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DAVE GIBBONS Hulk UK interview • Nova • Dr. Manhattan • Radioactive Man • Bongo’s Radioactive Man and Fallout Boy • Holo-Man & more explosive features! with MARK BAGLEY • PAT BRODERICK • GERRY CONWAY • RON FRENZ • RAFAEL KAYANAN • TOM MANDRAKE • BILL MORRISON • FABIAN NICIEZA • JOHN OSTRANDER

Relive The Pop Culture You Grew Up With!

Remember when Saturday morning television was our domain, and ours alone? When tattoos came from bubble gum packs, Slurpees came in superhero cups, and TV heroes taught us to be nice to each other? Those were the happy days of the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties— our childhood—and that is the era of TwoMorrows’ new magazine RETROFAN!

#5: Interviews with MARK HAMILL and Greatest American Hero’s WILLIAM KATT! Blast off with JASON OF STAR COMMAND! Stop by the MUSEUM OF POPULAR CULTURE! Poke fun at a campy BATMAN COMIC BOOK! Plus: “The First Time I Met Tarzan,” MAJOR MATT MASON, Moon Landing Mania, SNUFFY SMITH at 100 with cartoonist JOHN ROSE, TV Dinners, Celebrity Crushes, and more fun, fab features! SHIPS JUNE 2019! #6: Interviews with crazy creepster SVENGOOLIE and Eddie Munster himself, BUTCH PATRICK! Call on the original Saturday Morning Ghost Busters, with BOB BURNS! Uncover the nutty Naugas! Plus: “My Life in the Twilight Zone,” “I Was a Teenage James Bond,” “My Letters to Famous People,” the ARCHIEDOBIE GILLIS connection, the PINBALL Hall of Fame, Super Collector DAVID MANDEL’s comic art collection, Alien action figures, the RUBIK’S CUBE fad, and more fun, fab features! SHIPS SEPTEMBER 2019! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazines) $8.95 (Digital Editions) $4.95 Edited by Back Issue’s MICHAEL EURY! Please add $1 per issue for shipping in the US.

RETROFAN #1

RETROFAN #2

RETROFAN #3

RETROFAN #4

THE CRAZY, COOL CULTURE WE GREW UP WITH! LOU FERRIGNO interview, The Phantom in Hollywood, Filmation’s Star Trek cartoon, “How I Met Lon Chaney, Jr.”, goofy comic Zody the Mod Rob, Mego’s rare Elastic Hulk toy, RetroTravel to Mount Airy, NC (the real-life Mayberry), interview with BETTY LYNN (“Thelma Lou” of The Andy Griffith Show), TOM STEWART’s eclectic House of Collectibles, and Mr. Microphone!

HALLOWEEN! Horror-hosts ZACHERLEY, VAMPIRA, SEYMOUR, MARVIN, and an interview with our cover-featured ELVIRA! THE GROOVIE GOOLIES, BEWITCHED, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, and THE MUNSTERS! The long-buried Dinosaur Land amusement park! History of BEN COOPER HALLOWEEN COSTUMES, character lunchboxes, superhero VIEW-MASTERS, SINDY (the British Barbie), and more!

40th Anniversary interview with SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE director RICHARD DONNER, IRWIN ALLEN’s sci-fi universe, Saturday morning’s undersea adventures of Aquaman, horror and sci-fi zines of the Sixties and Seventies, Spider-Man and Hulk toilet paper, RetroTravel to METROPOLIS, IL (home of the Superman Celebration), SEAMONKEYS®, FUNNY FACE beverages, Superman and Batman memorabilia, & more!

Interviews with the SHAZAM! TV show’s JOHN (Captain Marvel) DAVEY and MICHAEL (Billy Batson) Gray, the GREEN HORNET in Hollywood, remembering monster maker RAY HARRYHAUSEN, the wayout Santa Monica Pacific Ocean Amusement Park, a Star Trek Set Tour, SAM J. JONES on the Spirit movie pilot, British sci-fi TV classic THUNDERBIRDS, Casper & Richie Rich museum, the KING TUT fad, and more!

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Volume 1, Number 112 June 2019 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Pat Broderick COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Mark Arnold Cary Bates Pat Broderick Gerry Conway DC Comics Cecil Disharoon Steve Englehart Robb Epps Gary Frank Dave Gibbons Grand Comics Database Robert Greenberger Hal Halbert Jack C. Harris Heritage Comics Auctions John Higgins John Joshua Claude Kane III Donald Kasen Rafael Kayanan Paul Kupperberg James Heath Lantz Dave Lemieux Tom Mandrake Robert Menzies Al Milgrom Bill Morrison

Fabian Nicieza Luigi Novi John Ostrander Amanda Powers Tom Powers Gage Skidmore Roger Stern Bryan D. Stroud Roy Thomas Steven Thompson Mark Waid John Wells Michael Zeno

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Reader advisory: Contains mild nudity in Dr. Manhattan article (with sample images from Watchmen) INTERVIEWS: The Firestorm Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 We duck, cover, and roll with enough Firestorm creators to crowd a fallout shelter BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: Radioactive Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Is he a Master of Evil or a Thunderbolt? The story of Marvel’s Chen Lu UNKNOWN MARVEL: The Incredible Dave Gibbons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 The Watchmen co-creator discusses his early work on the UK Hulk comic ROUGH STUFF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Bask in the irradiated glow of glorious graphite ONE-HIT WONDERS: Meet Microwave Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Remember Cary Bates’ short-lived Superman villain? WHAT THE--?!: Holo-Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 From the company that brought you Peter Pan Records came this colorful ’70s superhero BEYOND CAPES: The Dr. Manhattan Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 A blue man’s group of scholars dissects Watchmen’s god-hero; includes interviews with Dave Gibbons, John Higgins, and Gary Frank FLASHBACK: Lo, There Shall Come a… Radioactive Man! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Bill Morrison shares recollections of the Simpsons Universe’s nuclear knucklehead BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Reader reactions ART GALLERY: All-Star Squadron Lives! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Fantasy covers continuing Roy Thomas’ World War II-set superhero series 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, 112 Fairmount Way, New Bern, NC 28562. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Eight-issue subscriptions: $82 Economy US, $128 International, $32 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Pat Broderick. Firestorm, the Nuclear Man TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2019 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 1

