Exclusive Ms. Mystic interview with NEAL ADAMS!
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Ms. Mystic © Neal Adams. All Rights Reserved.
INDIE SUPERHEROES! Justice Machine • Mighty Crusaders & T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents in the ’80s Captain Paragon • Whisper Continuity’s Superheroes featuring Black, Breyfogle, Buckler, Grant, Gustovich, Isabella, Reinhold, Ordway & more
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Volume 1, Number 94 February 2017 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow
Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!
DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Neal Adams (from the collection of Shaun Clancy) COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Jason Adams Doug Murray Neal Adams Michael Netzer Brian Apthorp Luigi Novi Mark Beachum Jerry Ordway Bill Black George Pérez Jerry Boyd Bill Reinhold Norm Breyfogle Luke Ross Rich Buckler Steve Rude Shaun Clancy Walter Simonson Jon B. Cooke Daniel St. John Mike Deodato Peter Stone Mark Ellis Bryan D. Stroud Stephan Friedt Dann Thomas Grand Comics Roy Thomas Database Steven Thompson Steven Grant Aron Wiesenfeld Martin Greim Steven Wilber Tom Grindberg Jay Williams Greg Guler Marv Wolfman Mike Gustovich Heritage Comics Auctions Tony Isabella Andy Mangels Lou Manna Brian Martin Will Meugniot
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INTERVIEW: The Neal Adams Ms. Mystic Interview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The superstar storyteller discusses his cover-featured creation and more FLASHBACK: Continuity Comics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 An artist-packed profile of Neal Adams’ line of comic books FLASHBACK: Welcome to the (Justice) Machine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 This early indie super-team has become comics’ comeback crusaders INTERVIEW: The Bill Black/Captain Paragon Interview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 The esteemed and longtime artist/publisher looks back at his Sentinels of Justice (and DC’s, too) BACKSTAGE PASS: The Mighty Crusaders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Rich Buckler discusses the “Red Circle Comics” era of Archie’s superheroes FLASHBACK: Lightning Does Strike Twice!: T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 How the super-agents stormed back into comics in the 1980s ROUGH STUFF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 The glorious-graphite return of BACK ISSUE’s pencil art showcase PRO2PRO: The Whisper Interview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Steven Grant and Norm Breyfogle chat about their lady ninja BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Greg Guler and Dan St. John, on their AC Comics days
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. Eight-issue subscriptions: $73 Economy US, $88 Expedited US, $116 International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Neal Adams. Ms. Mystic TM & © Neal Adams. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2017 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.
Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 1
TM
SHAUN CLANCY: Was Ms. Mystic a character you were trying to do with any publisher prior to Pacific, or did Pacific approach you? NEAL ADAMS: No, the idea was that I was doing a portfolio of characters for Sal Quartuccio and I was sort of creating characters as I went along. Once a month, Sal would come over to my studio, and one day I basically told him, “I can sit down and create a character a month and he would have a history, he would have a background, he would be a full-blown-up character.” He said, “Would you do that, and we’ll do a portfolio?” I said, “I can’t dedicate six days in a row to creating a portfolio for you.” So he said, “What if I come by, like, once a month?” And I said, “Sure! Let’s do that.” Now, maybe it wasn’t once a month. Maybe it was every couple of weeks. My memory isn’t that great. But it was something like that. So each time he came, I sat for a few minutes and I created a history, created a concept, created it in my head, and then I started to delineate it on paper so that each time I created a character, I created her background, I created what she or he was and what they were all about. Because that was the idea. The idea was not just to create a character but to give them a history, you know? Ms. Mystic, as it turned out, was a Gaia-type character, a protector of the Earth, and she could be a god… or she could be an alien, from another planet. And I was kind of messing with her history there. Was she Mother Nature? No. There was another Mother Nature that was more part of the Earth. She was more a type of guide, a kind of a god-like creature that perhaps came from another planet and actually, maybe, intended to do wrong by Earth. So there was some ambivalence there. So I thought, “Well… that’s kinda good. I like that. But what about a costume?” And I thought, “Hmmm… You know, nobody’s ever used Zip-A-Tone as a costume… or gray as a costume.” So I thought, “That’s what we’ll do! We’ll just make her a graded gray like with Zip-A-Tone.” But I was doing it in pencil so I graded her in pencil. And she was sort of protector of the Earth. Pacific was approaching me to do a comic book and I said, [laughs] basically, “Look, I really haven’t got time to do this. Maybe I’ll give it a shot.” But in the studio, there was a guy named Mike Netzer who kind of drew like me. Well, he drew exactly like me, or as much as he could. I said, “Look, y’know, I can have a guy in my studio work on this and maybe he can do it and I’ll do layouts, blocking out and all the rest of it.” I was trying to really support Pacific Comics, because I sort of had convinced Jack Kirby to work for them. [laughs] And also Sergio Aragonés to work for them. I had told them that they not only would pay them but they would let them keep the rights to their character.
Early Ms. Mystic Neal’s magnificent Ms. Mystic plate from Sal Q. Productions’ New Heroes Portfolio (1979, inset). Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions. TM & © Neal Adams.
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by S h a u n
Clancy
conducted in July 2015 and transcribed by Steven Thompson
They could hardly believe that. At that time that was actually a phenomenon. So, partially the reason I turned the thing into a character was I wanted to promote a company that would do the right thing by the creators. Although that may not have been the first time it was being done, it certainly was the first where you had three well-known, official people out there—myself, Jack Kirby [on Silver Star and Captain Victory], and Sergio Aragonés [on Groo the Wanderer]—doing characters for more than normal rates and also that they owned their characters. I was kind of killing about 80 birds with one stone there. CLANCY: Who was your contact at Pacific? David Scroggy or who? ADAMS: The brothers. The Schanes. [Editor’s note: Bill and Steve Schanes grew Pacific Comics, the publisher, out of their San Diego-based comic shop in the early 1980s.] CLANCY: How did Ms. Mystic’s name came about? Was it a working title that you just went with? ADAMS: When you’re creating a character, it seems like if you don’t have a good name, you really haven’t got a good character. Cross-Gen. They made one of, I guess, the biggest blunders that you could ever make in comic books. They used verbs as nouns. [both laugh] “Sojourn”? I’m sorry? Sojourn? Really? As a title? Sounds like a journey to me. Doesn’t sound like a character. All their books had verbs. If you run down the list, you kinda go, “Who’s the hero? I don’t know.” They even took “Mystic” as one of their titles. Now, I call my character “Ms. Mystic,” because it was a character. They called it “Mystic,” which was a thing. Now, I guess I had a subliminal memory, because Will Eisner reminded me ten years into it that he had done a character called Mr. Mystic. I had no idea. I had really not been—actually, in all honesty—a fan of Will Eisner in the past. I became a fan of Will Eisner, the person, and his achievements, but I was never really a fan of what he did, The Spirit and all the rest of it. It just seemed a little cartoony to me. But as a person and as a professional… as a person who ran a business and the other things that he did, I really got to appreciate Will Eisner. I guess I must have seen Mr. Mystic somewhere along the line. It just never occurred to me that somebody else had used the name. And his was Mister Mystic and mine is Ms. Mystic. CLANCY: And the Ms. Mystic supporting cast? ADAMS: The other thing—since I was there—I was dealing with these… but they weren’t Thor and Hercules and all the rest of that, but they were more earth gods. I thought, earth, air, fire, and water were great, and it turns out if you look ’em up, there are symbols… different cultures have different symbols for earth, air, fire, and water. I took the most common and put it on their chest and essentially personified earth, air, fire, and water into these four characters.
Defender of the Earth (top) Neal Adams holding the Ms. Mystic art that appears as this issue’s cover. Photo by the art’s owner, Shaun Clancy, taken at the Emerald City Comic-Con in Seattle in April 2016. (bottom) Ms. Mystic #1, from 1982 and Pacific Comics. Cover by Neal Adams. (Neal’s other Pacific Comics title, 1983’s Skateman, will be covered in a forthcoming issue.) TM & © Neal Adams.
Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3
[An aside from WILL MEUGNIOT: Actually… I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t make the Ms. Mystic connection when I brought Neal into the Captain Planet mix. The secret origin of Neal’s animation connection was that in the pre-Bruce Timm era, I’d been approached by Warners to do Batman. Inspired by what the Japanese had done with Space Adventure Cobra, Crying Freeman, and Golgo 13, I thought that, given Batman’s lavish budget, we could attempt a more literal comic-bookstyled cartoon, and base its style on Neal’s work. So I contacted him on Planet to build a working relationship with him and see if we could work together well enough that I could put him at the core of a Batman
team. Obviously, that version of Batman didn’t happen, as it took Warners longer to get their action studio off the ground than planned. Just another of many intriguing might-have-beens. That said, Neal has always been a delight to work with and I dearly value our acquaintance. Also, that connection is what led to Neal doing the X-Men promo art for Saban when I was one of the show’s producers.] [Editor’s note: The Batman cartoon that Warner Bros. ended up doing— Batman: The Animated Series—celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and BACK ISSUE will explore the landmark cartoon show in BI #99, coming this August.] CLANCY: When drawing Ms. Mystic, did you just draw the silhouette and then Zip-A-Tone over the entire finished product? ADAMS: Well, you know. After you get a little confident, you can… [laughs] do a silhouette, but, no. Better to draw it out fully. The idea was to draw it out fully. But you must remember, too, when you’re putting Zip-A-Tone on a figure, that if you leave in little pencil marks, you’ll see them through the Zip-A-Tone. They tend to accent the Zip-A-Tone, so any drawing that was done had to be done lightly. CLANCY: Did you work in blue pencil? ADAMS: No, no, no, no. Blue pencils are dangerous. Actually, I’m one of those people that hardly ever worked in blue pencil. It’s a sort of animator’s technique. People talk about it like it’s a comic-book technique but it’s really not. It’s an animator’s technique. And it’s good, because it sort of doesn’t reproduce if you’ve got the right pencil. But from a historical point of view, mostly it was animators who did their roughs in blue pencil, and then comic-book artists, I guess, picked it up. “Ooo! It doesn’t reproduce! Let’s do it!” [Shaun laughs] “How ’bout using the eraser, fellas?” “Really? I guess we could do that. It makes my arm tired.” I don’t know. There’s these things that become popular so everybody does them, and everybody thinks that this is the way you do it, but usually it’s just a whole lot of baloney. CLANCY: When writing a story, do you write the ending first and work your way back? ADAMS: Never. I try to think of a goal I’m trying to achieve in a story. I want people to like the character. I want the story to be a story that represents the character. In other words, you don’t want to put Superman in a Batman story or Batman in a Superman story. A little piece of advice for the guy who wrote the last Batman movie. [Shaun laughs] So anyway, you want to suit them to the character. Then you want to reach out and think about things that haven’t been played with by other people. And there’s a lot of that. The impression one has is that there’s nothing in the world that’s new, but that’s true only when you’re trying to say something clever to somebody. “Nothing’s new. Everything’s so old. We’re just rehashing the same old…” If you take that attitude, you can really feel down about what you do. I don’t take the attitude. I take the attitude that anything I do is new and I want it to be new and I want it to be fresh and if I happen to stumble across some of the same old stuff, I’ll try to forgive myself. So I look to do things that are new and to do things that other people aren’t necessarily doing or giving a darn about. For example, there’s an awful lot of philosophy that you can turn into a comic that actually turns into a real story. I once did a Spectre story called “Stop That Kid Before He Wrecks the World,” and in the story, this entity—considering the
Big Wheel From Pacific’s Ms. Mystic #1, the supporting cast (top panel) gets their first glimpse of Ms. Mystic (bottom panel). Art by Adams, with Michael Nasser [Netzer]. TM & © Neal Adams.
4 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue
TM & © DC Comics.
I felt earth was good for a black guy because I felt if we say that mankind began in Africa, well, I think that’s a good enough reason for us to do that. A redhead for fire… I just felt that the personification of these characters would be a good thing to put with Ms. Mystic. Then you’d get first conflict, then cooperation, then maybe conflict along the way so you get ’em to bounce off of each other. It really is—to me—a great series of characters, and if I had to be perfectly honest, I would say that Captain Planet was based on Ms. Mystic. In fact, the guys who did Captain Planet, never having done it before, came to me for a design for Captain Planet and somehow insisted that I work on it until I came up with a finished design. Almost as a thank-you, on a creative level. Not so much the executives but on a creative level, the guys over at wherever this company was—I forget the name of the company [DiC, with Turner Entertainment—ed.]—somehow felt I should do the final design, so I did! And I think it was a thank-you or a tip of the creative hat to Ms. Mystic, between you and me and the fencepost and… the… several thousand readers. [Shaun laughs] Will Meugniot was the creative director that I worked with on Captain Planet. He might have a little input for you if you want to check him out.
concept that you’re working with, the Spectre, who is something of a God-like ghost that can do things that you can’t even imagine that Superman can do—transports to different dimensions and enters your head and all kinds of weird stuff. A creature, a benevolent—not a benevolent! [laughs] The opposite of benevolent, thank you. An evil creature that goes to different planets and sucks the goodness and life out of the planet and then moves on to other planets… comes to Earth. He doesn’t reveal his plan, but basically what he does is, he enters this little boy because he feels that the most powerful force of good on the Earth is the Spectre. So he enters this little boy and he starts to do things like destroy bridges and all sorts of mischief. So the Spectre has to go after him and try to undo what he is doing and realizes, of course, what he really has to do is he has to get this thing out of the kid. So he, at one point in the story, tries to draw this creature out of the kid and as he does it, the kid starts to die. And he lets the thing go back into the kid and he realizes that if he removes the thing from the kid, the kid will die. Then that’s the problem that he has to deal with and he has to face throughout the story as we go through the story. So, [Jim] Corrigan—the [Spectre’s] alter ego, the cop that’s alive—talks to him and seemingly gets him to realize it’s a small sacrifice to let one kid die to save the Earth. He almost convinces him, and then as the action is taking place, the Spectre has decided that he will not allow the boy to die. That he will pursue this creature to eternity and never kill the kid and simply undo what this creature does. At that point, the creature tears itself from the little boy and goes screaming off into space to wither and die. His goal in the end was to get the Spectre to do one wrong or evil thing to allow a child to die as the sign that he could destroy the rest of the world by corrupting the rest of the world by giving them choices that would… you know… essentially the Earth would corrupt itself by doing the wrong thing. But Spectre refused to do that and said if it takes the remainder of eternity, he would not destroy the child but he would stop the evil deeds of this creature. Philosophical little story there, and I think a very good story—a story that I think is not followed by so many writers where somebody has to make the right moral choice and by making the right moral choice, they’re sacrificing something of themselves but that is the idea, isn’t it? CLANCY: Yes. ADAMS: And so that story—once that story was written— has been borrowed by a significant number of other people to be added to other stories. Not necessarily in that form and you can sort of track ’em down. The hero would not make the sacrifice. He would sacrifice himself. CLANCY: Is your writing self-taught or did you actually take classes? ADAMS: I don’t think writing is… taught. I guess there are classes where they teach you the simple things like, every story’s got to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. You should draw as much as you can, you should learn to structure your stories in certain ways. I guess I’m kind of a natural storyteller. I think I get it from my mother. I know why a story’s good, I know how to take a story that’s not good and turn it into a good story. If you ask me at the end of the day, tell me the funniest something that happened that day, I will never have a day when there isn’t something incredibly funny. [Shaun laughs] You know, laugh your sides off, because it really has to do with how you view the world and good stories and pathos and those sorts of things. And I find them everywhere. So, storytelling is really something that I do. People think that I’m a good artist. Okay… I’m a pretty good artist. But I’m a much better storyteller. I think I can bring a tear to your eye at times. I can make you fall in love with a character. And that’s what I do. I do it on purpose, too. You know, five guys can
draw Talia, and then when I draw it, suddenly people fall in love with her. Dinah Drake, same thing. Or a new Green Arrow. Women fall in love with him. They love the character as if he were a person! I’ve drawn it in such a way that when they look at it, they go, “I’d like to know him.” It’s a comic-book character. It’s a drawing! So, how does that happen? How does that take place? The actor who plays Arrow on the TV show—he’s basically repeating what I’ve been saying for the last couple of years: Why don’t you put a smile on this guy’s face? Because Green Arrow smiles. He’s like Robin Hood, you know? Suddenly, at that very wrong moment there’ll be a big grin on his face, and that’s what you wanna see! Because he knows something that you don’t know. He thinks it’s funny. He’s that kind of a character. And I like to see that. And I do that when I tell stories. CLANCY: Do you continually jot down ideas? ADAMS: Not ever. Not ever. That would be too much! Oh, my God. I would have notebooks coming out of my ass. [Shaun laughs] Excuse the “ass.” Find another part of my anatomy that they might come out of— coming out of my ears. They would be everywhere. There’s just so many… within the last half hour, something happened that was as funny as anything that happened three days ago. I would describe the character to you.
