always assumed he got colored that way dan mishkin confidence to make a declaration like that, but once because Trickster’s costume already had dark blue.” he did, I could entertain the possibility.” Despite the In the first issue (June 1984), producer Marla Photo by Luigi Novi. fact that Cohn was in New York while Mishkin lived Bloom takes her crew—including has-been actor Wayne Tarrant, in Michigan, the two were able to maintain a steady partnership. actress Sharon Scott, cinematographer Norm Paxton, and Marla’s young nephew, Edward “Gopher” Bloomberg—to the Caribbean “Sometimes, one person would be mostly plotting and one person island called Ile du Diable (“The Devil’s Island”) for filming. While mostly dialoguing,” Mishkin says. “It’s all over the map,” The duo went exploring an ancient temple, Sharon finds a key and inadvertently on to co-create Amethyst, but they started out writing short stories for uses it to open a doorway, releasing a demon called Nebiros from his DC’s mystery comics such as House of Mystery, which led editor Dave When Comics Were Fun Issue

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Edited by ROY THOMAS The first and greatest “hero-zine”—ALL-NEW, focusing on GOLDEN AND SILVER AGE comics and creators with ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS, UNSEEN ART, P.C. Hamerlinck’s FCA [Fawcett Collectors of America], MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY’S Comic Fandom Archive, and more!

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AVENGERS 50th ANNIVERSARY! WILL MURRAY on the group’s behind-thescenes origin, a look at its first decade with ROY THOMAS, STAN LEE, JACK KIRBY, THE BROTHERS BUSCEMA, TUSKA, ADAMS, COLAN, BUCKLER, ENGLEHART, MERRY MARVEL MARCHING SOCIETY, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, FCA, Golden Age Blue Beetle artist E.C. STONER, unused Avengers cover by DON HECK!

MARC SWAYZE TRIBUTE ISSUE, spotlighting FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America)! Salutes from Fawcett alumnus C.C. BECK and OTTO BINDER, interview with wife JUNE SWAYZE, a full Phantom Eagle story from Wow Comics, plus interview with 1950s Dell/Western artist MEL KEEFER, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and a SWAYZE Marvel Family cover art from the 1940s!

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X-MEN SALUTE! 1963-69 secrets, rare ‘60s BRAZILIAN X-MEN stories, lost ‘60s XMen “character sheet” by STAN LEE, ROY THOMAS on the 1970s revival, art and artifacts by KIRBY, ROTH, ADAMS, HECK, FRIEDRICH, and BUSCEMA—plus the MMMS fan club story, interview with Golden Age writer ED SILVERMAN, FCA, Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY, and JACK KIRBY’s unused X-Men #10 cover!

GOLDEN AGE JUSTICE SOCIETY ISSUE! Features on JOHN B. WENTWORTH (Johnny Thunder), LEN SANSONE (The Atom), and BERNARD SACHS (All-Star Comics inker), art by CARMINE INFANTINO, BOB OKSNER, HOWARD PURCELL, STAN ASCHMEIER, BEN FLINTON, and H.G. PETER, plus FCA, Mr. Monster, and more! Cover homage by SHANE FOLEY to a vintage All-Star image by IRWIN HASEN!

Farewell salute to the COMICS BUYER’S GUIDE! TBG/CBG history and remembrances from ALAN LIGHT, MURRAY BISHOFF, MAGGIE THOMPSON, BRENT FRANKENHOFF, “final” CBG columns by MARK EVANIER, TONY ISABELLA, PETER DAVID, FRED HEMBECK, JOHN LUSTIG, classic art by DON NEWTON, MIKE VOSBURG, JACK KIRBY, MIKE NASSER, plus FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

DENNY O’NEIL’s Silver Age career at Marvel, Charlton, and DC—aided and abetted by ADAMS, KALUTA, SEKOWSKY, LEE, GIORDANO, THOMAS, SCHWARTZ, APARO, BOYETTE, DILLIN, SWAN, DITKO, et al. Plus, we begin serializing AMY KISTE NYBERG’s groundbreaking book on the history of the Comics Code, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY and more!

