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THIS ISSUE: INTERNATIONAL HEROES!

Alpha Flight • New X-Men • Global Guardians • Captain Canuck • JLI & more! featuring an exclusive interview with cover artists Steve Fastner and Rich Larson

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“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.

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“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!

“When Comics Were Fun!” HEMBECK cover and gallery, Plastic Man, Blue Devil, Marvel’s Star Comics imprint, VALENTINO’s normalman, Bronze Age’s goofiest Superman stories, and the Batman/Dick Tracy team-up you didn’t see! Featuring MAX ALLAN COLLINS, PARIS CULLINS, RAMONA FRADON, ALAN KUPPERBERG, MISHKIN & COHN, STEVE SKEATES, JOE STATON, CURT SWAN, and more!

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Volume 1, Number 83 September 2015 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTISTS Steve Fastner and Rich Larson COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Jack Abramowitz Howard Bender Jonathan R. Brown Rebecca Busselle ByrneRobotics.com Dewey Cassell Chris Claremont Mike Collins J. M. DeMatteis Leopoldo Duranona Scott Edelman Raimon Fonseca Ramona Fradon Keith Giffen Steve Goble Grand Comics Database Fred Hembeck Heritage Comics Auctions Joe Hollon Terry Kavanagh Barry Kitson Andrew Leyland Jean-Marc Lofficier Franck Martini Marvel Comics Robert Menzies

Martin Pasko Carl Potts Bob Rozakis Samuel Savage Alex Saviuk Jason Shayer Craig Shutt David Smith Steve Stiles Dan Tandarich Roy Thomas Fred Van Lente Len Wein Jay Williams Keith Williams Dedicated with admiration to: Rafael López Espí

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FLASHBACK: International X-Men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The global evolution of Marvel’s mighty mutants FLASHBACK: Exploding from the Pages of X-Men: Alpha Flight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 John Byrne’s not-quite-a team from the Great White North BACKSTAGE PASS: The Captain and the Controversy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 How a moral panic in the UK jeopardized the 1976 launch of Captain Britain WHAT THE--?!: Spider-Man: The UK Adventures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Even you Spidey know-it-alls may never have read these stories! BACKSTAGE PASS: Origins of Marvel UK: Not Just Your Father’s Reprints. . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Repurposing Marvel Comics classics for a new audience ART GALLERY: López Espí Marvel Art Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 A collection of superhero illos by the acclaimed Spanish artist OFF MY CHEST: Challenge of the Super Friends Global Guardians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Are DC’s international heroes in continuity? FLASHBACK: Captain Canuck: If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again . . . . . . . . . . 53 The trials and tribulations of Richard Comely’s Canadian crimefighter PRO2PRO: Steve Fastner and Rich Larson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 An exclusive interview with our cover artists FLASHBACK: Justice League International: An Unintentional Trip to the World Stage. . . . 65 Keith Giffen and Marc DeMatteis tell BI how the JL got global GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: Shamrock and the Peregrine’s Vanishing Act from Dr. Strange #37 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 What on Earth is a “Frankensurfer”? BACK IN PRINT: Hexagon Forever!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Jean-Marc Lofficier shares the latest news about the Editions Lug universe BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Reader reactions 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 Steve Fastner and Rich Larson. X-Men, Alpha Flight, and related characters TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2015 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. International Heroes Issue

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International Mutants The All-New, All-Different X-Men! Detail from the cover of 1975’s Giant-Size X-Men #1. Art by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Franck Martini

[Lee] had had up to this point. It didn’t make sense to me that heroes in general, not even mutants who were originally supposed to be related to things like the Manhattan Project, were all Americans. […] There was no special reason for an Irish mutant, except that I wanted to do a character called the Banshee (female, if Stan had let me have my way) and BEFORE THE ALL-NEW, he/she wasn’t going to be a German, ALL-DIFFERENT… right? As for the Japanese side of There had been international mutants things—well, they had been on the before the team that appeared in receiving end of the end result of the Giant-Size X-Men #1 (July 1975). Roy Manhattan Project, so I thought it Thomas was then writing the book and would be interesting and productive wanted to give it a different vibe: “I did to throw a Japanese or Japanesecreate Banshee—well, I’d say ‘co-create,’ American into the mix.” because artist Werner Roth contributed So Banshee was introduced in X-Men much of the look, from a sort of general #28 (Jan. 1967) and Sunfire made visual idea I gave him—and Sunfire a his debut between two Neal Adams roy thomas couple of years later with Don Heck, issues (X-Men #64, Jan. 1970). It is also much the same way. I felt that Marvel Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. interesting to note that thanks to the needed a few ‘foreign mutants,’ and just characters from one-month Mexico trip mentioned above, Roy Thomas other worlds in general. At that time I hadn’t been out of also introduced Mexican villains El Tigre and Kukulkan the country except for a month in Mexico, but I felt it was in X-Men #25–26 (Oct.–Nov. 1966), a rare case of South time to build on the New York-central mythos that Stan American mutants until New Mutants’ Sunspot. If the original team of X-Men was only composed of American characters, such was not the case with the All-New, All-Different X-Men team that appeared after a five-year hiatus. The team would feature an international roster, but its adventures would also take place all over our world and beyond.

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this book sell just well enough in the States to break even,” as Thomas further explained Alter Ego #24 (May 2003). Thomas shares a bit more about the roster setup with BACK ISSUE: “I thought that perhaps pre-existing characters I’d had a hand in like the Banshee, Sunfire, and Wolverine might fit in, but I don’t believe that I was pushing projected writer Mike Friedrich and artist Dave Cockrum to include any particular character. A Canadian, maybe even a Japanese, made sense in the group, given that the idea was to sell the revived X-Men in countries where our comics were fairly well distributed … but there was no special reason for an Irishman to be included A NEW CONCEPT FOR A unless they wanted him to be.” NEW TEAM Dave Cockrum, the original New After a few appearances in Avengers X-Men artist, recalled that Roy Thomas and in Marvel Team-Up, the X-Men pitched him the book as “Mutant would return, but with a different team, Blackhawks,” inspired by the internationaland would target different readers member flying aces that originated than before as per Marvel president in the Golden Age in the pages of Al Landau’s suggestion: “Al suggested dave cockrum Military Comics and Blackhawk. Marvel do a group of foreign superSo the idea stuck, but not the heroes … characters from countries in Sketch by Michael Netzer. countries as Cockrum also recalled in which Marvel sold a lot of comics,” Thomas said to Tom Alter Ego #24: “By the time we were choosing characters, DeFalco. “Stan and I liked the idea. It was my idea to do FSSHT, out the window, you know. So we have a that group with the X-Men.” Russian, we have a Kenyan, and we might’ve sold some More precisely, there was a selling strategy behind in Germany and Canada, but that whole concept just Al Landau’s idea: “He said, if we could put out a book went out the window. We just got caught up in the with characters in it from different countries we sold to, enthusiasm of what we were doing.” it’d probably help. […] It’d be great if we could also make

The next “international” X-Man would be Wolverine, appearing for the first time in the pages of the Incredible Hulk #181 (Nov. 1974)—after a cliffhanger cameo in the previous issue, that is. Once again, Roy Thomas was involved in the creation process as he explained in Tom De Falco’s Comics Creators on X-Men (Titan Books, 2006): “He was my idea. I came up with his name and basic traits. […] [Al Landau, Marvel’s then-president, Stan Lee, and I] decided that we really should have a Canadian character. […] About five or ten percent of our readers were Canadian, and yet we didn’t have a Canadian character.”