“Suddenly People Fall in Love with Her”… …says Neal Adams of his rendition of Talia, daughter of the demon (Ra’s al Ghul), and you can see why in this sexy, undated pinup by Neal from the Heritage archives. Talia and Batman TM & © DC Comics.
Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 5
Powerful Pencils (top) Ms. Mystic pencil art from the 2007 Neal Adams Convention Sketch Book. Courtesy of Andy Mangels. (bottom) Courtesy of Heritage, an Adams Megalith illo from 2002. TM & © Neal Adams.
And I walked away thinking, “That was a stupid idea!” And it actually became one of our most popular characters. [Shaun laughs] And Crazyman is, in fact, crazy! In fact, we’re going to be coming out with our characters again before long. CLANCY: We haven’t seen Ms. Mystic in 20 years. What’re the plans for her? ADAMS: Well, we haven’t seen Ms. Mystic in 20 years. We haven’t seen all those characters in 20 years. And you might like to know why. CLANCY: [laughs] Yes, I would! ADAMS: About 20 years ago, in the comic-book business, a phenomenon happened. The phenomenon was that there were all these collectors who thought, “This is a great business to invest in. We should buy craploads of comic books and store them away, wait for five or ten years and then sell ’em and make a ton of money. There are all these collectors who are doing this, so why don’t we start doing it? And so it got to be a buzz going through the collector market where these guys—and I don’t know how many there were, but there were a lot of them—were buying boxes of comic books and putting them in their garages. So books that might not have otherwise sold very well sold a million copies! Unbelievable! And this was also when Image was moving forward! My stuff—I started a project called Deathwatch 2000, and it was headed to the year 2000. And it was a three-issue series that ran across nearly all the characters. So… [laughs] We did sales of 150,000 copies per character across the board. Continuity Comics had lost money up to there. There, we made money. 150,000 copies of each character for three months, or nearly three months. The sales started to sink on the third month. But while this was going on—we were into the second month—those collectors out there decided… I dunno, one weekend… to call each other and say, “Hey. This isn’t working out. If we’re all buying all these comic books, how will they ever increase in value? The hell with it!” And they all stopped. The following Monday—I can’t tell you when it was—was a terrible time. They just stopped buying those comic books. And so these comic-book stores were left with a million comic books of a given title! [laughs] There were $2.00 comic books for 50 cents apiece out of boxes at the fronts of their stores just to get rid of ’em! 1500 stores—I am told—went out of business! Publishers went out of business. I think Comico… a whole bunch of publishers went out of business. And my order numbers as I finished Deathwatch 2000—I was moving into The Rise of Magic. My numbers plummeted! People would change and lower their numbers at the drop of a hat. Any excuse to lower their numbers. If you got a shipment? Lower the numbers. You had a right to do that. So everybody just deserted the business and people went out of business. So I said, “To hell with this. I’m out.” So anybody I talked to of any note, I said to them, “I’ll be back when business is good. Right now, I’m outta here!” [laughs] So I went and I basically did advertising. And advertising is a very, very good business. I did advertising for almost 20 years and did very well. I sent my kids through college. Nobody has outstanding loans in my family, and that’s the kids and grandkids. It was a very good business until the recession hit. Then, when the recession hit, advertising agencies started to pull this outside work back into the agency. And that hurt the business that we were doing, but I thought, “You know, the comic-book business is getting a little bit better. Maybe it’s time to come back in.” And so that’s what I’ve been doing for the last couple of years. So there you have a little concise history of Neal Adams. SHAUN CLANCY started collecting comics in 1975 at the age of eight, when his father brought home a Charlton horror comic for him to read. Today he owns a heating and air-conditioning company in the Seattle area and collects original comic art.
8 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue
Say the name “Neal Adams,” and it’s sure to inspire a multitude of memories and stories for any longtime comicbook collector. Adams is a legendary creator among the elite of icons who have worked in the mainstream comicbook industry with a distinctive grace, power, and emotion to each page he touches. Adams also stands out among those independent publishers with his own line called Continuity Comics. Adams’ company would unite staff and freelance artists from his Continuity Studios (see BACK ISSUE #88) and abroad to slowly begin making its own unique pantheon of heroes and villains that, to this day, remains fresh and exciting. BACK ISSUE had the honor of speaking at length with Continuity Comics talent who gave us exclusive accounts of the ins and outs of the events that sculpted the Continuity Universe. Presented here is a look at these wild and imaginative characters and the writers and artists behind their stories.
THE FATHER OF CONTINUITY COMICS
TM & © Neal Adams.
“In New York, Neal’s Continuity Associates was the vortex of an amazing movement where commercial artists, comic-book artists, and designers intersected. For many [perhaps most] of the generations of younger artists this was the place to be, and as so many of my peers/contemporaries, we made our way, one way or another, to enjoy the fruit of an innovator’s efforts. Neal was generous enough to take many of us on under his wing and give us work as fledgling comic-book artists all the while holding down the fort of being an entrepreneur, father, professional commercial artist, and advocate for Photo by Elite Avni-Sharon. various artists’ issues.” – Michael Netzer (Megalith, Samuree)
by S
teven Wilber
In the late ’70s/early ’80s, small-time independent publishers were cropping up across the United States. First Comics, AC Comics, Eclipse Comics, Comico, and more were finding success with the newly established direct market of specialty comic-book stores. After a short stint at Pacific Comics with his own creation, Ms. Mystic, Neal Adams decided to branch out with his own comicbook company, aptly titled Continuity Comics, based out of his Continuity Studios, established years earlier with Dick Giordano, who went on to become a vice-president of DC Comics. Artist Brian Apthorp explains, “Nothing in the description of what they did at Continuity would indicate that I would have anything to do with comic books, but as a fan knowing Neal for all these years, he’s a tremendous influence on comic-book artists of the late ’60s through the ’70s. I just hoped, if maybe I worked for him, I’d somehow get some connections with the industry of comic books. That’s why I went for the job, and was pleased to have been hired, and proceeded to do all the stuff we’d been doing for commercial illustration, advertising, and movie posters and all that stuff.” Continuity Comics would begin with Echo of Futurepast #1 (July 1984), an anthology series that would be published sporadically through 1984–1986. Zero Patrol, a team of intrepid explorers drafted beyond the stars by the mysterious being “Zero,” would follow. Zero Patrol was created, written, and drawn by Esteban Maroto. It was originally called “Cinco Por Infinito” in Spain, but received
Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 9
TALENT TALK – A SALUTE TO CONTINUITY COMICS’ PUBLISHER, NEAL ADAMS Neal Adams would accrue both fame and notoriety for his time as an artist and storyteller at DC and Marvel Comics. According to the artists who worked for him at Continuity Studios, it was a reputation well deserved. • “Neal Adams, he’s my hero. He’s the biggest influence I have in comics. He challenged me to bring my best.” – Mike Deodato • “Working for Neal was like a day in Corps. I remember one day he came into my room with his ex-wife, Cory (who I loved a lot), such a sweet woman. He came into the room and slapped down three pages of Toyboy on my table and said, ‘Look what I did last night.’ I looked up at him like a scorned son and just said, ‘Well, gee, Neal, that’s great!
But you also have like 25 more years of experience than I do.’ He makes it look simple and that’s to his credit.” – Tom Grindberg • “I had a lot of reasons to be grateful to him and his influence in that time, and the opportunity he gave me.” – Brian Apthorp • “It must be kept in mind that the times Neal exploded into included innovation across the arts from the dance world to music, from Bruce Lee, Hendrix, and Bob Fosse to alternative concepts of physics/ cosmology. Neal tried to bring all of that into comics, so that was where all of us [or at least this] young artists wanted to be.” – Mark Beachum
additional writing and art from Adams, who bought the rights to rework the stories. While the series had nothing to do with what would become the Continuity Universe, Continuity’s first official superhero would debut in Zero Patrol #1 (Nov. 1984).