PART ONE: THE COMING OF THE NUCLEAR MAN 1977: A new DC Comics hero explodes from his first issue cover—a smiling, scintillating super-being with… his head on fire? Welcome to Firestorm the Nuclear Man #1 (Mar. 1978). We’re flying from the heart of his inception, exploring the bonds of the creators at his core. How will this newest mystery man transmute the comics world? How will he become the elemental and terrifying outlaw of a transformed DC Universe? Which of his unique rogues will go on to multimedia stardom? Well, our hero’s story begins with… oh… C.R.A.P.! The reading public could start with the Kirby-flavored Al Milgrom cover. But it wouldn’t be Gerry Conway-era Firestorm without a few laughs, right? The Coalition to Resist Atomic Power recruits the new kid in town, an athletically gifted teenager named Ronnie Raymond, who’s been bouncing from town to town with his father. All Ronnie’s trying to do is to impress this cute girl he’s met, Doreen Day. He’s not really a dumb jock, but his rival for the girl, Cliff Carmichael, is both a brain and a bully, and undermines Ronnie from the start. Ronnie’s constantly overshadowed by Carmichael in class, since the teacher, Mr. Taubman, has little sense of balanced classroom management. Now, what’s up with the principal who’s keeping an eye on Ronnie is a story tied directly to that town-to-town gyro-vagueness, and one day, we’ll know why! Ronnie’s easy to get behind, for anyone who’s been the outsider… and as we’ll quickly see, he’s in over his head in every way. So the Coalition bunch presents themselves as protesters, and hey, here’s a way to make a difference! Away Ronnie sneaks into the night, invading the latest nuclear facility, designed by a buttoned-down fellow named Dr. Martin Stein. Along with his assistant Danton Black, Stein’s created the safest clean-energy facility in the world. In fact, it’s fully automated! Black, however, has sought an injunction to keep it from ever going online. The protesters turn out to cross a line from being Luddites to actual terrorists, who meet Stein’s rebuke with violence. They leave Stein and Black to their fate when they trigger the facility’s destruction. Ronnie Raymond’s left behind to become the proverbial fall guy. And then… something wonderful happens. Something born in the fervent imagination of Gerry Conway.

FIRESTORM CREATOR AND ORIGINAL WRITER GERRY CONWAY

Always a storyteller and reader, Conway made his own comics from childhood. “I don’t recall an epiphany where I decided to become a writer… I just always wanted to be a writer,” says Gerry, who then made a prolific life of this innate urging, beginning to be published while in his teens. Already a published science-fiction novelist when he began writing for first, DC, and soon, Marvel Comics, at age 19 Conway was tapped to relate Peter Parker to the times as the new scribe of The Amazing Spider-Man. “I watched anything and everything I could get my hands on related [to Marvel],” he reveals to BACK ISSUE,

A Daring DC Departure… … taking some cues from the Mighty Marvel Manner—and rather successfully, if you ask us. Al Milgrom’s explosive cover to Firestorm #1 (Mar. 1978). TM & © DC Comics.

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conducted by

Cecil Disharoon

Gerry’s Flame-heads (top right) Conway created Firelord, herald of Galactus, in Marvel’s Thor #225 (July 1974; art by John Buscema and Joe Sinnott), followed by (top left) the blaze-bonneted Nuclear Man for DC in Firestorm #1. Thor and Firelord TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Firestorm TM & © DC Comics.

including the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon. Perhaps this approach—“a comedy that happened to feature an action hero”—influenced Conway creatively; he had also been reading Amazing Spider-Man “from issue #2 or 3.” The prolific scribe was entrusted with about a title a week, during a period where Roy Thomas served as the single editor of Marvel’s 40-title line—a time when writers, Conway says, excepting some care from the assistants, were pretty much their own editors. Gerry’s memorable contributions to the Spider-Man title are well documented, but before long, he had the Marvel approach nailed—he’d even helmed the line himself as Marvel’s editor-in-chief for one month in 1976— by the time he jumped ship for rival DC again. The layered roll-out of the early Marvel Universe, its Villain of the Month boom, and the success of the Amazing Spider-Man title Conway took over from Stan Lee all inspired Gerry’s Firestorm approach. His stay at DC generated what’s called “Conway’s Corner,” a proliferation of short-lived titles and characters with long-lasting connections gerry conway to the DC Universe: the villainous Kobra, Power Girl, the JSA revival, the Freedom Fighters, and the Secret Society of Super-Villains. With a new creative incentive in the works thanks to DC’s new publisher, Jenette Kahn, Gerry reached for a Promethean light, around which he oriented a genuine attempt to spin a Marvel style of character off into the world of DC. CECIL DISHAROON: How did you create the Firestorm dynamic? GERRY CONWAY: I’d been playing around with the idea of a teenage superhero for DC, who could sort of fill the whole that had been left in my heart by leaving Spider-Man behind. I’d been thinking about the tropes—one of which was the meek, mild alter ego, the brainy kid who, in wish fulfillment, gets superpowers, is extremely powerful… able to do things that he hadn’t been able to do before. That was, I think, the major motivating force—I wanted to play on that trope.

The Firestorm Family (middle) Poor Peter Parker! This tormented teen, shown here in a snippet from Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s classic Amazing Spider-Man #1, imprinted (bottom) Gerry Conway’s alliteratively named Firestorm cast: Ronnie Raymond, Doreen Day, and Cliff Carmichael, from the first issue. By Conway and Milgrom, with Klaus Janson inks. Spider-Man TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Firestorm TM & © DC Comics.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3

Male Bonding (left) Fusion between Ronnie Raymond and Professor Martin Stein in issue #1’s pivotal origin sequence. By Conway and Milgrom, with Joe Rubinstein inks. (right) Stein’s voice inside Firestorm’s head was a series staple, as shown here in panels from Firestorm #4 (inked by Jack Abel). TM & © DC Comics.

To do that, I wanted to flip it around: create a guy who wasn’t the brightest guy in the room, the not-terriblysmart guy who became a superpowered character. The way I’d make that work: I’d bring him into contact with the smarter person, who would also share the powers. This led to… the multiple-people-in-one, Professor Stein/ Ronnie Raymond dynamic. [Editor’s note: This angle of the original Firestorm series was the subject of an article in our “Secret Identities” issue, BACK ISSUE #20.] DISHAROON: When did this “fire-in-the-mind”—the archetype of a flaming-headed person—click together with this character-driven approach? CONWAY: I always loved the idea of the hair on fire— I think it goes back to Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, an entire flaming character, of course. I created [Galactus’ herald] Firelord [during Conway’s run on Thor, where, like on Spider-Man, he followed Stan Lee as the regular series scribe]—I actually sketched out his costume. I was really taken by the idea of the flaming head. DISHAROON: A herald of Galactus was obviously a world away from Ronnie Raymond. CONWAY: Right! I think that the two notions, the firebased character, and—you’re talking two characters that are merging as one, that’s a “fusion.” “Fusion” leads to “nuclear”; “nuclear” leads to words like “firestorm,” a term for what would happen in a nuclear blast—it all sort of came together organically. I don’t where you can really separate out where the different elements took priority, where any of it came first. DISHAROON: Along with a creative reaction to the early Marvel Age, your growing up in the infamous