International Heroes Issue

Wail and Assail (right) Ireland’s Banshee in X-Men #76 (June 1972), which reprinted issue #28. Cover by Gil Kane and an uncredited inker. (left) Japan’s Sunfire first appeared in X-Men #64 (Jan. 1970). Cover by Sal Buscema and Tom Palmer. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Yet with this concept, most of the original X-Men were left out of the book after Giant-Size X-Men #1, with the exception of Cyclops leading a very international and odd team—a team Thomas would not see being launched, as he would leave his position of Marvel editorin-chief shortly before the book’s publication. Mike Friedrich would not become the writer and was replaced by Len Wein; the rest would be history, as the saying goes.

INTERNATIONAL MEMBERS So, included were the foreign mutants that had previously appeared: Banshee, Sunfire, and Wolverine. As Len Wein recalls, it was purely logical to have them in the team: “Japan, Ireland, and Canada gave us an even more wide-ranged pantheon of characters to play with, though, except for Wolverine, the other two were intended to leave after the first story.” All the new characters would come from completely distinct backgrounds: Storm, from Kenya, where she was treated like a goddess by the local people; Nightcrawler, from Germany, was considered a monster and hunted like an animal before Charles Xavier rescued him; and Native-American Thunderbird, an angry young man living on an Apache reservation. Finally, and slightly more surprisingly, comes Peter Rasputin, a.k.a. Colossus, a quiet giant working with his family in a collective farm, from Lake Baikal, Siberia (the script did not mention the USSR). The choice of a Russian character may seem strange given the initial approach, but as Thomas recalls: “[Initially], we didn’t discuss a Russian/Soviet character and wouldn’t have, since that didn’t fit our sales mission, so to speak—we didn’t sell a lot of comics in the USSR. But Len and Dave had kind of abandoned the original purpose of the

Coming and Going Professor X’s first wave of global mutants was a team in transition—three of the seven X-Men pictured here didn’t last long. From Giant-Size X-Men #1, by Wein (with Claremont) and Cockrum. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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comic, if Len [Wein] ever knew it and if Dave remembered it from my earlier discussion with him and Mike Friedrich … so they went ahead with it. In that age years after Man from U.N.C.L.E., though, it wasn’t that hard to conceive.” Wein remembers that the Soviet part was not a problem at all: “Nothing was ever mentioned. The visual was predominantly the late, great Dave Cockrum’s; the backstory was mine.” As Wein mentions most of these new characters were created based on Dave Cockrum’s “scrapbook of characters,” some of them having been proposed for DC Comics’ [Superboy starring the] Legion of Super-Heroes, the book Cockrum was drawing before X-Men. Based on unused designs and some brainstorming, the characters took shape. When asked how the countries of origin were chosen, Wein remembers a very organic process: “Once designed, the characters just suggested their nationalities.”

HAVE MUTANT POWER, WILL TRAVEL Len Wein would leave the book after a couple of issues, during which Sunfire chose to return to Japan and Thunderbird would die fighting Count Nefaria (#94–95, Aug.– Oct. 1975). Britain-born Chris Claremont would jump in as the writer. He explained in Comics Creators on X-Men that he perfectly fit the X-Men mood: “With me being an immigrant […] with an English accent […] and always moving around— my dad was in the Army (when Chris was a teenager)—I always felt like the proverbial fish out of the water. Being an outsider sort of came naturally to me, so I understood where the X-Men were coming from.” Claremont’s first issue saw the first appearance of another foreigner, the Scottish “housekeeper” Moira MacTaggert. Little is known about her past at this point, but she would become a very prominent character. Also, she very quickly developed a (logical?) relationship with Banshee. The next issues leading to X-Men #100 (Aug. 1976) see the group engage in their first fight in space, and Charles Xavier starts having dreams of an alien creature, which will soon lead to the arrival of Lilandra, the Imperial Guard, and the Starjammers. Then, right after the birth of Phoenix (X-Men #101, Oct. 1976), the team—minus Cyclops and Jean Grey—travels to Ireland for their first trip outside the USA. This combination of deep-space trips and international travels would become a trademark of the title for most of Claremont’s run. Was it because of its international background, or more simply to change the

scenery? “Actually, both,” explains Chris Claremont. “The feeling from the start was that, for the X-Men, there was no need to be exclusively locked into either the Mansion or the New York metropolitan area as a primary setting. All the other Marvel series, both solo characters and teams, embraced the city as their primary hub: the FF lived in the Baxter Building; Avengers Mansion was across Fifth Avenue from Central Park; Spider-Man lived and went to high school in Queens, then college in Manhattan; Dr. Strange lived in Greenwich Village; and that’s just a few. Xavier’s School was located outside the city, in Westchester County, so the idea of being separated from the primal Marvel locale was imbedded in the team from the start. Moreover, with the new team, we had the arrival of characters that originated from all over the globe. Right off the bat, Dave and I got Charley [Professor X] involved with Lilandra of the Shi’ar. And, of course, the evolution of Jean [Grey] into Phoenix expanded the list of possibilities exponentially. When you have characters of such social and cultural divergence to play with, it seems only logical to follow the characters and stories in those varied—of necessity, global—directions. I guess my feeling was, everyone else played in the New York metropolitan area; fine with me. I was totally happy to go exploring the rest of the planet and, indeed, the universe as well.”

“It was an inside joke that got out of hand,” Claremont sort of apologized during an online interview. Following Phoenix’s death, the X-Men embarked in the famous “Days of Future Past” storyline in Uncanny X-Men #141–142 (Feb.–Mar. 1980). This time another British TV show was the inspiration of the story: Doctor Who. As John Byrne explained in Comics Creators on X-Men: “Magically, the plot appeared in my head. The entire story where the Sentinels are controlling the Earth and Kitty time travels […]. About four or five years later I was living in Chicago. And Doctor Who was running on a local PBS and on what this episode called ‘Days of the Daleks’ which I had seen in London, Ontario, around 1975. It was basically ‘Days of Future Past’. […] No wonder it popped into my head whole.” Whenever we mention England we can assume that Monty Python are never too far away, so it makes sense to read one of their Flying Circus taglines: “And now for something completely different” on the cover of “Kitty’s fairy tale” (X-Men #153, Jan. 1982)—which demonstrated how versatile and rich the book had become at the time.

