Featuring an exclusive chat with Editori-Al, AL MILGROM!
June 2
017
82658 00096
featuring BBreyfogle • Claremont • Cockrum • featuring Golden Gol den • PéPérez • Plunkett • Rogers • Smithth • SSteacy Smi tea • Vess & more!
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Volume 1, Number 96 June 2017 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow
Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!
DESIGNER Rich Fowlks
TM
COVER ARTIST Sandy Plunkett (Originally the back cover of Marvel Fanfare #58, Aug. 1991. Original art scan courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions.) COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek
John Kirk James Heath Lantz Rick Leonardi SPECIAL THANKS Ralph Macchio Arthur Adams Andy Mangels Roger Ash Michael Mantlo Terry Austin Brian Martin Chris Brennaman Franck Martini Norm Breyfogle Marvel Comics Pat Broderick David Mazzucchelli Marc Buxton Roger McKenzie John Byrne Doug Moench Shaun Clancy Brian K. Morris Chris Claremont Ann Nocenti ComicVine Luigi Novi Daniel DeAngelo Sandy Plunkett Steve Englehart P. Craig Russell Mike Friedrich Tony Salmons Stephan Friedt Andy Smith Russ Garwood Ken Steacy Dave Gibbons Roger Stern Peter B. Gillis Dan Tandarich Michael Golden Steven Thompson Grand Comics John Trumbull Database Alan Weiss Steven Grant Mark Wheatley Robert Greenberger Steven Wilber Craig Hamilton Marv Wolfman Heritage Comics Dwight Jon Auctions Zimmerman Douglas R. Kelly Susan Flaxman VERY SPECIAL THANKS Kennedy Allen Milgrom
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BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 INTERVIEW: Marvel Fanfare’s Editori-Al, Al Milgrom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 INTERVIEW: Chris Claremont’s Marvel Fanfare Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 FLASHBACK: The Doctor (Strange) Is/Was In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 FLASHBACK: The Black Widow Stings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 INTERVIEW: Roger McKenzie’s Marvel Fanfare Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 BEYOND CAPES: The Jungle Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 BEYOND CAPES: Sky-Wolf: A Love Letter to Blackhawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 ONE-HIT WONDERS: Captain America in “Home Fires!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 INTERVIEW: Ken Steacy’s Marvel Fanfare Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 FLASHBACK: Fanfare for Bill Mantlo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 ONE-HIT WONDERS: John Byrne’s All-Splash-Page Hulk Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: Norm Breyfogle’s Batman/Captain America Makeover . . 51 FLASHBACK: The Adventures of the Warriors Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 BEYOND CAPES: WeirdWorld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 PINUP: Marvel Fanfare pinup in Original Art Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 ONE-HIT WONDERS: Fallen Angels and Stormy Weather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 ONE-HIT WONDERS: Spotlight on the She-Hulk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 ONE-HIT WONDERS: The Startling Saga of the (Alternate Reality) Silver Surfer . . . . . 69 INTERVIEW: Steven Grant’s Black Knight Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 BEYOND CAPES: Shanna the She-Devil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 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 Sandy Plunkett. The Vision and the Scarlet Witch TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. 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.
Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 1
This issue we devote our entire contents (save the “Back Talk” lettercol) to a single series: Marvel Fanfare. Can you blame us? For 60 issues beginning with a March 1982 cover-dated first issue and spanning nearly a decade, Marvel Fanfare presented some of the industry’s best talent and up-andcoming newbies on short stories starring many of Marvel’s mightiest… and on a handful of occasions, Fanfare featured non-traditional material you normally wouldn’t find in a Marvel comic. This bimonthly anthology was something special, as evidenced by its upscale production values and crisp, white paper stock, which were miles above the standard newsprint comics of the day. Through its pages paraded A-listers, many of them Marvel stalwarts and fan-favorites, as well as artists you might find in the independents. From venerated headliners like Spider-Man to underrated minor leaguers like the Black Knight to unexpected newcomers like Sky-Wolf, Marvel Fanfare hosted an ever-changing lineup. Pinups and art galleries were staples, allowing readers to ogle the craftsmanship of their favorite illustrators and discover the work of artists they had not previously encountered. There was one constant, however, in the phantasmagoria found on the pages of Marvel Fanfare: its editor, Allen Milgrom, better known to most of you as Al Milgrom, and known to Fanfare readers as Editori-Al. His recollections of the series are captured in the new, exclusive interview following. Complementing our chat with Editori-Al is a selection of interviews and articles exploring many of the individual issues and story arcs comprising Marvel Fanfare’s 60 issues, with numerous writers and artists sharing their perspectives on their stories. Not every creator who produced Marvel Fanfare stories is included, but overall in the pages that follow you’ll gain a deeper appreciation for one of the most inventive series of the Bronze Age. 2 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue
ichael Eury
Michael Golden art from Marvel Fanfare #1’s cover graced this promo poster for the series. Poster courtesy of Russ Garwood. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
by M
by S h a u n
Clancy
interview conducted Sep
tember 9, 2016
AL MILGROM: You’re doing an article on Marvel Fanfare? SHAUN CLANCY: Yes… BACK ISSUE is doing an issue on the series. I noticed you were involved in Marvel Fanfare at the beginning, but I’m not sure if you were there for the end. MILGROM: The original run of the series ran 60 issues, and I was the editor on all 60. In fact, the idea for the book was mine. CLANCY: How did the idea come about? The first issue was a Spider-Man and Angel of the X-Men team-up. MILGROM: Right. Michael Golden worked on that, and it was originally slated for a Marvel Team-Up issue that I was in the process of editing. When we decided to do Fanfare, I co-opted it for that book. The way the title came about was… [Marvel editorin-chief] Jim Shooter had explained to me at one time or another that we didn’t actually make money on our advertising—which sounds counterintuitive, I know—but it wasn’t so much that we made profits on the advertising, but we did get paid for them, and we didn’t have to pay any editorial costs, writing, penciling, inking, lettering, or coloring for those pages. Plus another thing that made the ads cheap to produce in the regular books was that they could print the ad pages in the same spot usually in the folios of the pages of the books in all the Marvel titles that they appeared in all at once. Although it wasn’t profitable, per se, it did cut down the costs of producing the comics. That stayed with me for a couple of years, as I don’t remember when Jim first brought that up, but I always thought in the back of my mind, “Why run ads if they’re not profitable?” I guess it depends on your definition or the semantics, because if you’re spending less money and making money on the sales of the comics then in some ways it makes it more profitable. Most commercial magazines would make the majority of their profits from the advertising. Not so much from the cover price of the magazines to subscribers or from people who buy them at the newsstands. Subscribers would always get a deep discount off the newsstand’s price, and that was partly due to the publisher wanting their circulation numbers to be as high as possible so that they could charge their advertisers more. Newspapers worked that way, too. The bottom line is that I said to myself, “If these aren’t profitable, then why don’t we do a comic book that has no ads? The readers don’t like the ads, so why don’t we do a book where the cover price is high enough that if it sells well, then it would be profitable based strictly on the size of the circulation and we could do stuff that would be fan-specific.” Stuff that we thought the fans would really like and buy it in droves but priced higher than the newsstand stuff. If they liked it enough and were willing to pay the extra money, then we could do it on better paper stock instead of on the cheap, crappy newsprint that comics had been traditionally printed on. This would be a win-win. We could produce a high-quality book, charge more for it, the fans would get high-quality material, pay more for it, and get 32 pages of sheer enjoyment, hopefully… and Marvel would make profits hopefully, which, of course, was the goal. Shooter took the idea to whomever he took it to and said, “One of the editors has this idea for a different
Editori-Al Al Milgrom’s self-caricature, as reimagined by artist Ken Steacy for the cover corner boxes of Marvel Fanfare #22 and 23. Special thanks to Ken for the scan. Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3
Golden Avenger Original art from the Iron Man back-up from Marvel Fanfare #4 (Sept. 1982), courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). Signed by its penciler, Michael Golden. Story by David Winn and David Michelinie, inks by Dan Green. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
title. How many would it have to sell in order to be profitable? What kind of cover price would we need to charge without gouging people but at the same time making it a profitable venture?” And they said, “A regular 32-page comic book plus covers would need to be $1.25.” This was around 1982, and I don’t recall what the price of a regular comic book was at the time… but I do know it wasn’t that high. CLANCY: I think it was 50 cents. MILGROM: I would have guessed 60 or 75 cents. [Editor’s note: The average price of comic books with a March 1982 cover date was 60 cents.] Anyways, they gave me the go-ahead, and suddenly I had to produce, so I co-opted that Michael Golden and Chris Claremont Marvel Team-Up story. Golden was already a fan-favorite at the time and the trick was… the story was never completed. I think he did the first two issues and then we had to find other people to do the rest of the storyline, which we did. Dave Cockrum [Marvel Fanfare #3] and Paul Smith [issue #4] finished it. Paul’s first comic-book work was in issue #1. It was a Daredevil back-up story…?
