Back Issue #9 Preview by TwoMorrows Publishing

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MARVEL COMICS’ STAR WARS

PRO2PRO

MIGNOLA & STARLIN’S COSMIC ODYSSEY

GIL KANE PENCIL ART

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D DE U R U R E V E E SSTTEV d a nd an N ON RRO A B A B E KE M MIIK SS!! U U X E X N E o nN on

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COSMIC ISSUE! GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: CRISIS OF THE SOUL! OFF MY CHEST: MIKE GOLD! THANOS VILLAIN HISTORY! TIME WARP REVISITED!

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ck GRIMJACK: T H EN AND NOW

NEXUS TM TM && © © 2005 2005 MIKE MIKE BARON BARON AND AND STEVE STEVE RUDE. RUDE. STAR STAR WARS WARS TM TM && © © 2005 2005 LUCASFILM. LUCASFILM. COSMIC COSMIC ODYSSEY ODYSSEY AND AND GREEN GREEN LANTERN LANTERN TM TM && © © 2005 2005 DC DC COMICS. COMICS. NEXUS GRIMJACK TM TM && © © 2005 2005 NIGHTSKY NIGHTSKY GRIMJACK GRIMJACK RIGHTS RIGHTS AND AND PRODUCTION PRODUCTION VEHICLE VEHICLE (FOUR (FOUR WHEEL WHEEL DRIVE DRIVE MODEL), MODEL), LLC. LLC. GRIMJACK

The Ultimate Comics Experience!

Volume 1, Number 9 April 2005 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, and Today! EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow

BEYOND CAPES: HOW TO DO STAR WARS THE MARVEL WAY ............................................... 2 How the House of Ideas became the House of the Force

DESIGNER Robert Clark PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Eric Nolen-Weathington

PRO2PRO: JIM STARLIN AND MIKE MIGNOLA ON COSMIC ODYSSEY.......................... 16 Revisit DC’s overlooked opus—with the previously unpublished cover to #1 by Starlin!

SCANNING AND IMAGE MANIPULATION Rich Fowlks

OFF MY CHEST: MIKE GOLD................................................................................................................................. 24 A guest editorial covering the founding of First Comics and the state of the comics biz

COVER ARTIST Steve Rude (recreating the original Nexus #1 cover by Paul Gulacy)

FLASHBACK: GRIMJACK: PAST AND FUTURE........................................................................................ 26 A history of John Ostrander and Tim Truman’s mercenary, with tons of Truman art

SPECIAL THANKS Mike Baron Mike W. Barr Spencer Beck Anina Bennett Jerry Boyd Mike Browning Mike Burkey Howard Chaykin Philip Churchmeister Don Corn Ray Cuthbert J.M. DeMatteis Richard DiDominicis Jo Duffy Ron Frenz Dick Giordano Mike Gold Grand ComicBook Database Glenn Greenberg Robert Greenberger Paul Guinan Paul Gulacy David Hamilton Jack C. Harris Mark Hay Heritage Comics Bill Howard Dan Johnson John Kirby Chris Khalaf

Ted Latner Paul Levitz Richard Martines David Michelinie Mike Mignola Simon Miller Brian K. Morris David Morris Jerry Ordway John Ostrander Tom Palmer John Petty Roland Reedy Benno Rothschild Jaynelle Rude Steve Rude Rose Rummel-Eury Peter Sanderson Art Shotton Jack Snider Jim Starlin Roy Thomas Mark Tomlinson Tim Townsend Timothy Truman Trevor Von Eeden Jim Warden Len Wein Al Williamson Marv Wolfman Jim Woodall

ROUGH STUFF: GIL KANE SKETCH ART ..................................................................................................... 36 From the Atom to Warlock, Gil in glorious graphite GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: CRISIS OF THE SOUL .............................................................. 46 Jerry Ordway and others reveal the secrets of the crossover you didn’t see BEYOND CAPES: TIME WARP............................................................................................................................... 51 Remember DC Comics’ short-lived sci-fi series? PRO2PRO: MIKE BARON AND STEVE RUDE........................................................................................... 55 The creators of Nexus discuss the character with their former editor, Anina Bennett BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: THANOS .......................................................................................................... 73 The history of Marvel’s malevolent demigod, with commentary and rare art by Jim Starlin SPECIAL FEATURE: DVD BACK ISSUES PART 3..................................................................................... 81 Concluding our checklist of comics-inspired DVDs BACK IN PRINT .................................................................................................................................................................. 84 A review of the JLA/JSA TPB Crisis on Multiple Earths Vol. 3, plus a New in Print look at the Slings and Arrows Comic Guide BACK TALK ............................................................................................................................................................................. 88 Reader feedback on issue #7

BACK ISSUE™ is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 5060A Foothills Dr., Lake Oswego, OR 97034. Email: euryman@msn.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $30 Standard US, $48 First Class US, $60 Canada, $66 Surface International, $90 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Nexus TM & © 2005 Mike Baron and Steve Rude. Star Wars and Darth Vader TM & © 2005 Lucasfilm. Green Lantern, Superman, Batman, and Cosmic Odyssey characters TM & © 2005 DC Comics. GrimJack TM & © 2005 NightSky GrimJack Rights and Production Vehicle (Four Wheel Drive Model), LLC. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2005 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

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How to do

the Marvel Way by

A 1995-drawn Star Wars spoof, featuring Luke, Leia, and Chewie, by Sergio Aragonés (note that the artist is nearly drowning in the mire, near his signature). Courtesy of Mike Burkey (www.romitaman.com). Art © 1995 Sergio Aragones. Star Wars © 2005 Lucasfilm.

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reenb Glenn G

For nine years, over the course of 107 issues (and three annuals), Marvel Comics enabled fans of Star Wars to revisit the saga on a regular basis, with its series based on George Lucas’ space fantasy. For most of those nine years, it intricately filled in the gaps between the three movies that comprise what is today called “The Original Trilogy.” In recent years, it’s become vogue to write the Marvel series off as “kitschy” or “campy.” But to do that is to seriously undervalue it. Now, with the sixth and final film coming out in just a few weeks [from the publication of this issue], it’s only fitting to look back at the comic that helped kick-start the Star Wars phenomenon in 1977. HUMBLE BEGINNINGS For many people, it was Marvel’s adaptation of the original Star Wars movie that first introduced Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Princess Leia Organa, Chewbacca, and the droids See-Threepio and Artoo-Detoo. The comic series actually began several months before the May 25, 1977 premiere of the film. This was all part of a master plan hatched by George Lucas, according to original series writer Roy Thomas. “Lucas and Twentieth Century Fox just wanted [the comic] out there to reach another few hundred thousand readers two to three months before the movie came out,” Thomas recalls. “They were just trying to drum up a little enthusiasm for the movie because, contrary to popular belief, there was not much advance advertising for Star Wars.” Joining Thomas for the launch of the comic was artist Howard Chaykin. “[Lucasfilm] had in mind the idea of Howard Chaykin as the artist, and I had no problem with that,” says Thomas, who was also editing the series. “George admired Howard’s work on the SF stuff he’d done in the past.” “George apparently asked Marvel for me and Roy,” Chaykin notes. Spanning six issues, the adaptation is a fairly complete and faithful retelling of the movie. Chaykin inked the first issue himself but had to beg off on inking the subsequent issues due to other freelance commitments. (Steve Leialoha,

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Minus word balloons and captions, this is page 14 from Star Wars #8 (Feb. 1978), penciled by Howard Chaykin and inked by Tom Palmer. Courtesy of Tom Palmer.

Lucasfilm .