Star-Gate Action, weaponry, international mutants, and Claremont and Cockrum signatures— this one’s got ’em all! Original art to page 23 of X-Men #105 (June 1977), from the collection of Raimon Fonseca. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

UK: THE OBVIOUS CONNECTION Claremont was born in England, so it is quite logical to see UK locations and references in the X-Men stories: “A key element in writing is the concept of ‘writing what you know.’ I know the UK so it became a natural setting to use.” It starts with a trip to Ireland, filled with traditional legendsinspired characters and mythos. Then Scotland becomes an area of focus early into Claremont and John Byrne’s run with Muir Island (the location of Moira MacTaggert’s mutant research facility): This is where Jean Grey will go when the rest of her teammates are presumably dead (Uncanny X-Men #125, Sept. 1979)—while they are actually stuck in the Savage Land, another frequent location of the X-Men trips. The X-Men would return to Scotland repeatedly—the fight with Proteus took place there (Uncanny #126–127), Banshee settled there with Moira MacTaggert after the loss of his powers, and one of Claremont’s last storylines on the title was called “The Muir Island Saga” (July–Sept. 1991)—a fitting location to conclude his long run. John Byrne, whose run on the book with Chris Claremont is now the stuff legends are made of, was also born in England and would add a lot of UK-inspired elements. During the classic Dark Phoenix saga, Byrne and Claremont introduced the Hellfire Club, directly inspired by a similar group that had appeared in the famous “A Touch of Brimstone” episode of the British TV show, The Avengers. John Byrne explained on his ByrneRobotics website: “I first encountered Peter Wyngarde, as an actor, on the Avengers episode ‘A Touch of Brimstone,’ which dealt with Steed and Emma having an encounter with the Hellfire Club. Later he turned up on a British series called Department S, and its spin-off Jason King (the name of his character). When Chris Claremont decided he wanted to do a Hellfire Club arc in Uncanny X-Men (he had just seen the above-mentioned Avengers episode) as part of the darkening of Phoenix, I suggested the in-joke of having Mastermind, in his disguised form, resemble Peter Wyngarde and, mixing character and actor, that his name be Jason Wyngarde.” Similarly to Mastermind, most Hellfire Club members were inspired by actors (Robert Shaw, Donald Sutherland, Orson Welles), and Jean Grey’s Black Queen looks also came from Emma Peel’s attire in “Brimstone.”

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ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE CULTURE AND ACCENTS

Culture Clash A 1983 specialty drawing by Jackson “Butch” Guice of Russia’s Colossus, Canada’s Wolverine, and Japanese-savvy Kitty Pryde. Plus cute li’l Lockheed. Courtesy of Heritage. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

explained by Chris Claremont: “Why should the characters—especially in a book like X-Men—be restricted to a single gender, or national origin, or economic stature, or even generic humanity (I’m referring to ‘Warlock’)? When I took over X-Men, the majority of team books were mostly white, mostly middle-class, mostly male, and almost exclusively American. X-Men, by its very nature, almost demanded a broader approach; the same applied to the New Mutants. I mean, comics has the advantage—especially when employing artists as gifted as Dave Cockrum and John Byrne—of presenting a boundless selection of characters and settings without having to worry about the cost of CGI or the practicality of prosthetics. We create characters, worlds, cultures, costumes, you name it. As a result the book looks richer and the stories/characters are more exciting. As for Excalibur, same rules apply, especially since the co-creator [Alan Davis] lives there.” Even if the Marvel Universe exists on an Earth that looks a lot like ours, there are some locations there that do not exist here such as the Muir Island, Genosha, or Madripoor. Why create new areas? Claremont shares his view on this: “I’m a writer; this is what I do. Not all characters are people; sometimes they’re settings as well. The advantage of Genosha and Madripoor is that I can define the political and social realities; we can reflect the active realities of the contemporary world without feeling in any way restricted by them.”

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In the first issue of the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine miniseries (Nov. 1984), Kitty travels to Japan—speaking fluent Japanese. Almost breaking the fourth wall, she explains to the reader something that could be a deus ex machina: “When I first visited Japan, with the X-Men, Professor Xavier telepathically taught us all the language. Thanks to him I speak it like a native.” The X-Men team is from the beginning a sort Tower of Babel, where no matter their origin, all characters speak fluent English. Their original languages seldom appear: the words “Professor” or “Sir” are translated into German and Russian (Herr professor, Gospodin Xavier), as well as “My God” (Mein Gott, Boszhe Moi). Nightcrawler will have the “wider” vocabulary (unglaubich, liebchen, katzchen, wunderbach…). Storm will never say a word in Arabic or Swahili even though she had stayed a while in Egypt and Kenya. So with these few lines, Claremont presented an explanation nine years after the team’s first appearance. Coming with the language in any international group is the notion of cultures and specific social behaviors. None of the clichés you could choose to apply to any culture appeared in the book. When asked about the lack of cultural differences, Claremont simply put it that way: “I write them as people and as individuals. Cultural differences are a simple part of the package.” No other book (or books, if we add New Mutants and Excalibur) has given such an international vibe and footprint. And that does not count all the space locations and intergalactic species we have discovered thanks to the X-Men. After issue #200, the team would keep on traveling and members had to keep their passport at hand with visits to Scotland, Australia, Genosha, and all across the USA (Austin, San Francisco, New Mexico). New members joined from the UK and later, Japan (Psylocke), plus one with a Cajun background (Gambit), from a Chinese family (Jubilee), or even from Mojoworld (Longshot). The final word logically goes to travel organizer Chris Claremont. When asked where he wishes he had taken the team, he said: “Lots of places—and if I get the chance, I’ll do it.” ’Nuff said. A huge “thank-you” to Len Wein, Roy Thomas, and Chris Claremont for the time they spent answering this writer’s questions. You provided amazing insights! Most John Byrne quotes are retrieved from his website: http://byrnerobotics.com. Other quotes excerpt from Tom DeFalco’s great interview book, Comics Creators on X-Men (Titan Books, 2006), from BACK ISSUE #4, 8, and 29, and Alter Ego #24. FRANCK MARTINI discovered the Spider-Man daily strip in the French TV guide at the age of three. After that, “Nothing would ever be the same again.” When no one is watching, he is also a mild-mannered intranet manager with a patient wife and two daughters.

Jason Shayer

Hot off his career-defining run on The Uncanny X-Men with Chris Claremont, Canadian expatriate John Byrne turned his creative efforts north of the border. It took years to convince Byrne to flesh out the rag-tag superhero team he created in The Uncanny X-Men #120–121 (Apr.–May 1979). With Alpha Flight, John Byrne challenged the convenTM tions of a team book by focusing on individual characters while running the team story as a subplot. Each of these dysfunctional characters had their own story arcs showcased in dedicated issues, while the team plot percolated in the background and brought them together only a couple of times a year. While this narrative technique seemed unorthodox, Byrne’s vision for the title came to fruition in his second year. The first year was about creating the team’s backstory and establishing new and existing characters and villains. In the second year, Byrne groomed the team’s heart and soul, Heather Hudson (modeled after his wife), to lead Alpha Flight. The only thing Heather couldn’t anticipate was her creator’s detachment. “Alpha Flight was never much fun,” Byrne admitted in an interview john byrne with Newsarama’s Michael Thomas in 2000 (comicbookresources.com/?id= Photo by Corey Bond. 151&page=article). “The characters were created merely to survive a fight with the X-Men, and I never thought about them having their own title. When Marvel finally cajoled me into doing Alpha Flight, I realized how incredibly two-dimensional they were, and spent some 28 issues trying to find ways to correct this fault. Nothing really sang for me. If I have any regrets, it would probably be that I did the book at all! It was not a good time for me.” Despite the negative perceptions of his own work, Byrne made fans on both sides of the Canadian border care about these heroes. By transforming a housewife into the team’s new leader, Byrne led readers through Heather’s emotional journey and charmed us with her spunk and determination.

CANADA’S GREATEST SUPER-TEAM In X-Men #109 (Feb. 1978), James MacDonald “Mac” Hudson, donning his armor as Weapon Alpha, led a blunt attempt by the Canadian government to reclaim their rogue asset, Wolverine. Wolverine wasn’t interested in going back, and after a skirmish with the X-Men, Weapon Alpha had to withdraw. But Weapon Alpha and Department H had piqued readers’ imagination and were eager for another appearance. Just over a year later, Weapon Alpha, now the Vindicator, returned to the pages of The Uncanny X-Men and brought along some friends.