4 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue
CLANCY: That’s correct. MILGROM: I only remember that because Paul’s supertalented and I liked his stuff. He sent in samples and someone shuffled them over to me and said, “Here. Some guy’s sending in samples and they look okay.” So I looked at them and his drawing was very good but he was an animation guy—I think a storyboard guy, so he drew really well. I contacted him and told him I liked his samples but they were mostly just drawings that were more like pinups or single-figure drawings. The stuff looked good but I didn’t have any sense if he could tell a story or if he could draw continuity. I told him I’d like to get him to do a few sample pages and he said, “Look. I’m a professional, so instead of that why not send me a script and I’ll do the story and if it’s acceptable then you can publish it?” I don’t remember if he did the whole story or just a few pages initially, but the stuff came in and it looked fine. But I probably gave him a couple of tips, hints, or a little instruction about storytelling techniques, because although storyboarding is similar, it’s not exactly the same as comics. Apparently I may have offended him… [laughs] I’m really very mild when I give people a critique of their portfolio. I’m usually very reasonable about it. I never say, “Oh, my God, this sucks! You need to go home and learn how to cook hamburgers. Don’t ever darken our doorway again.” There are guys who do that. Neal Adams and Larry Hama used to be very harsh with these guys. Larry’s attitude was, “Look. If they can’t take the criticism, then they shouldn’t be trying to get into this business because it’s not easy.” I would tell Larry, “I know, Larry, but you don’t have to crush their spirits.” So I told Paul some stuff and he listened and would say, “I get it. I know what you’re saying.” I would tell him he didn’t even need to change anything in this instance, but just be aware of it in the future. I wasn’t looking to bust his chops. About a year later he was getting regular work other than from me, and he came into the office visiting from the West Coast and said, “I sure miss you busting my balls over this stuff.” And I said, “Huh?!” Believe me, I did nothing that would remotely resemble ball-busting. I just gave him some advice that I thought was worthwhile to give, but he apparently thought every little suggestion was a sting. He did say that I gave good advice and that he really missed that. I told him that he probably took what I suggested to heart and that there probably was no need for anyone else to give him any more grief, so it’s not that the other editors were going easy on him. I told him that he was good, which he appreciated. So anyways, I’m pretty sure that Daredevil story was his first published comic-book work. CLANCY: Roger McKenzie wrote it. MILGROM: Right, and Terry Austin inked it. Terry was my go-to guy to work on someone who hadn’t really been inked before. Everyone loved Terry’s work. He was one of those guys who had such a strong style that he would do a nice, solid, detailed job and make the stuff look great pretty much no matter who penciled it. I think Terry was the first person to ink over Kevin Nowlan. Kevin had a very nice, detailed style, kinda like the Wally Wood/Frazetta-looking style. He had originally gotten ahold of Terry and sent him samples. Terry showed them to me and I liked the samples and ended up giving Kevin an issue of Dr. Strange [#57], with Terry inking it. He then started inking his own stuff, but he didn’t do a lot of work. He actually was working for a sign company. One of the first samples I saw of his work was a SpiderMan story that was done in thumbnails, but in a very detailed way. They were so good, in fact, that I wanted to get him to tighten them up even in the small size,
which he probably did on typing paper, and told him I’d publish it because it was just that good. I really liked his stuff and I pretty much guaranteed I could give him as much work as he could handle, which was not a lot of work because he wasn’t fast. In fact, that issue of Dr. Strange was bimonthly, and I think I gave him that plot to do and I remember reading an interview somewhere where he said, “I got this Dr. Strange story that was my first job and Al Milgrom kept calling me up and hounding me for the job and it was terrible,” acting like I was some sort of evil taskmaster. But I gave the job to him with several months lead-in time and it was bimonthly anyways so he probably had at least two months to draw it, and I’m guessing I gave it to him with more lead time than that and probably closer to four months, and here he was bitching I was being unnecessarily cruel to get him to turn in the damn thing [both laugh]. In my mind I was giving him all the time in the world, but in his mind I was pressuring him with a ridiculously tight deadline. All in the perception. CLANCY: The title for the series, Marvel Fanfare—how’d that come about? MILGROM: I tend to have a punny sense of humor and I come by it honestly. I worked for Murphy Anderson, who was an inveterate punster. He’d get this kind of goofy smile on his face over some bad joke… there was this old joke about Tarzan and the punchline was, “Tarzan stripes forever.” Like “Stars and stripes forever,” but had to do with Tarzan painting the stripes on the leopards, tigers, and zebras in the jungle or something like that. My good friend Jack Abel was also a big punster. So I said it’s gonna be for the fans and it’s gonna be fare for the fans, the kind of stuff that the fans will go for, and that’s how I came up with “Marvel Fan Fare.” This isn’t well known, but the logo was actually designed by Ed Hannigan. He submitted one or two ideas and one had an ornate design with scrolls and trumpets because a fanfare was played by trumpets, which I thought might be a little over the top. Ed was a good cover designer and obviously had some logo design talent. CLANCY: He also did coloring on some titles, too. MILGROM: I know he would suggest colors for some of the covers he did, and did do some coloring on a few of his own covers, which were good. I remember on at least one cover of the Peter Parker title where he did full “painted” colors where Spidey’s under water, and I think Doc Ock was involved. Ed’s a very talented guy. So, back to the Marvel Fanfare series. I got the go-ahead to put issues together. Fans who love to be critical would start to say that we were just taking a bunch of inventory junk and throwing it in a magazine and calling it “Fanfare.” That wasn’t quite the truth, but remember that initial Fanfare story was originally designated for Marvel Team-Up and not exactly inventory, just a long time in the making. I think I was having trouble getting Golden to do the rest of the story and finally
Moonlighting Editori-Al drew this swingin’ pinup of Black Widow that appeared on the back cover of MF #9 to promote the character’s appearance in the following issue. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
when Shooter told me we had the go-ahead for Fanfare and that we had to start getting the issues out. I probably pulled that Michael Golden story out to show to Shooter, which he liked. I then asked Golden if he’d be able to do the other two parts and he said no. So I thought since it had the X-Men involved, then why not get Dave Cockrum who was the artist when the new X-Men came out? Paul Smith was just a lucky late discovery that did a nice job in Fanfare #1, so I put him to work on Fanfare #4. I would then start to experiment a little. I would try new artists I stumbled onto or possibly team up pencilers and inkers that would make it as interesting as possible. Because we had the good paper stock and were charging the public a premium price, I convinced them to let us do more ornate coloring, which allowed us to also get some air-brushing, but nothing too elaborate like they do today… but this was before computer coloring. There was at least one issue that Murphy Anderson and company did the color separations on. He had started a company— and remember, Murphy was kind of my mentor my first year in the business and I inked backgrounds for him—he had started a company that did color seps, he and his son. They hired a few more people and used the old-fashioned Rubylith approach where you would have each page with Rubylith page cut-outs. I’m not up on the technique, but there were these translucent red sheets and you would cut them out to the shapes, and I don’t know if you had to do a Rubylith for every color grade… I’m not sure how that worked. Instead of using coloring brushes you would use these sheets that had adhesive backing and cut them out and cover the area where the color was supposed to go. There’d be a sheet for red, blue, and yellow, each of the primary colors, and then different degrees of those colors. They also probably had the capacity to do gray tones, also. I think that on the first job [Murphy] did, I requested a lot of changes which he said he didn’t think he’d make a profit with all the change requests, which I understood, and toned that one issue down a bit but decided not to use them again. So we had elaborate colors, and I tried to get good writers. I did honestly snag inventory stories if I thought they were worthy of the title, but I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of stuff that went into the book was material that I commissioned for the book. At the time, it was early on and they weren’t paying royalties yet on the sales, Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 5
Sitting down and chatting with legendary X-Men writer Chris Claremont is always an enlightening experience. Chris is a walking cornucopia of ideas and Marvel Comics’ history; to talk with him about his involvement with Marvel Fanfare is not only a great way to spend an afternoon, but also provides great historical insight into this unique anthology and comics creation. Considering Marvel Fanfare’s amazing array of story ideas and printing on high-quality paper—a novel innovation for the time—we begin by talking to Chris about how the chance to write the initial issues presented itself. “Well, Marvel was trying all sorts of experiments in those days with stories that were by folks who you wouldn’t normally see with characters that weren’t regular fare,” Claremont says. “In this instance it was a great opportunity to put me and Michael [Golden] together after our work on the Avengers Annual. From my perspective: way cool.” [Editor’s note: Claremont and Golden co-produced 1981’s Avengers Annual #10, which introduced the breakout character Rogue.] Chris wrote stories for the first five issues of Marvel Fanfare: a continuing saga set in the Savage Land with Spider-Man, Angel, and Ka-Zar in issues #1 and 2, with the X-Men joining in with #3 and 4. Claremont did a Dr. Strange story in #5 and also wrote for issues #24, 33, and 40, including tales featuring Dr. Strange and various members of the X-Men and their associates or enemies. Mystique and Destiny encountered Storm in a very memorable tale in issue #40. Regarding Marvel Fanfare #1–4, “It was something that we had thought up for Marvel Team-Up—hence the SpiderMan involvement, and my memory might be wrong—but that’s why it never ended up in Team-Up, because my run ended before Michael finished the story. Rather than drop it into the regular continuity, Fanfare was seen as a way to burn off the inventory [of stories] that was around but also to showcase writers and artists’ stories that wouldn’t fit into the normal continuity. There was no easy way to put the Savage Land story in X-Men continuity and there was no easy way to put it in Spidey continuity. Fanfare was it. The reason why it kept going after that was, we had loose ends. How do we tie up those loose ends? Well, we fell back on the continuity. We were left with Sauron still in the Savage Land—you know, back in the days when it wasn’t a problem to use a name like Sauron, because who was ever going to read Lord of the Rings [laughs]?” Claremont attributes a great deal of the comic’s success to the variety of artists he worked with on each of these issues. “Who better to draw the X-Men than Dave [Cockrum]? Dave did one really cool issue and then we ran into schedule glitches. But then Paul [Smith] doing the final part of the story was essentially his showcase that told us that he could draw the X-Men. Of course, one look at that and we were there. My only regret with Smitty was if he could have only stuck around for two years instead of one, we would have hit the half-million mark then and not ten years later, dang it.” [Editor’s note: For more on these mutant milestones of the Bronze Age, see BACK ISSUE #29.]