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Golden Age “Air Wave” artist LEE HARRIS discussed by his son JONATHAN LEVEY to interviewer RICHARD J. ARNDT, with rarely-seen 1940s art treasures (including mysterious, never-published art of an alternate version of DC’s Tarantula)! Plus more of AMY KISTE NYBERG’s exposé on the Comics Code, artist SAL AMENDOLA tells the story of the Academy of Comic Book Arts, FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

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1940s WILL EISNER/”BUSY” ARNOLD letters between the creator of The Spirit and his Quality Comics partner, art and artifacts by FINE, CRANDALL, CUIDERA, CARDY, KOTZKY, BLUM, NORDLING, and others! Plus Golden Age MLJ artist JOHN BULTHIUS, more of AMY KISTE NYBERG’s History of the Comics Code, FCA, Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY, cover by DANIEL JAMES COX and JASON PAULOS!

CAROL L. TILLEY on Dr. Fredric Wertham’s falsification of his research in the 1950s, featuring art by EVERETT, SHUSTER, PETER, BECK, COSTANZA, WEBB, FELDSTEIN, WILLIAMSON, WOOD, BIRO, and BOB KANE! Plus AMY KISTE NYBERG on the evolution of the Comics Code, FCA, Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLEY, and a new cover by JASON PAULOS and DANIEL JAMES COX!

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Mark Ciemcioch

The Romper Room of Ideas Legendary cartoonist Warren Kremer illustrated this 1985 promotional poster showcasing some of Star Comics’ earliest stars, including Royal Roy, Wally the Wizard, Top Dog, and Spider-Ham. Star’s licensed characters weren’t depicted in this promo. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

When the Marvel Age of Comics was unleashed in the early ’60s, the adventures of Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, and other superheroes captivated a readership that included teenagers, college students, and even adults. But it wasn’t until the ’80s before Marvel made a major bid to appeal to its youngest audience with the all-ages Star Comics imprint.

Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter appointed Tom DeFalco as the executive editor charged with overseeing the editorial with Harvey Comics. However, the surviving Harvey brothers, Alfred and Leon, disagreed about the agreement with Marvel and the deal fell apart suddenly. “We worked out our publishing plan, we were going to publish right away with lots of stuff,” DeFalco says. STARS OUT OF HARVEY “I know it included Richie Rich and Casper. On a Friday, Times were tough for children’s comic books in the we got together, and Monday morning [Sid and I] early ’80s. Sure, Archie Comics was still going strong, were supposed to start working at Harvey. I don’t but Harvey’s line of Casper the Ghost, Richie Rich, know if it was Friday night, or over the weekend, [we Sad Sack, and others ceased publication in 1982. were told] to meet at Marvel and go over to Harvey. Gold Key’s comic stable of Walt Disney, Looney Fine, who cares? Monday morning comes and they Tunes, and other popular cartoon characters followed said, ‘There seems to be a little problem with the with cancellations in 1983. deal.’ Ultimately, there was no deal with Harvey.” Around that time period, Marvel Comics was With no deal for Harvey characters but a number negotiating with Harvey Comics to publish comics of Harvey staffers now employed, Marvel editors with Harvey’s well-established line of characters. began to reevaluate their plans. sid jacobson During the process, Marvel talked with longtime “I don’t want to take credit for this idea, but Harvey creative talents like writer and editor Sid Photo by Shure Jacobson. there used to be a stepladder in which you read Jacobson, artist Warren Kremer, and writer Lennie Herman. comic books,” DeFalco says. “You started with the Harvey comic Jacobson recalls his interview with Marvel publisher Michael Hobson: books, and as you got older you read Archie comic books. Then as “We interviewed and spoke about how Marvel never had a successful you got older, you read DC comic books, Marvel comic books, and then children’s program. They tried many times over the years. He asked eventually you moved to the independents. The Disney and Gold Key me to come up with a few characters with my people and see what comic books had gone away, the Harvey comic books had gone we thought. We created about four or five characters. We went back away, and a lot of us felt that we were missing part of our stepladder. to see Michael and he loved it. He said, ‘I’ll hire you, immediately.’ We needed comic books for young readers. Harvey went away, and I That’s how we started.” don’t even know if we had a discussion, but we said we should still