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shadow of “the bomb” seems part of the initial spark of Firestorm. CONWAY: This was around the time, I believe, of Three Mile Island [Interviewer’s note: actually, pre-dating that accident, which occurred in late March of 1979], the China Syndrome. There was a lot of condemnation of nuclear power, in general—much of it, I think, overblown, in a hysterical time, such as we are now. DISHAROON: What a way to tap into the most fearsome of words, for the conflagration itself: Firestorm! CONWAY: Sure! At the same time, make it fun and friendly. DISHAROON: I’ve reflected on how the title becomes “The Fury of Firestorm,” but the character’s known best for “the funny of Firestorm.” CONWAY: Yeah! He’s a kid… and a somewhat silly kid, with a somewhat childish or adolescent approach to problem solving. That makes him fun, and I wanted the book to be fun, the way writing Spider-Man can be fun. If the point was missed in any of the book’s revivals in later years, it’s been by making it darker, grimmer. And perhaps by avoiding the archetype of the adult, sitting on the shoulder of the adolescent, second-guessing him. DISHAROON: I’d intended to ask if Firestorm was in any way a reaction to Nova at Marvel—but I suspect he’s more of a contemporary reaction to the original inspirations (like the Human Torch and Spider-Man). Was Solar, and Dr. Raymond Solar, from Gold Key, anywhere in your thinking? CONWAY: Not really! I was aware of it, but Gold Key books were so dull and boring. I don’t think they had any influence on me at all.

Now At a Multiplex Near You (top left) Guest-star Superman seems dismissive of the Nuclear Man on Al Milgrom’s cover to Firestorm #2 (Apr. 1978), but (top right) two years later insisted he join the JLA on Jim Starlin’s cover to Justice League of America #179 (June 1980). (bottom) Danton Black becomes Multiplex and terrorizes Prof. Stein, in Firestorm #2. TM & © DC Comics.

One of the things that makes Firestorm work—the reasons he’s remained a popular character for decades—it’s a combination of the very colorful costume and powers, but also the fundamental character. The archetype of the young person and the adult, overseeing and interfering. It’s a situation we easily relate to. DISHAROON: You, as the young comics creator, a writer, had this archetype with these transmutational abilities. You came into the business, knowing that you and this artist on this page could create any scenario… do things Hollywood could then only dream of. You also had older mentors, like the one and only Stan Lee, and John Romita, Sr. You worked with [DC editor] Julius Schwartz. So you had those older, editorial advisors in the background, to caution your direction. CONWAY: That’s true, but that’s a very specific example. The larger reality is, that’s exactly how every adolescent feels! There’s not one who doesn’t have an adult looking over their shoulder, in some sense… that “voice in their head” that’s second-guessing them. It’s not specific to being a young creator working with an older editor: it’s specific to being a human being! [laughs] DISHAROON: So many of your readers were younger than Ronnie, or were his age… CONWAY: Exactly! At this point in the ’70s, we didn’t have the massive influx of adult comic readers we have now. I would say more than 90% of our readers were teenagers or younger! That was the audience we were trying to reach. By the necessities of the market, comics are not aimed at kids anymore! DISHAROON: Was it the fusion/fission idea that led to the outrageous notion of this two-person identity? CONWAY: I don’t know! Things just work out in the process of an idea. All of that just… came together. It’s really hard to parse it out. DISHAROON: How did you decide to write about a wise-cracking hero? Is this something about Gerry Conway? CONWAY: Well, yes, I’m basically a wise-ass. I make jokes at the most inappropriate moments and situations, and I like writing those kinds of characters. That’s what I always loved about writing Spider-Man. I’ve always been the “smart” guy making the “smart jokes”—you know, getting himself into trouble! [laughs] DISHAROON: How better to poke holes in perceptions? CONWAY: I think that’s fundamental for most any writer, but my particular bent has always been to make fun of things. I’ve always felt—and this may’ve offended some of my readers, in my day—that one of the most fundamentally wonderful things about superheroes is that they are just silly. The very idea of the superhero—the superhero powers and fantasy—all of it is silly! And I don’t say that in a negative way. I think that’s what makes them wonderful, because they’re detached from reality. That detachment from reality allows you to do things that a more “realistic” approach doesn’t allow. You can do absurd things, and absurdity is social commentary, in certain ways. It can give you license to say, “The emperor doesn’t have any clothes.” DISHAROON: I was looking at Firestorm issue #6, from the Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, and other issues from your run in 1978. Every couple of pages, you were laying out subplots you could pursue down the line: the stuff with Ed Raymond and the Shines mob; one of the Shines becomes Typhoon; Summer Day is introduced (in #4) and is really the Hyena; Cliff Carmichael tries to put Ronnie in his place in a badly managed classroom; Jefferson (later Jackson) sticks up for Ronnie and accidentally humiliates him, because he doesn’t know he’s struggling for his identity, and should he stand up for himself as Ronnie or Firestorm… I love it! Some of the density, I know, was part of the times… but you would seed so many subplots, and keep the lives of the supporting characters vital. [Editor’s note: The original Firestorm series ran five issues before being axed by

the infamous DC Implosion, a 1978 market downturn that slashed the company’s line. For copyright preservation, material intended for Firestorm #6 and other DC books was published, in black and white, in the twoissue Cancelled Comic Cavalcade series. For an in-depth look at this pivotal moment in DC’s history, we heartily recommend Keith Dallas and John Wells’ superb book, Comic Book Implosion, from TwoMorrows.] CONWAY: Part of what you’re talking about are techniques I learned from John Romita, when we worked on Spider-Man together—touching base with supporting-cast characters, creating loose threads that can provide story opportunities in the future. Back then, when you’re doing a monthly book, you’re under pressure to create premises for future issues. The way to do that is to leave yourself with an unresolved issue in a subplot, a strand that you can pluck [laughs], tie into the ongoing story. DISHAROON: Like cooking a several-course meal. Considering the sheer number of titles you wrote back then, it’s remarkable that you were that coherent! I heard a commentary you made on the Fire & Ice Podcast about the demands of writing television, generating so much material that may or may not be used. Do you meditate? Any tricks? CONWAY: I wasn’t that sane [laughs]. I was overworked and frazzled through most of my 20s and early 30s, to the point where I develop a sort of writer’s block. I ended up working with my wife at the time [Carla Conway] for helping with scripts. DISHAROON: I wasn’t sure if that was by design, or more from sheer necessity. CONWAY: Oh, I’d say about 95% of that was by sheer necessity! At the same time I was doing comics, I was writing treatments for films, with Roy Thomas. By the time it was the early ’80s, I was having trouble doing the same amount of work, but by then, I felt the need to do it for financial reasons. DISHAROON: You were writing Firestorm with the intention of making a lighter-hearted strip. Were you able then to dispel the negativity that came from overwork? CONWAY: No, I wasn’t able to dispel it. [laughs] That’s why I finally had to get out of the business. I’m married to a writer now, and it works out pretty well, because we’re both crazy. Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 5