Does Whatever a Spider Can Ka-Zar joins the “fun” in Chris Claremont’s Marvel Fanfare serial. Cover to issue #2 (May 1982) by Michael Golden. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
12 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue
by J o
hn Kirk
GOLDEN YEARS
These were golden years. Marvel Fanfare’s goal may have been to showcase a variety of talent, but in order for it to successfully launch, it needed the tried-and-true comic appeal of veteran dynamic writers and artists like Claremont and Cockrum. While Smith was a relative newcomer at the time, his work was truly scintillating and as Claremont indicated, his work in Fanfare only served to confirm his talent and popular appeal. Of course, the pun notwithstanding, the work of Michael Golden in these “golden years” was also impossible to leave out. Claremont is emphatic in stating that the challenge of working with such an eclectic and diverse range of artists and characters only added to the “fun” of this anthology. “When you work with someone as cinematically gifted as Michael… I mean, just look at the doublepanel spread of the establishing shot of Angel flying around over the Grand Canyon and the insert panels of Candy Southern and Karl Lykos’ girlfriend, Tanya. The establishment of Warren and Candy Southern— it’s wonderful. Michael can present the most prosaic of moments in the most visually enticing and evocative characterizations to evoke the emotions you need for the scene and the bonding moments of the characters. It’s an exaggerated moment of reality that you love in good television and cinema. It’s wonderful to me and the character moments with Angel playing with the falcons, it’s like you wished you had wings so you could do that too.” Claremont characterizes Golden’s style as brilliant and logical with visual storytelling that wisely heeded all the elements of the story that completely matched the context. For Golden, everything had to fit perfectly. Before Step G could be reached, it was essential to understand everything in Steps A through F. In comparison to the work of Cockrum and Smith, Claremont has this to say: “Dave knew the characters. For him it wasn’t about telling who everybody was—it was more about how best to present them. What would be the coolest evocative presentation of the characters? With Paul, it was getting to know him as a penciler—what his strengths and weakness were, what he liked to draw or how he approached the responsibility of telling the story. How much did I need to tell him? All that © Luigi Novi / stuff got worked out in the first issue. Wikimedia Commons. But what was cool was, that enabled us to do the Japan two-parter [X-Men #172–173] after the Wolverine miniseries. He hit the ground running and
Bugle Fever (top) A Claremont story, illustrated by Golden? No wonder Marvel Fanfare caught the attention of readers! Signed original art from issue #1, courtesy of Heritage (www.ha.com). Note its title stamp, signifying its original Marvel Team-Up home. (bottom) Chris loves this Golden-drawn Angel spread from issue #2—and so do we! TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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Stephen Strange probably appreciated the rest. After all, here was a character that, throughout his career, had been involved in more than his fair share of extended storylines. Early on in Strange’s series in Strange Tales, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko had the good doctor chased all over the planet by Baron Mordo. Dr. Strange went to the ends of the universe and met Eternity, for Pete’s sake! Steve Englehart and a couple of different artists sent him all through time, and even had him the only survivor when the planet Earth was destroyed!! Then, just a couple of years before arriving in Fanfare, he was engulfed in the year-long Creator Chronicles. Extracurricular activities were no better. Over in The Defenders, Steve Gerber involved the Sorcerer Supreme in a year-long storyline involving a gorilla with a human head and a veritable plethora of bozos!
MAY I HAVE A FANFARE, PLEASE?
Suffice to say, the short, one-issue stories that Dr. Strange was involved with in Marvel Fanfare surely came as a welcome respite. And yes, one of those stories spanned two issues, but that was balanced out by the fact that three of the tales were short back-up stories of eight or 13 pages. The series probably also served as an ego boost for Stephen. His first story appeared in issue #5 (Nov. 1982) and was cover-featured. This is rather significant since the four-issue storyline that preceded it featured heavy-hitter characters the X-Men and Spider-Man and creators such as Chris Claremont, Michael Golden, Dave Cockrum, and Paul Smith. Heady company, indeed. Dr. Strange was even fortunate enough to have Mr. Claremont stick around and pen his first Fanfare adventure. Having recently scribed issues #38–45 (Dec. 1979–Feb. 1981) of the Doctor’s own title, Claremont feels the story in Fanfare was, “If not actually left over, it was an idea I was playing with.” The villain of the piece was a sorcerer who had only previously made one appearance, and that was in a back-up feature in The Defenders #53 (Nov. 1977), where he battled Clea alone. The choice of a minor adversary such as this was, “I think basically [out of] desperation,” recalls Claremont. “You go through the list of who is available, who haven’t we seen in a long time.” Further to that idea, regarding his run on the Dr. Strange title, Claremont states, “I was always trying to come up with new and different ways of presenting magic and magical-themed antagonists that ideally hadn’t been seen before.” In this case, of course, it was a foe who had not encountered Strange before, but was still a logical adversary. The fact that Nicodemus battled Clea in his other appearance lent itself to this story featuring Clea in quite an active role mystically. After Nicodemus steals Stephen’s powers, it is up to her to stop their foe and take those powers back. “It’s a Claremont story,” says the author. “Women do not generally [play] second fiddle to the men.”
Master of the Marvel Fanfare Arts Detail from the Dr. Strange pinup from MF #33 (July 1987). Art by Ian Akin and Brian Garvey. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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rian Martin
Marshall Law (top) Marvel Fanfare #5’s (Nov. 1982) wraparound cover, gorgeously illustrated and signed by Marshall Rogers and incredibly inked by P. Craig Russell. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). (bottom) Page 10 of Doc’s MF #5 adventure, showing Marvel Fanfare’s fascination with the color hold. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Chris continues, believing, “From my perspective, we’re used to seeing Doc save the day. We’re used to seeing Clea be the damsel in distress.” Teamed with Claremont on this story was Marshall Rogers, an artist fresh off a six-issue run on Strange’s comic where he was teamed with Roger Stern for issues #48–53 (Aug. 1981–June 1982). Aware that Marshall was going to illustrate this issue, Claremont tells BACK ISSUE, “For me the fun is working with guys who are that good.” Chris continues stating his credo for these collaborations: “What are the neat things I can come up with that will catch the artist by surprise, and by extension, the readers.”
EXCUSE ME, BUT YOU LOOK VERY FAMILIAR
Those readers were in for another surprise as immediately after that, in issue #6 (Jan. 1983), Strange took a turn as the back-up story. This entry was written by roger stern the aforementioned Roger Stern, who was still authoring the doctor’s regular book at the time, with Charles Vess tapped to illustrate it. Why have a story end up in Fanfare when you’re writing the regular book? “As I recall,” begins Roger Stern, “Allen Milgrom asked me to write a Dr. Strange story specifically for Marvel Fanfare. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know in what issue of Fanfare the story would appear. I just knew that Al would slot it in where it would best fit.” This story concerned a young gun who showed up intent on wresting the title of Sorcerer Supreme away from Strange. “It was an idea I had about Doc in general,” Stern reveals. “If other mystics considered him the Sorcerer Supreme, it just stood to reason that some would occasionally challenge him and try to move up in the mystic world.” Strange proceeds to school the youngster in magic and the perils involved in being the top gun. “The story is about the brash young stranger coming to town to ‘out-gun’ the established master,” recounts Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 17
Of all the issues of Marvel Fanfare, some of the most reprinted have been #10–13 (Aug. 1983–Mar. 1984), a four-part Black Widow story written by Ralph Macchio and largely illustrated by George Pérez. The story is full of flashy costumes and international travels, and pushed adult boundaries, ramping up the twisted history of Marvel’s redheaded femme fatal. But what is the actual history of the story itself? Top secret files were declassified, and writer Macchio (pronounced Mack-eo) unleashes the truth in the confession that follows…
TWISTING TENDRILS
The cover of Tales of Suspense #52 (Apr. 1964) headlined “Introducing the gorgeous new menace of… the Black Widow!” and saw the Armored Avenger facing down the equally armored Crimson Dynamo while a purpleclad, fur-wearing woman gestured imperiously. The story inside, plotted by Stan Lee, scripted by “N. Korok” (a pseudonym for Don Rico), and illustrated by Don Heck, introduced the Russian spy-seductress Madame Natasha Romanoff, who was sent to Stark Industries to retrieve—or kill—the defecting scientist Ivan Vanko, as well as Iron Man. Although failing in her first mission, Widow stuck around in the States to steal Stark’s antigravity ray in the very next issue. Natasha would appear in several further Iron Man stories, duping Hawkeye into battling the armored hero, receiving a black-and-blue costume replete with fishnets, suction boots, and weaponized bracelets, and vacillating between her harsh masters in Russia and a desire to lead a freer life in America. Defecting to the US, she would encounter the Avengers and work alongside Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as watch her husband die in the costume of the Red Guardian, but in Amazing Spider-Man #86 (July 1970), the displaced spy would make another fateful choice to forge her own destiny. A part of her decision involved designing her own new costume (aided by John Romita, Sr. and Jim Mooney), which, as she says, “will be more in keeping with the swingy seventies! And with the modern image of the new Black Widow!” Over the following decade, Black Widow would headline her own stories in Amazing Adventures, join the Avengers as its 16th member, move to San Francisco to share title billing with Daredevil, and become a founding member of the misfit superhero team the Champions. Through it all, tiny bits of her origins were teased out, but much of her past remained a Cold War mystery.