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IN MEMORIAM When you look at the credits of Star Comics books, you’ll quickly notice the same half-dozen names keep popping up, as the all-ages line organized another Marvel Bullpen. Sadly, many of those names have passed away, and BACK ISSUE wishes to honor their legacy: WARREN KREMER One of the greatest artists of Harvey Comics, Kremer helped design the definitive looks of Casper the Friendly Ghost, Hot Stuff, Richie Rich, and others. While at Star Comics, Kremer contributed to several titles both licensed and original, such as Care Bears, Ewoks, Flintstone Kids, Heathcliff, Hugga Bunch, Planet Terry, Royal Roy, Strawberry Shortcake, Top Dog, and Wally the Wizard. Kremer passed away in 2003 at the age of 82. LENNIE HERMAN The writer was a key contributor to many of the Harvey Comics titles. Just as he started working on Star Comics, Herman died in 1983. However, his contributions helped create Planet Terry, Royal Roy, and Top Dog. HOWIE POST He was the creator of the long-running newspaper strip The Dropouts, worked on Casper the Friendly Ghost for Harvey Comics, and created the DC Comics series Anthro. As an artist and writer, Post contributed to Star Comics like Care Bears, Heathcliff, Madballs, Strawberry Shortcake, and Wally the Wizard. Post died in 2010.

“Guys like me were saying, ‘Don’t panic, don’t panic,’ and naturally, my company panicked and fired me,” says DeFalco, who was editor-in-chief of Marvel at the time. “Marvel reorganized itself in a way that made no business sense. Accounting-wise, they decided that everything had to make its own money to justify its existence. Star Comics weren’t really making a lot of money in the direct market, so it should have been canceled. They were making a ton of money internationally, but international didn’t have ability to create the product, so it was going to be canceled. This is how at this time, Marvel lost all of its licensed properties.”

LAST STARLIGHT Star Comics proved to be a mix of veteran talent and new faces working on the books. Jacobson led a small bullpen that included Warren Kremer, Howie Post, Ernie Colón (Bullwinkle and Rocky, Droids, Flintstone Kids, ThunderCats), Michael Gallagher (Care Bears, Flintstone Kids, Foofur, Heathcliff, Madballs), Stan Kay (Care Bears, Fraggle Rock, Hugga Bunch, Muppet Babies, Planet Terry, Popples, Royal Roy, Strawberry Shortcake), Dave Manak (ALF, Bullwinkle and Rocky, Droids, Ewoks, Get Along Gang, Heathcliff, Planet Terry, Top Dog), and Marie Severin (Ewoks, Fraggle Rock, Heathcliff, Misty, Muppet Babies, Royal Roy). They handled the lion’s share of the workload during those years. Meanwhile, many notable comics professionals did some of their earliest work on Star books, including Mark Bagley (Visionaries), Mike Carlin (Masters of the Universe, Spider-Ham), Kelley Jones (Air Raiders), and Howard A. Mackie (Air Raiders, Chuck Norris). “There were a lot of creative people who worked for Star Comics over the years,” DeFalco says.

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Post–Star Comics Stars Original cover art to Marvel’s Barbie #2 (Feb. 1991), by Mary Wilshire, June Brigman, and Roy Richardson. Note that the UPC box is autographed by June and Roy, plus writer Barbara Slate and assistant editor Hildy Mesnik. Courtesy of Anthony Snyder. TM & © Mattel.