Mean and Green From his first appearance as a Thor baddie to his more contemporary appearances with the Thunderbolts, the egomaniacal, irascible Radioactive Man has proven his mettle as a durable denizen of the Marvel Universe. (left) Journey into Mystery #93 (June 1963) cover by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers. (right) Thunderbolts: International Incident #1 (Apr. 2008) cover by Marko Djurdjevic.

by J a

mes Heath Lantz

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Since his debut in a Thor story published in the June 1963 cover-dated Journey into Mystery #93, Chen Lu, a.k.a. Radioactive Man has blazed a glowing green trail throughout the Marvel Universe, becoming a thorn in the sides of such heroes as the aforementioned Thunder God, Iron Man, and the rest of the Avengers. Whether battling the good guys on his own or as a member of the Masters of Evil and later, the Thunderbolts, this villain has earned his rightful place in the Rogues’ Gallery of the House of Ideas. Hold on to your reactors, BACK ISSUE readers, because we’re going to be looking inside the mind of Chen Lu as part of our nuclear-themed issue.

RADIOACTIVE HISTORY

Perhaps the best way to look at Chen Lu’s history, and his life in general, is to examine the character in his own words. Lu reflects on all of this during a conversation with former Beetle Abner “Abe” Jenkins in New Thunderbolts #9 (Aug. 2005). “I was arrogant… egotistical…,” begins Lu, “but able to back my words with deeds. When my government chose to create superhumans such as the Norse God, Thor, they came to Doctor 26 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

Chen Lu, and I chose to experiment on myself. I became a Radioactive Man, capable of manipulating radioactive energy wavelengths across the electromagnetic spectrum.” This is how Lu perceives his origin and first appearance in Journey into Mystery #93. The People’s Republic of China sought to create beings with superpowers after seeing reports of them from the United States. Thor had thwarted a Chinese invasion of India. Lu, having gradually exposed himself to radiation in hopes to rule the world, introduces himself to his superiors as Radioactive Man. Even the Son of Odin and his hammer Mjolnir are not immune to the Radioactive Man, for Chen Lu is able to control the various spectra to hypnotize Thor into throwing Mjolnir, which Radioactive Man can deflect easily, into the river. The trance wore off once the Thunder God became Dr. Donald Blake. Blake retrieved the hammer, transformed into Thor, and created a whirlwind that sent Lu back to China, where he exploded in a mushroom cloud. Chen Lu was erroneously believed to be dead after his initial battle with Thor. Instead, Lu had been recruited by Baron Heinrich Zemo, an old foe of Captain America’s from World War II who had been responsible for the apparent death of Bucky Barnes, for his

Masters of Evil. Joining Zemo’s group was an opportunity for Lu to gain revenge on the Norse God who defeated him and made him “lose face” with the Chinese government. Radioactive Man’s pride had been hurt more than his body had in his confrontation with Thor. Yet it gets wounded even more in Avengers #6 (July 1964) when Giant-Man and Iron Man wrap him in lead foil. Chen Lu’s chronological history continues in a tale published more than three decades later in Untold Tales of Spider-Man #16 (Dec. 1996), which takes place not long after the events of Avengers #6 and Amazing Spider-Man #14. Radioactive Man has escaped from prison in an attempt to return to China. Once again, he has taken some additional physical and psychological blows. Some of the latter came from Baron Zemo, who left him and the other original Masters of Evil to rot in jail, and others from both categories were dealt by Spider-Man. Ol’ Webhead uses carbon in the form of coal to shut down the atomic chain reaction going on in Radioactive Man. This hit to his self-esteem created deep anger and rage within Chen Lu. However, this does not stop him from returning for a vendetta against the Avengers. In actuality, one might call Lu by the name of the team of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes as he sought vindication for being beaten by Thor and Iron Man. They had left the Avengers at the time of issue #54 (July 1968), but fighting the adventurers in the roster then was a means to an end for Lu. Part of said means was another team of the Masters of Evil in Avengers #54’s “…And Deliver Us from the Masters of Evil.” This squad was led by the mysterious Crimson Cowl, originally believed to be Avengers butler Edwin Jarvis and later revealed to be Ultron-5. The Living Automaton helped Chen Lu escape his radiation-proof cell in which he was placed sometime after Untold Tales of Spider-Man #16. Lu joins the Masters of Evil to payback the Crimson Cowl for his freedom, but he clearly wants revenge. Radioactive Man even says this to Giant-Man when the villains infiltrate Avengers Mansion thanks to security plans given to them by a hypnotized Jarvis. Writer Roy Thomas gives BACK ISSUE his reasons for putting Radioactive Man in this incarnation of that team of villains: “Because he’d been in the original version, that worked well with my plan to introduce a new Black Knight to replace the villain who’d also been a member.” roy thomas The Masters of Evil create “Mayhem © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. Over Manhattan” in issue #55 with their plans to drop a hydrogen bomb containing trapped Avengers on the Empire State Building if New York City doesn’t comply with their demands. The Black Knight Thomas had mentioned deactivates the explosive and frees the Avengers, allowing them to beat the Masters of Evil whose leader Ultron-5 escapes, vowing to destroy his foes.