BLACK WIDOW… IN BLACK AND WHITE
The magazine series Bizarre Adventures was Marvel’s bid at an older audience, allowing creators to work outside the Comics Code, like the sexier and darker Warren magazines of the day. Bizarre Adventures #25 (Mar. 1981) was subtitled “Lethal Ladies,” and its contents including the Daughters of the Dragon, Lady Daemon, and the Black Widow. The Widow story was by writer Ralph Macchio and artist Paul Gulacy, with Natasha receiving a S.H.I.E.L.D. assignment to infiltrate a Soviet arms depot in
Web of Intrigue George Pérez’s cover to Marvel Fanfare #10 (Aug. 1983), launching a Black Widow story arc originally planned for Marvel Premiere. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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by A n d y
Mangels
South Africa and stop its commander, Irma Klausvichnova— the very woman who had trained Natasha! Macchio recalls of the story that he wanted to deviate from a James Bondian spy story and instead do a twisty “John LeCarre thing where you really didn’t know who were the good guys and the bad guys. Even in the names of the people in there I wanted to be a little bit off-putting. There’s a bishop character. The idea with the bishop is that he doesn’t move in a straight line. A bishop moves diagonally. And Langley, of course, Langley being where the CIA is headquartered. The whole thing that occurs at the end, where you think you know what’s going on in the story and all of a sudden, the Langley character pops up— who looks just like Humphrey Bogart—and he basically schools the Black Widow. He says, ‘You know, you just knew this, but this was what was really going on.’ Then she goes, ‘How do I know if that’s what’s really going on?’ And he basically tells her, ‘You don’t.’ “I wanted the story to be very bizarre, fitting with Bizarre Adventures. I wanted it to be something where you got to the end and went, ‘Wow! This is really strange. What happened here?’ “That story took me longer to write than I think anything else I’ve ever written,” says Macchio. “I really worked very hard because every line, every word, had to be precise and had to lead toward these few concluding pages. I didn’t want anything in there to be extraneous. I wanted it to be as stripped down and as tight as I could possibly make it, just as Gulacy’s art was the perfect complement to that. I didn’t want it to be like any other Black Widow story that you’d read with just a lot of fight scenes and then you get to the end and you know this is the bad guy and this is how it happened. I wanted it to be very murky and very... Spy Who Came in from the Cold-kind of thing at the end.”
THE MARVEL PREMIERE STORY THAT WASN’T
The Bizarre Adventures story wasn’t the first time Macchio had worked on Black Widow, but it was the first to see print. In the Marvel fanzine FOOM #22 (1979), Macchio was interviewed about his upcoming work, which was to include a three-part Widow story for Marvel Premiere, with art by George Pérez. The writer noted at that point that Pérez had drawn six pages, and a cover from 1978—inked by Bob Layton—was printed, showing explosions, technology, underwater fighting, Nick Fury, and an international group of bad guys, all surrounding an angry Natasha. Later that year, in Marvel Spotlight vol. 2 #3 (Nov. 1979), the letters page promised that the Widow story would be in Spotlight instead. It would be another half-decade, though, until the Widow story was © Marvel. actually completed and appeared in its eventual home, Marvel Fanfare, in 1984. And now, instead of three issues, it was a four-parter, but half of one issue—and a cover— weren’t drawn by Pérez! How did this all come about? Macchio had begun working at Marvel in the mid-1970s, about the same time as Pérez. “I remember being up there just about the time he was starting,” Ralph recalls. “He lived in the Bronx—and he was always up at Marvel and I remember him bringing in pages that were going to the inker for ‘The Sons of the Tiger’ [in the magazine Deadly Hands of Kung Fu], and he just really continued to improve on that. We got to be friends, and at one point, I remember going to his house and doing an interview with him, for a portfolio called Pérez—Accent On the First ‘E.’ What was interesting about it was, I had the tape recorder there and I had it on and George was talking and I had the tape in.
We talked for almost two hours and then I realized that the tape recorder had not been on record! George was such a nice guy; he sat there with me and we redid the entire thing! As friends, we discussed if time ever opens and the opportunity comes up, what would you like to work on? And eventually it led to the Black Widow.” The story would be one of the first where Pérez would be credited as co-plotter. “I don’t remember exactly what the division of labor was,” says Macchio. “I’m sure it was basically George came up with the original idea and then we sat down and probably discussed the various story points along the way. We all know that George is an excellent plotter! He wants to be involved with the story. I’m sure that he jumped in here and had an awful lot to do with the direction of the storyline. In terms of scripting, I’m sure that I did all the scripting on that.” As noted, the original three-part story would eventually be published as a four-parter, with the first issue (published as Marvel Fanfare #10) grafted on to the beginning to basically fill readers in on the “known” backstory of Black Widow. Nick Fury and his S.H.I.E.L.D team discuss the
Freefalling Title page of issue #10’s Chapter Two, with art by Bob Layton and Luke McDonnell. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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DOUGLAS R. KELLY: Roger, I’m gonna throw the chronological approach out the window and start with the stories you wrote about the Vision in Marvel Fanfare #14 and 32, because I’m a huge fan of the Vision and I want to get right to the dessert. ROGER McKENZIE: Okay, sure. KELLY: Your story in Marvel Fanfare #14 (May 1984) was entitled “Dangerous Vision,” and it opened with the Vision brooding about the absence of his wife, Wanda. He leaves Avengers mansion to look for her and finds that, of all things, she’s been attacked by the Fantastic Four. Did you have an idea in mind for how you wanted to explore the character of the Vision in this story? McKENZIE: If I did, I don’t recall now what it was, but I have to say that Marvel Fanfare was like being a kid in a candy store. I got to use characters like the Vision and the Scarlet Witch and Iron Man, characters that had their regular writers and characters that I never got to do. But I could in Marvel Fanfare. KELLY: The Vision is a hugely powerful being, but he often uses that power in kind of non-violent ways… here, for example, you had him partly solidify his hand inside Ben Grimm’s head. That’s a non-violent way to end, or win, a fight. Did you see the Vision this way? McKENZIE: I did. I’ve always liked the Vision, pretty much for the reasons you just outlined. KELLY: At the end of your story here, the Vision grabs one of the bad guys, the Thinker, and says to him, “I may be less than human, but I am more than machine.” McKENZIE: Yeah, and if I’d been writing the character in the Avengers or in a miniseries book, that’s how I would have played it. It gives him human appeal and you can build stories around this dichotomy… questions like, “What am I, really?” “What do humans think of me?” KELLY: Your editor on Marvel Fanfare was Al Milgrom. Do you recall him giving you input on the characters and stories, or was it a looser arrangement than that? McKENZIE: As I remember it, we had pretty much free rein. But still, you couldn’t take these characters outside of their usual realm. You can’t suddenly make Captain America a member of Hydra, for instance. I wouldn’t have done things like that, so I never ran into that kind of situation with Al, who I think is a great editor and a great talent all around. My two favorite Marvel heroes are Captain America and Daredevil. I was lucky enough to be able to write both of those characters. But I never gravitated toward the powerful characters… I never really wanted to write a Superman story, for instance, because he’s too powerful. KELLY: A few years later, you returned to the Vision character with Marvel Fanfare #32 (May 1987), in
Fading In and Out of Marvel Fanfare From the Vision tale “Rosie” in Marvel Fanfare #32 (May 1987), one of several memorable MF stories written by Roger McKenzie. Art by Paul Smith. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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by D o u g l a s
R. Kelly
a ten-page story entitled “Rosie.” You really dug into the Vision’s makeup in this one… he becomes obsessed with finding out the real identity of a street vendor, Rosie, who’s been murdered. The Vision can’t accept that this woman died without friends, without anyone to care for her, so he enlists Ben Urich, the reporter, and together they set out to find out Rosie’s real name and so on. You offered some insight here into what drives the Vision. McKENZIE: Well, I tried. At least, what drove him from my perspective. I think it was this primal gnawing, this feeling within him, “Am I human or not?” It’s actually somewhat like DC’s Metal Men, who had those “responsometers” that didn’t quite work right, and they were kind of human. I’m not sure if Doc Magnus ever figured out exactly what went “wrong” with those, but they were basically human, and that’s what fascinated me. As I recall, [the Vision] was never a cyborg… he’s part human and part robot, an android. Or, I guess, a “synthezoid,” as it was called. He really, really wants to be human, but there’s always this doubt in his mind. And it’s not just because of the powers he has… I always thought the Vision’s powers were great. I don’t recall a character before him who can turn intangible and then become rock-hard. KELLY: Paul Smith did the art on this story, which I think is excellent. Did you work with Paul or was he assigned after you’d written the story? McKENZIE: If memory serves, that was one where he got the story after it was written. Paul and I go back
quite a ways. He originally worked on my wooden detective character, Mike Mahogany, that we did at Pacific Comics. He actually came to me at one point in time [when Marvel offered him The Uncanny X-Men] and asked me, “Should I take it?” So I sat him down… he didn’t really want to do The X-Men. He was perfectly happy doing Dr. Strange. I said, “Take The X-Men, work on it for as long as you’re comfortable doing it, and make your name.” KELLY: Roger, let’s circle back to the beginning. In Marvel Fanfare #1 (Mar. 1982), you did a Daredevil story called “Snow,” which had a double meaning. Not just the time of year (during the Christmas holidays) but also it had to do with cocaine and the drug trade. It’s getting close to Christmas, and an old man named Lewis is doing his annual sidewalk Santa Claus thing, collecting donations for a hospital for handicapped children. But he’s beaten and robbed by druggies, and Matt Murdock is incensed by this, that the thugs stole the money that’s meant for the kids. As Daredevil, he goes after those responsible. Roger, you set up a coincidental situation toward the end of the story that winds up looking an awful lot like a miracle. McKENZIE: Well, I was (and probably still am) the “king of corn.” But it was Christmas. Wasn’t Lewis praying to God? KELLY: Right, he was praying for a miracle. McKENZIE: And he got one, at least from his viewpoint. KELLY: Paul Smith penciled this one and Terry Austin inked it. What more could you ask for on the art side?
