Back Issue #112

“Nuclear Issue” starring THE FURY OF FIRESTORM! June 2

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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.

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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

4 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

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

FIRESTORM ORIGINAL EDITOR JACK C. HARRIS

Kiss Off (inset) Milgrom’s cover to Firestorm #3 (June 1978), debuting Killer Frost, who (right) went on to fame on the CW’s The Flash as portrayed by actress Danielle Panabaker, playing the Caitlin Snow version of the character. (bottom) But originally Killer Frost was Dr. Crystal Frost, as revealed in this dynamite origin sequence from issue #3.

TM & © DC Comics.

character’s identity, at least the youthful side of it: Ronnie Raymond.

A year earlier, when Tony Isabella created Black Behind the DC editorial desk for Firestorm was Jack C. Harris. Harris started at DC in the mid-1970s in the Lightning (which I also edited), Tony had set the series company’s Junior Woodchucks apprentice program, in Metropolis, allowing us to use underused Superman supporting characters (such as Inspector Henderson, and then, after working as an assistant to Murray Boltinoff and other seasoned DC editors, for example). I wanted to know if Gerry intended became the editor of several titles including on linking his newest creation with others in Black Lightning, Legion of Super-Heroes, the DC Universe. I immediately thought of and Shade, the Changing Man. Roy Raymond, TV Detective, a longrunning backup feature in Detective DISHAROON: What are some of your Comics. Was, I wondered, Ronnie memories from editing Firestorm?

Raymond any relation to Roy Raymond?

JACK C. HARRIS: The first thing I recall Gerry was emphatic in his answer: was reading Gerry Conway’s original No! The character of Firestorm was going pitch and his first full script. The first to create his own cast of supporting question I had for Gerry concerned the characters and there would be no linking of Roy Raymond or any other established characters. (Of course, Superman did stop by in issue #2.) jack C. Harris The next incident I recall was with artist Al Milgrom and the creation of the Firestorm costume. Please understand that I have shared this recollection with Al and he either doesn’t remember it at all, or remembers it differently than I do.

You’ll have to question him on what he remembers about the unique look of Firestorm. It fell to Al and me to submit some costume designs to the front office for approval. I believe the only notation Gerry had given us was the character’s fiery head.

We figured, since the Firestorm costume was coming from young Ronnie’s mind, it bore the same reasoning behind it: an outlandish, impractical design that only an excited teenager might conceive.

So Al brought some sketches into my office and sketched a few more as we discussed aspects of the character. We wanted the costume to be something really memorable.

I always liked Alan Scott’s rationale for his Golden Age Green Lantern costume: “…I must make myself a dreaded figure! I must have a costume that is so bizarre that once I am seen I will never been forgotten!”

Al and I finalized about three or four [sample costumes] we submitted to the powers in charge.

One of them incorporated the puffy buccaneer sleeves from the Golden Age Green Lantern’s costume, a wraparound atomic symbol with a sunburst, and a Flash Gordon-type mask. We laughed over that one and Al commented that it would be quite a job to have to draw that in every panel. Of course, that was the costume they selected. Hot colors of red and yellow topped it off, and it made its debut on the cover of issue #1! I was thrilled when the wraparound atomic symbol was utilized when Ronnie Raymond appeared as Firestorm on the Flash television show!

DISHAROON: Did you make any other contributions to Firestorm?

HARRIS: I also remember coming up with the [villain] name “Multiplex,” but that was all [I contributed to the character]. Everything else was Gerry’s. I don’t recall much else with the character, since I was only involved in that initial brief run.

Conway tells a story of talking to Len Wein about an Avengers villain who split off into copies of himself.

Conway had the idea that, like copying a Xerox of an

6 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

original picture, each successive copy would actually fade in strength.

The assistant, [Danton] Black, turns out to be a real jerk, with his own nuclear-spawned power that fissures where Ronnie and Stein are a fusion. From the cover, we discover his rampage will apparently get no comeuppance from the guest-star Man of Steel! So Multiplex debuts in the second issue as the first of a colorful new pantheon, whose presence has inspired DC creators ever since. The introduction of brand-new rogues in each issue is another worthy callback to the creativity of the Marvel Age explosion.

DISHAROON: What are your thoughts about Firestorm, the character?

HARRIS: Here’s one important departure from the brooding Bronze Age: Firestorm may be having the most fun of any superhero of his era. Angst is on the way to be sure, but there’s a brightness that marks this character with euphoria. Villain Killer Frost, in the person of lovelorn Crystal Frost, will bring the tragedy and sadness. After all, thanks to a horrid accident that prefaces Dr. Manhattan, her emotional metaphor extends into her powers: she needs warmth to survive, while her new abilities plunge all around her into a cold abyss. Her Arctic Circle origin does have one funny touch: when colleague Frost transforms and begins threatening everyone’s life, Ronnie’s summoned into the Firestorm nexus. He finds himself kissing Killer Frost, which seems like a really fun problem, until his famous hair extinguishes.

DISHAROON: Where did her name come from?

HARRIS: We were having a very cold winter in New York and the forecasters kept using the term “killer frost” when they predicted the coming cold fronts. [Interviewer’s note: A blizzard in the northeastern United States from February 5th to 7th in 1978 contributed to a distribution snafu that triggered DC’s cancellations and DC Implosion.]

I thought that would be a great name for a villain, one who would be Firestorm’s opposite: cold against heat, female against male. I called Gerry and pitched the idea and he did all the rest! Again, I was thrilled when a version of the character showed up on TV. I always loved working with Gerry and Al. I learned so much from both of them!

FIRESTORM CO-CREATOR AND ORIGINAL ARTIST AL MILGROM

Detroit-area native Al Milgrom, an old school pal of Jim Starlin’s, is known whose idea it was to use me, except for as an artist, inker, cover artist, editor, maybe the fact that I was available— and writer, with numerous credits you’d have to ask Gerry! Did they say, at both Marvel and DC including “Do you want to work with Milgrom?”

Marvel’s Captain Marvel, the Guardians Or, “Did you want to work with of the Galaxy feature in Marvel Presents, Milgrom?” Or, “You have to work with editing the eclectic anthology book Marvel Milgrom”? [laughter] I remember getting the first script, Fanfare [which received the spotlight in BACK ISSUE #96—ed.], ROM: Spaceknight, reading through it, and enjoying it.

Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man, Frankly, it seemed very much like a al milgrom Marvel comic to me, more so than a and West Coast Avengers. In 1977, © Marvel. he held down dual duties at DC Comics, DC Comic, but Gerry’s background editing—on titles including Superboy and the Legion of being what it was, you know, that’s not surprising.

Super-Heroes, Karate Kid, Weird Western Tales starring It was a tight plot, and I remember roughing up Scalphunter, and Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth—and sketches of all the major characters. Ronnie, Dr. Stein, freelance penciling.

[Ronnie’s] girlfriend Doreen, Cliff Carmichael—his nemesis; it was Marvel, turned sideways. The popular DISHAROON: Tell us about Gerry Conway approaching jock kid, Ronnie Raymond, was being picked on by you to co-create Firestorm and the character’s initial the Carmichael kid, because he would make fun of his lack of intellect. Ronnie, instead of being a bully supporting cast, please.

AL MILGROM: Yeah, when DC hired me to join the about it, said, “I can’t beat him up, I’m bigger and editorial staff, they were still allowing people to I’m stronger. That would look bad.” Meanwhile, freelance. During the Firestorm era, they were planning Cliff would bully him, intellectually… just give him this expansion [the DC Explosion—ed.]. I don’t know a hard time.

Capeless Crusader As shown in this 1979 sketch from the archives of Heritage Comics Auctions, Al Milgrom’s intention with Firestorm’s sleeves was for them to convey movement during flight, since the young hero does not wear a cape. The sleeves became puffier in the actual comic books, though.

Firestorm TM & © DC Comics.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 7

New Genesis Fashion Tips

By Al Milgrom’s own admission, the headdress of the New Gods’ Lightray, shown (bottom left) in a 1986 illo by the character’s creator, Jack Kirby, inked by Greg Theakston, inspired Al’s design of Firestorm’s headgear, as seen on the artist’s cover (bottom right) for Firestorm #4 (Aug.–Sept. 1978), featuring the hideous Hyena.

Lightray scan courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

The neat twist with Firestorm was the two characters merged, making the one personality. So here you have this callow youth, and maybe not the brightest bulb in the chandelier—not dumb, average intelligence. But he had the advantage of a brilliant scientist there talking with him in his head.

DISHAROON: Gerry told me how his Firestorm work with you was the exception to his usual tight script method after coming aboard DC: You would tease out plots together in phone calls, after meet-ups in Jack Harris’ office.

Conway described how each of the three editors had different story expectations and aid. Len Wein was apt to question the emotional impact of the characters’ actions. Julius Schwartz, who he credited as his personal inspiration for Dr. Martin Stein while talking to Fire and Ice Podcast host Shagg Matthews in a 2009 interview, favored clever science-fiction-based twists.

Jack’s [Harris] advice usually had to do with pre-existing plot threads, unresolved DC history.

Firestorm seems to have operated very independently of previous DC stories, as he noted when describing his declined notion about tying the Raymonds to Roy Raymond.

But Harris’ style seems to have stayed with the book in its continued incarnations—the method Gerry first learned from Romita, of simmering subplots.

Sounds like Jack was there at ground zero where you come in.

MILGROM: Oh, yeah! And, as for the costume, I can’t believe Jack says, “They accepted that horrible costume he’d done,” and I’m like: “Wait a minute. I only remember one or two other of the designs I came up with.” But the one that they used was the one I was the happiest with!

I’m not a brilliant designer—you know, Jack Kirby did, like, a billion—but I analyzed it, very carefully.