RADIOACTIVE BRONZE AGE

We now move forward to 1970. The Civil Rights and Women’s Liberation movements were in full force. Reflecting the times, Avengers #83’s “Come on in… the Revolution’s Fine!” (Dec. 1970) told of the latter with the Wasp, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, and Medusa being led by the Enchantress, who is disguised as Valkyrie, as a new team called

Who is Chen Lu? (top) Writers Stan Lee and Robert Bernstein, with the Kirby/ Ayers art team, introduce Radioactive (Radio-active) Man in Journey into Mystery #93. (bottom) From the Heritage archives (www.ha.com), original art by Al Milgrom and Joe Rubinstein for Radioactive Man’s entry in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #9 (Sept. 1983). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 27

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

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

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by R o b e r t

Menzies

In the late 1970s, years before Watchmen, Dave Gibbons was already a superstar artist in the UK. One of the core creators in the early days of 2000AD, Gibbons’ résumé included being given the plum assignment of relaunching the legendary British comic character, Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, in early 1979 Gibbons’ art popped up for the inaugural issue of the new incarnation of the Hulk’s weekly UK comic book, a title closely tied to the live-action Incredible Hulk TV series. Sadly, any fans hoping that he was the regular artist were disappointed to discover that, strangely, he only stayed for one issue and was gone. I was keen to ask Dave Gibbons about this, and he kindly agreed to be interviewed at Glasgow Comic Con 2016, held over the weekend of July 2nd and 3rd, 2016. Alas, an unforgiving schedule—Gibbons was still Comics Laureate at the time and had to leave for the airport immediately after the final signing session—meant that there was no time to conduct an interview at the con, although I did manage to have a brief chat and take an image of him holding Hulk Comic #1 (Mar. 7, 1979). Gibbons suggested that I send him my questions, which I did, and within only two days he had sent on an audio file that I transcribed. Postscript: In the weeks after the interview, it came to light that Gibbons may have contributed art to the 1979 Marvel Superheroes Annual published by Brown Watson in September– October 1978. I contacted him about this and he replied: “I have absolutely no memory of doing that artwork, but have absolutely no doubt that I did! There are so many of my little visual tics there.” Gibbons then said this would be useful as he was writing his autobiography! He requested that I send him scans, which I did, and I also sent on my copy of the Annual that I had owned since boyhood. Gracefully, he thanked me by promising to send on a copy of his autobiography when it was released. When I then informed him the art was swipes, and that I could send on the original art for comparison, Gibbons was intrigued and admitted he found it “fascinating,” so I also sent on the information about sources. That information will accompany the images reproduced here, the only other examples of Gibbons depicting mainstream Marvel heroes from that era. – Robert Menzies

From Dan Dare to Bruce Banner (inset) Dave Gibbons holding a copy of Hulk Comic #1. Photograph taken by Robert Menzies on Sunday, July 3, 2016. (left) Cover to Hulk Comic #1 (Mar. 7, 1979). Cover art by Brian Bolland, with a Sal Buscema head cut-and-pasted onto the original art. Signed by Dave Gibbons. All scans in this article are courtesy of Robert Menzies. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 33

by B

ryan D. Stroud

Microwave Man made his debut in the pages of DC’s flagship Action Comics in the summer of 1978. A two-part story, the first installment arrived in issue #487, with a publication date of September 1978, and featured the “Super-Origin of Microwave Man!” by Cary Bates, who was in about his 12th year as a professional writer. The split splash page, depicting baby Kal-El’s departure from the doomed world of Krypton and the Metropolis police department making a futile attempt to stop a flying thief in a yellow costume, informs us that both these events took place “decades ago,” offering a foreshadowing of the importance that time will play in this Curt Swan- and Frank Chiaramonte-illustrated story. There is even a possible Star Trek homage phrase on the splash when Jor-El bids his son goodbye: “May you live long and prosper on Earth!” When asked about it, author Cary Bates relates to BACK ISSUE, “No doubt. I have never been averse to working in pop-culture Easter eggs.” Speaking of such, on the very next page, letterer Milt Snappin employs an interesting visual gimmick when he switches up the font to resemble the letter forms from the then-popular Close Encounters of the Third Kind movie, released in November of 1977, going so far as to describe “Super-encounters” of the first, second, and third kind while the Man of Steel goes on an intercept mission with an alien spacecraft. Cary does not recall precisely, but thinks this innovation was Snappin’s idea. The chase continues as Superman tries to find out what the mission of the spacecraft might be. At one point, through ray blasts from the craft, the word “peace” is engraved into the side of a mountain. During a break in the action, a beam emerges from the belly of the ship and a 1930s’ vintage automobile is deposited on the road below. The ship then vanishes into the stratosphere. Our hero investigates the car, only to be told by the kindly old gentleman at the wheel that he’s on his way to Metropolis. The story follows the elderly man as he spends a great deal of time reading up on the Man of Tomorrow. His thoughts reveal that Superman is at his peak, the same place he was many years ago, and that, save Superman himself, he’s seen more wondrous things than anyone else on the Earth. Consulting his vintage pocket watch, he soon realizes it’s time to attend a seminar. The seminar just so happens to take place at S.T.A.R. (Scientific and Technical Advanced Research) Laboratories, where various people are taking to the podium to describe encounters with aliens. Two of our favorite reporters are in attendance, Lana Lang and Jimmy Olsen, as the UFO fascination continues to roll forth. The next speaker is introduced as Lewis Padgett, our elderly gentleman, who explains that not only did he have his own close encounter, but lived with green-skinned

Radiating Reprobate Okay, Microwave Man’s costume may be goofy, but as deliciously delineated by José Luis García-López and Dick Giordano on this cover to Action Comics #488 (Oct. 1978), who cares? TM & © DC Comics.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 45

by S t e v e n

Color Me Caped and Cowled The Bob Larkinpainted (over a Joe Giella layout) cover for The Amazing Adventures of Holo-Man. © Peter Pan Music Company LLC.

50 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

Thompson

Every summer around the time of the various Pride Weeks and their festivals, I can’t help but remember Holo-Man. I have no earthly idea what Holo-Man’s sexual preference might have been if he weren’t an asexual fictional character, but it’s his costume that reminds me so much of Pride’s rainbow symbolism. Far from your typical four-color comic-book hero, Holo-Man’s outfit, in fact, featured every color of the rainbow, and his prism-based superpowers justified his variegated look.