From the Holiday Grab-Bag (left) Splash from the Daredevil back-up in Marvel Fanfare #1, written by Roger and illustrated by the Daredevil-dynamic duo of Smith and Austin. (right) McKenzie—with Luke McDonnell and John Beatty— brought together Cap and Bucky in the pages of Marvel Fanfare #5 (Nov. 1982). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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Months ago, when I sent Marv Wolfman an email asking for an interview about his Marvel Fanfare #16 (Sept. 1984) and 17 (Nov. 1984) contributions, Sky-Wolf, he was more than a little puzzled. “Hard to believe anyone cares,” he wrote back. In the annals of the Marvel Fanfare anthology series, Sky-Wolf is most certainly one of the stranger, more offbeat entries. Penned by Wolfman with pencils handled by Dave Cockrum, the story details the origins of the titular team of World War II adventurers. Escape artist Jesse “Little John” Johns, Hollywood special-effects master Sidney “The Gaff” Levine, and Matt Slade III come together under the lead of Skyler “Sky-Wolf” Wolf in an effort to retrieve a super-secret airplane prototype. That may sound fairly straightforward, but once you dig into the story, you’re actually bombarded by a seemingly never-ending succession of insane images, over-the-top characters, and outlandish war machines. “Both Dave and I really loved DC’s Blackhawk,” Wolfman says. “We kept thinking what we loved about the series was the stuff done in the 1950s. The villains were so far advanced compared to the heroes. They had the War Wheel, they had the flying tanks, they had all this silly stuff that looked great in a comic book. That was when they were being published by Quality. When they came to DC, they weren’t quite the same anymore.” That’s what Sky-Wolf was—a love letter to the Blackhawk comics of old, penned by Wolfman and penciled by Cockrum. “We did what we loved about them,” Wolfman says. “We did giant, silly machines and big, dopey stuff. We just wanted to have a lot of fun with it and see if we could do the Blackhawks that never quite existed but the one we always wanted.”
A Hawk-a Hawk-a Burnin’ Love… …for Blackhawk—Wolfman and Cockrum’s Sky-Wolf! Dave’s cover to Marvel Fanfare #16 (Sept. 1984). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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by C
hris Brennaman
So readers get treated to a barrage of that “big, with his friend and regular collaborator Dave Cockrum. dopey stuff.” On top of the usual World War II Nazi He recalls most of the details of its creation. So, why menace, there’s Murder Mountain, Steel Kommando, the shock that a reporter would email him for an the Flying Fuhrer… interview about it? Yes. You read that right. The Flying Fuhrer. “I’ve never seen anyone comment on it in all the “That was the absolute silliest thing I could years since,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve never signed imagine,” Wolfman says of a weapon that a single issue of it that I can remember it. appears at one point in the story to terrorize But we loved it. We did exactly what we the masses. wanted to do. We wanted a big, fun And in case you’re wondering what Blackhawk-like thing but there was a Flying Fuhrer is, well, it’s pretty much never any response to it.” exactly what you would imagine: a Still, part of him would have liked to giant, flying weapon in the form of have revisited the team of World War II adventurers. Adolf Hitler that rains down fiery death “It would have been nice had we from its extended right hand. “We wanted to have fun and go way gotten a lot of mail,” he says. “But overboard,” Wolfman says. books like that rarely got mail. The “I pretty much just decided I Fantastic Four may only get like 20, wanted to do it. I don’t think anyone 30, 40 letters at most. It wasn’t what cared what we did as long as it was everyone thought. A book like as well done as it could be. We were Marvel Fanfare, unless it was something unbelievable in terms of the at a stage in comics when readers Portrait by Michael Netzer. were looking for new stuff rather than 40 versions Marvel superhero line, never really got much mail at of the same old comic and we were trying to do all. If we had gotten two or three letters that would something a little different than the standard have been a lot.” Marvel superhero.” Sky-Wolf is a comic feature Wolfman clearly has fond CHRIS BRENNAMAN is an Atlanta-based writer and operates memories of. He enjoyed putting the book together the blog www.AtlantaGeekScene.com.
Sky Team (left) The Sky-Wolves identified, from MF #16. (right) Cockrum’s cover for the second (and final) appearance of Sky-Wolf. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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by D a n i e l
DeAngelo
Repulsor Rays Are Go! Courtesy of Ken Steacy, the artist’s go-to character in the pages of Marvel Fanfare: the Invincible Iron Man! TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
In addition to unpublished inventory stories, Marvel I was one of the first artists to produce painted artwork Fanfare was also meant to spotlight various creators for comics in the States, having been heavily influenced and special projects that didn’t quite fit in the pages by British artists Frank Hampson and Frank Bellamy in Eagle magazine,” Steacy explains. “Nowadays, of a regular monthly comic-book series. Fanfare’s glossy if I’m doing comics, it’s usually B&W line art which is pages were a perfect fit for the painted work of Canadian artist Ken Steacy, who worked on a trio of colored digitally; if it’s an illustration, then I’ll use Iron Man stories, along with an Alpha Flight one-shot other traditional media.” Steacy was also a rarity among comic artists in and numerous pinups. “Fully painted artwork reproduced so much better [on coated paper] than the standard that he could do it all, providing pencils and inks as mechanical color on newsprint,” Steacy notes. well as letters and colors (or “colours,” as its spelled “I was an avid Marvel fan, and at age 11 noticed in Canada). He often wrote the stories as well! the credits in each issue and decided then and “Philosophically, I’ve always believed that the best work is produced by a creator who controls every there to become a comic-book artist,” Steacy aspect of that work,” Steacy comments. “Plus I recalls, “an atypical career path from which my hated the assembly-line approach to cranking out parents never tried to dissuade me, for which I © Abbyarcane / Wikimedia Commons. am very grateful.” While painted comics by artists like Alex Ross comics on a schedule, which required contributors to specialize as are more common today, Steacy’s art style was a bit different from writers, or pencilers, or inkers, or letterers, or colorists—I think that much of that seen in traditional comics at the time. “Back in the day, specialization is for insects, not artists.” 38 • BACK ISSUE • Marvel Fanfare Issue
In An Octopus’ Garden Steacy’s wraparound covers for his Iron Man vs. Doc Ock two-parter in Marvel Fanfare #22 and 23 (Sept. and Nov. 1985). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
THE SUPERIOR OCTOPUS
In Daredevil vol. 1 #165 (July 1980), writer Roger McKenzie and artist Frank Miller had Spider-Man’s archenemy, Dr. Octopus, create a set of tentacles made from the indestructible metal adamantium. McKenzie eventually revisited this concept in a two-part Iron Man story in Marvel Fanfare #22–23 (Sept.–Nov. 1985), which he wrote while Steacy did everything else. “As I recall, I met Roger McKenzie at the San Diego Comic-Con,” Steacy says, “and he recommended me to Al Milgrom, who was the editor—and one the very best I ever worked with.” Consumer activist Joe Barger is overseeing Tony Stark’s upgrade of Ryker’s Island Penitentiary’s security system to prevent future breakouts. Among the supervillains imprisoned at Ryker’s is Dr. Octopus, whose adamantium arms are currently being examined at Stark International. When Octopus mentally summons them, the tentacles escape and break him out of prison, along with fellow prisoners Gray Gargoyle, Sandman, and Electro. Iron Man makes short work of the other villains, but Octopus—now also reunited with his original set of tentacles—commands the adamantium set to rip apart Iron Man’s armor. Octopus escapes and Barger holds Stark responsible. With Stark International stocks plummeting in the wake of the bad publicity, the first part of the story ends with a seemingly despondent Stark returning to drinking. However, in the next issue’s conclusion, “From the Ashes,” we learn that Stark was merely drinking Ginger Ale (Canada Dry, of course!) as he builds a new suit of armor. “Subversion of audience expectation through the device of a reveal is always a good way to engage your readers,” Steacy remarks. Stark’s security upgrade was designed to keep prisoners from breaking out of Ryker’s Island, not to prevent Octopus’ tentacles from breaking in. Stark International is forced to shut down due to a grand jury investigation, so Stark’s business lies
in the balance as he seeks out Dr. Octopus for a rematch. In an amusing sequence of events, Iron Man shows up to demand information about Octopus from Daredevil stoolie Turk, who just got finished being interrogated by DD. Turk convinces Iron Man that he knows nothing, but as soon as Shellhead leaves, a hapless Turk is confronted by Ock himself! In the end, Iron Man is able to defeat Ock by cybernetically taking control of the adamantium tentacles and using them against him. “Iron Man was always my fave character because his power came from his imagination, creativity, and Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 39
Iron Man’s Origin Ken’s version of Iron Man’s original armor, in a pinup from Marvel Fanfare #45 (Aug. 1989). Courtesy of Ken Steacy. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Protectors of the Great White North Courtesy of Heritage (www.ha.com), Ken Steacy original line art from the Northstar story in Marvel Fanfare #28 (Sept. 1986), featuring the entire Alpha Flight team. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
“I recall that there was a screw-up regarding the deadline on that last Fanfare story, and having turned in the cover and first half of the book, I discovered that I only had four days left to complete the final 16 pages! I had moved to Victoria, BC, by then, so I called my old pal Steve Leialoha (the finest inker to wield a brush, and the most underrated artist in the industry!) in San Francisco, and a former assistant named Rod Dunn in Toronto, offering them airfare, accommodation (comfy couches), and a hefty page rate if they’d save my bacon. I already had a terrific assistant named Andrew Pratt, so the four of us set up an assembly line in my tiny studio— I penciled, Steve inked, Rod cut frisket, Andrew airbrushed, and we all colored. My wonderful wife Joan pitched in as well, and none of us got much sleep, but we actually got it done by the deadline.”