Northern Exposure John Byrne’s Alpha Flight was previewed in the House of Ideas’ promo-zine, Marvel Age #2 (May 1983). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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of the first issue’s appearance [Uncanny X-Men #120], in which only the most tantalizing glimpses of the characters were given, letters started to roll in. Fans were already picking their favorites, wondering about their unrevealed powers, guessing which were mutants, which weren’t. By the time they actually showed themselves in #121, the reading public was primed and ready. Alpha Flight was an instant success.” In X-Men #139–140 (Nov.–Dec. 1980), Claremont and Byrne took out a few of Alpha Flight’s members for a test-drive with Wolverine and Nightcrawler. More importantly though, we were first introduced to Heather Hudson, wife of James MacDonald Hudson and executive secretary for Yukon Oil. Our first glimpse of Heather was of a young woman with her hands full of groceries and preoccupied with how to juggle the household responsibilities and her professional career. Byrne’s portrayal of Heather was rather progressive in that it had a realworld view of a superhero relationship. By the end of this team-up, the Canadian prime minister shut down Department H and Alpha Flight because of budget cuts and anti-mutant temperament. Readers were left with some hope, though: “An ending of sorts, yet also a beginning—of a new, possibly brighter chapter in the life of Alpha Flight.” Fans would have to wait almost three years to read about that new chapter.

CANADA’S OWN ALPHA FLIGHT!

Soon-to-be Vindicator James MacDonald Hudson makes the scene as Weapon Alpha in X-Men #109 (Feb. 1978). Cover by Dave Cockrum. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

“Several members of what became Alpha Flight date back to my fan days,” Byrne related on his ByrneRobotics forum in 2008. “Guardian is chief among them, being created when I was in my early 20s as the figurehead of a whole line of ‘Canadian comics’ I was hoping to produce. Snowbird, in very different form, was born around the same time. Shaman, originally called Chinook (he had only weather-controlling powers), came next. (There was also a character called Phoenix. No chance he would ever have made it into Alpha Flight!) I dropped in the renamed (and power-enhanced) Shaman and a redesigned Snowbird, and came up with Northstar and Aurora (super-speed to counter Nightcrawler’s teleportation), and Sasquatch (to balance Colossus), and off we went. In the process, I came up with real names and some backstory for each.” “It was only as the characters evolved on paper that definite personalities manifested themselves,” Byrne further explained in his “Alpha Waves” letters column from Alpha Flight #1. “A group that started as a bunch of ciphers whose sole purpose was to survive a fight with the X-MEN became a formidable force in their own right. Within days

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With these words, “You are witnessing the death of a dream…”, John Byrne launched Alpha Flight #1 (Aug. 1983). The dream belonged to team’s leader, James MacDonald Hudson. Without Department H and its government funding, could Alpha Flight survive? This clean slate gave Byrne the creative freedom he didn’t have on The Uncanny X-Men or The Fantastic Four. Byrne had a full plate in 1983: In addition to writing, penciling, and inking Alpha Flight, he wrote and drew Fantastic Four and scripted its spin-off, The Thing. That added up to 44 pages to draw and 66 pages to plot and script each month! “I have The Fantastic Four roughly plotted out for about a year in advance,” Byrne outlined in Marvel Age #14 (May 1984). “The same goes for The Thing, and I generally have Alpha Flight plotted out about six months or so in advance. I’m always kicking around the ideas in my head for how to go with the series, what directions the book will take, and what villains and new characters will appear. Before I begin writing each issue, I turn in a written plot and meet with the editor, Bob Budiansky for The Fantastic Four and The Thing, and Denny O’Neil for Alpha Flight, to help me fine tune the plot.” Byrne spoke on how he handled this monthly workload in Marvel Age #2 (May 1983): “I’m going to be eliminating a step—I’m going to be doing just breakdowns and then inking those—penciling with ink. I’ve reached a level of comfort with my own work that I don’t need to do full pencils. So I’ll be doing stick figures, layouts, and inking those. It sounds like a lot of work but it actually isn’t. Although (evil laugh) I’ll still be making just as much money because Marvel pays me for a completed page.” Alpha Flight’s popularity had grown over the years before their own ongoing series, and their numerous guest appearances had only whet that appetite. Alpha Flight was the second spin-off from The Uncanny X-Men, following The New Mutants, which was published a few months earlier. Canada’s Greatest Heroes were an uncontested success with their debut, double-sized first issue selling over 500,000 copies, an impressive feat even in 1983. Their success wasn’t simply a first-issue phenomena: Comics Feature #46 (July 1986) had Alpha Flight #9 listed as #2 in their Top 100 and Amazing Heroes #49 (June 1984) had Alpha Flight #11 ranked #3 in their Top 100.

Meet: Alpha Flight (top) “Canada’s Fighting-Mad Superheroes” made their first actual appearance in X-Men #121 (May 1979). Cover by Cockrum and Terry Austin. (bottom) Nightcrawler’s got a Wendigo problem on this remarkable Byrne/Austin original art page from X-Men #139 (Nov. 1980), signed by both artists. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

The reasons for their popularity are many: not relying on the established Marvel Universe and using Canadian settings; creating new villains; and an interesting and diverse cast of characters. “Well, they are Canadian,” explains Fred Van Lente, co-writer of 2012’s Alpha Flight series. “What’s neat is that you have a Captain America/Iron Man character in Guardian/Vindicator, the twins who are Quebequois and mutants, you have a Hulk-type in Sasquatch, you have the mystic stuff and mythology with Shaman and Snowbird, and they are all incredibly diverse in the modern sense in that you have a high female membership, you got the first major gay character at Marvel, you have first nation characters, and you have an alien. You have a huge amount of diversity going on there and that to me is what makes them super-cool.” Alpha Flight’s first issue had a strong X-Men influence and you can see how Byrne was exploring the X-Men stereotypes, trying to find identities for these characters. Guardian’s insecurities matched Cyclops’ early leadership worries, the rascally relationship between Sasquatch and Puck was similar to Wolverine and Nightcrawler’s, and Snowbird was as mysterious and powerful as Storm. However, Byrne quickly broke from those comparisons as he developed these characters and leveraged the fact that they were from geographically distinct Canadian locations. While he spent some time fleshing out the heroes’ backgrounds, Byrne also introduced two new members to the team. Thanks to Heather’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge the death of Alpha Flight, she graduated two members from Beta Flight: Puck, the pint-sized bruiser named after a hockey puck and fred van lente not Shakespeare’s mischievous sprite, and Marrina, the reserved and immigrant alien amphibian. Courtesy of Fred Van Lente. “They are not the Avengers; they don’t have regular meetings,” Byrne elaborated in Amazing Heroes #22 (Apr. 1983). “They’re not even the Defenders, in which anyone who wanders through the book is automatically a member. They are a bunch of people who once were members of a group and therefore tend to hang around together. […] There are all people who have very much their own lives outside of Alpha Flight, and it is these lives outside of Alpha Flight that I think will be the primary interest in Alpha Flight. It’s almost as if they all will have their own books; it’s just that their own books will be included in the Alpha Flight book rather than be separate titles unto themselves.” Byrne didn’t let our heroes lounge around for long. In Alpha Flight #2 (Sept. 1983), Marrina’s ominous past caught up with her and the team tracked her to the Arctic where they encountered the Master, who would become one of the team’s arch-villains. With issue #3’s opening, Byrne experimented with his storytelling, breaking up the story with some non-linear segments. Byrne barely got through Marrina’s alien origins before Namor the Sub-Mariner and the Invisible Girl interrupted the Master’s scheme. Alpha Flight #4 then flashed back into Namor and Invisible Girl’s storyline. Editor Denny O’Neil left a little sidenote: “No, readers, John hasn’t confused Alpha Flight with the Fantastic Four. Bear with us.” And after that ten-page setup, we got back to where we were at the end of issue #3. While it was an innovative way to tell the story, it’s hard not to wonder if Byrne was overthinking his approach to the team-book formula. A special feature backup, entitled “The Origins of Alpha Flight,” kicked off in issue #2 and ran through the first year’s issues. Fully aware of his stock characters, Byrne used these short segments to flesh them out, review their origins, and definitively establish their backstory. He explored their past and at the same time hooked the readers with questions about the characters’ lives beyond Alpha Flight. However, the method didn’t suit a monthly book as these backup stories took up five to eight pages of a 22-page comic book and really interrupted the flow of the main story. Perhaps a concurrent limited series, much like the Tales of the New Teen Titans from 1982, might have better served the book and readers. International Heroes Issue