I said, “Look, who are the characters that have legs?”

Superman, Batman’s been around forever, Wonder Woman, and, at this point, Spider-Man’s been around a good long time. “What do they all have in common?”

They all have some sort of distinctive insignia on their chests, thereabouts. They often have a distinctive thing on their back, like, Superman had the distinct “S” symbol on back of his cape. Batman had the cape with the scalloped design. Captain America has the star on his chest, the stripes around the waist, and the

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star on his back. Spider-Man has the spider insignia: the small one on his chest, and the larger one on his back. So you can recognize these characters, coming or going. So I thought, “Okay, here’s this guy who’s like an atomic pile.”

So, the flames on Firestorm’s head—he’s not the only one, or even the first character I drew with flames.

When I did the Guardians of the Galaxy, Nikki, that character, had flames on her head… and, of course, you have the Human Torch, but he was all flames.

So, to indicate a “firestorm”—a hot, atomic generator kind of a thing—I specifically designed those elements.

I liked the idea, since he was an atomic-basedcharacter, of an atom, with the electrons going over his shoulders.

The sleeves? I certainly didn’t think of them as “buccaneer sleeves,” though you could. I thought, basically, capes were becoming passe. All the old-wave characters had them, not a lot of the new wave. Outside of Thor, Scarlet Witch, maybe the original Black Widow, not a lot them had capes. The sleeves were in lieu of a cape. Capes are great for showing motion: When a guy’s flying, moving, throwing a punch, it can give a great impression of the figure’s motion. I like that element.

So [Firestorm’s] sleeves act as a sort surrogate cape.

You can tell where he’s going, how he’s moving, by their flow. I wasn’t really thinking about the silhouette, exactly, just the symbols.

DISHAROON: Jack Harris also likens Firestorm’s helmet to Flash Gordon’s.

MILGROM: Kirby, he’d had the New Gods—always an influence for me—the facemask on Firestorm, the way it comes around the sides and chin, was probably inspired

by Lightray more than anything. I didn’t think at all in terms of Flash Gordon—that sounds more like Jack’s interpretation. I never knew much about Flash Gordon, and that look’s from the Alex Raymond stuff from the ’40s—I think I was aware it existed, but it didn’t factor into my design sense. But I liked the [Lightray] headcovering thing; I said, “I’m stealin’ it!”

DISHAROON: Firestorm’s costume provides insight into Ronnie’s attitude about his powers, with that torso sunburst design around his atomic symbol? So much exuberance! It says: “Hell, yeah, I’m a superhero!” There’s a childlike magic. He looks happy!

MILGROM: He really had none of that breast-beating woe. The opening issue depicts that splash page of his, exuberantly flying, scaring the pigeon. Then you get the two-page spread of the Statue of Liberty, with him flying by the helicopter, really enjoying his powers. I’m not sure Gerry indicated that, but it’s the way I interpreted it.

DISHAROON: Great layout—it really shows your skill.

MILGROM: Well, thanks. I never was the best artist in the business, but I would try to raise my game for the splash and two-page spreads.

DISHAROON: Any stories of designing the villains?

MILGROM: I remember there was some design on [Multiplex’s] chest, a zig-zaggy thing, with round circles, in between them. As I recall, when he split, they were divided up between the [figures]. So, the costume actually altered as he divided into multiple versions.

I do remember doing Killer Frost [for the first time].

I wanted her to have that icy, lacy dress, the pearls running through her hair, on her neck, the earrings, etc. They’ve altered her significantly since then.

But again, I was trying to convey that “ice princess” look to her.

I know Jack [Harris] remembers that year being a cold winter, but I started at DC in the dead of summer.

So I feel like, when we were doing the third issue [with

Al’s Flame-heads (left) Milgrom had pre-Firestorm experience drawing the fiery-scalped Nikki in the Guardians of the Galaxy strip in the House of Ideas’ Marvel Presents. (right) Cover to issue #12 (Aug. 1977).

Multiplex plagues DC’s torch-topped teen on Al’s Firestorm #5 cover.

Guardians of the Galaxy/ Marvel Pesents TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Firestorm TM & © DC Comics.

Killer Frost], it was still decent weather out. I can’t swear to it, but Gerry had this character, and hadn’t come up with a name for her, yet. I had this phrase, “killing frost,” which was also a line in a song, and something Midwestern farmers worry about, you know, so I remember coming up with that name. Gerry might have a better recollection (if it was in the plot), but I’m not going to say Jack’s lyin’, heh! I may misremember it. [Editor’s note: Firestorm #3, introducing Killer Frost, was cover-dated June 1978 but went on sale March 9, 1978. Given the lead time necessary for production, the villainess was probably designed in the summer or fall of 1977.] I remember that cover, with Ronnie looking horrified while she’s kissing him, with the cold overtaking him.

So yeah, I put some thought into those characters… for all the good it did me. The company sent down an edict returning the books to normal size [page counts had been expanded during the DC Explosion—ed.] and cancelled 40% of the titles, while firing 40% of the staff. Despite my enthusiasm, and the fact that I was really trying my best, the book didn’t sell well enough, and it was cancelled after five issues. There was one more in the can, and I’d already started the seventh—four pages into it, maybe.

It’s funny: I felt like those pages were some of the best work I ever did. I look at them now and I go, “I don’t think I can draw that well anymore!” Any time I draw something and it reminds me of Kirby, I feel like I’ve done something right!

DISHAROON: What were your considerations as you visually set the tone for the series? Firestorm’s use of powers was very visually diverse.

I wondered who decided how to demonstrate, from issue #1 and on, Firestorm’s abilities?

MILGROM: You’d have to ask Gerry, but he turned in plots, and Jack went over those, so there may’ve been a bit of give-and-take at that point. But they were pretty much what Gerry gave me. I just tried to make it visually compelling.

I don’t remember specifics, but Gerry wrote pretty tight plots.

I don’t doubt Gerry might say, “He turns the machine into flowers”— I think that was one bit. Probably, they were Gerry’s suggestions.

How they were exactly executed, since we were working Marvel style, was left to me. Gerry trusted me to do [the visuals]. He never called me up to say, “You missed this; could you redraw this?” He was

working on a ton of books, too, at the time, so he didn’t want to nitpick.

He trusted me. The results, I think, were pretty good! Again, though the short-term result wasn’t a sales success, it had something.

The shoulders, the sleeves, the flaming head: all that was intuitive.

The molecule thing was my main thrust.

I was shocked they actually ended up using [Firestorm] on [television’s] The Flash. It’s funny, now that Firestorm is off the [DC’s] Legends [of Tomorrow TV] show—which depresses me to no end—I’m still getting some royalties for Killer Frost being on The Flash.

DISHAROON: What’s your take on how Firestorm has changed from your original interpretation in later versions of the character?

MILGROM: That’s the nature of comics: If you create something, and it’s got any interesting aspects to it, even if it doesn’t make it, people will revive it, examine it, find a new angle, a new way to look at it, take it to the next level.

That’s the kind of thing that Alan Moore does: take a character that’s been around for decades, finds something that had nothing to do with the original, but fits with it. Making the Swamp Thing an elemental— that certainly wasn’t Len [Wein] and Bernie’s [Wrightson] intention; I can’t believe they’re both gone, that’s so weird and sad. [But Moore] made a fascinating storyline, with brilliant artists.

Although the idea wasn’t my cup of tea, making Firestorm a fire elemental made sense.

DISHAROON: They did this thing called “The Elemental War.” [Editor’s note: The four-issue story arc “The Elemental War,” penned by scribe John Ostrander, ran in Firestorm the Nuclear Man #90–93 (Oct. 1989– Jan. 1990). This incarnation of the Firestorm series was a continuation of the book’s second volume, originally titled The Fury of Firestorm.]

MILGROM: That when Tom Mandrake was drawing the book?

DISHAROON: Yes! You get these massive splash pages; you have this water elemental who’s has enough of humankind—she was a human killed in a radioactive accident at sea. There’s a very environmentalist tone going on there, and you have the Swamp Thing—he identifies a little more closely with humanity—and Firestorm with Red Tornado, who, ironically, isn’t human at all…

MILGROM: So Red Tornado was the air elemental?

DISHAROON: Ding-ding, score one for the boy from Detroit! [laughs] MILGROM: I can see the sense in that. Sure! Why not?

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 9

Firestorm Imploded The infamous DC Implosion led to Firestorm’s untimely cancellation, although (left) issue #6 was reprinted in blackand-white in Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #1 and in the 2011 Firestorm: The Nuclear Man graphic novel. (right) Amiable Al Milgrom shared this layout page from the axed Firestorm #7, featuring a new villain, Reptile Man. TM & © DC Comics.

PART TWO: THE RETURN OF THE NUCLEAR MAN The DC Implosion may have wiped Firestorm’s book off the face of the Earth—but the Nuclear Man’s creator, Gerry Conway, didn’t give up on the young hero and kept him in print. First came a Superman-Firestorm team-up for editor Julius Schwartz in DC Comics Presents #17 (Jan. 1980).

Drawn by José Luis García-López, it pitted the two heroes against Killer Frost. Next, Gerry had Firestorm join DC’s premiere super-team beginning with Justice League of America #179 (June 1980), a book Conway was writing.

Soon, Firestorm became a Conway-written backup feature in editor Wein’s The Flash, beginning with issue #289 (Sept. 1980). Firestorm co-creator Al Milgrom had moved on to Marvel by this time, and George Pérez, who had just hopped over to DC from Marvel, did his first DC work in those Flash backups. Before long, Firestorm also managed a co-star appearance in the Batman team-up title The Brave and the Bold, in issue #172 (Mar. 1981).