AFTER THE FANFARE
Steacy would provide two more pinups for Marvel Fanfare: one of Iron Man in his classic gray armor for #45 (Aug. 1989), and the Punisher in #60 (Dec. 1991). “The Iron Man origin illo is interesting, insofar as it’s one of
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three paintings that were not returned to me by the publisher back in the day,” Steacy reveals. “The other two are a cover for The Wanderers at DC, and a Racer X wraparound at NOW Comics.” Although Steacy was able to track down the Racer X cover, “the Iron Man and the Wanderers originals are still wandering around out there somewhere—and I still want ’em back, dammit!” These days, Steacy makes annual appearances at the Desert Bus for Hope fundraiser, which celebrated its tenth year in 2016. “During that time they’ve raised over $3 million dollars for sick kids’ hospitals,” Steacy says, “of which I’m very proud to say my appearances (I auction off collectibles from my Archive of the Awesome, original artwork, and commissions) have raised just under $200,000 so far.” (For more info, visit https://desertbus.org/about.) “My wonderful wife Joan Steacy (who is also a graphic novelist) and I created the only program in Comics & Graphic Novels in the mainstream post-secondary school system here in Canada,” Steacy points out, “and we’ve just started our fifth year here at Camosun College.” (For more info visit www.camosun.ca/comics, www.kenspublishing.com/ winchester.pdf, www.kenspublishing.com/dougandken.pdf, and http://aurora-graphicnovel.tumblr.com/books.) We can hope that Steacy’s students will someday be able to turn out artwork as fine as that of their teacher. DANIEL DeANGELO is a freelance writer/artist in Florida. He would like to thank Ken Steacy for his assistance with this article.
TM
Bill Mantlo’s career in comics was a prolific one. One cannot think of ROM: Spaceknight or Micronauts without mentioning his contributions to their four-color adventures. Mantlo has also had celebrated runs on The Incredible Hulk and The Spectacular Spider-Man, and he co-conceived Rocket Raccoon, Cloak and Dagger, and the series Swords of the Swashbucklers. Yet, of all his work, perhaps the superhero anthology series Marvel Fanfare has most shown his versatility as a writer. His Micronauts creation Captain Universe plus Spidey and the Hulk are just a few of the characters he’s written for the title. Let’s explore all of Mantlo’s masterworks in the pages of Marvel Fanfare…
CONSCIENCE OF A FILL-IN KING by J a m e s
Heath Lantz
Much like Rod Serling and Gene Roddenberry did in television, Bill Mantlo used his writing as a platform to discuss the social issues that were important to him. Mantlo was, as his brother Michael tells BACK ISSUE, “a champion of the oppressed.” He wanted everyone, human and animal alike, to be treated fairly and equally. Many of his stances on the state of the world, in this case underpaid civil workers, overcrowded animal shelters, and the unnecessary deaths of stray pets, were expressed in his stories. “Bless the Beasts and the Children,” the back-up feature in Marvel Fanfare #7 (Mar. 1983) starring Marvel’s resident Man without Fear, Daredevil, was such a tale. The streets of New York are normally filled with traffic and chaos. However, on this particular day things get dangerous as a Daily Bugle van nearly hits a visually impaired boy. Daredevil saves him, but the young man’s new guide dog was © Marvel. frightened by the vehicular incident. Ol’ Hornhead scours the city for the canine, only to be overwhelmed by the fear he senses from the animals incarcerated in the cramped shelters full of city workers who are trying to make ends meet. Daredevil finds what he’s looking for. Yet, he’s too late. The poor pooch is put down because he was mistaken for a stray, leaving the Man without Fear wondering how he will tell the disabled lad that sometimes even superheroes fail in their quests. Mantlo continued to write about animal cruelty in his second story featured in Marvel Fanfare, in issue #16. Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner was the star of that particular saga. Namor attempts to save a white stallion from both smugglers who beat the poor creature and a raging storm on the sea. When the Scion of the Deep is severely injured by his adversaries’ weapons, the intervention and powers of Neptune save him and transform the steed into a beautiful sea horse. Jumping a bit ahead (don’t worry, we’ll get to Mantlo’s next Fanfare story soon), the Uni-Power and Captain Universe, first seen in Micronauts #8 and covered in depth in BACK ISSUE #93, show up to give some bullies their comeuppance in Marvel Fanfare #25’s second feature
Marvel Beat-Up Bill Mantlo penned this Spidey/Hulk mash-up/smash-up for Marvel Fanfare #47 (Dec. 1989). Art and colors by Michael Golden. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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The Warriors Three—Fandral the Dashing, Hogun the Grim, and the Voluminous Volstagg—first appeared in the “Tales of Asgard” back-up in Marvel’s Journey into Mystery #119 (Aug. 1965) by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Fandral has the appeal and panache of Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood, Hogun is as grim and dour as they come, and Volstagg could be the brother of Shakespeare’s Falstaff. Throughout the years, they have joined Thor on many adventures and have become popular supporting characters, even appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Thor films. For all their popularity, they have had relatively few adventures on their own. However, some of the best have appeared in Marvel Fanfare, courtesy of creators Alan Zelenetz and Charles Vess. Zelenetz told Steve Ringgenberg in Marvel Age #26 (Feb. 1985), “I had gone in to [Marvel Fanfare assistant editor] Ann Nocenti asking what she needed for Marvel Fanfare, and she said there’s this fellow named Charlie Vess who wants to draw the World Tree. Want to do a story about the World Tree and the Warriors Three?” That led to “Ballad of the Warriors Three,” the back-up story in Marvel Fanfare #13 (Mar. 1984). In the story, the Warriors Three encounter Idunn, whose husband, Bragi, the God of Poetry, has gone missing in the woods while seeking inspiration for a new ballad. The Warriors Three split up and encounter dwarves, giants, and mermaidens, all of whom tell them that Bragi was headed towards the World Tree. The Warriors come together at the tree. Bragi has taken the form of a bird and has become tangled in the tree’s branches, where he is menaced by a snake. Volstagg saves him by falling on the snake, and the Warriors Three become the inspiration for his new poem. In Amazing Heroes #126 (Sept. 1987), Vess told Mark Askwith about the story. “He [Zelenetz] wrote a story that was lots of fun. It wasn’t violent. Courtesy of ComicVine. It wasn’t people hitting each other over the head. I enjoyed drawing it.” This enjoyable collaboration led to the two joining together again for the graphic novel The Raven Banner, an epic tale set in Asgard. This would, in turn, lead to a four-part Warriors Three story in Marvel Fanfare #34–37 (June–Dec. 1987), though Vess said in Amazing Heroes that it originally started as a four-issue miniseries. “It started off when Alan and I said, ‘Let’s have some fun. Let’s come up with a silly story and do a miniseries.’ ” Jim Owsley was the original editor of the miniseries, but when he left Marvel editorial, finding a replacement proved difficult. “Well, we wanted to come up with a story that would be making fun of heroic-ness,” Vess told Christopher Irving in Modern Masters vol. 11:
The Warriors’ Tree The Warriors Three by Charles Vess. Back cover art to Marvel Fanfare #13 (Mar. 1984). Original art courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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by R o g e r
Ash
Charles Vess (TwoMorrows, Feb. 2007). “We actually went to two or three editors who simply did not get what we were trying to say, and finally went back to Al Milgrom, who completely understood the story. He knew what we were trying to do. A lot of the other editors kept saying, ‘Make it serious—some giant, epic thing.’ ‘No, no, no, we’re making fun of all these very grim people—grim and grimmer.’” Due in part to the success of Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, among others, dark and grim comics were the order of the day in the late 1980s. It’s not at all surprising that some editors wanted the story to be more serious, as that was big business at the time. And the story could easily have taken on a dark tone, but the creative team made sure it didn’t. “It’s filled with puns, anachronisms, and lots of slap-stick [sic] humor,” Zelenetz told Bill Slavicsek in Marvel Age #55 (July 1987). “Artist Charles Vess and I work very well together. We’re both romantics at heart when it comes to this sort of story. We’re very comfortable in the realm of fantasy and mythology, so these opportunities are the perfect indulgence. And editor Al Milgrom brings his own eccentric sense of humor to the project as well.” The story begins in Marvel Fanfare #34. In Asgard, Una and Mord are preparing for their wedding, but there is a dire prophecy surrounding them. If they do not marry on Midsummer’s Eve, they will not wed. Instead, they will marry other people and their offspring will bring about the destruction of Asgard. The Warriors Three will be attending the wedding as Odin’s personal advance guard. Plans for the wedding are going smoothly until Loki learns of it. He was not invited and decides to cause mischief, prophecy or no. During the wedding rehearsal, Loki turns the groom, Mord, into a goat that promptly runs away. Una follows and, in a clearing the woods, finds a stranger with a goat. The stranger is Loki, of course, who tells her that if the goat is bathed in a magic well in Wolf Castle, he will be restored to his human form. “But even with the grim prophecy and Loki’s mischief marring the happy occasion, the tale is still light-hearted and funny,” Zelenetz told Marvel Age. “Each warrior must undo a portion of Loki’s mischief before the wedding night, and each is thrown into circumstances that are very atypical for their own personalities.” Una finds Volstagg, the first of the Warriors Three to arrive, at a nearby inn and sets him on a quest. With the fate of Asgard at stake, Volstagg can’t hide behind bluster and exaggerated tales of his past heroics as usual; he actually has to go on the quest. But that doesn’t mean he’s suddenly a brave and great warrior. He is still as clumsy and cowardly as always, which makes his battle against werewolf-like men in Wolf Castle very funny. And, wonder of wonders, he actually accomplishes his goal. However, the goat remains a goat. Volstagg was a challenge for Vess to draw as he kept trying to make his skeletal and muscular structure to work. “It wasn’t until I was doing the four-issue miniseries with the Warriors Three that I realized how to actually draw Volstagg,” Vess told Irving in Modern Masters. “I was watching a Warner Brothers cartoon, “King-Sized Canary”—a Tex Avery cartoon about a cat and bird who keep drinking a magic formula that makes them get bigger and bigger. I looked at them and went, ‘Volstagg! He’s a cartoon character. There’s no bones in him!’ And that’s when I could finally draw him.” [Author’s note: The actual title of the cartoon is “King-Size Canary” and it was released by MGM.] Vess also included a tribute to one of his influences, Frank Frazetta, in this issue. “In the first part the wolf-men are straight out of Frazetta’s ‘Loathsome Lore’ one-page strip in Creepy or Eerie,” he told Irving. “I had lots of fun with it; it was a gloriously silly story.”