Rick Hoberg, and Bill Wray stepped in.) Because of this, the adaptation lacks a consistent look from beginning to end, and the shift from all-Chaykin in issue #1 to Chaykin/Leialoha in #2 is especially jarring. “The best-looking issue to me was the one that Chaykin did [on his own], because that was the way the whole thing was supposed to look,” says Thomas. Still, once you get past the sudden change in art style, the adaptation works fairly well. Of particular interest are the so-called “lost scenes” that were filmed but ended up on the cutting room floor. These include early scenes with Luke Skywalker on Tatooine, witnessing the space battle shown in the film’s opening moments and rushing to his friends to tell them about it. What you discover from these

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Thomas says he had “a very pleasant experience working on those six issues.” And since Marvel had gotten the go-ahead to continue the series beyond the adaptation, it fell to him to create a new story line—the very first Star Wars sequel.

scenes is just how desperate Luke is for adventure and excitement, and how his friends treat him as something of an outcast. There were also several scenes featuring Luke and his best friend from home, Biggs Darklighter. (In the 1997 Special Edition of Star Wars, one of these missing Biggs scenes—from later in the film—was put back in.) Probably the most memorable thing is the depiction of the encounter between Han Solo and Jabba the Hutt (originally spelled “Hut”), a scene cut from the original version of the movie but inserted into the 1997 Special Edition. While making the film in 1976, Lucas had not yet come up with the final design for Jabba, so Chaykin and Leialoha drew him as a human-sized, two-legged alien with yellowish skin, beady eyes, and hanging jowls framed by long whiskers. This version of Jabba would later show up two more times in the Marvel series, until it was finally rendered apocryphal by Return of the Jedi. The Marvel adaptation was a booming success, selling well over a million copies and reprinted numerous times in various formats. It was a vindication of sorts for Thomas, who was the one to convince Marvel’s then-publisher, a somewhat skeptical Stan Lee, to publish a Star Wars comic in the first place.

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BEYOND THE MOVIE! BEYOND THE GALAXY! What’s most intriguing about Thomas’ follow-up story isn’t what’s in there, but what’s missing. For starters, Thomas sidestepped the ongoing war between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire. He also shunted Luke Skywalker into the background in favor of Han Solo and Chewbacca. Thomas separated the pair from the rest of the cast and sent them to a backwater planet, where they and several other mercenaries were hired to protect a small farming community from a band of ruthless thugs. If that sounds a bit like The Magnificent Seven, well, it should. Thomas intentionally patterned his story after that classic film. And his decision to focus on Solo instead of Skywalker (and, for that matter, mercenaries vs. outlaws instead of Rebels vs. Empire) was brought on by several factors. “I was not allowed to advance the romance between Luke and Leia—of course, at the time I had no idea that they were brother and sister. I couldn’t do anything with the Clone Wars, I couldn’t use Darth Vader, and I wasn’t that interested in Luke Skywalker as a character—no offense to Mark Hamill, he played him very well. But it just didn’t sound like [Lucasfilm] wanted me to do too much with him.” Thomas’ solution was to focus, at least at first, on Solo and the Wookiee. “Han Solo was more of a stand-alone character, the kind of ‘Northwest Smith’ space opera hero I liked. He and Chewbacca could easily go off and have adventures by themselves, and Lucasfilm wasn’t too worried about it. At that time, they weren’t sure that Han Solo was going to be a big part of the second movie—but of course, as it turned out, he was a very big part of the second movie! I decided to do a story that was like The Magnificent Seven and I would make up some new characters and have some fun.” One of those new characters was a seven-foot-tall, green-furred, talking rabbit named Jaxxon, who joined Solo and Chewbacca on their mission. It was with this emerald bunny that Thomas’ troubles on the series truly began. NOW LEAVING THE GALAXY “George sort of liked the idea of my Magnificent Seven plot,” Thomas says. “But then I heard he wasn’t that wild about it when it actually came out. He particularly disliked the green rabbit. And I could just see which way this was going. I was now the tail on the dog, and I wasn’t too interested in finding out every few issues what I could and couldn’t do . . . once I heard that he didn’t like the green rabbit, I realized that this was going to be too much of a hassle. I enjoyed doing the first six issues, but after the other four, I just begged off.” Thomas’ storyline—and his involvement with the series—ended with #10. Although it gets somewhat of a bad rap nowadays, the story is a pretty good first attempt to write an original Star Wars adventure, given how little was known about the universe back then. And really, the green rabbit is no sillier than Jar Jar Binks.

ing y: Trippa the G lax

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The “Lost” Cover This unpublished Cosmic Odyssey #1 cover was illustrated by series writer Jim Starlin, who inked it in markers. The markers faded over time, leading to the art’s restoration by Bob McLeod. Courtesy of Mike Browning.

Conducted on September 14, 2004

By late 1988, the DC Universe had, in just a few years, seen a lot of sweeping changes. DC Comics had streamlined

by Dan Johnson

its stable of super-heroes via reboots, revised origins, and the continuity-altering maxiseries Crisis on Infinite Earths. For

interview

some old-time readers, a little

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bit of the fun that had once been DC was gone as a result of this restoration. But those DC fans enjoyed a major bright spot in 1988: an epic miniseries that told the saga of how Earth’s greatest heroes joined forces with the universe’s most treacherous despot, Darkseid, and the New Gods to stop the threat of the Anti-Life Equation. This project came about when one of the all-time greatest creators of the industry, Jim Starlin, joined forces with an up-and-coming artist who has since become one of the most influential voices in the field today, Mike Mignola. In an exclusive BACK ISSUE interview, Jim and Mike discuss their collaboration that helped DC reclaim the stars: Cosmic Odyssey. – Dan Johnson

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DAN JOHNSON: Jim, was the Cosmic Odyssey miniseries your proposal? JIM STARLIN: Actually, DC came to me. [DC] had just done this series where they mapped out their entire magical universe, from the Phantom Stranger on down to the Demon, and they said, “We would like you to do the same thing with our science-fiction and super-heroes.” Paul Levitz was the one who actually originated it. I messed around with it for a month, and came up with this idea that ended up being the plot. [Cosmic Odyssey] had nothing to do with mapping anything out, of course, other than we picked out three planets DC had in their universe, because I wasn’t about to go look through a bunch of back issues to map things out. That’s Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s territory. (laughs) MIKE MIGNOLA: Originally, Jim, you were going to draw it yourself, correct? STARLIN: Yeah, I had done about four or five pages of it and I got messed up on the scheduling between Gilgamesh and Batman, and all of a sudden everybody started screaming for things that they had told me I could take my time on. So I had to drop the drawing of it, and luckily we brought Mike in. It worked out just terrifically, as you can see. JOHNSON: Mike, how were you recruited for this project? MIGNOLA: Back in those days, I was flopping back and forth between doing work for Marvel and DC, and I think Cosmic Odyssey was one of the books [DC editor] Mike Carlin waved at me to get me to come back over to DC. I had been a huge fan of Jim’s stuff from years back. When I got rid of all my comics years ago, the only thing I kept was Jim’s Warlock. The opportunity to work with him was the huge incentive [to do Cosmic Odyssey]. I knew nothing, and still know nothing, about the DC super-heroes. I’m embarrassed to say, the whole Kirby New Gods stuff, I really didn’t know much about it. But it sounded like a great, fun project to do with Jim and it sounded like it might be a relatively commercial gig. They showed me Jim’s pages, and I came on board. JOHNSON: Jim, how did you determine which characters would work best? STARLIN: Mostly, as with all projects involving DC or Marvel, that [came down to] getting permission from the people who have control of given characters to let them be used in this project. That’s always the biggest headache. I know there were a couple of characters we wanted in there that I couldn’t use. It seems like the Demon was a substitute for somebody else. JOHNSON: What about the involvement of Jack Kirby’s New Gods? As I recall, until this miniseries there hadn’t been a lot done with these characters in some time. Were you a fan of Kirby’s Fourth World saga? STARLIN: Oh, yeah. I think those came out just before I got into the business. I didn’t really care for Mister Miracle and The Forever People, I wasn’t a big fan of those, but I liked The New Gods and the whole scope of that series. They were attached to this project right from the beginning, because I wanted to do something with them.