MEGALITH: THE ULTIMATE MAN
“The point of Megalith? He would always find a way to win.” – Peter Stone (Megalith, Armor, Ms. Mystic, and so many more!)
Josef Majurac was a young Olympic hopeful raised on a farm in rural America. Joe’s Olympic sponsors were revealed to be part of a treacherous unnamed organization and, against his will, Joe was forced into a secret camp to train to become an agent-for-hire. For fear of retribution on his unsuspecting parents, Joe complied. Without the knowledge of his superiors, Joe corresponded with his family, helping them to amass a fortune by forecasting stock trends and various business investments. What wasn’t known, except to the young Majurac, was that by continuing to train his mind, body, and spirit, Joe was able to develop an
Talent Talk – Brian Apthorp Brian Apthorp tells BACK ISSUE, “I was trying to draw over his [Neal Adams’] layout, which is extremely challenging for someone who is not as good a draftsman as he! I can’t work over other people’s layouts; I don’t know what my problem is. I’ve tried before, but maybe I’m not as good a draftsman as I should be [laughs]. It’d be easier to draw whatever someone else composed, but the fact is, over time, I realized, I couldn’t stand it!” Image from Armor vol. 2 #6. Courtesy of Brian Apthorp. TM & © Neal Adams.
10 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue
The Ultimate Men (left) Neal Adams’ cover to Megalith #1 (Apr. 1985). (right) It’s a Continuity hero team-up in Revengers #3 (Nov. 1986). TM & © Neal Adams.
almost-superhuman “Mind-Body Link” that enhanced his strength, speed, stamina, and health, and provided him psychic abilities. When Joe finally escaped, he learned his parents were either dead or possibly in hiding. It became his life mission to find the truth. Majurac quickly caught the eye of the government and media and was given the codename “Megalith.” “Megalith is really based on the Eastern philosophy of the match of the mind and body,” says Peter Stone. “We didn’t make it up. They have complete control of their bodies. Megalith just really worked out [as a character]. Megalith was always intellectual, and I felt like we never really got the opportunity to explore him more than we did.” Megalith would star in three Continuity Comics series. The first was Revengers #1 (Apr. 1985) through #6 (Jan. 1989). Revengers would follow up with Megalith’s first solo title, Megalith #1 (Jan. 1989) through #9 (Mar. 1992). A second Megalith series would debut in April 1993 and be discontinued with its seventh issue in January 1994. BACK ISSUE readers will notice a trend of inconsistent publishing from Continuity Comics, going from monthly, to bimonthly, or sometimes several months in between issues. “I’m just purely guessing,” according to Brian Apthorp, “that it might’ve just been financial cost of printing, because it was pretty high-class printing.” Longtime Continuity writer/editor Peter Stone explains, “[although] we realize it now, we never should have had monthly comic books, because it was too hard. We didn’t have Marvel over us, we didn’t have Disney, we didn’t have someone behind us who could say, ‘Oh, you lost money this month? Don’t worry about it.’ Because it was an independent company, there really wasn’t a trade entity on the premises; we were allowed a lot of freedom, and sometimes freedom stabs you.” Megalith would remain one of the most prominent superheroes of the Continuity Universe, additionally appearing in other books like Armor, Samuree, and Hybrids. Throughout his adventures, Joe would battle various foes including zealot rightwing militants, radiation-scarred mutants, sentient machines, and supernatural beasts, all the while trying to build a “normal” life for himself. Megalith wasn’t always successful, considering that his surrogate family consisted of characters like Armor and Silver Streak.
Band of Brothers Megalith, Armor, and Silver Streak in action in Revengers #5 (Mar. 1989). Story by Adams and Peter Stone, art by Adams, Ian Akin, and Brian Garvey. TM & © Neal Adams.
Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 11
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There is an old adage in sports when a player moves from team to team throughout their career. Either everyone wants them, or no one does. So what does it mean when a comic-book super-team has five different publishers throughout their Bronze Age career? This is the case with The Justice Machine, and this is their story.
THE FIRST INDIE SUPER-TEAM
by B r i a n
Martin
Break on Through The Justice Machine arrive on the scene with their first issue from Noble Comics (June 1981). Cover penciled by John Byrne and inked by series creator Mike Gustovich. Justice Machine TM & © Mark Ellis.
The Justice Machine was created by veteran comic-book artist Mike Gustovich. According to the editorial in the JM’s first issue, it was an idea that had been percolating in Mike’s mind for five years or more and had undergone a number of revisions before finally making it into print. The name itself originated those five years earlier, but it only had one comic-book appearance, and that was in an advertisement! Power Comics Company was a small independent publisher in the mid-1970s. They published five issues of Power Comics and one issue of Cobalt Blue. Issue #2 of Power Comics featured the origin story of the hero named Cobalt Blue. It was planned for him to be a member of the company’s first super-team—so much so that the issue included an offer for a poster entitled, “A dozen super heroes band together to save our galaxy!” The picture included a dozen members, and they were to be called the Justice Machine. “The publishers of Power Comics wanted the team to comprise all of their characters,” reveals Mike Gustovich himself. “As I remember—could be wrong—I think all of the [Power] artists had a hand in the poster creation.” That’s as far as it got, however. The company did not last long enough to take the idea any further. At the time, Gustovich did not even like the concept. “I thought it was a stupid idea. So when PC failed, [co-publisher] Ed Langham gave me the rights to the name.” Obviously not one to throw away what he considered a good name, Mike Gustovich continued to refine the idea. “I loved the name, but a characterless comic book would never pass the market muster, so I started thinking...” Giving them the distinction of being the first superhero group published by an independent, the first issue (June 1981) of Justice Machine was published by Noble Comics, and it was a bit of a strange duck, to be sure. It certainly started off with a bang. The cover was penciled by comic superstar John Byrne and inked by Gustovich. The first strange thing about the comic is its size. In an era when virtually no superhero starred in a magazinesized publication, save for a few already-established Marvel stalwarts, that is where the Machine began life. “Those were the good ol’ days of experimentation, doing things in a non-traditional manner and letting the cookie crumble on deaf ears,” explains Gustovich. He further elaborates, “I really liked the old Marvel B&W mags but wanted a color comic. Presto, change-o, there it was.” The comic’s coloring stands out immediately, as it has a sort of grainy, washed-out look to it. Gustovich describes the method they used: “During my years of studying comics and trying to figure out how they were made, I stumbled upon the process of color separation, which had to be done for any color piece to see print. You know, the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue—a separate plate for each color. And they only used four percentages of those colors: 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25%.
Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 23
A New Machine (left) Eddy Newell cover for issue #2 (1992) of the short-lived Millennium series shows how the team looked in their 1990s incarnation. (right) The 2014 JM graphic novel Object of Power, with a painted cover by Jeff Slemons. TM & © Mark Ellis.
“Darryl came up with Krista’s powers and her ‘Chain’ codename,” continues Ellis. “But with the addition of Krista, the team was too unwieldy, so Darryl and I decided to write Talisman out for the time being, alluding to a trauma that caused him to become a clergyman.” Yes, the Justice Machine’s resident smartaleck had found religion. Since their storyline invalidated Tony Isabella’s explanation of how Demon returned from the dead, Ellis feels, “Perhaps in the future there will be a story where Demon and Talisman are trapped in a situation with apparently no chance of survival and they confide to each other their darkest secrets—how Demon survived his 3000-mile swim, and what trauma made Talisman turn to religion instead of relying on his luck.” While we are on the subject of apparently no chance for survival, according to Mark Ellis, “At the time the first issue was ready to come out, the direct market was in full crash and burn. Darryl was getting regular work from DC and I just didn’t feel like going forward with the series without him… particularly under the desperate circumstances of the time. So we just ended it with the second issue.” That second issue ends with the Justice Machine heading out to stop a threat to world security. And so, that is where the saga of the Justice Machine ends, with a cliffhanger. Thankfully, everyone with a passion for the group did finally receive satisfaction. Ideas Mark Ellis had for the team, and a novel one regarding the genesis
38 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue
of Georwell, did not go unrealized. In the graphic novel Object of Power, published in 2014 by Bluewater Publishing, by using the story device of parallel universes and having the villains utilizing a “reality nexus” to try and overlay another reality onto the existing one, Ellis has done what he had long intended to do and, in his words, “Reset the whole ‘Machineverse’ and meld the Noble and Comico continuities into one.” Where they will go from here is unknown. But if history is any indication, they are not likely to vanish from the comics firmament because, like any sleek machine, the Justice Machine just needs the occasional tune-up to keep on running like new. The author wishes to thank Mark Ellis, Michael Eury, Mike Gustovich, Tony Isabella, Doug Murray, and Bill Reinhold for their cooperation and invaluable input, as well as acknowledge the research assistance provided by comics.org and Robert Ingersoll’s article in Amazing Heroes #113. A thank-you also goes to Mike Sangiacomo for invaluable assistance. BRIAN MARTIN lives in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. He began reading comics even before he could read, and is told he learned to read from them. This has led to him reading just about everything, and he shows no signs of slowing down.