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The full circumstances surrounding the launch of Captain Britain’s comic in 1976 have never been told before. It’s the tale of the greatest publicity campaign Marvel ever had for a comic book in Britain—conducted at a time when comics were under siege. It’s an unlikely tale that has Stan Lee in cowboy boots, members of the British Parliament, a shark, and a World Cup referee!

SELLING CAPTAIN BRITAIN TO THE BRITISH The publicity for the launch of the eponymously named and ill-fated Captain Britain (CB) comic book was primarily organized by Ray Wergan. (See BACK ISSUE #29 for more on Captain Britain and BI #63 for a detailed look at British Marvel.) Employed by Marvel between 1972 and 1978, Wergan had extensive media contacts. While he unquestionably did a thorough job in arranging publicity, events elsewhere ensured that the subject of Captain Britain was discussed on primetime TV, radio, and in newspapers. In February of 1976, a new comic called Action had been released by International Publishing Corporation (IPC), one of the three biggest comic publishers at that time in the UK. Bloodthirsty and graphic, with man-eating sharks ripping off limbs, characters being decapitated by bridges, and priests being shot, Action was immediately as controversial as it was popular. By issue #2 of Action, newspapers had started to comment on it, and not favorably. One of those early articles appeared in The Sun, a tabloid newspaper with an immense circulation of 12 million (i.e., one in five of the UK population). Action continued to draw negative press over the coming months. The media were unable or unwilling to distinguish one comic company— never mind comic—from another, and so now all comic books were seen as equally culpable. With Cap’s debut 25 days away, a new strip called “Kids Rule O.K.” debuted in the September 11th issue of Action. Its portrayals of football hooliganism, then a considerable social issue, would soon bring everything to a climax. Only four days later, in the Marvel weeklies released on September 15, 1976 (dated September 22), fans had their first teasing view of the shadowy, unnamed hero. The adverts also made reference to him being “British” and “Britain’s own,” which was an intriguing surprise. Up till then, the only prominent British hero to appear in the British weeklies had been the Black Knight. (Reprints of The Invaders would not let a British audience meet the WWI hero Union Jack, or his daughter Spitfire, for some months yet.) As the publicity campaign would emphasize, Captain Britain was the first British hero created for a British audience: It’s an important distinction, one that is often overlooked. Two days passed, and then The Daily Mail—with a circulation of nearly five million, the fourth most popular daily in the UK—ran a prominent story condemning Action’s content. The press and selfappointed “moral guardians” had a new crusade.

First Look (top) Captain Britain’s first public outing gave away little. Ad from Mighty World of Marvel #208 (Sept. 22, 1976). (bottom) This first color image of Cap appeared two weeks before Captain Britain #1’s launch. All images accompanying this article are courtesy of Robert Menzies. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Robert Menzies

Influential social conservative campaigner Mary Whitehouse spoke out. A prominent football referee and part-time barrister (an attorney in the US) was widely quoted. The comic was condemned on TV and even in the House of Commons, the UK’s parliament. Petitions were signed. A group in the English county of Devon went around defacing covers with stickers warning parents not to buy the comics. IPC was facing a crisis. Feelings had reached such a pitch in Scotland that Action was banned—and there was talk of a similar ban in England. A worried IPC met distributors on the 21st. Marvel watched on helplessly. It was too late in the day to postpone Captain Britain and avoid being caught up in the hysteria. Maybe they thought it would pass safely overhead. If so, they were mistaken. On the 22nd, as the storm over Action raged, the Marvel weeklies dated the 29th had the first clear images, in black and white, of the new British-themed hero. It was also announced that rising star Chris Claremont, longtime Hulk artist Herb Trimpe, and veteran Fred Kida would be the first creative team. When you also factor in Stan Lee’s and Larry Lieber’s involvement—there’s evidence of Stan’s input including such details as the logo—it’s hard to think Marvel was anything other than seriously committed to this project. The following week, on the 29th (issues dated October 6), fans saw the first color image of Captain Britain—an image that would appear the same day in a blistering commentary in The Evening Times newspaper, a very popular Glasgow-based publication. The article is an example of the type of feverish, sensationalist scare-mongering that made Fredric Wertham and his book Seduction of the Innocent (1954) infamous in the US two decades earlier. That the author Malcolm Reid interviewed the General Secretary of the Scottish Schoolmasters Association, a Church of Scotland spokesman, and a hospital psychologist probably tells you all you need to know about the hostile and censorious tone of the piece. Worse still, in the author’s confused mind, the goreand-guts style of storytelling prevalent in Action—which, incredibly, wasn’t even named—was being reflected onto Marvel and Captain Britain. On the 6th of October, Captain Britain #1 finally hit the newsstands, and the next day there was a highly critical article in the Daily Record, then Scotland’s bestselling tabloid newspaper. “For those who have always thought that comics are a load of rubbish[,] prepare to be proved right.” The feature, by Dorothy Johnson, used Action as a stick to beat all comics, accusing the medium of xenophobic stereotypes and random, cruel violence. Also on the 7th, an article on page 2 of The Times (of London), a prestigious broadsheet with a circulation of 1.1 million, announced that Action was being suspended. Bowing to considerable pressure from distributors and fearful of their entire line being affected, IPC suspended publication of Action from the 13th of October—the day

Seduction of the Innocent (top) Graphic images shown here from Action weekly (Evening Times, Sept. 29, 1976) endangered Captain Britain’s release. (bottom) More media outcry (Daily Record, Oct. 7, 1976). Captain Britain TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Other material © their respective copyright holders.