JOHNSON: I think at that time the most anyone had done with the characters was John Byrne introduced Darkseid into the Superman books when he revamped the character. Also, Kirby used them for the Super Powers comic book that was a tie-in for the toy line in the mid-’80s. For a lot of older readers, Cosmic Odyssey marked a rebirth for these characters and it introduced them for a whole new generation of fans. STARLIN: It didn’t last long after that, as I recall. DC started up a [New Gods] series that got messed up because of the scheduling problems I had. I think that series lasted eight or ten issues, and then it was gone. I only did the first couple of them. [Editor’s note: Actually, DC’s New Gods reboot ran 28 issues, from Feb. 1989–Aug. 1991.] JOHNSON: I can understand the desire of DC wanting to put the New Gods into a story that is supposed to have cosmic scope. I can also understand using some of the characters and planets that had been established in DC continuity, like Adam Strange with Rann, and the Hawkpeople with Thanagar. STARLIN: One of the funny things with New Gods, after we did the thing with Cosmic Odyssey, Mark Evanier took over the series, and [DC] decided they were going to completely ignore Cosmic Odyssey because we solved the Anti-Life Equation, so we were, effectively, dropped out of the universe there for a while. Fortunately, our books lasted longer in print than any of those other ones. But we were effectively ostracized there for a short period. MIGNOLA: Yeah, I have never heard Cosmic Odyssey in reference to any of the DC stuff and what was done there. STARLIN: I know John Byrne really hated it. He did [New Gods] later on for a while, and he never made any references to it. JOHNSON: One thing that is canon is what you folks did with John Stewart. It had a huge impact on that character. STARLIN and MIGNOLA (together): Really? JOHNSON: Yes. STARLIN: I wasn’t aware of that. JOHNSON: The events in Cosmic Odyssey have been one of the big driving factors for the character ever since it occurred. STARLIN: That’s funny, because that was one of the last things that got thrown in. I wanted a transition for all the characters to go through, and I didn’t have anything for [John Stewart]. The guilt thing came in at the end. MIGNOLA: That was my favorite part. STARLIN: Well, I’m glad we added it then. It saved you

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Beginnings:

Journey into Mystery #1 (197 2): pencils, “You Show Me Your Dream— I’ll Show You Mine”

Milestones:

Captain Marvel / Warlock / The Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel / Dre adstar / Darklon the Mystic / Batman / Batman : The Cult / Gilgamesh II / Infinity Gauntlet / Infinity War / Infinity Crusade / Thanos Quest / ’Breed / Infi nity Abyss

Works in Progress:

Cosmic Guard

Cyberspace:

www.starlin.com

Beginnings:

ted)

: inks (uncredi The Defenders #116 (1983)

Milestones:

/ Batman: Gotham Rocket Raccoon miniseries Gray Mouser / the and rd by Gaslight / Fafh ker’s Dracula / Hellboy Cosmic Odyssey / Bram Sto

Works in Progress: Hellboy

Cyberspace:

www.hellboy.com

a lot of time drawing, as I recall, the Xeroxes— MIGNOLA: Yeah, you specified all those things, your Xeroxing stunt, reversing the sequences and stuff. That did save a lot of time, which was good because that book, by the time I was halfway through it, it was already pretty late. In some places, I was drawing three or four pages a day, which was a lot more than I had ever drawn before. Fortunately it was also a lot of black fields with stars for a while. I liked the scenes with asteroids and the universe falling in on itself. That stuff can go pretty fast. STARLIN: Well, I’ve been there, and I try to give the artist a break when I can. MIGNOLA: That’s good, and I appreciate that because there were 60 billion characters in there. It made up for those two-page spreads of 62 dead Hawkpeople. JOHNSON: Going back to John Stewart a moment, how did you come to use him in this miniseries over Hal Jordan? STARLIN: I think he was the Green Lantern at the time. I just pulled the book off the shelf. I’m remembering there were a couple [of characters] we couldn’t use. We couldn’t use Wonder Woman, that’s why [Starfire of the Teen Titans] came in. MIGNOLA: She was a pain in the ass to draw. Almost any character created by George Pérez would be, I think. Every part of her costume had a different pattern on it and with that hair—girls are not my strong suit anyway, and she was the one that really gave me fits. STARLIN: [DC] wanted some lady in it, but they wouldn’t let us use Wonder Woman, as I recall. JOHNSON: You brought up the idea of there being a transition for each character. Can you elaborate on that? STARLIN: When I write any story, I like to have the characters go though some kind of minor change. [They can] learn something or become aware of something or decide that something they are doing is wrong. The whole idea of a story, as far as I’m concerned, is you want to get more into the human side of it, more than the heroics. Basically, I just wanted each one of them to have some kind of revelation. Except the Demon, of course. He didn’t go through any kind of transition. JOHNSON: Well, now you did have Etrigan and Jason Blood reunite— STARLIN: Okay, that’s it. I couldn’t recall what I had done with him.

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bothering with the general newsstand. I later learned

of Viz and Dark Horse in

the circulation directors at both DC and Marvel were

opening American comics

deeply afraid we would do just that. So were our

fans up to several whole

investors, but for the opposite reason.

new styles of graphic art

Within our first year of publishing, First Comics

storytelling. Fantagraphics

won all sorts of awards (I copped the Comics Buyer’s

courageously has moved

Guide Favorite Editor), made all kinds of “best of the

beyond publishing a fan-

year” lists and were generally loved and appreciated in

zine that holds the medium

a wonderful era that had never heard of the word

up to a critical light and

“slabbing.” We were off and running.

has been publishing all

Lucky for us, we were not alone. Several other pub-

types of comics, graphic

lishers—most notably Pacific Comics and Eclipse

novels and histories that

Comics—had started publishing for the comic-book

can withstand that very

shop market. At a time when all-too many shops racked

critical light.

their books by DC and Marvel, those of us who were

The medium continues

neither DC nor Marvel were racked in the same area.

to grow creatively. Market

Together, we had presence. Together, we became the hip

forces haven’t beaten us

place to be in many shops. Together, we were a movement.

into the ground. For the

Together, we were called the “independent publishers.”

first time in the 70-year

All that meant was that we were independent of DC

history of new comic-

and Marvel. At one point a few years later, the Comics

book story publishing in

Buyer’s Guide listed Disney Comics, owned and operated

America, a reader can go

by the Walt Disney Company, as among the independent

into the bookstore and pick

publishers. That bothered me; for one thing, DC and

from the same exception-

Marvel had started expanding their creative horizons.

ally wide variety he or she

For another, I didn’t like a world where creativity was

could enjoy in France,

defined in such black-and-white terms.

Japan, or Italy. Well, almost. We’re working on it.

Sargon Gets Socked

As time progressed, speculators came in and started

What is amusing to me, as a Greybeard of the 1980s

to turn an art form into a trauma. The not-independent

comics movement, is that the newest generation of

publishers could weather the storm, at least at the outset.

upstarts is turning to us old-timers to help them entertain

Even after Marvel had filed for bankruptcy, they spent

the masses. All that respect is an odd feeling. It’s real

has robot trouble on

more on their comics line than all the other independ-

nice, tough.

page 9 of Warp #9

The Mistress of War

(Dec. 1983), illustrated

ents combined, and then some. Still, there was energy and

Some time ago, my old buddy Paul Levitz said the

there was desire. Dark Horse and Image came into the

industry wouldn’t be healthy until there were about a

by Frank Brunner and

mix after or around the time most of the larger independ-

half-dozen viable publishing companies. We’re pretty close to that. Right now, all the publishers who aren’t

Mike Gustovich;

ents faded, including Disney. Both had unique business models, and like the newcomers a few years earlier,

named DC or Marvel have to split that 23% share of

both had (and continue to have) enormous impact on

the direct sales market, but they’ve got those big-box

the medium. I’m glad to report that both survived the

bookstores to play in and that might make up the

Warp, based upon

1990s market depression and are continuing to produce

difference. Right now, things are looking pretty good.

the stage play of

a lot of interesting and worthy comics.

original art courtesy of Heritage Comics.

the same name,

Like rock ’n’ roll, comic books are here to stay.