Mike W. Barr took over editorship of The Flash from Wein with issue #301, and the Firestorm feature became endangered as a result. “When I came onto the book, the Firestorm strip had the backup,” Barr told Keith Dallas in the TwoMorrows book, The Flash Companion.

“This is the first time I’ll say this for publication, but I always hated Firestorm. I thought he was a tremendously derivative character… I’m sorry to say that, because I always got along fine with Al Milgrom. Al has always been good to me personally and professionally… but I was really tired of Firestorm being in the book. There was an odd political situation going on at the time at DC. I was

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told Len Wein was sort of my supervisor… he told me he was responsible for what went into the book, not me.

“I was expressing my frustration to Paul Levitz, who told me, ‘Well, no, no, you’re being held responsible for what’s in these books. You’re being evaluated according to how the book sells. So long as DC approves, you have the authority to put whatever in them that you want.’ So I decided to get rid of Firestorm, and put Dr. Fate in the back.

“My thinking was, with Firestorm, you have exactly the same kind of superhero as you have with the Flash: a very brightly colored character, with a lot of very visual powers, who fights a colorful rogues’ gallery. Therefore, anyone who likes Firestorm is probably going to buy The Flash, anyway.

“But with Dr. Fate, you have a totally different character.

So hopefully, if you get rid of Firestorm, you keep all the readers who were buying the book for the Flash, and you bring in the readers who will buy the book just for Fate.” [Editor’s note: Dr. Fate was explored in BACK ISSUE #24 and 64.]

The Barr interview continued, “I remember Len saying, almost angrily, when I decided to take Firestorm out, that he was going to put Firestorm back in his own book.

And he said this like it was some kind of slap at me.

And I said, ‘Fine! I don’t care what happens to him, as long as he is not in any of my books!’ ” Firestorm’s last Flash backup appeared in The Flash #304 (May 1982).

After a profile-boosting return engagement with a Superman team-up in DC Comics Presents #45 (May 1982), writer Gerry Conway’s teen superhero returned in a title all his own: The Fury of Firestorm #1 (June 1982), penciled by an artist who had taken over the feature later in its Flash run: Pat Broderick.

FURY OF FIRESTORM ORIGINAL ARTIST PAT BRODERICK

Pat Broderick was 17 when he answered a cattle call for DC’s new Junior Bullpen project in the early 1970s. How lucky was he to step out of the long line of contenders and run into DC head honcho Carmine Infantino?

In a few short years, Broderick’s work would be seen on table of contents and filler pages in DC’s 100-Page Super Spectaculars. Pat soon found work at Marvel, drawing early appearances of Iron Fist in Marvel Premiere, plus Captain Marvel, a flame-headed guy called Ghost Rider in Marvel Team-Up, and a well-remembered run on Micronauts.

He later co-created the Nathaniel Adam iteration of DC’s Captain Atom and drew “Batman: Year Three” (in 1989’s Batman #436–439), a terrific revival of Green Lantern, and the inventive Doom 2099 [as covered last issue]. He’s also been an adjunct instructor at the Tampa Bay Art Institute. More recently, Pat has been producing his own creator-owned title, Niburu, the Legend of Annunaki.

Backtracking to the Firestorm era: When Broderick left Marvel in the spring of 1981 (about three months before his last work there was published), the artist was looking for a break from multicharacter features. His call to DC’s editorial director Dick Giordano brought him a lead on a very exciting book, The Legion of Super-Heroes, which was winding through its own successful, memorable story arc. But this multi-character feature was exhausting for the man who had recently brought another multi-character book, Marvel’s Micronauts, to life. “Basically, anything pat broderick with less than, say, 20 characters,” Broderick says, would be “a chance to catch my breath.”

Enter Firestorm: much shorter stories, far fewer Thomson200. designs. With The Flash #302, a capable Denys Cowan had vacated the strip, which, even with a superhero composed of two secret identities, sounded just right. Broderick began penciling the Firestorm feature with its penultimate Flash appearance, in issue #303 (Nov. 1981).

Your Demand is Our Command The exciting, floating head-laced Pat Broderick/ Dick Giordano cover to the return of Gerry Conway’s Nuclear Man, The Fury of Firestorm #1 (June 1982).

TM & © DC Comics.

DISHAROON: I wondered how such a cosmically oriented, dynamic artist approached a fantastical, but more down-to-earth, strip like Firestorm? How did you sell yourself on this character? Any reservations, or inspirations, that convinced you, “Hey, I could excel on this?”

PAT BRODERICK: When they offered me Firestorm, it was a backup. I was more than happy to jump on. Rodin Rodriguez was the choice of inker for me, with Gerry scripting, and our collaboration was a fun time. [Editor’s note: Adrian Gonzales inked Broderick’s first Firestorm story, with Rodin Rodriguez taking over with Flash #304, followed by Fury of Firestorm.] Gerry was very sharp, very structured, and had a very comical twist with Ronnie Raymond, and I enjoyed that. I could add to that.

DISHAROON: I see how you would be inspired by that. It gave you a demand that would invest you in the character, be easier to meet your deadlines, you could focus on a main character— or, a very small set of main characters, in Firestorm’s unique way.

When did they tell you that you were going into a full-on series?

BRODERICK: Probably in one to two months. They were looking to supply me with 22 pages a month, so… I think I did two of the backups, right?

DISHAROON: Right, two! You completed that Hyena storyline, revealing Summer Day. If there’s such a thing as destiny, this was the team meant to launch the new series!

Big Bang Shortly after the cancellation of his mag, Firestorm appearances became common at DC, including (top) this Superman team-up and his return as the backup feature in The Flash, and (bottom) a Batman team-up and another partnership with the Man of Steel.

TM & © DC Comics.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 11

First Issue Appearances From Fury of Firestorm #1: (top left) Ronnie and Jackson—also known as Jefferson, who became known to CW TV viewers as Jefferson Jackson, a.k.a. Firestorm— bus to school. (bottom left) Martin Stein recaps Firestorm’s origin for the benefit of new or forgetful readers. By Conway and Broderick, with Rodin Rodriguez inks. (right) Black Bison was the first new foe to be introduced within the new Fury of Firestorm series, first appearing in issue #1 and being cover featured on the second issue (see this issue’s Rough Stuff feature for two versions of #2’s cover).

From #2, a Black Bison recap.

TM & © DC Comics.

BRODERICK: Yeah! Well, Firestorm is my bread-andbutter out there on the convention circuit. I don’t deny that at all. He’s been very good to me. The fans that love Firestorm have been very kind to me. I’ve enjoyed seeing the advancement of the character across various media, and it’s been stepfather-ly. You understand?

I’m not one of the original creators, but I helped raise him from a li’l puppy! [laughter] I’ve had a long relationship with Gerry. Last time I saw him, I gave him a really nice piece of Firestorm art.

It was great seeing him again.

It’d be nice to see more things done with the character! But what Gerry created with his characters— [DC has] profited greatly off that, and will continue to do so, for a long time!

DISHAROON: Did you help originate John Ravenhair, the villain Black Bison?

BRODERICK: Yes! I do have shared creator-ownership of that character. I agree, he was a great idea; I’d have liked to have seen more of him during my time on the book.

My current interests were prevalent, even in my early work. I really enjoy doing Westerns. I had the good fortune to ink a couple of covers that Dick Giordano drew, of a Western theme. I’ve always enjoyed Westerns, sketches and things of that sort. The Black Bison NativeAmerican character was interesting for me to do because I studied a lot of American history. There were a lot of connections.

DISHAROON: I’m not sure whose idea it was to take that story into a museum! You automatically had the opportunity to start drawing things associated with history and native culture. With issue #1, your contributions start to be more prevalent. You brought to life all of these things!

BRODERICK: Ha! I was just trying to impress Gerry.

Trying to do my job, the way I saw my job. Trying to do a good story. I’ve always felt that the storytelling and the solidity of it was the important thing. Once we did our plotting session, Gerry relied on me to do something really good. So I always wanted to impress him.

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DISHAROON: It’s good to take all the accolades and pour them back into one’s work.

BRODERICK: You can pour everything you’ve got into it. But when you think you’ve arrived—the moment start believing the things that everybody else tells you— if you don’t believe you need to learn more, you’re missing the whole point of what’s going on.

DISHAROON: So there’s, say, two aspects to storytelling.

One, where you decide how to break it down: how many pages for how many scenes, how many panels, and what shapes do I want to use. Then, there’s the content: what expression do I want to put on Dr. Stein’s face, that will already say so much, then the scripter could then take things out a step further.

BRODERICK: However many pages—it always goes back to that traditional three-act structure. Or Shakespearian five-act structure! I read Pérez and other artists like a symphony, where you’re building towards a crescendo.

Build to the high point of the theme. Leave ground for the writer to do his thing along the way.

DISHAROON: In issue #1, you present Black Bison, who uses iconography and a takeoff of more traditional garb. You got to bring a bear, a horse, eagles, and things in—the nature stuff that’s associated with Westerns, which are so much closer to nature, really.

Issue #2 turns a playground into Alice in Wonderland!

But then, you had a lot of scenes set at [Ronnie Raymond’s] school, which is what I mean by a lot of down-to-earth visuals. A whole lot of Firestorm is the world outside our window.

BRODERICK: That was the wonderful thing about Gerry and Firestorm: the teenager, depicting his life, and the professor, and his adult life; both, opposite ends of the spectrum, in the education field. And I picked up on that immediately. And my God, there’s a lot of comedic availability with Ronnie, at school, with Cliff Carmichael and their fellow classmates.

It reached the point where Gerry and I were discussing the plots over the phone, so he felt comfortable enough

She’s Cold As Ice Killer Frost returns, on this killer original art page by the Broderick/Rodriguez team from issue #3 (Aug. 1982).

Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

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On Top with Old Smokey (top) Does Fury of Firestorm #4’s lead-footed actor Curt Holland remind you of anyone? Pat Broderick based him on (inset) Smokey and the Bandit’s Burt Reynolds. (bottom) Broderick’s exciting Fury of Firestorm covers, inked by Dick Giordano, helped make the title a fan-favorite in its early days. Shown here are issue #3, with Killer Frost; #4, guest-starring the JLA; an appearance by Flash foe Pied Piper on #5; and the debut of Plastique on #7.

Firestorm TM & © DC Comics. Smokey and the Bandit © Universal Pictures.

with what I was doing to where he didn’t have to show me a written plot.

We’d just have a conversation, and I could draw it up. Gerry would then find a few surprise Easter Eggs inspired by our talks.

DISHAROON: Nice! So you continued the conversation on the pages.

BRODERICK: Yeah, exactly! We did one issue where the professor was initiating the change, and Ronnie was in the high school. So it was like, “Sh*t, Gerry, what do you do if he’s in the gym, taking a shower [when getting summoned to his shared Firestorm persona]?” I put Ronnie in that situation, so at the ending, when they change back, I knew exactly how Ronnie would have to appear, which would be soaking wet, covered in suds, and naked! He saw it when the pages were turned in, but he didn’t expect it when we had the conversation. I said, “You gave me an open door, and here comes a bus!” [laughs] It’s a good, funny scene. I think having fun with it added to the experience of reading the comic.

DISHAROON: Of the Firestorm villains, Killer Frost [Fury of Firestorm #3] has probably had the most variety of media appearances.

BRODERICK: Well, I’ve got to say, working again from a character that’d already been established, created with Al—it was a great foundation to work with. I tried to continue with what Al had laid down before. Gerry had some really great storylines with her.

Bringing the Justice League in [Fury of Firestorm #4] wasn’t a bad idea, as there were several of them I enjoyed drawing.

It was nice to expand artistically to characters that wouldn’t be there every issue.

DISHAROON: I wondered: Did you have a particular person in mind when Killer Frost said she was in love with a famous actor [issue #4]?

BRODERICK: [laughter] Oh, man. Kind of embarrassing here. If memory serves me right, Gerry just specified it be like, a famous TV actor of the day. I remember it as being Burt Reynolds. I swiped from him… from Smokey and the Bandit, a lot of popular films at the time.

DISHAROON: I think, in a way, the character kind of played out not unlike it might’ve with Burt. “Do you want to go on a date with a murderous supervillain?”

“Ahh, I don’t think so!” [laughter] BRODERICK: I have to note the coincidence of his passing recently, and you bringing up this question.

DISHAROON: You had this supporting character, Jefferson (Jackson), and you invested in making him good, too. He’s not just a background drawing; he interacts with Ronnie, Cliff, and Doreen. He’s important, and has as much of a life as a supporting character can ask for in the beginning of a series. Then in recent years, BAM! They’ve really brought him up to prominence in the fictional Firestorm matrix.

BRODERICK: The farming and development of characters has always surprised me. What were backup or secondary characters—as other writers develop a series—their growth as other writers interact with a series, has always amazed me.

DISHAROON: It’s nice to think something about the way you handled them in the first place encouraged someone to see more in them.

BRODERICK: I saw, like, General Eiling [from Broderick’s Captain Atom series] show up [on TV], and I was like: Cool! Let’s see what they do with him. I think Black Bison will be showing up in something… since we’re talking about it, I’ll go ahead and tell you. I may get in trouble for it, but you know what, it doesn’t matter: I’m a “living legend.” [laughter] DISHAROON: Did you originate the version of Pan in issue #5?

BRODERICK: Visually, the character was already established. Gerry was much more familiar with him than I. The treatment of it was Gerry’s and mine. If he was portrayed differently—oops! But it was true to form to the character guide.

I enjoyed him—I thought he was a great, flavorful villain for Firestorm.

14 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

DISHAROON: What we said about Jefferson also goes for Plastique, a character I feel confident you did co-create [in issue #7]. She returned many times in Firestorm, and even became Captain Atom’s love interest. Now, that character really had some legs!

BRODERICK: No pun intended! [laughter] She did become a popular character, and was also picked up for TV! She it into live action with the Lois & Clark series. A hot lady, an explosive personality, with a French accent to boot.

DISHAROON: So she had sort of an Emma Peel jumpsuitthing happening. Did you help create her m.o.? Her motivation seems to have come from Gerry.

BRODERICK: Yes, it did. That characterization came from Gerry.

DISHAROON: That’s a really good issue. I like how Gerry makes it a ranging commentary on television, even newspapers—today, including the internet, you could practically retell the story. The hero interacts with the media; the supporting characters are involved the same way; the terrorists utilize the coverage. Then the action goes down at Ed Raymond’s newspaper room! Great characterization of Martin—suspenseful, tactical, with pathos between Ron and his dad. And then: Who came up with that hilarious way Ronnie defeated Plastique?

BRODERICK: At that time, we were still working off written scripts. That was early in the series, so I give Gerry all the credit—even the script phone conversations. I’d give him bonus Easter Eggs, but we hit the script we discussed.

[Speaking of Easter Eggs,] in the Hyena issues [Fury of Firestorm #10–13], Gerry didn’t know the bunny was coming… you open with the Hyena in the desert, and I knew it could be a dramatic scene, but I wondered, “Wouldn’t it be cool…?”

DISHAROON: Gerry’s said what a fun time he had on the strip with you. There was all the superhero soap opera and action, but humor, and brightness, as if to acknowledge, “Hey, the main character’s head is on fire! So let’s make these stories a good chuckle, maybe a bit of wish fulfillment, as well as suspenseful.”

BRODERICK: Yeah! It was a character I believe he initially infused with humor in the setup. Whether he thought we would have as much fun on the playground, playing together—I’m happy it was more fun for him! I could push the swing a little harder: You want to go higher, here’s higher. Want to go fast? Here’s fast!

It was a good time, and Gerry’s an excellent writer.

I was on the book for… almost two and a half years.

And I was working on the graphic novel when I wasn’t working on [the monthly], when Rafael came on.

[Editor’s note: The “on the book” period Broderick mentions encompasses the time he illustrated the ongoing Firestorm title and the time he invested into the unrealized Firestorm graphic novel, Corona (see sidebar, next page). For the record, Pat penciled Fury of Firestorm #1–7 and #10–16, plus part of issue #17.] continued on page 18.

Moon Knight (top) Not only were Pat’s Fury of Firestorm covers amazing, his splash pages were eye-popping, too. Original art from issue #6 (Nov. 1982), courtesy of Heritage. (bottom) Two spectacular Pat Broderick covers, inked by Dick Giordano, from the Were-Hyena Firestorm storyline, in issues #12 and 13.

TM & © DC Comics.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 15

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO

Hot-Headed Hero While we’re unable to share any Firestorm: Corona artwork, savor instead this suitable-for-framing specialty drawing done by Pat Broderick in 1982, around the time Fury of Firestorm was launching.

TM & © DC Comics.

16 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

FIRESTORM: CORONA? During the heyday of their Fury of Firestorm partnership and popularity, Gerry Conway and Pat Broderick began work on a Firestorm graphic novel titled Corona, which, as longtime DC fans recall, went unfinished and unpublished. Presumably it would have been packaged under the DC Graphic Novel title that began in 1983 and had a brief, three-year lifespan, where seven entries were sporadically published including Elliot S. Maggin and José Luis García-López’s Star Raiders and Jack Kirby’s New Gods finale, The Hunger Dogs.

DC announced Firestorm: Corona and Broderick departed the Fury of Firestorm monthly to illustrate it.

Treating the project as something special, the artist was investing extra time into penciling the graphic novel’s pages, and Conway’s scripting was similarly moving sluggishly due to his workload. But for eager Firestorm fans the graphic novel seemed to be plodding at the pace of a Killer Frost-created glacier flow.

Conway joked to the Amazing Heroes Preview Special in 1985 that Corona “will come out this century.”

That write-up also shared a lettered-and-inked page erroneously said to have been a panel from the graphic novel, when in fact it hailed from Fury of Firestorm Annual #3—and was illustrated by Rafael Kayanan, not Pat Broderick!

One year later, in the 1986 Amazing Heroes Preview Special, Conway commented that the graphic novel would “eventually be coming out” and would highlight the evolution of the Firestorm/Firehawk relationship. “…I’ve been hung up on whether or not I can do anything with her [Firehawk] in the regular comic until those changes happen,” he remarked.

But despite Conway’s assurance to Amazing Heroes, “eventually” never happened… and the promises and promotions for Firestorm: Corona disappeared.

This project has intrigued and puzzled fans for decades, although details about the reasons for its incompletion and cancellation have remained sketchy.

So I turned to the creative team in question, asking both Gerry Conway and Pat Broderick to clear the cobwebs of three decades’ worth of memories, posing to them the query, “Whatever happened to Firestorm: Corona?”

As Gerry Conway recollects, “I’m pretty sure it was just a financial/publishing decision—DC decided a graphic novel didn’t make sense at the time.”

Pat Broderick echoes that a “business decision” led to Corona’s demise. As the artist recalls, DC’s Pat Bastienne, one of the company’s main talent liaisons at the time, told him that after his departure from the title, sales on the Fury of Firestorm book

by Michael Eury

were experiencing “a steady drop,” the momentum of the Conway/Broderick launch having stalled. “So I got a call one day from Patty saying that the low numbers [on the monthly] at that time no longer warranted the graphic novel,” Broderick says. “It was actually in the inking stages by that point, with inks

by Mike Machlan.”

DC’s concerns over “low numbers” apparently were not relegated just to the host Firestorm book.