Jacobson recalls the line being incredibly successful during its run in the latter half of the ’80s. Many of the original Stars like Wally the Wizard and Planet Terry live on in a series of trade paperback reprints by Marvel called The All-Star Collection. “I enjoyed working at Marvel,” he says. “It was very exciting to basically start from zero and turning it into a profitable and marketable line of books. We wanted to reach a kid audience and did it to be successful. It was part of the Star line, but [Michael Hopkins’] point, and it was a good one, [he] always felt you could always build your future readers with a kid line. You can start with a kid line, then they can continue with the main company books.” Some of the Marvel books author MARK CIEMCIOCH read were Star Comics like Heathcliff, Top Dog, and Spider-Ham. He’s looking forward to passing those comics onto his own children soon.

Michael Eury

He’s a square-jawed, distinctly garbed master detective who— sometimes with a young sidekick under his wing—plies his deductive skills and crimefighting arsenal to protect the urban jungle from the most fearsomely freakish felons imaginable. Am I describing Batman? Or Dick Tracy? Both, of course! Bob Kane and Bill Finger’s Darknight Detective and Chester Gould’s top cop share more similarities than you might realize. Both debuted in the untouchable decade of the 1930s, when mobsters ruled the Earth (or at least several major American cities). Both Batman comics and the Tracy syndicated strip have pulled few punches in their depictions of violent crime, yet have also featured outlandish sci-fi storylines. Both crimebusters have a supporting cast of young (and sometimes bizarre) allies, uniformed and plainclothes police officers, and romantic interests (although Tracy is the clear winner in the love category). Both use forensic science and high-tech gadgets, from Batman’s utility belt to Tracy’s 2-way wrist radio. Both are plagued by rogues’ galleries of grotesque gangsters and fetching femme fatales that, once you think about it, could easily be interchangeable. Both have transcended their comics roots into cinema, at roughly the same time: There were Dick Tracy and Batman movie serials in the 1940s and animated cartoons in the 1960s and 1970s; TV producer William Dozier produced a Dick Tracy live-action pilot shortly after his Batman show struck gold; and Tim Burton’s 1989 blockbuster Batman was quickly followed by Warren Beatty’s 1990 Dick Tracy film. Both detectives have been published by DC Comics (surely you haven’t forgotten DC’s Limited Collector’s Edition #C-40, from 1975, which we covered in BACK ISSUE #71). And both have been written by Max Allan Collins and drawn by Joe Staton. A Batman/Dick Tracy crossover has been the dream of many a fan. I know I’ve fantasized about such a team-up, rendered in a noir-ish Dick Sprang style, DC’s perfect complement to Chester Gould’s artistry. And really, could you imagine an artist better suited for such a team-up than Joe Staton? During the Bronze Age, on numerous occasions Staton proved his fluency in drawing a Sprang-like Golden Age Batman, not only in Justice Society adventures but most notably in the celebrated “The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne,” writer Alan Brennert’s Earth-Two Batman/Catwoman team-up in The Brave and the Bold #197 (Apr. 1983), as well as in writer Mike W. Barr’s 1993 Batman: Two-Face Strikes Twice! As the artist of The Huntress—in both its Bronze Age and Modern Age incarnations—Joe has flexed his muscles as an illustrator of contemporary crime sagas and superhero fables with Batman underpinnings. And since March of 2011, he has been the artist of Tribune Media Services’ Dick Tracy comic strip. No artist could more appropriately fill the shoes of the late Dick Sprang and Chester Gould on a Batman/Dick Tracy team-up! During a Heroes Con 2013 reunion with my old pal Joe—BTW, I’m a former editor of his E-Man (at Comico) and Huntress (the

Calling Dick Tracy! Batman and Robin, Too! An amazing Dick Sprang illustration of the Dynamic Duo, from 1992. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). The Dick Tracy headshot in the Bat-signal is by Chester Gould and is from Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-40, DC’s single Dick Tracy comic book. Batman and Robin TM & © DC Comics. Dick Tracy TM & © TMS News and Features, LLC.

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