But that depression almost turned the American

was First’s first title.

comic-book publishers into a new generation of buggy whip manufacturers. New approaches were needed, and

Mike Gold heads up ArrogantMGMS, a schizophrenic

through a combination of wondrous events the big-box

little New England media company that wallows in

bookstore market was opened up.

political, advocacy, social service and comic book work.

I must tip my hat to the folks at TokyoPop, one of

His current project is the return of GrimJack by John

America’s largest comics publishers in dollar volume.

Ostrander and Timothy Truman, which returned to

They brought in a new audience, brought adolescent

publication in January 2005 by IDW. He can be con-

girls back into the medium, and they built on the efforts

tacted at ArrogantMGMS@aol.com.

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gPastRiMjFuture acK: and

Early GrimJack A Timothy Truman illo of GrimJack and

s . Morri Brian K

“Call me a mercenary. Call me an assassin. Call me a villain. I am all that and more. My name’s John Gaunt, but on the streets of Cynosure, I am called GrimJack.” By 1983, the comics industry had learned many new truths. Comics didn’t have to be shipped to newsstands to find customers, creators didn’t have to sign away all their financial and creative rights to get published, and publishers didn’t require a New York mailing address to attract major talent. For several years, the proof was First Comics of Evanston, Illinois.

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A WARPED BEGINNING Mike Gold’s first contact with comic books came at the age of four when his older sister read her own to him. “I’ve always been a comic-book fan, always been attracted to the medium,” he says. “I got into journalism because I started reading newspapers.” Why? “Because that was the thing they wrapped around the comics page.” Gold spent several years in Chicago as a freelance writer, underground newspaper editor, public advocate, broadcaster, and political activist. Helping develop the National Runaway Switchboard, which still operates today, and its promotion led to his being hired in 1976 as DC’s first Public Relations Director. Within two years, he’d established such industry standards as creating posters and flyers for store use and informing retailers about the contents of upcoming issues. After quadrupling DC’s sales in the early direct-sales market, Gold returned to Chicago to begin a magazine about the growing home-video market. In 1980, the producers of the Warp stage play (featuring designs by Neal Adams) contacted Gold about creating a comic-book adaptation of the show, which ultimately led to the formation of First Comics. Gold brought in attorney Ken Levin, one of the National Runaway Switchboard’s Board of Directors, to oversee the legal end of the new company. This began a long association for both men on a professional and personal level. First Comics launched in early 1983 with the Warp adaptations by Frank Brunner, E-Man’s revival by cocreator Joe Staton, and two books by Mike Grell: Jon Sable, Freelance and Starslayer, the latter picked up from Pacific Comics. “Starslayer was my new talent book,” according to Gold, who started buying scripts from playwright/actor, John Ostrander. Knowing that First sought new concepts, Ostrander submitted a former prose idea about a hard-boiled

retrospective in GrimJack #75, Truman’s response was “Keep the bug-woman and gimme the merc.” Ostrander and Truman immediately bonded as creators and friends. As Truman says, “John and I were— and are—like brothers.” The artist took Delsol’s concepts in a significantly different direction. Inspired, Truman one-upped Delsol’s original interpretation of Gaunt with more than adding a scar over his left eye. “I pulled GrimJack out of my brain, dressed him up in a more military fashion, hooked him to a chain, and drug him through the gravel until he looked right to me. Luckily, it was just what First was looking for.” Truman continues, “I read John’s (proposal) and said, ‘This whole scene has to look a lot rougher.’” Traveling through the seedier sections of Columbus, Ohio, and Charleston, West Virginia as well as walking past the “dives and strip bars” of 48th Street in New York City,

A scan of Tim Truman’s cover art to GrimJack #1 (Aug. 1984), courtesy of Jim Warden (www.doasales.com). GrimJack © 2005 NightSky GrimJack Rights and Production Vehicle (Four Wheel Drive Model), LLC. All Rights Reserved.

mercenary for hire, now set in the city of Cynosure, the nexus of nearly infinite dimensions that originally appeared in Warp Special #1. Ostrander enlisted the aid of Lenin Delsol, the newly installed penciler on Starslayer, to do some conceptual art. Editor Gold was impressed with the presentation, but knew Delsol couldn’t maintain a monthly schedule on two books. One of the earliest graduates of the Joe Kubert School of Comic Book Art, Timothy Truman honed his craft on backup stories in DC’s Sgt. Rock before working for game publisher SPI, then TSR. After seeing Truman’s samples at a Chicago comic convention, Gold offered him either a backup strip in Warp or the chance to help launch GrimJack. According to Ostrander, in a

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spent playing bass and guitar in various bars and clubs made their way into the ambience of Munden’s Bar. Outside, filth and trash crunched underfoot while posters and wildly splayed handbills gave grungy texture to the city scenes, rewarding repeated readings with new discoveries, not unlike the heyday of MAD magazine. “It seemed natural,” claims Truman, “and it helped define the ‘Pit’ area of Cynosure.” “I was a pretty mellow guy, myself,” Truman continues, “never really into the drug scene, but it just so happened that a lot of the people I ended up being around were these tough customers . . . musicians, druggy types, guys who later became members of the Pagans motorcycle gang, former Green Berets, guys in the Marine Reserves.” The time spent around these people translated into characters with individualistic features and emotions in stories propelled by Truman’s solid storytelling. Meanwhile, editor Gold proved to be more than just a sounding board for his creative team. He admits, “I was very highly involved in the plotting process, sometimes too closely involved, because part of an editor’s job is to act as the advocate for the reader as well as the publisher, as well as the talent.” After a mention in Starslayer #8, the readers saw the scarred, grim visage of John Gaunt for the first time in #9 before premiering in issue ten. Gold sent out advance photocopies to readers for their reaction, claiming, “The minute it came out, the response to GrimJack was very, very strong.”

Over the next seven installments, we got to know GrimJack well enough, but not completely. Like Rick in Casablanca, GrimJack had a tragic past. Driven by his own sense of honor, he’d been a killer, failed sorcerer, policeman, black ops agent, lover, and now bar owner and freelance sword for hire because sorcery and guns might not work in every dimension of Cynosure, but swords and attitude would. GrimJack’s hard-boiled reputation was as infamous as the “death’s head grin” that emerged involuntarily prior to combat. His friends were few, but as loyal to Gaunt as he was in return. And if the job and the money were right, you became Gaunt’s client. Conventional wisdom said that science-fiction titles wouldn’t sell, let alone one about a middle-aged man in a day when DC maintained that Superman was still 29. However, the page count rapidly increased from eight to 12 pages due to strong reader approval and as Gold says, “We really liked it in-house.” With Truman now joining Ostrander on the lead feature, shifting page counts became less problematic than it would be with two different sets of creators.

GrimJack didn’t run several months before finding its voice. It hit the ground fully realized. Ostrander wrote in a terse, no-nonsense first-person pulp style. Like the two-fisted heroes of old, GrimJack acknowledged his faults as easily as his talents, but didn’t squander his time (or the readers’) with lengthy introspection and analysis. And according to Truman, “The look and the feel

also shared with

•

In fact, the term reflecting the radical departure from the mainstream comics of the time was born during a story meeting for GrimJack.

GRIM AND GRITTY

Jim Warden

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provided inspiration for his Cynosure. Time

seemed right for the subject matter. The ‘grim and gritty’ movement of the ’80s began with GrimJack.”

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The

(Pencil)

Mark of Gil

Kane!