Bob Greenberger, who joined DC’s editorial staff in the mid-1980s, tells BACK ISSUE, “Several factors led to the project being abandoned: the graphic novels were expensive to produce and not selling, nor were they reaching beyond the comics audience as they preceded the collected editions boom of 1987.

Gerry left DC and no one wanted the project (as I recall), and Pat was given Captain Atom.”

DC Comics historian and frequent BI contributor John Wells also weighs in: “My perspective is that Corona became irrelevant. Based on what little we know, the graphic novel would have changed the relationship of Firestorm and Firehawk.

They’d probably have become lovers, but the couple might also have become enemies or perhaps merged as part of the Firestorm matrix.

“Regardless, John Ostrander’s revamp of the series made anything that happened in the graphic novel inconsequential. The big attraction of Corona would been that something important happened, and that selling point had been eliminated.”

Unlike another abandoned superhero graphic novel of the ’80s, The New Teen Titans: Games, which was later resurrected, completed, and published, the artwork produced for Firestorm: Corona has been banished to limbo. “The pages have long since faded,” Broderick laments. “Pencils don’t hold up well if not sprayed with a fixative, and when Mike [Machlan] was inking he was jumping between pages. So there were never any completed pages before the bottom fell out.” Mike Machlan tells BACK ISSUE that he inked “only a few pages before the project tanked” but that he no longer has them, or photocopies.

When it was finally released in 2013, The New Teen Titans: Games was no longer in continuity but was presented as a “time capsule” from a bygone era.

Might there be full-size Xeroxes of Pat Broderick’s Firestorm: Corona pencil artwork secreted away in a DC Comics flat file, waiting to be discovered, to allow this unfinished symphony its chance to reach completion? Or will Corona forever remain a Greatest Story Never Told?

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 17

Winged Wonders Another Spider-Man/ Firestorm connection!

Pat’s appreciation of (left) Steve Ditko’s rendition of the Vulture’s wings (from Amazing Spider-Man #2) inspired his interpretation of (right) the flameflapping soon-to -be-breakout star Firehawk. By Conway/ Broderick/Rodriguez, from Fury of Firestorm #17.

Spider-Man TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Firestorm TM & © DC Comics.

continued from page 15.

So, I was expecting, at the end of the graphic novel, to move on to something else, of course. But I always knew Gerry was going to be in my future, probably, in whatever else. The only way I even able to begin working on it was to find a replacement artist.

DISHAROON: Did you help originate Tokamak, the Hewitt character?

Did you help create the Enforcer?

BRODERICK: Yeah, yeah. I did have a hand in Tokamak. The Enforcer, I don’t believe so. I’ve forgotten entire comic books I’ve drawn!

I’d have to go back and check. [Editor’s note: The Enforcer— real name Leroy Merkyn—premiered in a Broderick issue, #14 (July 1983). Pat drew scenes featuring Henry Hewitt, the manipulative millionaire industrialist responsible for turning Lorraine Reilly into the superpowered Firehawk. When Hewitt emerged in an atomically powered containment suit as the villainous Tokamak in issue #18, Pat had just vacated the book but penciled its cover, which featured the villain.]

DISHAROON: How about Firehawk? By this point, you were surely on the plotting phone calls. One thing I noticed was the long buildup with this character. Lorraine Reilly, daughter of an influential senator, gets kidnapped, then it builds into, like, six episodes before her debut as Firehawk [in issue #17, Broderick’s last—ed.].

The things that happen to her during her captivity have lasting consequences on her mindset.

BRODERICK: Yeah, Gerry was wonderful at continuing subplot lines.

It was about six months.

The time when they asked if I would do the graphic novel, and I accepted the idea, probably changed the pacing that Gerry originally had in mind. That’s the only thing I can say that would explain the disengagement with the character at that time.

DISHAROON: Were you the original visual designer of Firehawk?

BRODERICK: Yes. DISHAROON: She’s really great. Did you have a particular model in mind?

BRODERICK: Ah! Well, I’ll tell you: her wings were the Vulture’s wings [from Amazing Spider-Man]. I was playing off Ditko’s character, because I love how he controlled the wings, and it was a perfect opportunity, developing her abilities…

DISHAROON: Yes, so cloak-like! Very prone to dramatic sweeping.

Always some interaction with her environment…

18 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

BRODERICK: I love playing with the flames, with both characters.

[With Firehawk,] I tend to extend them the furthest from her wings.

I’ve always played with the design of stuff. It was an easy mechanism to blend into what was going on in the scenery. I still do that, today, when I draw the Firestorm sketches, when I trail the fire off… just play with it.

DISHAROON: I love what you do with the postures, your body language of your characters. When we were talking about storytelling, what can an artist do to tell the story—you can just flip through those pages, and it brings a smile to my face! Like, right from the start, in issue #1, there he is, Firestorm, taking a nap on a cloud!

The contortions are still very normal human anatomy, but they’re very expressive, their body language and faces are really good. It’s part of what makes your work a cut above: not just dramatic angles, but your ability to show the things that make us human.

BRODERICK: Well, thank you.

DISHAROON: Sorry I couldn’t turn that into a question, Pat! Could’ve been a great quote.

BRODERICK: [laughter] I threw you off, didn’t I? DISHAROON: A simmering plot shapes the six or seven issues, culminating in the first Firestorm Annual. You must’ve known the Lorraine Reilly kidnapping—the by-play with Senator Reilly’s compromised position— fed into one big, subplotted superhero origin, right?

BRODERICK: I’ll tell you the truth… no! Gerry would not share anything that wasn’t necessary in his base outline for the next 12 issues. I would have the script in hand, and he’d tell me what he had in mind for the next issue. Gerry was very busy; Firestorm wasn’t the only property he was working on. For me at the time, I was doing storyboarding for local ad agencies—but it was a well-oiled machine.

DISHAROON: What’s this I’ve heard about your drawing “autographs,” small-scale layouts?

BRODERICK: When I worked at Continuity [Associates Studio] with Dick Giordano, Neal [Adams] would fold a sheet into, proportionately, a page quarter of a comic-book page size and do a full-page layout on that. When I was working on Firestorm, I was using the “autograph” as I was trained to do. I’d do very tight thumbnails, then blow that up, then draw them again. It was a very involved process.

The advantage of it was that you could throw any photograph from any source onto that same window in the autograph, use a

Bon Voyage (top) While George Tuska (inked by Rodin Rodriguez) drew this scene featuring the twisted industrialist Henry Hewitt in issue #17, (bottom) Pat Broderick—who had just vacated Fury of Firestorm to illustrate the Firestorm: Corona graphic novel—introduced Hewitt’s ironclad identity of Tokamak. Inks

by Giordano, art scan courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

photographic background, pull it up— DISHAROON: Ah, kind of light box it?

BRODERICK: Right, right, to save time… it wasn’t used exclusively in that respect.

DISHAROON: Any favorite Firestorm storylines?

BRODERICK: The Hyena storyline [issues #10–13], definitely. That, and the Pied Piper one [#5–6]. Those were two that were definitely favorites of mine to draw.

DISHAROON: Horror elements in both of those.

BRODERICK: Yeah!

DISHAROON: You have to admire how issue #13 provides the aftermath to the Hyena arc, while standing on its own merits. Here, Firestorm tracks the Hyena curse back to the village where Summer Day volunteered for the Peace Corps. Here’s a weird mix of American Werewolf in London-style terror, the gonzo Fire-wolfman’s casualness, and emotionally gripping pathos, when the conflict between the estranged brothers leads to the slaughter of a village. [Editor’s note: Leaping lycanthropy! During that arc, Firestorm becomes a were-hyena.]

So… any favorite covers?

BRODERICK: You’re gonna hate me, but… the Hyena covers, and the Pied Piper. I liked #6’s more than #5’s.

The Hyena covers, because Dick [Giordano] and inhouse staff used a nice photographic background where I’d left it negative for them, so they could find something, or just paint it in with a nighttime sky. I thought what they did with it made it really outstanding.

DISHAROON: Where the Hyena’s stalking Firestorm up on the ledge, right [#10]?

BRODERICK: Yeah. The previous one I did in-house because we were flown in for meetings. “While you’re here, Pat, I’d like to get a cover from you.” I was like, “Really? Okay…” That was the “Firestorm-Hyena howling at the moon” one [#12]. It came unexpected.

I did a nice job on it.

They had more time to think it out when they asked me to do the next one. I thought the city background came out nice.

DISHAROON: Sounds like issue #13 was a favorite, with Ronnie conversing dramatically with everyone while he’s got a hyena’s head. It plays the absurdity straight.

BRODERICK: That was the best way I felt to handle it: how Gerry wrote it.

DISHAROON: Any favorite characters to draw?

BRODERICK: I enjoyed the Pied Piper, and Multiplex…

I really enjoyed the Mulitplex issue [#15].

DISHAROON: Normally, you’d be drawing just the one guy; with Multiplex, there’s one personality, but different postures and aspects of the same person. Intriguing idea!

BRODERICK: It posed challenges. I did a multitude of figures, so it became a design issue, to work them in. Also, to keep, instead of them just being static… the same character in the background, doing something different.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 19

FURY OF FIRESTORM ARTIST RAFAEL KAYANAN

DISHAROON: How did you get the Firestorm assignment?

A real-life weapons expert, Rafael Kayanan was a student at the RAFAEL KAYANAN: I attended this local Tampa convention, and Pat Ringling School of Art and Design in Florida when, at age 21 after Broderick was the guest. The guy who ran the con took a liking to his first year at the school, he was recruited by DC Comics to draw my samples, showed [them] to Pat, and Pat asked if he could show The Fury of Firestorm, beginning with issue #20 (Feb. 1984). At this it DC because he was planning to move on to another project. It was crucial point of transformation, the artistry of Kayanan’s debut in rather surreal because I only wanted to show my samples to get issue #20 presents a storytelling high point. Killer Frost returns— critiqued by the pros there. I did that for years; I would welcome the tips pros gave and work on them as soon as I could. There was her fourth time around now!—directly on the heels of no internet, so knowledge into this art form was like learning Firehawk’s origin. how to perfect one’s magic tricks.