A New Tale of Asgard (top) Title page from Alan and Charles’ Warriors Three back-up from Marvel Fanfare #13. (bottom) 1985’s Marvel Graphic Novel #15: The Raven Banner (A Tale of Asgard) reunited Zelenetz and Vess… as well as Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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Marvel’s early-1970s output was an unending series of surprises, as readers were introduced to gothic horror, sword and sorcery, new heroes, new villains, and tons of new writers and artists. Many of these creators settled into roles closely identified with a specific style of story. Doug Moench, for example, came to Marvel and established himself as a street-level writer with his stirring Master of Kung Fu and Moon Knight. As a result, when I bought Marvel Super Action #1 in early 1976, the magazine stunned me with Moench penning a fantasy series, WeirdWorld. Clearly, it resonated with readers since it subsequently appeared in comics and magazines, fueling interest in its fantasy realm, especially since it was coupled with inspiring artwork from Mike Ploog and later, John Buscema. Marvel Comics finally collected the WeirdWorld stories for the first time in a trade paperback in 2016, and on the day we spoke by phone, Moench had just penned the introduction from his Pennsylvania home, so had his memories refreshed. He clearly relished those early days with its lax editorial oversight and the freedom to try things. “And boy, was that joyous,” he tells BACK ISSUE. “And I don’t think you can say the [Marvel] books were terrible. There wasn’t just me. There was [Steve] Englehart, Steve Gerber, Don McGregor, and on and on and on.”
by R o
bert Greenberger
WEIRDWORLD DISCOVERED
In the ’70s, Moench was a prolific writer and Marvel’s magazines were always in need of fresh content, so he had a fairly free hand to submit stories. “I’d dialogued my 20
The Great Darklens Saga A wonderful WeirdWorld commission by Pat Broderick, contributed by the art’s owner, Shaun Clancy. WeirdWorld TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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pages for the day or whatever and wasn’t tired,” Doug recalls. “And so they were always bugging me for more six-, seven-, eight-, and nine-page horror stories for Vampire Tales and Tales of the Zombie and whatnot. And I thought, ‘Well, I’m not tired so I’ll knock out a sevenpage black-and-white thing,’ and figuring I would come up with another Zombie or whatever. And instead, I found that [WeirdWorld] coming out and I thought, ‘Jeez, what is this? And are they going to take this?’ “I was very aware that it didn’t really have a home, so I made sure that there were, like, ogres in it and a dragon, or at least the implication of a dragon.” What Moench invented was a world filled with magic beings and a rich backstory that he explored only in later tales. WeirdWorld was the result of clash between the black god Darklens and his fellow gods some time in the distant past. Darklens was trapped on a new land and created a floating island from which he conjured up demons and monsters to emerge from the island’s shadow. The island was shattered by a comet sent by a white god, and shards of the comet were collected by five Dark Riders. Darklens was seemingly dead, buried in a tomb until his future resurrection. Years and years later, young Tyndall of Klarn was an elf living with the Dwarves of DwarfHaven. He began a series of adventures where he was sent to destroy the Heart of Evil, which turned out to be an egg containing an elf named Velanna, who became his companion. The pair became a trio when they helped save the dwarf Mud-Butt’s life, and proceeded to explore their world on land and across the various seas. Tyndall was brave and plucky, able to communicate telepathically with Dragons, giving him some advantages. “I don’t know where it came from, other than after— every time I did a real late story like that, I was on automatic pilot, sort of just going on momentum and my brain was kicked into the next gear,” Moench reveals. “There’s something to be said to force yourself to work beyond the breaking point. You pass this barrier and it becomes automatic writing. It just flows… I mean, it really flows. And I used to hate the first six or seven hours of each day because that’s what it took me to get to this state.” Moench submitted the story to Marvel’s magazine editor, Marv Wolfman, who was captivated with this fresh take on the fantasy genre, something Marvel hadn’t really touched previously. Moench recalls, “And they had never rejected anything I’d ever given them, but I was sort of cringing on this one, thinking, ‘Well, what if it isn’t ‘monster’ enough?’ I turned it in when I came in one morning, and then I was goofing around in the Bullpen, talking to people and maybe went out to lunch with some people, came back, and Marv came rushing down the hallway and he said, ‘Your WeirdWorld—I love that story!’ And he said, ‘I have the perfect artist for it,’ and I’d heard that a thousand times. ‘I’ve got the perfect artist for this thing,’ and it’s almost never true. But in this case, it turned out to be absolutely—he was dead-on.” That artist turned out to be Mike Ploog, whose Will Eisner-influenced art was gaining attention on characters including Ghost Rider, Werewolf by Night, and Frankenstein. The two hadn’t worked together before and Moench was taken with the choice. Today, we fondly recall their collaboration on Planet of the Apes, but as it turns out, WeirdWorld was done first. “I turned in the WeirdWorld story, it could have been very, very early in ’73, before I ever started Planet of the Apes,” Moench says.
WEIRDWORLD’S PREMIERE
Back in 1973, Moench wrote the story and loved the notion of Ploog as artist, but then got preoccupied and forgot about WeirdWorld until it was finally published in 1976 in Marvel Super Action, a Marvel magazine headlined by the Punisher and also including Howard Chaykin’s Dominic Fortune… with Moench and Ploog’s WeirdWorld. The WeirdWorld story caused a bit of a stir among readers and staff alike. “I wish I could remember who it was, it might have been Ralph Macchio or Marv Wolfman, I can’t remember… but they had—what was it? Marvel Premiere, the color book—where they were doing one-shots or two-parters of obscure stuff. And either Ralph or Marv said, ‘Hey, why don’t you do a WeirdWorld one-shot in the color book?’ And I said, ‘Oh, okay!’ So I probably sat down and did that. And I think that happened maybe again, if I remember right. There was another one-shot.” At the time of Marvel Premiere #38 (Oct. 1977), Marvel began touting its release as being in the same vein as J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, which had been enjoying a resurgence of interest for about a decade by then, and the Ralph Bakshi-animated adaptation was on
Welcome to Weirdworld This detail-drenched beauty hails from Doug Moench’s very first WeirdWorld story, from the magazine Marvel Super Action #1 (Jan. 1976). Original art signed by its artist, Mike Ploog, and courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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Marvel Fanfare #40 (Oct. 1988) is offbeat even for Fanfare, a series that specialized in the offbeat. Two of the mega-popular X-Men, Angel and Storm, are featured in solo stories, but neither is a typical superhero tale. One has our merry mutant unconscious for 12 of its 14 pages, while the other features a visit to a nightclub.
THE ANGEL IN “CHIAROSCURO”
Ann Nocenti and David Mazzucchelli’s “Chiaroscuro” centers on a sheltered widow named Josephina. In a life filled with a delinquent grandson, an overprotective neighbor, and temperamental appliances, Josie feels her best days are long behind her. Too afraid of the outside world to even take her classic Cadillac out for a drive, Josie sits in her garage, remembering better days and dreaming of an escape. Just then, an injured Angel crashes into Josie’s backyard. Hearing him muttering about battling Mephisto (a battle seen in Mephisto vs. #2, May 1987), Josie assumes that he’s an actual angel, fallen from Heaven. She takes the X-Man into her home and nurses him back to health, gluing all of his loose feathers back into place. When the recovered Angel wakes up and realizes what this sweet, old woman has done for him, he kisses Josie on the cheek and flies off without a word. The last page shows a peppy Josie taking her Caddy out for a long-awaited drive, blasting the song “Get Happy” all the way. Explaining her inspiration for this unique story, writer Ann Nocenti says, “When I read battle scenes in comics, my mind often wanders to the characters in the background. What happened to that kid whose eyes got wide when he saw the Hulk pound down 5th Avenue? What happened to that guy who spilled his apple cart when Thor’s hammer pounded the street? The X-Men were often having spectacular battles in the sky, and I decided that it would be fun have Angel drop into the backyard of a religious woman who saw him as a ‘real’ angel. I’m also very interested in how ordinary people view spectacular events from afar. When I was growing up Catholic, I enjoyed it when, in catechism class, the nuns would tell tales of angelic battles, fallen angels, Lucifer getting pushed out of heaven and falling. So I thought I would tell a tale about an ordinary lonely lady whose life is energized, however briefly, by a fallen angel.” Nocenti lucked out when it came to her artist: David Mazzucchelli, fresh off of collaborating with Frank Miller on Daredevil: Born Again and Batman: Year One. “David Mazzucchelli was (and is) certainly a favorite of mine, so however it happened, I considered myself very lucky to have gotten to work with him,” Nocenti says.