From a portfolio of legendary Gil “Sugar” Kane, here’s a montage of some of his most famous characters. When I showed Gil my art portfolio, he said, “This . . . thing I see within you, my boy—is a natural sense of spacial relationships.” What?! Actually, I had a handle on what Gil meant . . . I’d just never considered it intellectually.

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GIL KANE PORTFOLIO

lton Hami ” e n ambo id “H v a D by

CONAN #12 • 1 9 7 1 This stuff is really rough! Gil Kane’s layouts for the cover of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian #12 (Dec. 1971).

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in Marvel history— Gwen Stacy’s funeral, page four of Aug. 1973’s Spidey #123, copied from Gil’s original pencils. The story goes, Gil sent the pencils to Marvel, but they got lost. Luckily, Gil had copied them, so John Romita had to ink on vellum off the Xeroxes for the whole issue. The pencils later turned up, and this page is one of them. Art courtesy of

t i m e l i n e s

Richard Martines.

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AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #123 • 1 9 7 3

A solemn moment

Crisis of the Soul: The Sequel You Didn’t See by

ry Michael Eu

In 1985, DC Comics rocked its line and the comics market with its 12-issue housecleaning series, Crisis on Infinite Earths (cover-dated Apr. 1985–Mar. 1986), streamlining its parallel Earths into one—no more Earth-One, Earth-Two, Earth-Three, Earth-X, Earth-S, or Eartha Kitt (okay, she survived) . . . just plain ol’ Earth. “During the Crisis as sales started coming in,” reveals Crisis writer/editor Marv Wolfman, “Jenette Kahn decided she wanted another maxiseries done. I said I had an idea but she wanted me to finish working on Crisis and not be distracted by yet another maxiseries, and felt I had already done my ‘duty.’ I also think she wanted her other editors to step up to the plate. In a meeting Jenette told the editors she wanted them all to come in with an idea the following month.”

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According to Marv, at the editorial meeting one

moves from city

month later, “I’m sitting next to Jenette in the conference

to town across

room. She points to editor after editor and not one of

the globe, in a

them has come up with anything. It’s getting very

pattern we can-

uncomfortable. I could tell that Jenette was getting

not discern,

angry and the editors were all feeling it.” At that point

searching and

Wolfman pitched his crossover idea [in case you’re

investigating

wondering about the pitch, Marv adds, “I won’t say

this world to

what my idea was, but in no way could it ever have

which he has

been called anything even similar to Crisis of the Soul”],

come.

which he says garnered a positive response from Kahn,

He is the

who assigned it to editor Andy Helfer to develop. “After

Corrupter, the

some time Andy reported that he, and I think Steve

living tide come

Englehart, couldn’t make my idea work, and somehow

to take Earth.

things developed into Legends, which also had nothing

He is a living

to do with my idea.”

catalyst for evil

Yes, Legends (cover-dated Nov. 1986–Apr. 1987)—

who delights in

the six-issue miniseries written by John Ostrander and

the souls he

Len Wein, illustrated by John Byrne and Karl Kesel,

ruins and feeds

and edited by Mike Gold, where Darkseid, through his

upon. Virtually

underling Glorious Godfrey, turned public opinion against

immortal and

DC’s super-heroes—DC’s mega-crossover follow-up to

timeless, he is

Crisis on Infinite Earths.

tremendously

But before Legends, DC planned, albeit briefly, a different Crisis sequel. . .

powerful and committed to his aims with a

Anatomy of a Crossover

THE TIDE ROLLS IN

Crisis of the Soul

The sequel Marv Wolfman admittedly doesn’t recall,

Robert Greenberger, the associate editor of (and

which was in development during the summer of 1985,

plot contributor to) Infinite Earths, was assigned to edit

and which accelerated during the early fall of 1985 (a

Soul; and Len Wein, co-conspirator of Infinite Earths,

8/18/85 letter to

period when Marv took a much-needed post-Crisis

was chosen to dialogue Paul’s plot (although Wein

the series’ penciler,

five-week European sojourn), was brainstormed by Paul

admits that he does not recall Crisis of the Soul—it was

accompanying the

Levitz. Titled Crisis of the Soul, the series’ basic premise,

20 years ago, after all). Tapped to pencil the maxiseries

first draft of the

as presented here in the introductory paragraphs of the

was Jerry Ordway.

9/13/85 second draft of its preliminary bible (the first universe,

on Crisis on Infinite Earths when, I guess, the workload

there have been tides of evil that have

of inking it became too much for Dick Giordano to do

swept over worlds, bringing with them the

while still holding down a management job with DC.

doom of civilizations, species, and even the

That pretty much led to Crisis of the Soul.”

the

history

the

crossover’s proposal.

“I can’t recall exactly who asked me [to draw Soul],”

Courtesy of

Ordway divulges, “but I had stepped in to be the inker

draft was dated 8/13/85), was as follows: Throughout

plotter Paul Levitz’s

destruction of entire planets. The source of

Crisis of the Soul veered from it predecessor in its

these tides has never been isolated, but they

scope: The crisis of Infinite Earths was cosmic,

have been beyond any possible opposition:

whereas the crisis of Soul was personal. Ordway

too rapid, too powerful, too final, and in the

found this appealing.

ultimate analysis, too unpredictable, except for the fact that they inevitably reoccur.

“The selling point on the project was that it was to be a more intimate story, with galactic repercussions,”

The tide has come to Earth, in the person

Jerry explains. “Crisis [on Infinite Earths], by its very

of a seductively handsome young man, on a beau-

nature, had a sort of distant view of the armies of

tiful spring morning. He walks into a small

heroes battling the threat, which was huge. It also had

town in America, attracted by the coming

the enthusiasm of George Pérez, who had the desire to

crisis moment in Earth’s destiny. He swiftly

draw every known character in the DC mythos, and

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Time Warp:

Doomsday Tales and

Other Things

f Chris Khala

By the summer of 1979, science fiction, after a decade or more of near-dormancy, had

experienced

revival.

Encounters of the Third Kind had been a theatrical hit, and the fairly young Star Wars was still a hot property as a movie and merchandise. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was on the horizon to successfully revive that sci-fi television concept from the ’60s. And Superman: The Movie, with its sci-fi aspects, had recently been a blockbuster cinematic success. Even classic characters like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers garnered attention on the big and small screens, and James Bond himself made a trip into the final frontier in Moonraker. On the small tube, there was Battlestar Galactica, among other things, giving viewers a taste of a Star Wars wannabe in weekly doses (although it lost favor after a while and was retooled for the next year).

Giordano Makes a Splash

Saturday-morning cartoons also dealt with the genre. In the comics, Marvel’s adaptations of

The splash page to

several of those movies, and then follow-

“The Righteous

ups of same in regular monthly titles, were

Ones,” written by

rolling along just fine.

George Kashdan and

At DC, the Superman franchise was

illustrated by Dick

often steeped in s-f motifs, as were any

Giordano, from Time Warp #1 (Oct.–Nov. 1979).

number of other titles from time to time. Even their prime outer-space star, Green Lantern, would soon chuck his earthbound tales and long-time partner Green Arrow and take to the cosmos once again. So the time seemed right for DC to create an all-new comic-book publication solely

Scanned from the

devoted to the idea of science fiction. It had certainly seen success in that area years

original art; courtesy

before with the classics Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures. With this renewed

of Spencer Beck.

interest in the subject, two DC editors—Joe Orlando (he of sci-fi comic book fame during the EC Comics glory days) and Jack C. Harris (a fan of DC’s former sci-fi glory

days)—thought maybe they could achieve that status again, and Time Warp was born.