Kayanan’s first two new antagonists in the ConwaySo days go by, I’m back in the grind of art school written book were females, each who would be paired with male villains: Byte (issue #23), of Bug projects. Back then the dorm was a refurbished and Byte, and Silver Deer (#25), who is the prime military barracks from the ’50s. [In] the dorms were mover in the return of Black Bison! He also first kids who either loved painting rural landscapes, or kids heavy into metal or punk. Not many even read or drew supporting-cast member Felicity Smoak (#23), known to the television audience of the knew much about comic books, except a few.

CW’s Arrow, and Slipknot (#28), seen on the big The school focused on the fine arts at that time. screen in 2016’s Suicide Squad. Rodin Rodriguez, So I was really thinking about whether art school was whose inks were very familiar to DC readers from even for me. Suddenly, I get a knock on my room his work on The Flash, Batman, and Arion, Lord of door. “Some guy from DC Comics is on the phone!”

Atlantis, was kept on board Firestorm to maintain I thought it was a prank, but Dick Giordano really rafael kayanan a stylistic consistency between Broderick and did call me at the one shared dorm phone booth!

Kayanan, although the Kayanan/Rodriguez team DC flew me up to interview. The first pro artist I would not stay together for long. ran into at the offices was Gil Kane. That put things into perspecBeyond Firestorm, the Filipino-born Kayanan went on, as a penciler tive! He said very optimistic things about the time to get into the and/or inker, to amass an impressive list of credits including First business.

Same with meeting Neal Adams the next day. When I returned Comics’ Hawkmoon, America vs. the Justice Society, Conan the Adventurer, Magic: The Gathering, Turok, the Eisner Award-nominated to Florida, the rest of my year in school was a blur. I had a job Chiaroscuro: The Life and Times of Leonardo Da Vinci, as well as illustrations drawing comics! for video games and collectible cards.

DISHAROON: Were you and Rodin the first comics artists to depict what became cyberspace?

KAYANAN: I had to draw the Bug and Byte issue and I knew no one who owned a personal computer in Robert E. Lee county Florida during the early ’80s, until I drove by this brand-new shop and found out the guys who owned it were former high school buddies. They gave me a quick lesson on the basics of one and handed me a bunch of catalogs. Off I went and designed Byte’s monitor face and Bug with that huge egg-shaped headpiece. A year or so ago, I realized that issue predated the printing of Neuromancer. Bug and Byte are literally the first cyberpunks! DC Streaming could really reboot and expand on these IPs today!

DISHAROON: Rafael, what did you find most difficult in your first professional strip?

KAYANAN: Anything that involved a basketball game—it was just a time suck, drawing crowds or cheating angles for the limited space. Certain New York landmarks would be a whole trip to the local community college, just photocopying references for the issue. We’re talking many years before personal computers. There was no search engine of reference images back then. I had to build up my reference files, buy Vogue magazines [for fashion reference] and have those perfume-y cards filling up the whole studio, men’s mags—I really hated those scented cards—to me, Ronnie smelled like someone doused him with Drakkar Noir! [laughs]

Smoak on the Water Gerry Conway, Rafael Kayanan, and Rodin Rodriguez introduce Felicity Smoak in the pages of Fury of Firestorm #23 (May 1984). (inset) The character, played by actress Emily Bett Rickards, has gone on to a much larger profile on the CW’s Arrow and in the TV Arrowverse.

TM & © DC Comics.

20 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

My Name is URL Gerry Conway and Rafael Kayanan took Fury of Firestorm readers into cyberspace with our hero’s clash with Bug and Byte in issues #23 and 24. Inked by Rodin Rodiguez and Romeo Tanghal, respectively.

TM & © DC Comics.

DISHAROON: During his Bug and Byte adventure, thanks to some advice from Martin Stein, Firestorm blunders his way into the path of Felicity Smoak, whose software shipment is magnetically ruined. What are your comments on this breakout supporting character?

KAYANAN: Felicity is a much larger character than I ever imagined, ever. I recall this character being written to purely create conflict in Ronnie’s storyline.

That Gerry was way ahead of many writers on the future of software and computing as industries allowed her to evolve and fit into the DC CW Universe.

Just great foresight by the producers to recognize her potential.

DISHAROON: Did you help shape Felicity?

KAYANAN: Here’s where details get foggy. On a monthly, if you’re lucky, you’re just really in the zone and the series becomes one big story. I would bet that Gerry had a lot more to do with the character than I did. I was still a young kid learning the ropes.

As far as other subplots and major twists in the story—I just let Gerry do his thing. It’s different if you have more than one book under you, or you’ve been in the biz a while. I focused on just drawing the visuals and improving. My own personal goal was to improve every issue whether one saw it on the books or not. I wanted to learn more and keep gathering knowledge.

I would still got to cons and have my portfolio reviewed at that time. I did that for several years, I really did not care about my ego getting hurt. It was the purest way to get an initial take from a fellow pro whose work I admired. I finally stopped around the early ’90s when John Romita, Sr. saw my work and said, “This is real art” (concerning pages from this Dante’s Inferno book I wanted to do).

He then took it to Stan Lee to have a look at a con in Chicago. It was surreal.

But after they gave their very positive feedback, I felt that I could just continue learning on my own. I was already 12 years into the biz. It was now just focusing on what else I want to challenge myself with.

DISHAROON: You drew Fury of Firestorm for a couple of years, Annuals included, but left after issue #44 (Feb. 1986), although you returned for a double-length story in the anniversary issue, #50 (Aug. 1986). Why did you leave the book?

KAYANAN: I transitioned out of Firestorm after being very appreciative with landing such a fun job; there were changes in editors, writers, and the stylistic clash with various inkers pretty much pushed me to seek other projects [see sidebar]. I ended up being represented by Star*Reach talent agency under former writer Mike Friedrich. He also repped Gerry Conway, who would briefly venture into First Comics when Mike Gold was there.

It was a sad day leaving DC at that time, back then I really felt that Dick Giordano took a risk on me, that Pat Broderick saw something as well. Of course, Gerry was

A FIRESTORM OF CHANGES The Fury of Firestorm penciler Rafael Kayanan remarks in this issue’s interview how the title’s frequently changing inkers led to his exodus. In the mid-1980s, the book itself was a revolving door of creative personnel.

Gerry Conway, its writer-editor, brought in Joey Cavalieri and Paul Kupperberg for scripting assists, with Cavalieri solo-writing several issues. Firestorm was reassigned editorially from Conway to Gerry’s former associate editor, Janice Race, and before long both Paul Kupperberg and Denny O’Neil edited the title. Embellisher Rodin Rodriguez left the book, with several inkers being paired with Kayanan over this period: Romeo Tanghal, Pablo Marcos, Alan Kupperberg, Ian Akin and Brian Garvey, and Mike Machlan.

The book’s title also was in a state of flux. With issue #50 the cover had dropped the “The Fury of” prefix and was rebranded as Firestorm the Nuclear Man, although it remained officially titled The Fury of Firestorm until issue #65, at which time it became Firestorm the Nuclear Man for the duration of its run, until its last issue, #100 (Aug. 1990).

– Michael Eury Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 21

so fun to work with. I’d get the weekly phone call or so and we’d talk briefly on what might be happening in the upcoming issues, but really, I was just focusing on evolving and getting better every issue, even if it may not have fully translated on to the finished inks. I still enjoyed what Romeo Tanghal did—really slick and polished. There’s also the brushy renderings of Akin and Garvey. The closest to my pencils was, of course, Dick Giordano—I loved what he did on the covers. The cover work and Gerry’s stories kept me on the book [during my stay].

DISHAROON: What can you say about Firestorm in hindsight?

KAYANAN: For me, Firestorm represents a wonderful time in my life. If you want something and you work on it, then everything will fall into place the way it should. You can’t fail if you are already living the dream. It was the spark to so many future experiences. I can see how easily one could maintain drawing the same book in the same style forever. However, I always like changes and challenges. The same way Firestorm was really two personas—that was me. Too much energy to stay within one book.

THE DEPARTURE OF GERRY CONWAY

Rafael Kayanan wasn’t the only creator to segue off of The Fury of Firestorm. The Nuclear Man’s own creator even began an exit strategy.

In Comics Interview #21, in 1984, Conway spoke to David Anthony Kraft about gradually leaving his creation: DAVID ANTHONY KRAFT: But you have been cutting back your comics work lately.

GERRY CONWAY: I’ve had to cut back in order to do the best work I can… So I’ve cut back in my formal commitments, and I’m trying to focus on the production of my regular assignments, my regular books.

KRAFT: You dropped Firestorm, right?

CONWAY: I dropped it as the full writer. I’m going to continue being the editor for several issues, and Carla [Conway] and I will be working

on it, together. She’s finished a play recently… Dick [Giordano] has given me permission to use her or anyone else I want as co-writer.

To be honest, I feel a little burned out on the character. After all, I created him with Al Milgrom almost eight years ago, and off-and-on, I’ve been writing it for three years. After the climax in the Annual and some of the subplots last summer, I found myself sort of flailing about for a direction to take the book. I’ve been beating my brains to come up with something, but I didn’t have a real hunger to do any of the storylines that I came up with. So I had to either quit the book and be fair to the character, and to myself, or come up with a way to do it with fresh input.