HOLOGRAM HISTORY

In the pre-internet dark age that we called 1976, the world first learned of Holo-Man’s existence in a half-page ad for The Amazing Adventures of Holo-Man that ran in Marvel comics. A quick history lesson is in order before we proceed, though. A Hungarian-British scientist, Dr. Dennis Gabor, is credited with coining the term “hologram” in 1947 during experiments designed to clarify the resolution of an electron microscope. What exactly is a hologram? Well, Wikipedia defines it in the following long-winded fashion: “Typically, a hologram is a photographic recording of a light field, rather than of an image formed by a lens, and it is used to display a fully three-dimensional image of the holographed subject, which is seen without the aid of special glasses or other intermediate optics. The hologram itself is not an image and is usually unintelligible when viewed under diffuse ambient light. It is an encoding of the light field as an interference pattern of seemingly random variations in the opacity, density, or surface profile of the photographic medium. When suitably lit, the interference pattern diffracts the light into a reproduction of the original light field and the objects that were in it appear to still be there, exhibiting visual depth cues such as parallax and perspective that change realistically with any change in the relative position of the observer.” [Editor’s note: ZZZZzz…] Me, I call it one of the absolute coolest things of the early 1970s! Laser images! I mean… WOW! Y’know? Sorry. Nostalgia can be an insidious thing. Anyway, it was not until 15 years after Dr. Gabor coined the term that the first three-dimensional “photos” were created using holograms that utilized the newly developed laser-beam technology. By the early 1970s, science continued to work on their development, but holograms had leaked out into the public as novelties. The first one I saw close up was probably around 1972, in the window of a bookstore. As you walked past, an odd, green, flickering image of a joe giella girl actually moved, and showed her eating an apple! If you walked the other © Luigi Novi / way, it was like the “film” reversed and Wikimedia Commons. the apple became whole again. Only there was no film whatsoever. There wasn’t even an image. Just an empty cylinder with light projected onto it.

He Blinded Us with Science (top) The father of holograms, Dr. Dennis Gabor (1900–1979), winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize for Physics. (bottom) Credits and indicia page, with Joe Giella artwork. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons. © Peter Pan Music Company LLC.

A TURN-ON (TO HOLOGRAPHY)

At around that same time, Vincent Fusco and Donald Kasen were also fascinated by the new technology. The two musician friends went so far as to found Wavelengh Holographics, the first of two holography companies they would run in order to “turn people on to holography.” Kasen, now the CEO of Inspired Studios—which was formerly Peter Pan Industries—was also the co-owner of Power Records, the company that licensed and put out Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 51

Dr. Manhattan. His name is synonymous with writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons’ dystopian superhero masterpiece Watchmen. But his name signifies so much more. The explosion of an atom and the circularity of predestination are perhaps some of the images that may come to mind. Or perhaps a feeling of déjà vu, in that you have already read this article concerning this blue-skinned godlike character. In order to understand the paradoxes surrounding Dr. Manhattan, all of us must take into consideration the mystery of our own existence. We’re born, we live, we die, but when it comes to our memories and current lives, our sense of time collides. For Dr. Manhattan, the duality of choice and non-choice dictates his actions throughout his character arc in Watchmen. Please join us (or make the choice), dear reader, as two English teachers and their patient transcriber discuss the intricate brilliance of Dr. Manhattan and talk with Gibbons, Watchmen colorist John Higgins, and Doomsday Clock artist Gary Frank. – Hal Halbert and Tom Powers

DR. MANHATTAN: THE BLUEST-BLUE COMIC-BOOK CHARACTER?

TOM: Hal, since our discussion will literally attempt to explore, unpack, and hopefully not unravel too much of Dr. Manhattan’s enigmatic allure, I want to start with something light by telling you that I’ve been wondering if Dr. Manhattan is the most famous blue character in comics. If not, who are the other well-known blue characters? HAL: Beast, Iceman, Nightcrawler, the Tick, Thanos’ other daughter—Nebula, Mr. Freeze. TOM: Yeah, those are some strong examples. We could add Blue Beetle and perhaps Blue Devil to the list. But what is it about the color blue that makes Dr. Manhattan so memorable? AMANDA: Blue is cold. If you were going to be a positive character, you would want to exude warmth and passion. alan moore For instance, the Vision has a very strong red coloration. HAL: What you both are saying is cool Fimb/Wikimedia Commons. to me because if you are going to be specific about the nature of the color—it isn’t dark blue; it is light blue. When you think about other characters in Watchmen, there’s Rorschach with his flame-red hair and beet-red cheeks. In Dr. Manhattan’s case, blue is sort of devoid of emotion. It is rational and calm. TOM: True, even in the scene in Watchmen #4 (Dec. 1986), page 20, when the Vietnam War in the Watchmen universe is ending, and Moore writes in panel 1, “The Viet Cong are expected to surrender within the week. Many

Time is Running Out The god-hero Dr. Manhattan, as illustrated by artist Dave Gibbons and color artist John Higgins for the 1987 French Edition Watchmen Les Gardiens #2. Original cover painting scan courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © DC Comics.

54 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

by H a l

H a l b e r t a n d To m P o w e r s

transcribed by Amanda Powers

have given themselves up already…,” Dr. Manhattan remains this calm blue. HAL: There is almost a casualness to how he is doing that. Through the gift of the way Gibbons draws Dr. Manhattan aloofly in that panel when he strides like a colossus through this stuff, he is surrounded by the destructive fireballs he’s igniting at the fleeing Viet Cong, yet he is detached. Maybe blue is detached in this sense. When you get something so cold that you don’t move, it is almost as if inertia isn’t there. AMANDA: When readers flip through these pages, they might start to see that it is a ghostly blue. HAL: There’s also the idea that he is glowing, which was a great addition in the movie version, because he is giving off light, but the kind of light that calms you down. But when it comes to sex in the original Watchmen comic, particularly in regard to Silk Spectre, I actually thought that the whole sequence in issue #3 (Nov. 1986) on pages 4–5 with her and Dr. Manhattan’s multiple bodies and all of its sexual potential lacked passion, despite his doubled fingers touching her face, which was actually devoid of passion, and that’s kind of sad. When you compare it to the successful sexual contact that ensues between Nite Owl and her in Watchmen #7 (Mar. 1987), page 27, with his ship Archie shooting flames into the clouds in the bottom panel when he is making love to her, you see that they are literally setting the New York skyline on fire. AMANDA: So what you’re saying, Hal, is that Nite Owl and Silk Spectre attain physical love, while Dr. Manhattan

ascends into something unattainable? HAL: That’s right. It also makes me think about the Bible, which leads to the question, “Why didn’t Jesus have a girlfriend?” How could anyone keep up with God at a certain point? Likewise, I have a hard time with the Lois Lane and Superman thing for all kinds of reasons. But not the least of which is, “How do you keep up with someone this powerful—and blue—when you know his attention is—and always will be—divided?” TOM: Other than being so obviously blue, Dr. Manhattan’s quite naked. If the character had been a woman and walking around with her breasts and other parts exposed, that would have been seen as a form of exploitation as the character would then be trapped in the male gaze. Regardless, for women or gay male readers, is Dr. Manhattan sexy, and would they want to seduce him? HAL: Oh, yeah. I think he is, from my perspective. Physically, he is ripped and endowed, and he is so intense. And, like Spock in Star Trek, he has that mixed appeal of those types of characters who are emotionally unavailable: He has genius qualities, and up until a point with Silk Spectre, he is clearly a generous and thoughtful lover. But again, I don’t find men sexy in general. We have a woman sitting here, so maybe we should ask her. AMANDA: Dr. Manhattan’s sexy in Watchmen until he loses his connection with Silk Spectre. Once that’s gone, what is the point in trying to fantasize about