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Recalls Harris, 25

Unfortunately, this debut starts out poorly. Denny

years after the title’s

O’Neil was already a highly regarded writer by this time,

i n c e p t i o n : “ Ti m e

and he had critical successes in the sci-fi genre a decade

Warp was to be the

earlier at Charlton Comics (his “Children of Doom” is

perfect blend of what

considered a classic). Here, in “If the World Had to End

I, and many others,

Twice,” his attempt to inspire awe within the reader—

felt to be the best

with characters that don’t have room to be fully fleshed

science-fiction

out, set in the context of elements similar to the

comics that ever hit

destruction of Krypton combined with the story of

the comic-book

Adam and Eve—truly falls short. It’s as if this tale were

scene.” He cites

but a segment taken from a larger scheme of things that

those previous refer-

we don’t get to see, therefore we can’t understand the

ences as his inspira-

purpose behind it in the first place. The ending, for us

tion, adding, “And,

at least, fails to be as remarkable as it is to the characters

for a brief time, being

who experience it. Rich Buckler’s artwork does nothing

a ‘s c i e n c e - fi c ti on

to salvage it.

editor’ put me in the

The quality does pick up, though, as evidenced in

same company as—

writer Michael Fleisher’s “Mating Game.” This one even

as Julius Schwartz [the

has a Twilight Zone feel to it, most notably due to Steve

late legendary sci-fi

Ditko’s unique way of illustrating it in a general,

pioneer and comic-

straightforward style, replete with his trademark nerdy

book editor] used to

humans and less-than-flashy—albeit ambitious—props

refer to them—‘gods

(a standard of his days doing lots of science fiction for

on Earth.’”

Charlton Comics). The visuals, as well as the pace and

Wa s t h a t l o f t y

plot of the story, appear in such a way that it had me

goal achieved? If not,

at least imagining it played out in black-and-white

#1’s “The Righteous

Any first issue of a comic-book title will always be

introduction and closing comments. This story deals

Ones” remind us of

the measuring point to determine if the endeavor has

with love forlorn, but has an extra layer of deceit as

“legs” (as the movie industry calls it), so Time Warp #1 will

it pulls a few twists and turns on us, culminating in a

Pages 3 and 5 of

it wasn’t for lack of ambition.

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on the TV tube. All that was missing was Rod Serling’s

be more closely examined here than its subsequent

surprise finale that is more amusing than shocking.

offerings. After all, even if the producers know that they

Oh, yes, it even has a spaceship and extraterrestrials.

have better things waiting in the wings, it won’t matter

Ditko also illustrates another winner here, Jack C.

much if they don’t attract an audience from the onset.

Harris’ “Forecast.” It’s one with a humorous ending, as

Having Michael Kaluta do your covers is certainly

well. Steve’s simpler cartoony style is perfectly suited for

not the worst decision an editor could make. Kaluta did

this short about war-mongering aliens intent on con-

those delineations for all five issues, and each is drawn

quering Earth, who are met with a surprisingly small

in exquisite detail showing strange and curious happen-

kind of resistance that prevents them from doing so.

ings. Jack Harris cites Kaluta’s offerings as among his

George Kashdan’s “The Righteous Ones” isn’t too

“pleasant memories” attached to the book, declaring that

bad, with a stereotypical self-righteous “man of God” and

“they stand the test of time as gems of imaginative

his daughters surviving a nuclear holocaust on Earth as

illustration.”

possibly its only remaining inhabitants. His arrogance

That work and subject matter hearken back to an

in believing his sinless virtue is what spared him from

earlier form of science fiction, though—reminiscent of

“divine wrath” proves his undoing by blinding him to the

the ’30s and ’40s—and don’t reflect the more advanced

truth of his predicament, preventing any chance of

appearances being witnessed in the sci-fi revival men-

salvation for him and his family in the aftermath. Dick

tioned earlier. Whether that was good or not, one cannot

Giordano does an admirable job with the artwork here.

say. But, no doubt, each cover regardless stands out as

“The Survivors,” by Mike W. Barr and Tom Sutton, is

attractive artwork, along with the book’s simple, yet

a so-so love story that involves extraterrestrial espionage

effective logo, designed by editor Harris himself.

and government hijinks.

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Interview by Anina Bennett

interview The “Rude” to Ruin Steve “the Dude” Rude did this commissioned marker drawing of Nexus for its contributor, Roland Reedy, at a convention back in ’86. “Been a ravenous collector ever since,” beams Roland, whose astounding collection of art can be seen online at www.comicartfans.com/ GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=126. Art © 2005 Steve Rude. Nexus © 2005 Mike Baron and Steve Rude.

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Nexus: The Cover Evolution From left to right: Paul Gulacy’s original cover to Capital Comics’ B&W Nexus #1 (1981); Steve Rude’s layout for his recreation of Gulacy’s

ANINA BENNETT: Let’s go back in time and talk about the beginning of Nexus. How did the two of you first meet in Madison, Wisconsin? MIKE BARON: I was working at an insurance company and bugging newspapers and trying to draw. I had a friend, Dave Wagner, who was an editor at a strike paper in town. He called me and said, “There’s a guy in here trying to sell art and he draws just like you.” So I arranged to meet the Dude on the steps of the student union. And, of course, after the Dude showed me his portfolio, I stopped drawing. (Anina laughs) STEVE RUDE: Those days were so alive. Painful, though, as young days can be sometimes. My memory of those days is so acute, and I remember the kind of day it was when I walked into that—was it the Madison Press Connection, dude? BARON: Yeah. RUDE: I walked in there because some guy had mentioned to me, “You’re doing this stuff for free for The Slant, for the M.A.T.C. newspaper. Why don’t you go and see if you can get paid for doing this?” BENNETT: What kind of illustrations were you doing for them? RUDE: They weren’t single illustrations, they were comic strips. They were one-page things for the student newspaper that I was having an absolutely great time with. I was just having fun drawing this great stuff and feeling like I was different than every other guy who walked in through those halls to become an artist, like I was actually getting somewhere with my life. I was doing something that no one else was doing in the school. BENNETT: How old were you then? RUDE: I think I was 21, might have been 22. It was 1978, wasn’t it, dude? Or was it ’79? BARON: About ’79, I think. RUDE: Yeah, it was probably ’79 by then. And I walked in to the Madison Press Connection and I met this editor who Baron was talking about, a super-nice guy. I remember the day was sunny, it was in the summer, and I sat down and showed him the stuff. And he says, “Basically, I can’t help you,” in this real nice, charming way, “but there’s this guy you ought to meet.” I said, “Okay.” It’s funny how raw life is back in your twenties. Everything seems to change from second to second. BENNETT: Everything’s still new. You don’t have very much experience at that age, even if you think you do. RUDE: Maybe that’s a good thing because right now, life

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is so standardized. When you think back, after you’ve had a standardized life for ten, 15 years or so, those younger days, they seem alive in a way that you might never get back again. So I look back at it with great fondness. I was living at the “Y” back then, probably having a good time. A lot of bad times came out of the “Y” too, but this was a good time. And I remember when I talked to Baron, he was right to the point—I liked that because most of the people I knew were flakes. They would just go on and on about a lot of nonsense and then jump to their point. If you wanted to meet somebody for a hamburger or something, they’d go on for 30 minutes about that. BENNETT: But Baron was concise and to the point? RUDE: Yeah, he got right to the point and I thought, “There’s a guy with a mind of clarity.” BARON: A mind of clay. RUDE: And it was always like that. It’s still like that. Our phone calls are always right to the point. Actually, I ramble a lot more than he does, but I’m learning the art of brevity from Baron. BENNETT: Mike, how did you know these guys at the newspaper? BARON: I’ve known Dave Wagner forever. He’s an editor in Arizona now. He moved to Boston when I was living there, and we hung out a while. He’s an old socialist. We can’t talk politics—we’d kill each other. He’s just an old pal of mine. BENNETT: Were you doing work for that newspaper in Madison? BARON: I did a piece or two, but there was no money there. I was working full-time at the insurance company. BENNETT: And when you were pursuing illustration, what kind of illustrator were you hoping to be, ultimately? BARON: Like the Dude! Comic books. RUDE: Baron drew comic strips that were hilarious—I would laugh for like a half hour when he showed them to me. And I remember one four-panel strip with a bunch of guys in a crowd. This was straight out of Madison. Oh, God, we saw this every day down on campus. There was always some guy spouting off about something and inciting the rabble. The first panel was “Stone the government,” and then “Stone the campus,” “Stone this,” you know? And the last panel was him asking one of the students, “Where you going, man?” and the guy goes, “I’m going home to get stoned.” Baron did a bunch of other ones like that, just made me erupt with laughter. BENNETT: Mike, you didn’t completely give up drawing,