Denny O’Neil, Firestorm’s editor beginning in 1986, told the Fantagraphics comic zine Amazing Heroes at the time, when Firestorm’s run was in its mid-#50s: “Firestorm will be going off in new directions…

Some of the central elements of the character that have been around since the beginning will go away.”

Amazing Heroes also reported, “O’Neil hinted that the major subplot involving Professor Stein dying (from brain cancer) is very much involved. He also adds that new writer John Ostrander will be looking at Firestorm as if he were real, and how people would actually react to this flame-haired superhero.

“This sounds suspiciously like Legends [DC’s post-Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, occurring in late 1986—ed.], and O’Neil admits that this was facilitated by the book crossing over with Firestorm, especially since writer John Ostrander wrote them both.”

FIRESTORM, THE NUCLEAR MAN WRITER JOHN OSTRANDER

John Ostrander had made a name for himself in Chicago theater circles when he jumped to comics as the writer of Chicagobased First Comics’ Grimjack series [covered way back in BACK ISSUE #9—ed.]. After being recruited to DC with the line-wide crossover Legends, Ostrander began a long Firestorm writing stint with issue #55 (Jan. 1987). Suicide Squad—for which John created its taskmistress, Amanda Waller, a significant addition to the DC Universe— john ostrander Manhunter, The Spectre, Hawkworld, Martian Manhunter, and other DC work would follow from Ostrander, as would scripts for other publishers on properties as diverse as Marvel’s X-Men titles and Dark Horse’s Star Wars franchise.

In the wake of Legends, Ostrander’s socio-political version of Firestorm now echoed DC’s turn towards a more mature audience. Firestorm’s new writer would follow the chain of events from Legends to strange new iterations of Hot-Head that became stranger yet.

DISHAROON: What did editor Mike Gold ask you to accomplish when you came aboard to DC to do Legends?

JOHN OSTRANDER: He sort of laid it out for me. Now, Legends was the first [company-wide] miniseries after Crisis on Infinite Earths, which was a 12-issue run. He said he wanted to do this one in six.

Crisis sort of blew up the DC Universe, took things apart. Our goal was to bring it back more together, and to launch some new books, as well.

So Legends would show how the new, single DC Universe worked together.

DISHAROON: What were you thinking as Legends opened up the opportunity for you to do Firestorm?

OSTRANDER: I was surprised! Basically, I was asked to do the fill-ins, because Gerry Conway really didn’t want to get involved. Since I had plotted the Legends stories, it was presumed I’d know how to tie into it. I knew it was two issues; that’s what I was promised at the time—but I was glad to do it.

Stormy and Hawk The blossoming relationship between the Nuclear Man and Firehawk, penciled by Kayanan and inked by Rodriguez, from issue #26 (Aug. 1984). Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

22 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

A Guest Who Lingered John Ostrander’s first Fury of Firestorm issue—#55— labeled him as a “guest writer,” but he stuck around for the duration of the series and revolutionized the book and its star. (inset) This Joe Brozowski/Giordano variant cover for Fury of Firestorm #61 (July 1987)—note the Superman illo supplanting the DC bullet—was a test market edition distributed into select areas.

TM & © DC Comics.

I’d been doing stuff over at First Comics. So this was my first venture into the Big Two at the time. Of course, I wanted to make a good impression—I always want to do good work, whatever I’m working on. I was hoping it would lead to other projects.

All I was guaranteed was Legends—and at that point, we knew we were doing a Suicide Squad book. Mike suggested we use Legends as a launch platform, so the first time the Suicide Squad appeared was in Legends.

DISHAROON: So Denny O’Neil had recently returned to DC as an editor, and since he was asked to edit Firestorm, he kept you on after Conway bowed out. What was it like, working with Denny?

OSTRANDER: He listened and liked my ideas.

Denny has a very light touch as an editor, at least if he feels like you know what you’re doing.

DISHAROON: I see his influence. Your approach was very theme-oriented, while superhero writing tended to be about useful tropes.

OSTRANDER: Denny shows how you can write about things, but make it still a superhero comic.

He said, “You say anything you want, so long as it serves a good story.”

Theme is tied to plot; you don’t separate them. You let the action explore the theme. You don’t write answers, you explore a subject.

You explore different aspects and the best way to do that is through your characters. Theme—like the Force!—ties it all together.

DISHAROON: Was Dr. Stein’s terminal cancer the impetus for the more serious tone that emerges in your “No More Nukes” stories?

OSTRANDER: When I got [the Firestorm assignment], it was a given that Dr. Stein had inoperable cancer of the brain. So I wondered: How will I work with this? We followed it through to its logical conclusion and have him die.

But what’s that going to do to Firestorm? A question like that always fascinates me. What’s going to happen next? In so doing it, we put the readers on their toes. Don’t take anything for granted here; we’re going to do things that perhaps you didn’t think we’d do. Like in Suicide Squad!

I wanted to establish throughout that any of them could die.

DISHAROON: So with two alter egos, you’re in the position where at least one of them could perish! What other book even has that opportunity? It also opened the door to creating Mikhail Arkadin (first seen in issue #64)—who replaced Stein as the other half of Firestorm’s persona—and that entire cast and their possibilities.

I’m interested in the unique follow-through, what happens when adding Firehawk or, let’s just take Arkadin, who’s also known as the Russian superhero Pohzar. Mikhail has a passing resemblance to the cerebral physicist Stein, but comes with a different set of relationships.

OSTRANDER: Yes, that started while [penciler] Joe Brozowski was on the book. To start off with, the reason for adding someone who was Russian: it was a time of Glasnost, when Russia was about to fall, and no longer our archenemy, as they had been for decades, but changing. So, create characters who humanize the Russians, and hopefully readers will identify. They had a mixture of both good and bad. Making Mikhail Arkadin the new half of Firestorm seemed another step forward. This also had the effect of making readers think, “Well, Martin Stein is really gone!” That was my intention at the time, to never bring him back.

DISHAROON: So you’re handed this equation now with a more mature Ronnie. Previously, he’d been susceptible to the sort of immortal thinking of youth, while he’s now had an important brush with mortality. Yet, you still have the impetuousness: taking on the world’s nuclear complications.

He sees, and wants to solve, the problem—without anticipating the equation of world’s political powers, and the consequences.

OSTRANDER: It was always a question that had occurred to me. If we had all these superheroes and their powers, and one of the great threats to the world is nuclear arms, then, rather than the umpteenth battle with Brainiac—why don’t they do something about nuclear weapons?

Since I had a very strong character with Firestorm, I had the chance to play with that. As you said, actions have consequences, and that’s something that also goes through my books. I don’t keep things in a status quo; I like to show things evolve.

DISHAROON: True—and this was a way to continue Gerry’s process with the callow youth Ronnie began as, and take him over the threshold of adulthood in a major way. Nothing like the death of someone close to you awakens the value of our life, the appreciation we have for our loved ones and all life. Maybe it gets us to think about the future of the world, in a way people do not, always— in particular, our own Ronnie Raymond!

OSTRANDER: Right! It wasn’t something he would think about, and that’s also very reasonable, given how old he was at the time.

Nothing could grow you up like the death of someone you’re close to, and you couldn’t get much closer than Ron and Martin!

DISHAROON: Molecularly! They shared the same space!

OSTRANDER: Literally, yeah!

DISHAROON: An unusual intimacy. Imagine, having nowhere to hide your own thoughts. Wow. That sort of transparency allows for a different story.

OSTRANDER: Again, I felt I took what I was given, exploring it further.

Without exploring what might reasonably happen next, the reader Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 23

Russian Roulette (left) Ostrander, with Joe Brozowski and Sam de la Rosa, introduced Mikhail (Pozhar) Arkadin in this scene in (top middle) #64 (Oct. 1987), guest-starring the Suicide Squad. (bottom middle and right) In Firestorm #83 (Mar. 1989), Ostrander, with Tom Grindberg and de la Rosa, adds the Russian Firestorm clone Svarozhich to the mythos.

TM & © DC Comics.

might lose identification with a character that’s stuck in a narrative loop, rather than the next cycle of his own life.

DISHAROON: The comics publishing industry was at a key point of wrestling with the illusion of change. Can they go through adventures that make them a different person? Like the death of Gwen Stacy, making Peter Parker a different person.

OSTRANDER: It was in that shake-up atmosphere post-Crisis that opened DC to ideas.

DISHAROON: By adding Arkadin, you now had a person with different concerns than Ronnie or Dr. Stein. Mikhail was a father and husband with a family: Nina, the children, even his niece, Serafina (first seen in issue #69), as the telepath Firebird, who founded and mentored the young costumed super-team, Soyuz (#70), named for Russian mythology figures. With Soyuz, you used the Soviet culture to explore that New Mutants-type aesthetic.

You also wrote some of the first and most effective government-sponsored operatives. You saw this explosion of such operatives afterwards.

OSTRANDER: You could also credit a zeitgeist, you know, in looking at the whole genre in a slightly different way, of DC being open to new things. DC was very supportive at that point: a lot of that was due to Dick Giordano.

I liked the idea, through Arkadin, the whole notion of a superhero having a family. Certainly there was a long period where Ronnie’s father didn’t know [about his son’s double life]. Often in life, there’re no siblings, just the one person [orphan heroes].

DISHAROON: I want to mention Stalnoivolk (introduced in Firestorm #67)—the Russian super-agent also known as Steel Wolf, who was created by Stalin during World War II—as a great antagonist for dealing with our perception of life in the Soviet Union. Stalnoivolk accidentally killed the Aviator, Ronnie Raymond’s adventurer grandfather, adding a personal conflict that pushed Firestorm to the limit morally.

OSTRANDER: That’s the thing about supporting characters: they’re meant to draw out aspects of our main cast.