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Face Front (and Center) This action-packed centerspread of the Captain originally appeared in Marvel UK’s The Titans #56 (Nov. 10, 1976). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

ENGLAND – WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13th TO SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16th, 1976 The next day Stan had travelled south of the border and visited Newcastle and Leeds, probably in that order and, it seems, very briefly. That Newcastle—Joan Lee’s birthplace—was included in the itinerary is probably deliberate. Both Stan and Joan have admitted they visited England and Newcastle many times. By the end of the day, Stan had travelled south to London—no trip to Wales, alas—for meetings with Fleet Street press journalists and other media representatives that probably spilled over into Thursday. A minimum of two of these interviews had delayed transmission. One interview screened the next day was for BBC1’s popular Nationwide program, a magazine-style show that came on after 28 • BACK ISSUE • International Heroes Issue

the early evening news and combined news, chat, sports, and light entertainment. The editor of Action, John Sanders, had appeared on the show in September and been aggressively grilled by presenter Frank Bough, and CMN reported that Stan, damned by association, was also given a tough time. A follow-up radio interview Stan did with Maggie Norden also aired on Sunday, October 17, between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. Recordings of the interview exist, and she was, to her credit, equally cordial and nonjudgmental in her second interview.

STAN’S SURPRISINGLY SUCCESSFUL SIGNING SESSION – THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14th In the weeklies available to buy from October 6, there appeared an advert for a signing session with Stan. It was to be his only fan interaction of the trip and he’d be signing copies of CB #1 and the newly released trade paperback Bring on the Bad Guys. The signing would take place on Thursday, October 14 at the now-defunct Words and Music store at 66 Charing Cross Road, London. Stan ignored the stated signing time of 6:00 until 7:00 p.m. and insisted on staying until everyone in line received autographs. The 700plus fans, undaunted by rain, took nearly two hours to have their comics and books signed. The 15th was a planned day off for Stan—did he really resist the urge to visit the London office?—and then the following day, the Saturday, he flew back to the relative calm and predictability of New York.

THE FINAL IRONY The character of Captain Britain is a contentious one and many theories have been put forward for why he failed to find an audience in Britain. One suggestion that cannot be entertained, however, is that Marvel did not vigorously promote it. Captain Britain had the most elaborate publicity drive of any British comic in Marvel’s history, which included having Stan Lee himself cross the Atlantic to spearhead a cross-border media blitz. However, in what was extraordinarily bad luck, the launch coincided with the climax of the moral panic surrounding IPC’s Action weekly. And the final, incredible, implausible irony of the whole mess? In 1973, IPC had secretly created a superhero of their own and then ditched the project. His name? Captain Britain. Acknowledgments: To the indispensable Rob Kirby, The Evening Times, The Herald, The Scotsman, The Daily Record, Comic Media News, Martin Barker, Roy Thomas, Alan Murray, David Smith, Gerry Turnbull, John Roche, Andrew Standish, Thomas Spurgeon, Adrien Auzanneau, and finally Andy Lanning and Dan Abnett for sinking an Internet rumor that one of them attended Stan’s signing session. ROBERT MENZIES bought the Captain Britain comic book when it first came out. For nearly 40 years he’s wondered why no one has ever pointed out that the design on Cap’s chest was based on the heraldic lion from the Royal Standard of Scotland.

Stan Lee and Robert Menzies at London Film and Comic Con, July 12, 2014.

broadsheets. Despite the ongoing frenzy of some in the press, the article, which saw print on the 12th, is flippant rather than reproachful, even acknowledging that Stan is a “genius.” In the article’s photographs, note how Stan’s shifting leg positions show that the four images of him seated were not taken in the order presented and have been re-arranged for effect. You can’t help but wonder if Stan had actually read the comic he was hawking or whether his infamously sieve-like memory was failing him again. He commented to Harry Reid: “I imagine [Brian Braddock/ Captain Britain would] like a drink now and again but he’s too smart to smoke.” Not quite, Stan! The very first time we meet Brian (page 3 of issue #1), he is smoking a pipe! At this point the interview takes on slightly farcical dimensions as it appears the reporter has also not read the comic as he didn’t notice this goof! It’s unthinkable that someone in the British Marvel offices did not make Stan aware of the recent negative press. He probably expected it to some degree anyway—Stan has often spoken about comics being at the bottom of the cultural totem pole. Nevertheless, the current atmosphere went far beyond simple disdain. Some of the media attacks were so fierce that Wergan or Tennant must have warned Stan, perhaps even before he arrived. Stan, who had lived through the decimating effects of Wertham’s 1950s crusade, probably felt a shiver up his spine when he heard about it. In that light, the fact that Stan made a point to Reid about how comics improve literacy and encourage reluctant readers was probably not accidental. After the interview, Stan left for Scotland’s other major city, seemingly more abruptly than either Stan or Reid wished. “Stan was warming to his theme, but he had to leave for Glasgow. THOOM. He was gone.” The cause of Stan’s journey to this writer’s home city was a television interview with Scottish Television (also referred to as STV) at their now-demolished Cowcaddens studios. In 1976, Scotland only had three TV channels and Stan appeared on Scotland Today, STV’s flagship news program that came on at 6:00 p.m. for half an hour. Even though it was only a five-minute interview, it was a huge coup as the program had enormous viewing figures. Although the interview by Jim Manson was friendly, considering the climate of the time it was inevitable that the issue of violence in comics was raised.

Andrew Leyland

The Amazing Spider-Man first appeared in The Mighty World of Marvel #1, the week ending October 7th, 1972. This was the beginning of the Marvel Age of Comics, featuring, as it did, the opening salvo of a trio of strips that would redefine the comic-book medium: Spidey, the Fantastic Four, and the Incredible Hulk. This 40-page comic, costing five pence, featured the world’s greatest superheroes in three movie-length adventures, a great mystery surprise for every reader, and a FREE greenskinned monster T-shirt transfer. What’s this? It’s not like BACK ISSUE to make such a schoolboy error. Surely everybody knows that Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1962, first appeared in an anthology title, that’s true—but it was Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug. 1962), not Mighty World of Marvel (MWOM). And the Hulk and the FF first appeared in their own magazines. Well, yes, all of this is, of course, correct. But for an entire nation across the cold, unforgiving Atlantic Ocean, these three titans of superhero comics did not first headline their own comics, rather, they were introduced to an entire country as stable-mates in one magazine … and thus was born the Marvel Age of Comics—UK division. There had been an attempt to launch Marvel characters before in POW! and Fantastic magazines in the late ’60s, but MWOM wasn’t a licensed deal. Marvel was looking at launching a new line of comics in a new country, on their own terms. Whilst MWOM was popular in and of itself, Spider-Man was the breakout star, and when Marvel looked to expand its publishing output, Spidey was the logical choice for the second Marvel weekly, his place in MWOM being taken by Daredevil. Reprinting “Spider-Man Tackles the Torch” from Amazing Spider-Man #9 (Feb. 1964), #19 of MWOM was Spider-Man’s last as a regular feature. Spider-Man Comics Weekly debuted the week ending February 17, 1973, picking up where MWOM left off with a reprint of Amazing Spider-Man #10, “The Coming of Electro” (Mar. 1964), and also introducing the startled and eager British Isles to the Mighty Thor as a backup strip. The first issue, like its elder “brother,” was 40 pages and cost five pence. It featured a free Spider-Man mask and revealed the startling secret of FOOM. No one could have believed it at the time but this comic would run for almost 13 years and a staggering 666 issues. It would be the pinnacle of UK Marvel’s output featuring pretty much every superhero character Marvel ever published at one time or another, but its end would be ignominious as Marvel UK pretty much gave up, allowing the comic to fade away rather than burn out. It would see numerous title and format

Your Friendly British Neighbourhood Spider-Man Spider-Man UK #607 (Oct. 27, 1984) cover artist Jerry Paris also drew the issue’s splash page, with then-newbies Barry Kitson and Mark Farmer following with interior art. Spidey UK scans courtesy of Andrew Leyland. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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TM & © DC Comics.