though—you drew a lot of your Nexus scripts. BARON: Yeah. BENNETT: Did you always do that from the start? BARON: I did because I was a frustrated comic-book artist, but eventually, it hurt my back so much I had to give it up. BENNETT: You had to start typing them during the Dark Horse run. BARON: Yeah, and I think it’s made me a better writer. But drawing all those pages made me a better writer too. It forced me to think visually, to boil each panel down to its elements. When you look at a drawn page, no matter how crude, you can see instantly whether it works and whether you have too many words on the page. BENNETT: That’s a good point. I think some comic-book writers would be well-served to at least try to sketch out their pages. I always tell beginning writers to give that a shot. Do you prefer one method over the other?

Beginnings:

”Tie Tac“ with artist Larry Gonick, Warm Neck Funnies (1976)

Milestones:

Nexus / The Badger / the first year of The Punisher Flash / Eisner Award for “Best Single Issue” for Dark Horse’s Nexus: The Origin / Every time I work with an artist I admire, I exp erience a highlight.

Works in Progress:

Detonator (Image Comics) / Nightclub (March 2005, Image) / Batman: Legend s of the Dark Knight “Rogue Yakuza” arc with John K. Snyder

Beginnings: Nexus (1981)

Milestones:

/ ed Promo / World’s Finest Nexus / Nexus the Animat / s ard Aw er Eisn 2 / m X-Men: Children of the Ato n: Lifeline / Superman vs. Space Ghost / Spider-Ma the Incredible Hulk

Works in Progress:

ics) The Moth (Dark Horse Com

Cyberspace: BARON: I prefer writing full script because my drawing is very bad and people create to please themselves, and there’s no way my drawings are ever going to please anyone. But I do it occasionally when I have to. For instance, when I have to illustrate a principle to an artist, which I’m doing quite a bit now. I’m working with this kid who’s coming over shortly. He’s 19 years old, and his name’s Nick Brunge. I saw his paintings in a gallery here—they were very impressive. I said, “Who is this?” and the gallery’s owners gave the kid my card. Now we’re working together on a project. We’ve got a contract already to do a series of books for an educational company. RUDE: What does it feel like to be hanging out with a 19year-old, dude? BARON: We don’t actually hang out together. We’ve just

www.steverude.com

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Super-Villain Sit-In No, this isn’t Metron of

Thanos: Love and Death

the New Gods, but a vintage version of

Thanos hailing from

Peter Sanderson

Of all the characters Jim Starlin has created or been closely associated with during his over three decades in comics, which is his favorite? You would probably guess it would be one of his heroes, like Dreadstar or Adam Warlock. But what about his greatest villainous creation? Could it be that he likes Thanos better than the others? “Oh, most definitely,” Starlin replies. He explains, “You’re limited by what a good guy will do. As strange as Adam Warlock is, there are certain things that he wouldn’t do. And there’s nothing Thanos wouldn’t do to win.”

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Of all the many stories Starlin has written about his iconic villain, “My actual favorite might be The Thanos Quest. He’s just so ruthless in that one.” Starlin cautions, “I’m not an evil person, myself. I’m

“When Roy saw him, he said, ‘Bulk him up,’” Starlin reports. “And he looked more menacing that way. So

that.” Nevertheless, he says quite happily, “I enjoy his

I bulked him up in the first Iron Man story, and as I went

evilness. I enjoy writing evil.” Thanos provides plenty

along, he just got bigger.”

of opportunity for that. But, as we shall see, there’s a lot

Though Starlin created Thanos before he’d ever heard

more to Starlin’s consummate villain than just villainy.

of Darkseid, Marvel, he says, saw the character’s potential

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“We could take on Kirby’s New Gods, which they were a little bit annoyed with at the time,” Starlin says.

that Jim Starlin created Thanos as an homage to another

Apparently Marvel was still bitter at Kirby’s recent

grim-visaged, massively built archvillain of the early

departure to create his “Fourth World” books at DC. But

1970s, Jack Kirby’s Darkseid.

Starlin did not ask questions about Marvel’s bruised

But you would be wrong. Starlin conceived of

feelings over Kirby’s defection. “I never got into it with

Thanos before Darkseid ever appeared in comics. “This

them because I was a big fan of Kirby’s and I didn’t want

was before I actually came to work in New York for

to hear anything bad.”

Marvel. I had been taking a psych class, and I just was

So Thanos made his debut in Iron Man #55 (left),

playing around with characters,” he says. Thanos and

cover-dated Feb. 1973, along with his father Mentor, his

his brother Eros (who later also became known as

brother Eros, and his obsessed nemesis Drax the

Starfox) were inspired by Starlin’s study of Sigmund

Destroyer. Now, were these other Starlin characters

Freud’s concepts of the death instinct and the sexual

inspired by Kirby’s New Gods? “Actually, not at all,”

drive. “I actually think the original drawings of Thanos

says Starlin. “The Destroyer, who was also created at that

probably predated the advent of the New Gods,” Starlin

point, was more inspired from a strip I had been doing

says, “because [Kirby] was doing those as I was coming

called Dr. Weird with the Texas Trio. I redesigned Dr.

over to Marvel.

Weird’s costume, and I liked the design so much I just

“Actually, Thanos, in those early sketches, looked a

•

to rival Kirby’s creation.

First impressions can be mistaken. Readers might assume

bit more like Metron from The New Gods than Darkseid,”

7 4

But Starlin did get some valuable advice about Thanos from Marvel’s new editor in chief, Roy Thomas.

not running around in a black cape or anything like

SEPARATED AT BIRTH?

close an eye on ya.”

sort of worked him in” to the new group of characters debuting in Iron Man #55.

Starlin reveals, although Metron had not debuted in

Mentor, Drax, and Eros may fill similar roles as the

print yet either. In part, that was because Starlin depict-

New Gods’ Highfather, Orion, and Lightray, but Starlin

ed Thanos as “sitting in this chair that we used later on

seems to have just been dealing with the same archetypes

in the Silver Surfer series” when Thanos appeared there

that Kirby was, both men working along parallel tracks.

decades later. (Kirby gave Metron the “Mobius Chair”

Through Eros, Starlin says he simply wanted to create

as his means of transportation.) The early Thanos also

the “flip side” of Thanos: “It was just [that] I needed a

looked like Metron because he was considerably

contrast. And Mentor, I never did get a handle on what I

thinner than the Thanos we have come to know.

wanted to do with him. He went through the series just

Starlin got the opportunity to introduce Thanos

sort of bumbling along [laughs], being the head guy.

into the Marvel Universe thanks to his association

“In fact, I went out of my way to make sure it was

with Mike Friedrich, a leading 1960s comics letters-

different as it was going on,” Starlin says. “Thanos was

page regular turned professional comics writer. “We

more active than Darkseid ever was. I had him moving

were sharing an apartment out in Staten Island at the

around, actually getting into the dirt, whereas Darkseid

time,” Starlin says. At one point Friedrich needed an

was always sort of aloof and standing back and letting

idea for a new issue of Iron Man, Starlin recalls, and asked

his minions do it.”