continued on page 58.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 55

INTERVIEW WITH DAVE GIBBONS, ARTIST OF WATCHMEN means the easiest to design. You know, sometimes less is more, BACK ISSUE: What was your process with Alan Moore in and nothing is something too, to be appropriately Zen. creating and designing Dr. Manhattan? BACK ISSUE: In Watchmen #3 (page 4), you present Dr. DAVE GIBBONS: Originally, we were going to do a treatment Manhattan attempting to initiate a ménage à trios with of the Charlton characters, and Charlton Comics had a character called Captain Atom, who was drawn by Steve Ditko, Laurie by duplicating himself. What are your thoughts concerning this scene? and he was a huge influence on both Alan and myself. And so when we were asked later on not to do the Charlton characters GIBBONS: The purpose of the scene was, again, to show how separated Dr. Manhattan has become from normal human but to do new characters, we at least wanted to tip our hats to what Steve had done with Captain Atom, so he had to be blue. thought processes. You know, to him, having multiple copies of him in bed with his girlfriend was, he thought, a pleasurable Captain Atom was blue when he was in his full powers, thing for her, but clearly it’s a very weird and alien although there was an earlier version of him where he had a experience. Laurie’s reaction to it was very understandably gold chainmail suit, which is why when we saw Dr. Manhattan human. To be having sex while actually the person you are in Watchmen (#4, page 12) with the PR people and being having sex with is off in another room doing a scientific designed, as it were, we had a chainmail effect on his original experience has a certain coldness and creepy unpleasantness costume. I think the other thing that we wanted was to give to it. We were very careful in that scene, however, not to him a kind of a really simple feel. There was something rather show anything overtly sexual as we were going to see Zen about Dr. Manhattan that meant that he should be of this Dr. Manhattan naked, and full-frontally naked, which is world but a little distant from it, not quite constrained by the something that had never, to my knowledge, been done same rules. And as he had reconstructed himself after a in mainstream comics before. But we were very nuclear accident, he put himself back together in a careful about the point at which we introduced his very pure and idealized form. nakedness. It would have been wrong to show When it came to designing the character, him completely naked in a sexual setting on this Alan and I kicked a few ideas around, and one page of the issue. So we actually revealed him, or the other of us came up with the idea of the as it were, at a point where he was walking atomic symbol on his forehead because that around a disused, wrecked military installation immediately summed up in a very elegant way (on pages 20–21) with no sexual subtext and his connection to the world of the atom. It also connotation at all because we felt that this made him look a little bit like a Buddhist monk would achieve what we wanted to show with the or a Hindu religious person with a kind of mark character without getting into any kind of on the forehead. The other idea that I had was prurient or voyeuristic areas. that light didn’t really fall on him. He was dave gibbons BACK ISSUE: Can you tell us what influenced actually something like a florescent tube or a Chris Phutully. your designs for Dr. Manhattan’s citadel on lightbulb where he had a glow to him, and Mars in issues #4 and 9? other lights in the scene or other objects would not throw GIBBONS: Well, he was a watchmaker. His father was a shadows across him. And so his body would be discernable watchmaker, and it was always Jon’s destiny, as far as his only by the way the brightness fell as it went around it, a bit father knew, for him to become a watchmaker, and in a like if you look at a florescent tube, which I don’t suggest that peculiar way, Jon’s attention to detail and precision was the you do for any great length of time. The center of it looks thing that enabled him to reconstruct his body, in a sense, much brighter than the edges of it. That was the sort of look to be his own watchmaker, create his own mechanism. we were going for, all rather light to get it even more refined, It seemed reasonable that anything that he constructed might a bit like a Lalique light. It’s a sort of frosted glass light fitting have echoes of watches or mechanisms to measure time. cone sculpture that was very popular in the early part of the Essentially, his citadel is a collection of hourglasses if you look 20th Century. That was kind of an influence as well. Of course, at some of those shapes. Some of them look like the hands on we also had to have a range of costumes for Dr. Manhattan a clock. Some of the arches have teeth on them, just like the by which we symbolized him slowly losing touch with the gears of a clock, so it was Dr. Manhattan, I suppose, being requirements, morals, and rules of the world. Initially, he’s imaginative, using his imagination. I think that it made for a wearing a chainmail suit with a hat on. And then the hat goes. very spectacular setting, and of course it was very powerful at And then the chainmail suit becomes simpler and smaller, the end of the issue to see this crumble down into fragments and then eventually he is wearing a pair of shorts. And then and shards and just became rubble on the sandy face of Mars. eventually he dispenses with that as well. So the design was That said something about how it works. one that had to evolve as the story went on. BACK ISSUE: What were the challenges of depicting Dr. As for the process with Alan, it was like everything else. Manhattan’s facial expressions? We batted it backwards and forwards. We talked. I would do sketches, and he would look at them and make more suggestions. GIBBONS: I never really thought about that, but Dr. Things would occur to me as I actually came to do the designs, Manhattan is essentially very passive. If he smiles, it’s the merest hint of a smile. If he looks confused, it’s only and in every case what we came up with, eventually there was fleeting. Again, because he’s idealized, I would imagine something that we felt was right for the character. Although that he would be rather self-censoring in the emotions he Dr. Manhattan had perhaps the simplest look, he was by no 56 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

Making His Mark (left) The inspiration for Dr. Manhattan, Charlton’s (later, DC’s) Captain Atom, drawn by Steve Ditko, in his original chainmail costume. Cover to Strange Suspense Stories #75 (June 1965). (right) Note Dave Gibbons’ nod to Captain Atom’s chainmail look in this scene featuring Dr. Manhattan establishing his superhero iconography, from Watchmen #4. TM & © DC Comics.

displayed, if indeed he even felt these emotions at all at this point. So again it was a question of doing very little and trying to do it quite subtly. It just occurs to me that Rorschach is really opaque as well. Well, in his case, yes, he has a mask to block out his face. He just has random expressions where his features should be. That was an interesting kind of parallel challenge, I guess. But to come back to Dr. Manhattan, really it was just a question of keeping his facial expressions to the minimum and making them enigmatic and, to a degree, leave the reader to infer emotions, which is also what you must always do when looking at any drawing. The challenge being that Dr. Manhattan’s emotions were fairly stunted, and the greater part of his persona was concerned with physics, calculation, and the reality of the world outside— or the unreality of the world outside. BACK ISSUE: How do you feel about other depictions of Dr. Manhattan?