conducted by
Jay Williams
Introducing… Captain Paragon From early fanzine efforts like (left top) Paragon Golden Age Greats, Bill Black matured into a storyteller with his first breakout character, (left bottom) Captain Paragon, seen in this 1970 issue. (right) CP takes on the Shroud on the cover of Captain Paragon #1 (1972). Captain Paragon TM & © AC Comics. Batman, Superman, Hawkman, Spectre TM & © DC. Captain America TM & © Marvel.
Paragon Publishing, Americomics, and AC Comics are not household names in the comics world like DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, and others. They are all creations of one man—William Black, or to his friends, Bill or Wild Bill. While Bill did some artwork for Marvel, Charlton, and Warren earlier in his career, he had another dream. Bill Black entered comic fandom near the end of its glory years and shares with BACK ISSUE, “I wanted to do something different, as my main goal was not to praise comics in a fannish manner but to create my own comic-book characters. In order to accomplish that, I decided not to stick with one sole title but to publish a ‘universe’ of titles. That’s how Paragon differed from other zine publishers.” For years, Bill was a one-man show, drawing, inking, lettering, handling layouts, and actually assembling magazines. The following interview with Bill Black focuses on his favorite creation, Captain Paragon, which began in the title Paragon Golden Age Greats #2 (Summer 1969). – Jay Williams
THE PARAGON PUBLISHING YEARS
JAY WILLIAMS: We need a little information on Paragon Golden Age Greats (PGAG) #2 (Summer 1969). BILL BLACK: It was 40 pages, with a 17-page Captain Marvel story, a reprinted 1948 Golden Age story, “Captain Marvel Battles the God of Crime.” And in a nod to comics fandom, I filled out the book with a four-page Sub-Mariner story and pinups of Captain 3-D, Vigilante, Captain Midnight, and Captain Marvel, Jr. WILLIAMS: Did you script, pencil, and ink the entire issue? BLACK: Yes and no. The Sub-Mariner story was supposedly drawn by “fellow Florida fan fanatic” Bill Schwartz. “Schwartz” is German for Black. WILLIAMS: Did the cover of PGAG #2 also show up as the cover of Rocket’s Blast Comicollector #101 (Aug. 1973)? BLACK: It didn’t. That was a similar drawing. I still have the cover art, and any art sent to RBCC was never returned.
Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 39
All Together, Now Wraparound cover to The Armageddon Factor: The Conclusion #3 (1990). Cover art by Bill Marimon and Ralph Cabrera. TM & © AC Comics.
WILLIAMS: There is a two- to three-year gap between Armageddon Factor #2 and The Armageddon Factor: The Conclusion (1990). What was the big delay in getting this issue out? BLACK: I don’t remember for sure. Sales slipped so that I had to cancel Dragonfly, and Rik had to seek other employment. Maybe this is when he started his long run on Captain America. WILLIAMS: The cover is a beautiful wraparound featuring 13 AC Comics superheroes. What can you tell us about Bill Marimon and Ralph Cabrera, who illustrated it? BLACK: That wraparound cover is terrific. Bill Marimon is another Florida artist who was a close friend of Rik’s. Bill brought in Frank Turner to help with art on AF: The Conclusion. WILLIAMS: The interior pages of Armageddon Factor #1–2 are in full color, but the interior pages of Armageddon Factor #3 you return to glorious black and white. For what reason? BLACK: It was a tradeoff. I could have gone with color, but it would have had to be printed on newsprint. I thought this book was very special so I had it printed on a sheet-fed press, not a web press. That is more expensive, but the reproduction is fantastic. I thought the printing in color on AF #1 and 2 was weak. So AF #3 is on nice paper but in B&W. WILLIAMS: Armageddon Factor #3 is not actually numbered as #3. It is titled Armageddon Factor: The Conclusion. Why? BLACK: It is #3, but it was released as a one-shot because of the time lag and because of the special handling. WILLIAMS: AF #1 was a 30-page story and AF #2 dropped to a 24-page story, but you come back with a bang with a 41-page story. What was the reasoning for the longer story? BLACK: AF: Conclusion was an epic. It took that many pages to complete it. The cover price jumped to $3.95, because production was more costly. There are no ads or fillers, just 44 pages [of content]. WILLIAMS: This book opens with a couple of pages, the usual art and word. At the end of the second page, the green (okay, now black-andwhite) character picks up a file from the Paragon Foundation. The next four pages of this comic are like you are looking at and reading directly from pages in that file. Whose idea was this concept? BLACK: Again, all Rik Levins. It had to be text, as the book would have had to have been three times as long if it was done as comics. WILLIAMS: What was the main purpose of four pages of text? 48 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue
BLACK: This is very, very important. Here Rik lays out the foundation of the entire AC Universe. This becomes our bible upon which future stories were based. In fact, the storyline in Femforce #175 is based on concepts from this bible. If you establish solid, well-conceived characters, you can go on forever. This bible is also a scorecard. You can use it to tell who’s who and who plays for which team. ProSec Publishing is about to launch a line of prose novels based on AC characters, and they used this bible as a blueprint. WILLIAMS: Anything else you would like to share about the story in this issue or AC Comics? BLACK: Much has happened in the 26 years since this book was released. There is far too much to touch on here. The biggest changes were Mark Heike came in as associate editor in 1990 and then took over as publisher in 2014. Thanks, Mark, I could not have done it without you! WILLIAMS: I sure hope this interview stirs up some interest in Captain Paragon, Sentinels of Justice, and Femforce. Where can a reader go to get these? Also, would you and Mark be willing to autograph these copies? BLACK: I know I would be willing to autograph them and I am sure Mark would also. Almost all of the Americomics and AC Comics and a few Paragon Publications are available at www.accomic.com. WILLIAMS: What you have been up to since stepping away from the day-to-day operations at AC Comics? BLACK: I have returned to my other love, making movies. My first movie after starting in comics was one about the Blue Bulleteer. Then I did The Amazing Colossal Woman. I have just completed a reworking of that movie and it and other movies starring Femforce characters, plus old remastered cliffhanger serials are available either at my website (www.cultretro.com), on Amazon, or in my eBay store (http://stores. ebay.com/redmaskemporium/). 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.”
Don’t miss TwoMorrows’ latest book release, The MLJ Companion, featuring the complete history of Archie Comics’ “Mighty Crusaders” characters, from the Golden Age to today. This full-color book is now available at comics shops and from www.twomorrows.com.
It wasn’t exactly an original idea, bringing together a stable of superheroes into a team unit. After all, the Justice Society of America first pulled off the distinction of being the original superhero super-group in All-Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940–1941).