Fall from Grace David Mazzucchelli’s feather-full Angel cover for Marvel Fanfare #40 (Oct. 1988). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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by J o h n
Tr u m b u l l
As Mazzucchelli recalls, it was Nocenti’s story that brought him aboard. “After drawing Batman: Year One, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to draw any more costumed vigilante stories, which is why Ann Nocenti’s idea for the Angel story piqued my interest—he’s unconscious for the whole thing, and it’s really about Josie and the effect that the Angel’s appearance (he looks like an angel!) has on her.” “Josie was inspired by my grandmother Josephine,” Nocenti says. “She and my grandfather Silvio ran a dairy farm, and spending time on their farm had a big impact on me. She worked hard, but was a gentle, funny woman who loved to giggle. At the same time, she was restrained by the norms of the times. I always had a sly instinct that she would have loved to kick up her heels once in a while.” For his part, Mazzucchelli appreciated pushing his art in a new direction. “As far as a storytelling exercise, it was pretty straightforward,” he recalls. “The challenges were ones I set up for myself, specifically in terms of drawing style. I wanted to get away from the more naturalistic way I had been working and cartoon more.” The coloring for “Chiaroscuro” was by Mazzucchelli’s friend, painter David Hornung: “[David] was interested in trying his hand at coloring comics, so I recommended him for this story. I was very pleased with what he did. (Years later, I included some of his own comics in my magazine Rubber Blanket.)” “I think overall people enjoyed the story,” Nocenti recalls. “I still sign quite a few of that issue at comic conventions. It is one of my favorite stories that I’ve written. The short story is in many ways more difficult than a full-length comic. They are more like poems. The Classic X-Men short stories I did with John Bolton, a Daredevil short story I did with David Aja, and this tale with David Mazzucchelli are some of my all-time favorite beloved comics. Maybe I should have written more short stories!”
STORM IN “DEAL WITH THE DEVIL!”
Marvel Fanfare #40’s second story is a 15-pager by Chris Claremont and Craig Hamilton where Storm meets with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants’ Mystique to debate the future of their mutual teammate Rogue. For most of the story, the shapeshifting Raven Darkhölme assumes Storm’s appearance to taunt her foe. Penciler Craig Hamilton tells BACK ISSUE how he got the Fanfare assignment: “Like everyone in the ’80s, I was a fan “Deal with the Devil!” gave some of The X-Men. It was one of the first backstory to a significant issue in Marvel titles I picked up, having been X-Men continuity: Uncanny X-Men primarily a DC fan previously. I went to #185 (Sept. 1984), where Storm and a lot of conventions in the ’80s, showing Rogue bond as friends and teammates my portfolio, meeting artists, writers, just before Storm loses her powers and editors, and trying to break in. (she’d regain them in February Along the way I met Chris Claremont, 1988’s Uncanny X-Men #226). As we who had seen several sketches I had find out here, Mystique gave Storm a lead to find Rogue in UXM #185. done of Storm, particularly in her © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. mohawk look, and [he] thought I would be great to Craig Hamilton states that the Fanfare tale was originally draw a story. I had also struck up a friendship with the supposed to appear closer to the X-issues, but outside legendary Archie Goodwin, who introduced me to Al circumstances delayed it: “The story fit into the continuity Milgrom and put in a good word, so Marvel Fanfare was of the main X-Men title at the time, but my art was the perfect place for such a story to occur. (I credit Archie put on hold because I had landed the Aquaman miniseries at DC and took nine months away from it to with a lot in my comics career.)” The Storm story’s setting in an Atlanta nightclub was draw that.” [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #27 and no coincidence, says Craig. “I lived in Atlanta at the time, 46 for more info about Craig’s Aquaman miniseries, and during a particular Dragon-Con, Chris was a guest and written by Neal Pozner.] The story was inked by Rick Bryant and colored by accompanied me and some friends to an Atlanta nightclub, Weekends, known for its alternative culture and new wave Petra Scotese. “Rick Bryant’s studio in Manhattan was sensibilities. Thus was the inspiration for the story.” a nexus of comics creators in the ’80s, and I met him
Touched By An Angel …or, An Angel Touched By An Old Lady. Page 9 of the Nocenti/ Mazzucchelli tale. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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Fanfare for Shulkie (top) Jen drops a bomb on her daddy in Marvel Fanfare #48’s first story. (bottom) Playing mind games with the green gal in the issue’s second tale. Thanks to Steven Wilber for the scans. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
imagined vendetta against both her brother and niece. Zimmerman explains, “The genesis for the story was based on the difficult relationship I had with my parents. We didn’t see eye-to-eye on things I thought important in my life and it got very ugly at times. I saw a connection there with Sheriff Walters’ difficulty/refusal in accepting the changed circumstances of Jennifer’s life.” Mentally and physically manipulating her son into the monstrosity “Brawn,” Dr. Walters Pike unleashes him to battle She-Hulk, proving to be more than her match. In the end, She-Hulk is able to disrupt her aunt’s plan for revenge, leading Sheriff Walters to see the error of his ways. “Cassandra has a corrosively destructive sibling-rivalry relationship with her brother that she refuses to release,” Zimmerman says, “and her ‘mother from hell’ relationship with her son whom she uses as a tool to ‘earn’ his mother’s love. A reason I included her was to serve as an example for Sheriff Walters—the ultimate cost he faced with his daughter if he didn’t change.” Following this key moment, their father/daughter relationship would continue as a periodic element within the Sensational series in the years to come, with Sheriff Walters eventually retiring to live with Jennifer in New York City, eliciting a new sequence of complicated events.
CALIFORNIA DREAMING
Next came an adventure for Jennifer that would prove her fabled strength ineffectual, written by Star Comics assistant editor and regular Marvel Comics Presents contributor Susan Flaxman Kennedy. She fondly recollects, “The first time I met [then-Marvel editor-in-chief] Jim Shooter I was a senior in college and I basically asked him to hire me after I graduated. I was wearing green body paint from head to toe and a black-and-green wig. She-Hulk was always one of my favorite characters. A strong, beautiful woman with a law degree? The opportunity to write her was one of the biggest thrills of my career.” In this story, penciled by longtime Marvel artist Don Perlin, She-Hulk experiences a nightmare and quickly realizes that someone close to her has infiltrated her dreams, beckoning her to her hometown of Los Angeles. Jen soon reunites with her old friend Dr. Dylan Cavanaugh, head of Dream Research for Medtech. Cavanaugh confides that he’s gotten into trouble, but before Dylan can go into detail, a car chase ensues with She-Hulk showing her charm, wit, and skill behind the wheel are a match for any two-bit henchman. It’s important to note that when our hero manages to slow down, it’s clear that her issues between being Jennifer Walters and She-Hulk still aren’t completely settled. “Every Marvel character has some sort of personal conflict or crisis,” says Flaxman Kennedy. “At that point in her storyline, She-Hulk was ‘stuck’ as She-Hulk. She couldn’t transform back into Jen Walters. I felt that that made her desperately and deeply conflicted about who she really was.” Determined to help her friend, She-Hulk, following Dylan’s guidance, enters the dream realm to do battle with the powerful psychic Mr. Ogden, the director of Medtech. It isn’t until She-Hulk can sort out that she and Jen are one and the same that she finds the confidence and tools to stop Ogden… a dramatic end to a fun She-Hulk spotlight. Following Marvel Fanfare #48, the She-Hulk would continue a successful 60-issue run with Sensational. Putting behind her fears and anxiety, Jen would establish a strengthened bond with her father before the title’s final issue in 1994. Looking back at Marvel Fanfare, Flaxman Kennedy muses, “This was such a fun story to write. I’ve written several other Marvel women stories, but this one remains my favorite, if not my best.” STEVEN WILBER is a storyteller on canvas and educator in the classroom based in Boston, inspired by his growing 30-plus-year collection of comic books.
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TM
by D
a n Ta n d a r i c h
“Hoo-Boy! This issue is gonna take some explaining.” So said Marvel Fanfare editor Al Milgrom in his Editori-Al page in regard to the Silver Surfer story set for issue #51 (June 1990). This story is not considered part of the mainstream history of Marvel Earth but features alternate versions of characters on an alternate Earth, according to The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Master Edition. What? Just keep reading. Jack Kirby’s majestic drawings of “…some kind of naked character on a flying surfboard,” according to Stan Lee when he first saw the artwork, inspired the writer to give the Surfer an almost religious quality. After all, he was the herald for a god-like being called Galactus. The Surfer was “…the living personification of all that was good and pure in the human condition,” Lee wrote in his Stan’s Soapbox column in Marvel Age #52 (July 1987). The Silver Surfer first appeared in Fantastic Four #48 (Mar. 1966). By FF #50 (May 1966), Galactus took away his herald’s ability to soar through the galaxies after the Surfer helped save the Earth from the planet-devourer, leaving him marooned on our world. Stan wanted to keep the Surfer’s appearances special and under his watchful eye and he did for 18 issues in the Surfer’s solo series (Aug. 1968–Sept. 1970). One of the writers who Stan trusted with the character was Steve Englehart, who used the Surfer in his run on The Defenders. But as time passed and Stan became busier, appearances by the space-faring alien—real name Norrin Radd—were few and far between. In 1984, the stage was set for Steve Englehart and Jim Shooter, Marvel’s editor-in-chief, to launch the next phase of the Silver Surfer’s adventures. Jim wanted the character back in the spotlight, and Steve was more than happy to write the stories. In discussions with Stan they agreed on two things. One, Steve would write a 12-issue limited series showcasing the Surfer’s last adventures with him trapped on Earth. Two, Stan would begin work on a graphic novel with artist Keith Pollard that would allow the Surfer to break Galactus’ barrier surrounding the planet and soar the spaceways once again. As Milgrom explained in Marvel Fanfare #51, “It was supposed to run 12 issues, each one a double-sized job à la the Surfer’s original mag way back when. While the editorial staff haggled over direction and plotlines, John Buscema dropped off the book, to be replaced by Marshall Rogers. This issue you now hold in your hands was the original installment in that limited series. I just couldn’t bear to see all this gorgeous Buscema/Abel artwork go to waste.” Today Al tells BACK ISSUE that he was most likely the one to commission the special wraparound cover for that issue of Fanfare. In a preview blurb in Marvel Age Annual #1 (1985), Steve Englehart was “going to try and present the most
Mangog-A-Go-Go John Buscema’s cover to Marvel Fanfare #51 (June 1990), with the Silver Surfer and Mantis in mortal combat with Mangog. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Marvel Fanfare Issue • BACK ISSUE • 69