GIBBONS: It’s always interesting to see other people’s take on characters you’ve created, even if you might question the necessity of that. Having said that, there was a wonderful tribute magazine published some years ago in Italy, and they got some wonderful European artists to draw the Watchmen characters. They even got Eduardo Risso to draw the two detectives at the very beginning of Watchmen, and I was very flattered by that. So I guess people taking time and trouble to try and make things you created look good, you can’t discount, even if you might question the reason for which those new versions were created. As far as Dr. Manhattan in the movie was concerned, that was pretty much how I saw him. That was pretty much what I’d inferred with a very simple ink line. Coming to life, he had that kind of translucency. He had that idealized physique and that very low-key range of expressions, so I thought Dr. Manhattan was handled quite successfully in the movie. Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 57

Before Watchmen In 2012, DC published a series of ambitious, and controversial, Before Watchmen miniseries, including Dr. Manhattan. Here, from Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan #4, writer J. Michael Straczynski and artist Adam Hughes (top) peek into the timestream and (bottom) turn things topsy-turvy. (inset) The dynamic cover to Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan #1 by Adam Hughes. TM & © DC Comics.

to his teenage son about the two possibilities of Jon’s younger self being alive or dead in that wagon, which hinged on whether or not one of the Nazis’ stray bullets from the ensuing firefight had struck him. This gets back to the idea of Schrödinger’s legendary cat. HAL: Because we are dealing with Dr. Manhattan, who is/was a physicist, someone who is stuck seeing moments over and over again, I love Straczynski’s use of Schrödinger’s cat, because there really was nothing that he could do in that instance. I remember being really upset about this scene, but I also think that the pathos of Dr. Manhattan’s character is that he has limitless possibilities, yet he cannot change events in his own predestined timeline because he knows that he cannot. He knows everything because he sees everything all at once. He has already seen all of this stuff from his early life as well since he is now older and infinitely more powerful. TOM: What I appreciated about Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan is that if Straczynski and Hughes added anything to the original Watchmen series, then it’s this idea that builds upon Moore and Gibbons’ conception of Dr. Manhattan as a self-aware nonlinear character in that he’s now able to see the alternative realities for his own life. HAL: We also need to remember that Moore started out with other people’s stuff—Marvelman, Swamp Thing, and Superman. Equally, we shouldn’t discredit the fact that he and Gibbons did incredible original work on Watchmen. Yet the pleasure of seeing Dr. Manhattan and the other Watchmen characters show up again in Zack Snyder’s loving but maybe failed attempt to make a cinematic version of it, in the Before Watchmen books, and in the currently running Doomsday Clock series [12 issues running from November 2017 to July 2019— ed.] that DC is putting out, as well as the forthcoming HBO TV series, is that we are witnessing these familiar characters being interpreted—or recast—through other creators’ unique visions. TOM: Hal, it sounds to me like you’re bringing our predestined conversation about Dr. Manhattan to a close! HAL: I do actually have an idea for how it should end. You see, with Watchmen, you’ve got Moore and Gibbons trying to bring old characters who are based upon Charlton Comics ones out of their early days. Then it becomes a classic, and nobody wants to do anything with the book. DC is chomping at the bit and finally dares to do Before Watchmen, which is in a weird halfway space between mainstream comics and the Watchmen-type approach. Then, you got this new bridge with Doomsday Clock, where the Watchmen characters are being pulled back into the DC mainstream completely. In our interview with Gary Frank (see sidebar), I like that he points out that Dr. Manhattan “finishes Watchmen leaving for ‘a galaxy less complicated’ (Maybe one where heroes and villains are easier to identify?),” suggesting an overall reduction in the characters Moore and Gibbons created. At the same time, it is a reflection of the fact that the medium has risen up closer to Moore and Gibbons’ idealization of the genre, so, as readers of this entire collaborative Watchmen saga, our journey is a Möbius strip; we’ve come full circle. HAL HALBERT (right) and TOM POWERS teach English courses at Montgomery County Community College, which is located in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. They would like to thank Dave Gibbons, John Higgins, and Gary Frank for kindly taking the time to participate in this article and Amanda Powers for transcribing its clockwork pieces.

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by M

ark Arnold

The TV series The Simpsons recently achieved another milestone in its over 30-year history with over 639 half-hour episodes, which has surpassed the total number of scripted episodes produced of the longrunning TV Western Gunsmoke. The Simpsons made their initial appearance on the third episode of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987, where they appeared in short animated linking gags, which eventually evolved into a sort of continuity throughout each episode. The initial characters introduced were the Simpson family of father Homer, mother Marge, son Bart, and daughters Lisa and Maggie. The characters were created by cartoonist Matt Groening and loosely based upon his own family. The design of the Simpsons characters evolved and eventually other characters were introduced and a half-hour animated TV special was produced and aired on December 17, 1989, followed by a regular ongoing series that premiered on January 14, 1990 and is still going strong. The Simpsons’ town of Springfield continued to add more and more eccentric and interesting characters, both fictional and nonfictional within its continuity. One of the characters introduced on the show was the initially nameless Comic Book Guy, whose name was later revealed to be Jeff Albertson. Comic Book Guy is the proprietor of the Android’s Dungeon and Baseball Card Shop.

LO, THERE SHALL COME… A RADIOACTIVE MAN!!

Radioactive Man first appeared in the first season Simpsons episode entitled “Bart the Genius,” where he briefly appears in a comic book that Bart discovers on a shelf at the mentally gifted school he is attending. This episode originally aired on January 14, 1990. Radioactive Man’s second appearance was in “The Telltale Head,” where Marge finds a Radioactive Man matt groening comic book among Bart’s possessions. Gage Skidmore. This episode originally aired on February 25, 1990. But it was “Three Men and a Comic Book,” a secondseason episode, that introduces the “fictional” comic-book character of Bart’s passions, Radioactive Man, in earnest. The episode originally aired on May 9, 1991. In it, Bart, Milhouse, and Martin pool their resources and buy Radioactive Man #1 from 1952 from the Comic Book Guy for $100.

Spawn of The Simpsons Bart Simpson’s favorite comic book reached its 1000th issue long before Superman’s Action Comics… in the made-up publishing history of Bongo Comics, at least. Cover to Radioactive Man #1000 (Jan. 1995), spoofing Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, by Steve Vance and Bill Morrison. © Bongo Entertainment, Inc. The Simpsons TM & © 20th Century Fox Film Corporation.

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