GOLDEN AGE ROOTS FOR A SILVER AGE SUPER-TEAM
by B
ryan D. Stroud
Fast forward nearly a quarter century, and the seeds were spread to do something similar in the pages of Archie Comics’ Adventures of the Fly #31 (May 1965) when the hero in question, actually known as Fly-Man at the time, got a little help from his friends in facing off against (naturally) the Spider. These allies came from some other classic hero titles from Archie’s stable, though, of course, the publisher was known as MLJ in those early days. First up is the Shield, the very first superhero to wear the red, white, and blue, way back in Pep Comics #1 (Jan. 1940). Next we have the Comet, in a redesigned costume and with a different backstory than the original incarnation, who also appeared in that first issue of Pep and, incidentally, was also an early creation of the great Jack Cole of Plastic Man fame. One could not help but wonder if the character was an inspiration for another hero with a visor that fired beams, in the form of the X-Men’s Cyclops. Another interesting fact is that the original Comet was likely the first superhero to be killed off and was replaced by the Comet’s brother, who took to fighting crime as the Hangman. Rounding out this ’60s supergroup is the Black Hood, who originally debuted in Top Notch Comics #9 (Oct. 1940). It soon becomes evident that the writer, yet another founding father of the Golden Age of comics, one Jerry Siegel, using the pen name Jerry Ess, is taking a few cues from the highly popular contemporary line of heroes from Marvel. The dialogue exhibits the characters bickering among themselves and even including lines like, “…‘The Mighty Crusaders’ is corny, like something dreamed up in a comic book!” Speaking of their team name, it was speculated by Michael Uslan, who wrote the foreword to the reprinted book with the origin stories, that the Mighty Crusaders might just be the first team named by a supervillain, specifically the Spider, yet it’s noteworthy that on page 7 of the tale, the Comet, addressing Fly-Man, refers to himself as “…the Comet, mighty crusader from the planet Altrox!” In any case, after two more stories in the pages of the Fly’s book, a new title emerges with The Mighty Crusaders #1 (Nov. 1965).
THE MIGHTY CRUSADERS COME FULL RED CIRCLE
Archie’s Super Pals ’n’ Gals The Mighty Crusaders #1 (Mar. 1983), from Archie’s Red Circle Comics imprint, under the creative direction of artist Rich Buckler. TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.
Unfortunately, the series only made it to issue #7 and was then abandoned… until resurgence came about in 1983, when Rich Buckler was tagged to function as virtually a one-man-band, serving as editor, writer, and artist for the return of The Mighty Crusaders under Archie’s “Red Circle Comics Group” imprint. Rich offers BACK ISSUE a great deal of information about his work on the title and begins, logically enough, with how he first became acquainted with this super-team: “That would be when Archie first attempted to revive the Mighty Crusaders back in the ’60s. I was just a teenage comic-book fanatic and I bought these superhero books off the newsstand when they first came out. I had mixed reactions. I liked it okay. As a comics fan, though, I got really curious about the characters when I learned about their Golden Age history. Once I did that I realized that the company and the creative people involved did not even know these characters at all. I remember also wondering why Archie Comics called their superheroes ‘mighty’ and not once referred to them as ‘super.’ I remember picking up back Indie Superheroes Issue • BACK ISSUE • 49
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 Events!” With extensive coverage of the Avengers/Defenders War, JLA/JSA crossovers, Secret Wars, Crisis’ 30th anniversary, Legends, Millennium, Invasion, Infinity Gauntlet, and more! Featuring the work of SAL BUSCEMA, DICK DILLIN, TODD McFARLANE, GEORGE PÉREZ, JOE STATON, LEN WEIN, MARV WOLFMAN, MIKE ZECK, and more. Plus an Avengers vs. Defenders cover by JOHN BYRNE.
“International Heroes!” Alpha Flight, the New X-Men, Global Guardians, Captain Canuck, and Justice League International, plus SpiderMan in the UK and more. Also: exclusive interview with cover artists STEVE FASTNER and RICH LARSON. Featuring the work of JOHN BYRNE, CHRIS CLAREMONT, DAVE COCKRUM, RICHARD COMELY, KEITH GIFFEN, KEVIN MAGUIRE, and more! Alpha Flight vs. X-Men cover by FASTNER/LARSON.
“Supergirl in the Bronze Age!” Her 1970s and 1980s adventures, including her death in Crisis on Infinite Earths and her many rebirths. Plus: an ALAN BRENNERT interview, behind the scenes of the Supergirl movie starring HELEN SLATER, Who is Superwoman?, and a look at the DC Superheroes Water Ski Show. With PAUL KUPPERBERG, ELLIOT MAGGIN, MARV WOLFMAN, plus a jam cover recreation of ADVENTURE COMICS #397!
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BACK ISSUE #89
“Christmas in the Bronze Age!” Go behind the scenes of comics’ best holiday tales of the 1970s through the early 1990s! And we revisit Superhero Merchandise Catalogs of the late ‘70s! Featuring work by SIMON BISLEY, CHRIS CLAREMONT, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍALÓPEZ, KEITH GIFFEN, the KUBERT STUDIO, DENNY O’NEIL, STEVE PURCELL, JOHN ROMITA, JR., and more. Cover by MARIE SEVERIN and MIKE ESPOSITO!
“Marvel Bronze Age Giants and Reprints!” In-depth exploration of Marvel’s GIANT-SIZE series, plus indexes galore of Marvel reprint titles, Marvel digests and Fireside Books editions, and the last days of the “Old” X-Men! Featuring work by DAN ADKINS, ROSS ANDRU, RICH BUCKLER, DAVE COCKRUM, GERRY CONWAY, STEVE GERBER, STAN LEE, WERNER ROTH, ROY THOMAS, and more. Cover by JOHN ROMITA, SR.!
“Batman AND Superman!” Bronze Age World’s Finest, Super Sons, Batman/Superman Villain/Partner Swap, Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane go solo, Superman/Radio Shack giveaways, and JLA #200’s “A League Divided” (as a nod to Batman v. Superman)! Featuring work by BRIAN BOLLAND, RICH BUCKLER, GERRY CONWAY, JACK KIRBY, GEORGE PÉREZ, JIM STARLIN, and more. Cover by DICK GIORDANO!
“Comics Magazines of the ’70s and ’80s!” From Savage Tales to Epic Illustrated, KIRBY’s “Speak-Out Series,” EISNER’s Spirit magazine, Unpublished PAUL GULACY, MICHAEL USLAN on the Shadow magazine you didn’t see, plus B&Ws from Atlas/Seaboard, Charlton, Skywald, and Warren. Featuring work by NEAL ADAMS, JOHN BOLTON, ARCHIE GOODWIN, DOUG MOENCH, EARL NOREM, ROY THOMAS, and more. Cover by GRAY MORROW!
“Bronze Age Adaptations!” The Shadow, Korak: Son of Tarzan, Battlestar Galactica, The Black Hole, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Worlds Unknown, and Marvel’s 1980s movie adaptations. Plus: PAUL KUPPERBERG surveys prose adaptations of comics! With work by JACK KIRBY, DENNY O’NEIL, FRANK ROBBINS, MICHAEL W. KALUTA, FRANK THORNE, MICHAEL USLAN, and sporting an alternate Kaluta cover produced for DC’s Shadow series!
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BACK ISSUE #90
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“Eighties Ladies!” MILLER & SIENKIEWICZ’s Elektra: Assassin, Dazzler, Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau), Lady Quark, DAN MISHKIN’s Wonder Woman, WILLIAM MESSNER-LOEBS and ADAM KUBERT’s Jezebel Jade, Somerset Holmes, and a look back at Marvel’s Dakota North! Featuring the work of BRUCE JONES, JOHN ROMITA JR., ROGER STERN, and many more, plus a previously unpublished cover by SIENKIEWICZ.
“All-Jerks Issue!” Guy Gardner, Namor in the Bronze Age, J. Jonah Jameson, Flash Thompson, DC’s Biggest Blowhards, the Heckler, Obnoxio the Clown, and Archie’s “pal” Reggie Mantle! Featuring the work of (non-jerks) RICH BUCKLER, KURT BUSIEK, JOHN BYRNE, STEVE ENGLEHART, KEITH GIFFEN, ALAN KUPPERBERG, and many more. Cover-featuring KEVIN MAGUIRE’s iconic Batman/Guy Gardner “One Punch”!
“Bronze Age Halloween!” The Swamp Thing revival of 1982, Swamp Thing in Hollywood, Phantom Stranger team-ups, KUPPERBERG & MIGNOLA’s Phantom Stranger miniseries, DC’s The Witching Hour, the Living Mummy, and an index of Marvel’s 1970s’ horror anthologies! Featuring the work of RICH BUCKLER, ANDY MANGELS, VAL MAYERIK, MARTIN PASKO, MICHAEL USLAN, TOM YEATES, and many more. Cover by YEATES.
“All-Captains Issue!” Bronze Age histories of Shazam! (Captain Marvel) and Captain MarVell, Captain Carrot, Captain Storm and the Losers, Captain Universe, and Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers. Featuring C. C. BECK, PAT BRODERICK, JACK KIRBY, ELLIOT S. MAGGIN, BILL MANTLO, DON NEWTON, BOB OKSNER, SCOTT SHAW!, JIM STARLIN, ROY THOMAS, and more. Cover painting by DAVE COCKRUM!