It was never quite clear whether Super Friends took place on Earth-One or in some parallel reality. (Wait—the headline says “Global Guardians”! Why are we talking about the Super Friends? Patience, please. We’ll get there!) In favor of the Earth-One theory, Super Friends often referred to the Justice League. But the regular Justice League comics never acknowledged a “Hall of Justice” or any training program for superhero wannabes. It would be easy to conclude that failure to mention these things does not constitute proof of their non-existence except that the presence of a Justice League is not the ironclad proof we’d like to think it is. After all, Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man featured the Injustice Gang satellite, meaning that there’s a Justice League in that continuum, and that story certainly did not take place on Earth-One. Supporting the not-Earth-One hypothesis is the appearance of T.N.T. and Dan the Dyna-Mite in Super Friends #12. These WWII-era heroes were certainly not indigenous to Earth-One, whose first superpowered champion was established to be Superman. And yet, plenty of stories clearly set on Earth-One also broke this rule—frequently stories featuring Superman or his younger self! A sampling of such exceptions includes the Guardian appearing in Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen (starting in #135), Zatara in New Adventures of Superboy #14 and 49, and Air Wave in DC Comics Presents #40, among others. Yes, ten-yearolds go through these kind of mental gymnastics trying to determine where Super Friends takes place. In preparing this article, I took an informal and not-statistically significant survey of a few people in the comics industry on this subject. To a person, they did not consider Super Friends part of Earth-One continuity: Cartoonist Fred Hembeck said, “I didn’t consider ’em in continuity! Just a feeling. (I didn’t consider a lot of what went on in B&B with Batman’s costars in continuity either…)” Craig Shutt, a.k.a. “Mr. Silver Age,” replied that “I wouldn’t consider it in [regular DC] continuity, as it’s a different set of characters with somewhat different personalities. Certainly, there was never an BACK ISSUE • 45

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Captain Who? Unless you are a Canadian or a really hardcore comic collector, you may have never even heard of Captain Canuck. I remember when I first saw something about Captain Canuck, known as CC to his fans. In late 1979 or early 1980, I picked up copy The Buyer’s Guide to Comics Fandom, stuffed with ads of comics for sale. Buried in all those ads was a Captain Canuck promotion from Doug Sulipa’s Comic World, a dealer in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada. So, from the first time I put my hands on a copy of CC, I was hooked have since collected everything connected to the character. While this is an article about Captain Canuck, you can’t understand CC without understanding the life of his creator, Richard Comely. His is the story of how a few issues of Captain Canuck would get published, and then cease publication, and then come back for more issues, and then go away again. Only to come back again. Captain Canuck is like a cat with nine lives.

THE COMING OF CAPTAIN CANUCK

Jay Williams

In late 1971 or early 1972, Richard Comely and Ron Leishman (www.toonaday.com), a friend of Comely’s from church, were talking. Leishman said there should be a Canadian superhero and even had preliminary drawing in his cartoony style. A couple of years went by and at age 24, Comely decided to self-publish CC with money he borrowed from family plus a small bank loan. He found a publisher who would give him credit to print the comics. Before Comely could publish Captain Canuck #1, Leishman went to France for two years as a missionary. Comely modified the cartoony style of Fleishman’s drawing to more of a comic-book superhero style and defined the hero’s look as its writer/artist. In April 1975, a one-page marketing flyer richard comely known as the “Jammies” cover was created and sent out to prospective sellers of comics to promote the first issue of Captain Canuck. Captain Canuck #1 (July 1975), from Comely Comix, was a visual departure from the comics being turned out by Marvel and DC. It had a cover price of 35 cents at a time when US comic books were selling for 25 cents. Issue #1’s cover showed CC in his red-and-white outfit over a Canadian flag, superimposed over a yellow-and-orange sunrise. After much experimentation, Comely took the black-and-white inked comic pages, laid a sheet of acetate over them, and then used animator paints and colored on the acetate pages. The result was a much larger and brighter color pallet than the standard four-color comic. (Some might describe these colors as strange.) The first issue’s CC 18-page adventure was scripted, illustrated, and colored by Comely, with co-scripter Dave Abbott. It included a ten-page sword-and-sorcery backup, Jonn, co-written by Comely and Leishman, penciled by Comely, and inked by Owen McCarron. [Editor’s note: To learn more about McCarron, who was also the man behind Marvel Fun and Games Magazine, see BACK ISSUE #77.] While Captain Canuck was never submitted to the Comics Code Authority for approval to be sold in the US, Comely was committed to having a comic with no gratuitous or excessive violence or sexuality. This comes from Comely being an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). The Captain Canuck series was set in the then-future of 1993–1994. Its backstory: In the 1980s, Canada became the leading economic and world power. Canada’s equivalent of the United States’ CIA was an organization called the C.I.S.O. (Canadian International Security Organization). C.I.S.O. selected two men who are unequaled in physical and mental prowess to be trained as its “super agents”: Captain Canuck (who in real life is Tom Evans) and his partner Blue Fox.

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CAPTAIN CANUCK: LIFE IN THE 21st CENTURY Captain Canuck has made these appearances in the 21st Century: • In 2001, Mark Shainblum re-released two different versions of his 1999 The New Original Captain Canuck: Utopia Moments Part One, each with a different ending. • In early 2004, Doug Sulipa approached Richard Comely to publish Captain Canuck #15, completing the run of Tom Evans as Captain Canuck. Released in June of that year, it had a full-color cover and the interior was printed on blue paper. Only 150 were printed, each signed and numbered by Comely. • Early in 2004, brothers Riel and Drue Langois approached Comely about a new Captain Canuck comic. Rather than continue with either the Tom Evans or Darren Oak Captains, they started with a new Captain Canuck named Dave Semple. This version of Captain Canuck has sometimes been called “the west coast Captain Canuck.” Semple starred in a four-issue series titled Captain Canuck: Unholy War. • In 2006, while teaching comic-book art at a university, Comely came up with the idea of a new Captain Canuck series entitled Captain Canuck Legacy featuring Darren Oak (CC #2). His idea was to have his students help write, pencil, ink, and letter this new series. It lasted two issues (#1 and #1.5). When asked why

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there was a #1.5, Comely replied that its Captain Canuck story was only ten pages long, so he felt it was only worth one half an issue. In 2009, IDW issued a two-volume color hardcover series. Captain Canuck vol. 1 (June 2009) reprinted issues #4–10 plus 11 pages from a proposed Sunday newspaper strip. Captain Canuck vol. 2 (Dec 2009) reprinted the First Summer Special and issues #11–14. In 2011, IDW continued its Captain Canuck reprints with Captain Canuck: The Complete Edition (Nov. 2011), printed in black and white. It included issues #1–3, which were not featured in the two-volume hardcover series, and also included issue #15 and Captain Canuck Legacy #1.5. In 2013, with new financial backing by Fadi Hakim, Captain Canuck, Inc. was created. From this came a five-episode animated web series. In June 2014, Captain Canuck Summer Special First Canada Day Edition was released, with six covers featuring art by Richard Comely, George Freeman, and Mike Rooth. At this writing, plans for Captain Canuck’s 40th anniversary in 2015 include a Free Comic Book Day issue in May and a Crime Stoppers issue in July, followed by a five- or six-issue miniseries and a graphic novel.