Jim, “What would you like to do?’ I said, ‘I got these

Moreover, Darkseid and Thanos represent two very

characters.’ I think at the time Mike was writing five

different kinds of evil. “I thought of Darkseid as the

books, so he just let me go on it. And I started sitting

embodiment of fascism.” To Starlin, Darkseid’s home-

down and drawing it. And I recall Mike rearranged a

world, Apokolips, represents “the corporate state gone

couple of the front pages of the story, but he pretty

bad” or a planetwide death camp, “whereas Thanos is

well didn’t get into it until the scripting part.

working on a more nihilistic level.”

“That was the nice thing about those early times,”

To put it another way, Darkseid seeks the Anti-Life

Starlin says. “Everyone was so busy that no one kept too

Formula, that will enable him to control all living beings

C o s m i c

I s s u e

in the universe with a single word. In contrast, Thanos has repeatedly striven not to control living beings but to destroy them. He literally serves death. In an odd coincidence, Starlin ended up living in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen area near a Greek restaurant named “Thanatos.” “Actually, I was already doing [Thanos] in Iron Man when I happened to come across the place,” Starlin says. “I just never walked down that direction before. It happened that it was about four blocks down from where I ended up living. And it was spelled a little bit different: ‘Thanatos,’ not ‘Thanos.’” (Sandman fans, take note: In Greek mythology, Thanatos was the god of death, and was the brother—not sister!— of Morpheus, the god of sleep.)

BIRTH OF A TITAN Originally, Starlin presented Mentor, Eros, and Thanos as descendants of the Titans of ancient Greek myth. Banished from Earth by Zeus, the Titans had settled on the moon of Saturn that is known as Titan. Later, during a period when Starlin was not working at Marvel, this backstory was revised. Now Starlin’s Titans were an offshoot of the Eternals, the superhuman race created by Jack Kirby. Starlin has accepted the idea: “I try not to trash things from previous writers, so I had to work that sort of in. I didn’t really think that threw off the myth making all that much.” The elder son of Mentor, ruler of Titan, Thanos was born with “Deviant syndrome” (a reference to the demon-like race from Kirby’s Eternals series), giving him a monstrous appearance. This made Thanos an outcast, shunned by the other Titans, and he realized that it would therefore be his younger brother, Eros, who would become Mentor’s heir. Starlin explains, “I was thinking how that would affect you. You’ve got this beautiful family and you end up looking like roadkill. That would swing you, and you would never fit into the cycle of life.”

impassive, unspeaking, and inscrutable.

Thanos covets the

This is, of course, the ultimate dysfunctional

Cosmic Cube on

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

romance. It cannot truly be sexually consummated.

Where then would Thanos turn? “So the opposite

“He’s sort of an asexual character for the most part,”

of life is death. Going along those lines, the ultimate

Starlin comments. (Hence, for those of you who are

Feature #12 (Nov.

obsession would be actually falling in love with Mistress

wondering, Starlin contends that the space pirate Nebula

1973), illustrated

Death.” And in the Marvel Universe that is a literal

was lying in claiming to be Thanos’ granddaughter.

by Jim Starlin and

possibility.

“In my universe he would never drop progeny.”)

Joe Sinnott. Courtesy

The young Thanos found solace only in the presence

Starlin agrees that Mistress Death may actually be

of a mysterious figure who eventually proved to be

more of a substitute mother for Thanos than a lover.

Mistress Death, the literal personification of mortality

“A mom or a punishment. There’s a definite S&M

in the Marvel Universe. In time he fell in love with her,

element to this character.”

and he can perceive her as an ideally beautiful, living

Consider how Thanos has repeatedly abased himself

woman. But to other characters and us readers, Mistress

before her, pathetically seeking this impassive entity’s

Death usually appears as a robed female skeleton,

approval. “My guess is she treats him exactly the C o s m i c

I s s u e

page 16 of Marvel

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B A C K

I S S U E

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opposite of what he wants,” Starlin says, laughing.

something that’s more abstract, more conceptual, just

“When he was approaching her, she was rebuffing

always seemed to be the way I was more comfortable

him, and when he was going ‘Buzz off,’ that’s when

with.” In his grandeur and his ambition to supplant

she was most alluring towards him.” So Thanos’ obsession with Mistress Death was

Jim Starlin’s

God, Thanos could be seen as reminiscent of Satan in

thoroughly self-destructive. “Ninety percent of what

John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Though Starlin so enjoys

Thanos does is self-destructive,” Starlin points out.

writing Thanos as “evil,” he also contends that “evil is

“Unfortunately, there’s a lot of collateral damage in

a subjective term, anyhow. He’s not like a serial killer

that psychic workout.” In the days when Thanos was

who goes around massacring people for sexual pleasure.

Handbook illustration

literally courting Death, that “collateral damage” meant

This guy’s always got some sort of purpose in mind. It

massacring thousands, millions, even billions, of living

could be interpreted as monstrous, but in his universe,

of Captain Marvel.

beings, seeking to bring about “cosmic genocide.” How

it’s the way to go. So, yes, I think Satan in Paradise

Scanned from the

better to please his disdainful Mistress than make

Lost would be a good comparison, actually more so

original art, courtesy

such sacrifices to her? (By the way, Starlin likes Neil

than Darkseid.”

Marvel Universe

Gaiman’s very different, considerably more charm-

of Tim Townsend.

ing version of Death in female form in

Mentor eventually banished Thanos from Titan after

nice take on it.”)

he had performed a forbidden experiment that killed some of his test subjects. Thanos’ bitterness grew during

GODS AND MONSTERS

his century-long exile, and he took vengeance by

Thanos and Death are very different

returning and massacring virtually the entire population

from what one thinks of as the

of Titan. By sheer luck, Mentor and Eros were not on

traditional Marvel character,

Titan at the time, but Thanos’ mother Sui-San perished

like Peter Parker, an other-

in the attack. Subsequently, Thanos conquered Titan,

wise normal guy who is a part-time

Drax the Destroyer. Held prisoner on Earth by Thanos,

New York.

Drax telepathically contacted Iron Man, who freed

Thanos is a member of a

him in the first comic in which Thanos appeared,

race of godlike beings;

Iron Man #55.

moreover,

was

Starlin first made a name for himself at Marvel in

represent a

his work on the Captain Marvel series, bringing Thanos

psychological drive towards

along with him for issues #25 through 33. In this arc

created

death. Mistress Death is what

Thanos made his first successful effort to gain ultimate

the late Mark

Gruenwald

power, using a Cosmic Cube, the power object that

Marvel’s

transforms thoughts into reality, to achieve omnipotent

called

one

“conceptual

“Godhood.” But Thanos overconfidently chose to toy

Eternity. Starlin created other

beings,”

with Captain Mar-Vell, who seized the opportunity to

such entities, like Lord Chaos

smash the Cosmic Cube, ending Thanos’ newfound

and Master Order, personifica-

“divinity.”

tions of universal principles.

was on the series Warlock, and, again, Thanos came along

influenced by Roger Zelazny and

for the ride. Initially, Thanos was Adam Warlock’s

other science-fiction writers of

ally against the latter’s evil counterpart, the Magus. But

the

with

Thanos’ real agenda was to use the six power objects

“I’ve always enjoyed myth

the universe. Warlock, Mar-Vell, and the Avengers joined

figures. And I hate drawing cars and

forces to stop Thanos, who murdered Warlock (in Avengers

1970s

who

dealt

horses. So I tend to try to get away from everyday reality as quickly

B A C K

I S S U E

•

C o s m i c

I s s u e

Starlin’s best-known Marvel work in the 1970s

Starlin explains that he was

godlike characters.

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only to be driven from that world by the implacable

super-hero

living

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DEATH DUTIES

DC’s Sandman: “I thought he had a

later called the Infinity Gems to destroy every star in

Annual #7), but Warlock’s spirit returned and turned Thanos to stone (in Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2).

as possible whenever I can

Starlin and Mistress Death eventually resurrected her

do a story. Getting off into

loyal worshipper in the pages of Silver Surfer #34–35, and