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by J e r r y
Boyd
In the 1960s, pop culture spawned few characters that were cooler than secret agents. Ian Fleming’s James Bond was wildly popular in the movie theaters, and animation companies, TV networks, film studios, and yes, comic-book companies, looked for ways to cash in on this exciting new trend. “Spymania,” it was called, and at the fledgling Tower Comics, the nation’s newest delight got a novel approach—super-spies with superpowers. Why not? Superpowered people were all the rage. At Mighty Marvel, they all came with angst and neuroses for a more adult appeal. Archie Comics retooled its old MLJ superheroes and introduced new characters, as did Charlton Comics with its Action Heroes line. In addition, “the New Look Batman” and “Marvelmania” invigorated the costumed crowd and their readers. Wallace Wood was a proven talent by 1965. He’d done exemplary work in many arenas, and baby boomers of my generation will always love him for the superb compositions he gave Topps bubble-gum cards, lunchboxes, game boards, fanzines, monster magazines, album jackets—he was everywhere, and we loved it! Before that, he stunned comic fans with his brilliant EC Comics work. So, it was only natural for Woody to be there for the next big thing, and he wisely combined two big new things— spy guys and gals with superpowers.
CREATORS AND CAST
At Tower Comics, Wood would be an editor as well as the chief artist and chief writer. He called in old friends: Reed Crandall and Al Williamson from Woody’s EC days shared page space with Paul Reinman (who also did the main art chores for Archie’s superhero lineup), Mike Sekowsky (from DC’s Justice League of America), Chic Stone, Steve Ditko, and George Tuska, among others. Leonard Brown, who’d be the most prominent of the T-Agents (as I’ll call the super-team in abbreviation), was named after Len Brown, a friend of Woody’s from the Topps Cards days earlier on. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. stood for The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves and had its main headquarters at the U.N. building in New York City. (All heroes must report to NYC or some variation on it, right?) Brown’s promotion included a waist-cinching device scientists called the Thunderbelt, and this device gave Len super-strength, invulnerability, and super-stamina that would enable him to keep up with the ne’er-do-wells who peopled the ranks of S.P.I.D.E.R. and the Warlords, as well as various Communists, mad scientists, and colorful supervillains. His new codename was Dynamo—appropriate for his incredible energy and bolt of lightning that always accompanied his activation of the T-belt. Dr. Anthony Dunn was a brilliant scientist faced with death. Before he passed on, he found a way to transfer his brain patterns to an android body he created along with another doctor. NoMan was his new name, and Woody may have been proudest of this original creation. No man (pun intended) in comics was like him. NoMan had many android bodies at his disposal, and could move his brain patterns from one to another in case of emergencies or a seeming death to one of them. A cloak of invisibility earned him the nickname of “the Invisible Agent.” Lightning was Tower’s fast-moving equivalent of the Flash or Quicksilver. Guy Gilbert began as one of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad,
Woody’s Wonders “Spied on” by perennial nemesis the Iron Maiden stand four of the T-Agents, Lightning, NoMan, Dynamo, and Menthor. Thanks to Jerry Ordway for doing the art (circa ’13) and providing the scan! T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.
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Men of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. (top left) Wallace Wood in a photo taken in 1977. (top right) One of Woody’s assistants, Bill Pearson, did this great commission for this article’s author a few years ago. Dynamo busts through walls like nobody else! Thanks again, Bill! (bottom) Dan Adkins’ 2000 portrait of the man with the Thunderbelt. Dynamo TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.
a strike force I’ll talk about later, but his training and heroism stood out and he got the super-speed suit that gave him his quickness. John Janus was a former criminal who decided crime really didn’t pay. He became an Agent and later got a cybernetic helmet which emitted mindblowing emanations (it was the 1960s, right?). With the ability to gain temporary control of his enemies’ minds, a new Agent was added: Menthor. Non-powered but just as heroic as the T-Agents was the aforementioned T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad. Gilbert was their leader before he got his colorful outfit and powers, but Egghead was the smartest, Weed was the safecracker, and Kitten was the lovely blonde Wood loved to draw, but just as resourceful and engaged in her job as her male companions. Big “Dynamite” Dan Adkins (named after Woody’s young protégé) handled the explosives and the roughest human customers the team had to face, being the biggest member of the team. He’d later get a name change to John. Raven was a late addition. He got mechanical wings from the U.N. chiefs after Menthor was killed (in an unforgettable shocker) by the dastardly subterraneans and one of their hooded Warlord leaders. Traveling the world, backed by the United Nations and local law enforcement, the T-Agents bowed in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (Nov. 1965) and 58 • BACK ISSUE • Indie Superheroes Issue
had a respectable 20-issue run, the last publication composed of mostly reprints as the 1960s closed (#20, Nov. 1969). Dynamo got four beautifully drawn issues, NoMan earned two, and an unrelated Undersea Agent title, with hero Davey Jones (!!), lasted for six issues.
SPY SHUTDOWN
1969 ended and the T-Agents shuffled off this (im-)mortal coil. In the 1970s, Wood and his former co-workers had moved on. Aside from a stunning illo Wally used in a later publication with Dynamo typically plowing his way through a pack of determined but hapless space aliens, the super-spies had gone into that comic limbo we’re all familiar with. Artist Dan Adkins told me by letter circa ’01, “I had fun with those [Tower] books. Wood really came up with something there—spies with superpowers. I killed Menthor and it caused a problem with some readers, but that story is really appreciated now. Overall, it was a lot of fun working at Tower.” Woody checked on the sales of his canceled comics line. He took some pride, from some accounts, that it was poor distribution and not poor sales that ended his Thunderers.
JOLTED INTO THE 1980s!!
Students of pop culture may recall that the early 1980s was not a good time for television. Somehow, the networks’ trusted producers and new ones had forgotten how to make a sitcom, drama, etc. work for mass consumption. In desperation, they turned back to tested/beloved stars —Dick van Dyke and Lucille Ball, among others. Nostalgia for the 1960s, following the 1970s’ love for “happy days” (both the Ike era and the show), had come around. John Carbonaro was a publisher at one of those interesting new companies that would captivate comicdom. First Comics, Pacific Comics, Eclipse Comics, and others would offer their takes on romance, super-doers, science fiction, and the like. John C. tested the waters with JCP Features #1 (1981), with his initials as part of the banner. He had Archie Comics as a backer; Archie was testing the waters, also—they retooled their old MLJ heroes (some
last used in the 1960s, with little effect on Marvel and DC) and wanted to see if they’d be picked up by readers [see related story elsewhere in this issue—ed.]. This B&W effort was one large slugfest and not very notable. Even John C. was somewhat disappointed with the results. The T-Agents came out in six big chapters and punched it out with their old villains. Sales weren’t good and even the two backups, one a truncated reprint of the Fly by Simon & Kirby and a Neal Adams Black Hood yarn, overshadowed the passionate but uninspiring return of the super-spies. Undaunted, the ambitious Carbonaro returned in 1983. This time the company was still under his name and called JC Comics, though Archie was still a financier. Testing the waters still, Archie Comics and the young publisher started off with Hall of Fame featuring the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (May 1983). Would nostalgia work? Sadly, Wood and Crandall were dead by the time this issue appeared. Would reprints of their old stories attract new readers? In the ’80s, Tower Comics back issues were still very cheap, but… could you find them? Carbonaro explained in #2’s text introduction, “For fans who’ve entered the field since 1970 and wondered what all the fuss was about, here’s a brand-new package of exciting stories and art equal to anything ever presented by any other publisher!” Behind a Lou Manna/Rich Buckler cover, sales on this opening gambit were apparently encouraging enough to warrant more. The second entry showcased a masterpiece by Steve Ditko, the only major artist from the scintillating 1960s to return to the saga of the spies. Inside the back cover for this one, a house ad proudly proclaimed that a NEW T-Agents #1 was on its way! A third reprint issue with a nice cover by Bob Layton, who was wowing them with Iron Man over at Marvel, saw print. However, all was not… totally well. In HOFFTTA #2, an irate Brian C. Boehner blasted the two-years-old JCP (John Carbonaro Presents #1) one-shot, commenting, “I’ve seen the first ‘JCP Features’ and frankly, the concept is good but the execution is weak. I won’t comment on the script, since that’s not my forte. My gripe is about the art and its reproduction.” As the editor/art director of Movie Special Series, Brian’s missive got a special page. He went on to offer JCP his services on the production end. Clearly, some readers were fired up about seeing the T-Agents done right! His help was accepted. Later, Carbonaro admitted that the new story was “a dumb storyline” that was coupled with a number of Jack Kirby action pose re-dos by penciler Pat Gabriele. Pat was talented, but everyone involved was young and green and the old masters in the backups’ materials unfortunately overshadowed the efforts of the youngsters.