The Comeback Kid The sketch cover variant of 2014’s Captain Canuck Summer Special First Canada Day Edition, with an illo of CC by Geof Isherwood. From the collection of Mike Cross. TM & © Richard Comely.

different daily strips were created. Shainblum wrote one story and Comely wrote the rest. Carruthers and Comely split the artwork on the series. Most of the original art for the newspaper series ended up with in the Canadian National Archives. In 1999, Mark Shainblum persuaded Richard Comely to bring back the original Captain Canuck, Tom Evans. To test the public’s interest, The New Original Captain Canuck: Utopia Moments Part One was produced, a 32-page, black-and-white ashcan/mini-comic. Shainblum was the writer and Sandy Carruthers was the artist, with a color cover by Dejan Ostojic. Unfortunately, it was not a success.

WHEN IS THE END NOT THE END? Comely Comix’/CKR Productions’ Captain Canuck lasted 14 issues plus a summer special. Semple Comics’ Captain Canuck Reborn lasted four issues, the Captain Canuck newspaper strip lasted 18 months, and finally, The New Original Captain Canuck only lasted one issue. Sadly, as the 20th Century drew to a close, the publishing history of Captain Canuck was laid to rest once again. But like The Little Engine That Could, Comely would make a comeback in the 21st Century with that “I think I can, I think I can!” attitude. When I look back over Richard Comely’s unswerving faith in Captain Canuck, I think of Tim Allen’s famous line from Galaxy Quest: “Never give up! Never surrender.” I think that about sums it up for Richard Comely. JAY WILLIAMS is a national sales manager for a healthcare software company with a great love of history (his college major) and comics. Occasionally, his day job affords him the opportunity to visit comic-book shops as he travels all of the USA, as he searches for interesting comics and talks to store owners and managers about the “good old days.”

58 • BACK ISSUE • International Heroes Issue

Our cover artists, painter Steve Fastner and penciler Rich Larson, started their collaboration back in the mid-1970s, and nearly 40 years later they’re as in-demand as ever! Many BACK ISSUE readers cherish their fascinating Marvel portfolios of the early ’80s, from which our X-Men vs. Alpha Flight cover hails, and that’s the starting point for this exclusive “Pro2Pro” chat. – Michael Eury

conducted by

Michael Eury

MICHAEL EURY: Let’s start by discussing the Alpha Flight vs. X-Men illustration we’ve repurposed as the cover of this issue, BACK ISSUE #83 … which was released, coincidentally, in 1983 in an X-Men portfolio, one of a few Marvel portfolios you did in the early ’80s. How did these portfolios come about, and who is/was SQ Publications? RICH LARSON: SQP, a.k.a. Sal Q Productions (www.sqpartbooks.com), was and is Sal Quartuccio and Bob Keenan, the hardest-working publishers in fantasy art. Our story is inextricably intertwined with theirs; they were the first to publish our work (in their prozine Hot Stuf’, in 1978), and have published most of our books since. You don’t usually find artists cozying up to their publishers, but we love those guys. They’re probably the longest-lived independent fantasy publishers still actually signing checks. STEVE FASTNER: Sal Quartuccio called me one day in 1979 and told me he was doing a series of Marvel superheroes portfolios. It was going to be various Marvel artists and inkers producing inked drawings of the superheroes. Sal wanted me to do airbrush coloring for the inked drawings using a photo-process called blue-line transfer. Blue-line makes a light blue copy of the line art on a sheet of illustration board, which I would do the airbrushing on. It also makes a copy of the black ink lines on a sheet of clear acetate. That way, when it’s printed, the black ink lines stay solid black instead of being screened, which would make them dark grey instead. I had done blue-line coloring on SQP’s The Art of John Buscema book. I told Sal that I’d prefer to do fully airbrushed paintings instead, so he made me a counteroffer. He would have the artists pencil the drawing on art board and I could do airbrush painting on top. I agreed to do them, and the first set was the X-Men. EURY: You made a reputation in those days doing painted renditions of superheroes before that became fashionable (although, of course, the pulps did that way back in the ’30s). Do you recall the reaction from editors and fans during that time when line art for superhero renderings was the norm? LARSON: I think it was moderately favorable. A few fans probably took issue with our style as a being a bit too cartoony, or not Marvelesque enough. But the portfolios were successful enough that we did four sets (two of the X-Men, Spidey, and the Hulk), and had the Fantastic Four ready to go when Marvel decided to take the portfolio format in-house.

Next Generation Steve Fastner and Rich Larson’s “Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters – Revisted” plate, from SQP’s first X-Men portfolio. X-Men TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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FASTNER: Heavy Metal magazine had been around for a few years, featuring Richard Corben’s airbrush work. Comic artists like Wrightson, Kaluta, Adams, Smith, and others were already doing prints, posters, and magazine covers with more elaborate painted styles. Earl Norem, Ken Kelley, and Bob Larkin did painted superheroes for Marvel’s black-and-white magazines. Album covers and

paperback covers featured a lot of airbrush art at the time. So fans had a taste of it beforehand. I think the comics purists probably favored traditional pen-and-ink stuff, and illustration fans got a kick out of the airbrush style. EURY: So, there was going to be a Fantastic Four portfolio? Man, we missed out! Luckily, you’re sharing one of its plates with BACK ISSUE readers. Tell us about it… FASTNER: [It’s] “Behold Galactus, Devourer of Worlds!” And the Silver Surfer is gliding into the scene as well. The painting was done in 1980 for that Fantastic Four portfolio that was never published. We did three other FF paintings, but this one is the best banana in the bunch. I think this one took longer than usual because of the number of characters and the amount of detail. I had a file of magazine clippings for reference for the planets and space stuff, and had the Lee/Kirby comic book for Galactus reference. SQP was also planning to do an Avengers portfolio, for which Rich did a drawing and I did a pencil study. The second X-Men portfolio, which included the Alpha Flight painting, was the last one produced. EURY: Tell me about your art studies and your influences. LARSON: I read and re-read my ’60s Marvels until they fell apart, so I guess those were my first art studies, and also major influences: Kirby, Ditko, Heck, Wood, Steranko. Andrew Loomis’ Fun with a Pencil is actually the book that got me interested in drawing, sometime in elementary school. MAD magazine shaped my early thought processes, to my parents’ everlasting regret. As far as girl art, Frazetta is pretty much the alpha and omega. FASTNER: My influences are pretty much the same as Rich’s: Marvel Comics, Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, Wally Wood, Gene Colan, Steranko, Corben, Frazetta, Loomis, etc. I also attended St. Paul Technical Vocational School for commercial art, and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design for a couple years. I took an evening class to learn airbrushing.

International Heroes Issue

Greatest Portfolio Never Told (opposite) “Behold Galactus, Devourer of Worlds!” Courtesy of the artists, one of the paintings from the unpublished SQP Fantastic Four portfolio. (left) Publisher Sal Quartuccio’s SQP gave Steve and Rich early exposure, including the ’zine Hot Stuf’ #6 (Winter 1977) and (bottom) a handful of Marvel superhero portfolios, including these X-Men sets. Hot Stuf’ © 1977 SQP. Fantastic Four and X-Men TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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