A Thunderous Return (top) 1981’s JCP Features #1—the boys are back in town, folks! Cover art by Mark Texiera. (bottom) The first two issues of JC’s reprint series, Hall of Fame featuring the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. Cover for #1 (May 1983) by Lou Manna and Rich Buckler; cover for #2 (Aug. 1983) by Steve Ditko. TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC.
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TM
Steven Grant has had a varied and prolific history in comics and elsewhere. Since the late 1970s, Steven has written for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Capital, First, Wildstorm, IDW, Boom!, and Avatar. He’s had two successful, long-running columns for the Comic Book Resource website. Steven has authored a number of Hardy Boys books and a Tom Swift novel. Steven’s Boom! Studios work included an updated Whisper book and the crime series 2 Guns, which was made into the 2013 action film with Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg. Norm Breyfogle has been in comics since the 1980s. “Discovered” by Mike Friedrich at the 1984 San Diego Comic-Con Art Show, Norm was soon working for Marvel, DC, and First. Though perhaps best known for his stellar work on Batman through multiple Bat-titles, Norm also drew The Spectre and other DC titles. He continued in a variety of venues including working for Speakeasy, Markosia, and Malibu, the latter of which where he co-created the character Prime. Norm has also illustrated children’s books, novels, and advertising. In 2008, Norm made his mark at Archie Comics, and in 2012 he returned to illustrating Batman for Batman Beyond at DC. In 2014, Norm suffered a stroke and has been coping with the limitations that resulted. Steven Grant’s character Whisper first saw the light in a two-issue run (1983–1984) from Capital Comics, with artwork by Rich Larson. With the demise of Capital, Whisper moved to First Comics with a continuation of the story in Whisper Special (Nov. 1985), again with art by Rich Larson. From there she became a part of the First anthology series First Adventure (Dec. 1985–Apr. 1986) for all five issues of its run. Then she received her own series which ran for 37 issues (June 1986–June 1990), with art by Del Barras for the first two issues. Norm Breyfogle handled the art chores for issues #3–11 (Oct. 1986–Feb. 1988). This relatively short two-year run is fondly remembered by many fans as a highpoint in the Whisper series. – Stephan Friedt STEPHAN FRIEDT: What was the inspiration for your work on Whisper? STEVEN GRANT: I was living in New York and taking a train home to Madison, Wisconsin, where I grew up. I read a cheap paperback, supposedly factual, about ninjas, to pass the time. At the time ninjas were just beginning to Courtesy of Comicvine. work their way into the American psyche. I knew that while “ninjas” did exist in feudal Japan—they were
Artist’s Choice Whisper #9 (Oct. 1987), artist Norm Breyfogle’s favorite cover from his work on the series. Whisper TM & © Steven Grant.
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by S t e p h a n
Friedt
essentially messengers for nobles—what we think of as “the ninja,” the black-garbed, shuriken-throwing, virtually unstoppable magical assassins, were the product of nationalistic interwar Japanese pulp fiction. In other words, complete BS. I mean, really, if ninjas as we think of them ever existed, do you really think Japan could’ve lost WWII? Prior to this, Capital Distribution decided they wanted to branch out into publishing and approached me about it. They didn’t have any budget yet so I passed, not because I couldn’t have done it but because I didn’t feel comfortable asking an artist to work for free, and while I did want to create my own characters—it may not look it from my résumé, but that’s always been my preference—it wasn’t like I was desperate to be published. I was being published. So I sent them a couple guys I knew named Mike Baron and Steve Rude who did want very badly to be published, and they worked out their own deal [Nexus]. That started up Capital Comics, but Capital still wanted a series from me. One thing I’d discovered writing for Marvel in the late ’70s was that, at least at the time, you could do more interesting things with plot and character for non-white or non-male characters. White male superheroes, like Spider-Man, if you had them respond in any manner that wasn’t absolutely heroic—and let’s face it, there are lots of situations where in-your-face heroics are the dumbest move possible—it was considered bad characterization. So I’d started thinking in terms of heroines so I could hit a somewhat broader range, at least within my own limitations. At Marvel, I’d already created a couple heroines—Mockingbird, who went nowhere at the time, but who was effectively a hero “masquerading” as a villain (or, rather, being pigeonholed as one due to wrongly skewed perceptions, a fairly common theme in my work), and Vienna, a pragmatically treacherous spy whose loyalties were always suspect, who wandered in and out of the fill-ins I was doing, since I was mainly making a living writing fill-ins and couldn’t get a title to write regularly. That was the appeal of Whisper for me, when I went back to Capital, which was based in Madison. By then Nexus and The Badger had come out, the comics were making money for them, and we were all willing to revisit the idea of my creating a book. Whisper was a name I’d written down on a list of potential superhero names—we all had them—and when at some point the idea coalesced into a woman who fakes being a ninja then finds she can’t escape the role, it seemed an appropriate name. NORM BREYFOGLE: Well, the series was about an ultra-realistic female ninja, so I took my cues mostly from martial-arts movies and spy thrillers. But to be honest, my drawing style had already become pretty mature through 15 amateur years of development, so that was what my real foundation came from: learning to draw from actual live figures and photographs and from my long interest in great drawing styles in my favorite superhero comics. Neal Adams had always been my favorite comic illustrator back then, but I also had many other favorites, like Nick Cardy, Curt Swan, Joe Kubert, Gil Kane, P. Craig Russell, Jim Aparo, and later, artists like Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz. But really, there were far too many to mention. Every good artist in and outside of comics whose art my eyes feasted upon became, in some organic way, the foundation for my comic illustration style. FRIEDT: What influenced you when you worked on the character? … Movies? …TV? GRANT: Probably the biggest influence on the origin story, as far as other material goes, was the 1974 Sydney Pollack/Paul Schrader/Robert Mitchum film The Yakuza. I’d seen it years earlier—lots of film societies in Madison—but didn’t refer back to it (this was before videotapes; I wouldn’t even have been able to find it). But it did provide something of a structural framework for the first story. There weren’t any stories I
was intentionally trying to replicate or pay homage to, past the initial inspiration I just pieced it together by trial and error, which is kind of how you’re supposed to develop your ideas. I was pretty good friends with Frank Miller at the time—still am, as far as I’m concerned, but I haven’t seen him in years—but I didn’t have much thought of Elektra in mind. If anything, Whisper was sort of the antiElektra. The one thing I cribbed from that book on ninjas and clung to in Whisper was the idea that ninjistu wasn’t a real discipline, it was more the art of making it up as you go along and using whatever’s available environmentally as a weapon. That was probably the single biggest influence any one thing had on the series to come, that one concept. Aside from the aforementioned The Yakuza, crime movies in general were an influence. Not cop movies… “crime movies.” Stylistically—this will sound loony, because I doubt anyone could look at them and at Whisper and see any connection at all—the films of Samuel Fuller were a big influence. Not in content, but in the way he handled character and movement; especially the film Pickup on South Street. Nicolas Roeg’s films, too, the way they dissect and dislocate perception. Like I said, lots of film societies in Madison. I was also a film/TV major in college. I wanted to apply certain things from them to comics, but my whole approach was pretty inchoate. But all those things gave me a sort of language through which I could coalesce my worldview, and my worldview was what I was trying to put into Whisper more than anything else. Whisper was very noir for the time, not that most people would’ve noticed it. It was in the attitude, not the style. About the only TV show I would have considered anything like an influence on me was The Prisoner. I loved the show… still love it. It opened up a lot of ideas for me, though I don’t know how many of those found their way into Whisper.
“Datapanik in the Year Zero” Splash page to Whisper #3, Norm Breyfogle’s first issue, with John Nyberg inks. TM & © Steven Grant.
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