DISHAROON: With Stalnoivolk, you imagine being programmed, shed of free will and openness. This also recessed the bad guys a little further off the stage. It put them in the shadows in a precisely government-metaphor kind of way. This allowed us to see this Russian agent, after a year or so of Stalnoivolk terrorizing everyone, with a sympathetic shade. That might allow us to empathize with people who are programmed, in some way— 24 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

even by their complicit self-inception—in tribal, mindless, ritual-based thinking. The sympathetic villain is one of your best creations, because he helps us understand people with whom we don’t want to empathize.

OSTRANDER: I don’t believe any human being is a monster, per se…

It’s an effort to distance ourselves from them—some aspect in you that can be like that.

DISHAROON: Any instances of an epiphany—any roads you pursued because of reader feedback?

OSTRANDER: Well, readers let you know how effective your efforts are. I follow an idea as far as it can go, sometimes meeting with two or three paths. But it must proceed organically. Like when I didn’t plan to bring back Martin Stein—until I did!

DISHAROON: Let’s talk about the Fire Elemental phase for the character.

You introduced Svarozhich, a Russian clone of Firestorm, in issue #83 (Mar. 1989), and he soon became this incarnation of the Nuclear Man. Did longtime Firestorm artist Tom Grindberg create the Svarozhich Firestorm look?

OSTRANDER: I told him what I had in mind, and he ran with it. I was tired of the Bunsen Burner look and wanted something more flowing and natural. That’s also why the bare feet, too!

At that time, there’s also a lot of elementals at DC… Swamp Thing, Red Tornado. It seemed like Firestorm would be the Fire Elemental.

DISHAROON: “The Elemental War”—which I suspect is the most remembered storyline in the later run—really brought all of that home, because of the visual dynamics. Tom Mandrake, who was the Firestorm artist by this time, drew splash pages on an epic scale out of Norse Eddas, that really conveyed the smallness of being human in the presence of these entities.

What were you thinking when you brought in a Maya (Earth Mother) character, to speak to Firestorm: Would he be the fire to purge the Earth, or a light to its life?

OSTRANDER: This was basically an interpretation of Earth as our mother. Through her interaction with him, we posited to our readers: How could Firestorm possibly be anything but the good guy?

DISHAROON: Firestorm was not generally considered frightening in his earlier incarnation. I think of your Firestorm as a scary outlaw!

There were some questions about this inside Firestorm himself.

Readers soon didn’t take for granted that he was going to do the right thing… Firestorm has to come to it.

Big Blowhard (top) Elementals Red Tornado and the new Firestorm face off on this signed Mandrake original cover to issue #91, from the Heritage archives. (bottom) Tom Mandrake is partial to Firestorm #95 (Mar. 1990), in which he and John Ostrander started the Shango/gods of Africa storyline.

TM & © DC Comics.

OSTRANDER: Yeah. When you have the possibility of the character making a choice that you might not agree with. If there’s a choice to be made, and you don’t assume that it’s going to be the right choice, then, the character’s more interesting… more compelling.

DISHAROON: I think the Eden story was one of the most evocative stories of the ’80s, regarding the path paved with good intentions. You even revisit it as a redemption arc.

OSTRANDER: Particularly, Firestorm has these powers of transmutation. Why can’t he go to the Sahara, or an Ethiopia ravaged by drought—and create an Eden?

If he did that, what sort of change could he make in the world? Obviously, he thinks he’ll create a positive one. But he also creates a place, valuable to people who want to control it.

DISHAROON: There’s a fundamental paradox of America: With its vastness and rich resources, it could’ve provided for everyone.

The Earth provides trillions of dollars of minerals, water, etc., but people make possessions of them. People don’t send military forces to fight over a place barren of resources. Something in the name of power influences all conflicts, even while we strive for humanitarian purposes.

OSTRANDER: It’s also a metaphor for how the US—sometimes with the best of intentions—meddles around the world. Ideology can turn things to ruin.

DISHAROON: So many Firestorm villains joined the Suicide Squad.

OSTRANDER: Mostly, pragmatic. I was writing both books, so I had access to those villains, so I didn’t have to ask other tom mandrake writers and editors, submit for them [to appear in Suicide Squad].

DISHAROON: I notice a number of mythological or archetypal © Luigi Novi / villains in Firestorm, like Pan, Typhoon, and the Water Elemental, Wikimedia Commons.

Naiad. Talk to me about bringing Africa into the book. It hit me: Hyena’s origin tied there, too!

OSTRANDER: The African tales and myths fascinated me—every bit as rich as Thor, and Asgard. They had their own thunder god, god of war, in Shango, so every since I started in comics, I wanted to play with them. My interest in myth fed my interest in Africa.

AND A CONCLUDING COMMENT FROM FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MAN ARTIST TOM MANDRAKE

Beginning in the mid-1980s, New Talent Showcase graduate Tom Mandrake quickly made his mark at DC on a varied body of work including Spanner’s Galaxy, Batman and Detective Comics, Swamp Thing, and Shazam!: The New Beginning.

He has often collaborated with John Ostrander on works including First Comics’ Grimjack, plus DC’s Martian Manhunter and The Spectre… as well as the final issues (#86–100) of Firestorm the Nuclear Man. DISHAROON: What are some of your favorite character designs, issues, and scenes from your Firestorm stint?

TOM MANDRAKE: I worked hard on Shango and the gods of Africa storyline.

My favorite issue? #95 (Mar. 1990), the start of that storyline. All that being said, my favorite scene might be back in #92, when Firestorm and the other elementals including Swamp Thing meet up.

Songwriter CECIL DISHAROON’s (shown here with Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Marina Sirtis) life-uprooting bus ride ended in SDCC International’s neighborhood. Personable meetings with industry legends inspired Integr8d Soul Comics. Those talks continue on Creating Marvels on Podbean. Armed daily with plushies, piano, and spare wits, Cecil tutors ESL students online.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 25

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

Bad Company (top) Radioactive Man as one of the Masters of Evil in Avengers #6 (July 1964), from Lee/Kirby/Chic Stone. (bottom) Stainless Steve Englehart teamed Chen Lu with some malevolent metal men in Avengers #130 (Dec. 1974).

Cover by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum, interior art by Sal Buscema and Joe Staton.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

the Lady Liberators. Dr. Chen Lu and the other makers called the Titanic Three. The political Masters of Evil, who were defeated by Earth’s climate in Vietnam brought them together, Mightiest Heroes in #54–55, sought to settle at least for a while. In fact, Chen Lu even their score with the team. The Lady states that the superpower governments Liberators show that they are just as of the time could not touch the fugitives- turned-heroes without tough as, if not tougher than, their male counterparts with Radioactive political complications. However, perhaps deep down, Radioactive Man receiving a beating thanks Man always wanted to be a hero to Wanda (Scarlet Witch) Maximoff’s of the people, no matter which hex powers.

Was his defeat at the hands country he lived in, even if his of the Scarlet Witch serious blow pride often got in the way. to Lu’s pride? Well, every time he Whatever the case may have lost to his foes could be described been for Chen Lu then, writer Steve in such a way. Radioactive Man Englehart showed Avengers was most likely seen as failure readers that the concepts of heroes by his own people. It was possibly and villains was a matter of steve englehart for this reason he didn’t return perspective. Iron Man and Thor, to China after escaping the steveenglehart.com. as the latter and the Titanic United States. Instead, Lu makes Vietnam his Three tell the former, are perceived the bad guys home in Avengers #130 (Dec. 1974) and Iron in Communist postwar Vietnam. Englehart also Man #74 (May 1975). He, Titanium Man, and tells BACK ISSUE his reasons for choosing which Crimson Dynamo become a new trio of trouble- characters would be part of the Titanic Three:

28 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

Jabberjaws (top) Radioactive Man rebukes Tiger Shark in this sequence from Avengers #228 (Feb. 1983). (bottom) In the next issue, the blustery Dr. Chen Lu charges toward the avenging Dr. Hank Pym. Written by Roger Stern, with art by Al Milgrom and Brett Breeding.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

““I never got any deeper into Radioactive Man and the others than what you see on the page. I had no larger plans for them and no larger picture of their psyches. I just needed a group to take on the Avengers.”

Englehart adds, “And these guys all seemed to have roughly equal and complementary powers, so they’d make a sensible group. And the real story was about Kang coming back at the end, so the Titanic Three just had to make a good story that could then be topped.”

A petty thief in a costume full of blades calling himself the Slasher uses the animosity between the Titanic Three and the Avengers against them to provide a distraction for his smuggling jewels. Yet when the truth comes out, the Slasher is put in his place, and both superhuman groups go their separate ways with the Titanic Three defeated by Kang in Giant-Size Avengers #4 and placed under house arrest and at each other’s throats in Iron Man #74. Both Giant-Size Avengers #4 and Iron Man #74, according the site Mike’s Amazing World of Comics, were released on the same day, February 25, 1975.

Nothing else is known of the fate of the Titanic Three as a team. It’s assumed that Titanium Man, Crimson Dynamo, and Radioactive Man went about their own business after serving their sentence in Vietnam. Dr. Chen Lu was not seen for some time after his association with the Titanic Three. He may have been working on radiation experiments while waiting for the proper time to strike back at those he believed humiliated him.

Another trait that Dr. Chen Lu has is one he shares with most scientists, his curiosity. This is a quality to which he implies when speaking to Elihas Starr, also known as Henry Pym’s old foe Egghead, in Avengers #228 (Feb. 1983). Starr sent Lu a letter asking him to join the new Masters of Evil. He saw this as a quest for knowledge and a way to heal his wounded pride, which had suffered from the numerous defeats at the hands of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

The entire “Trial of Henry Pym” story in Avengers #228–230 is all about vendetta. Egghead wants to sully the reputation of Hank Pym, and he uses Radioactive Man’s thirst for knowledge and vengeance as one of the means to do that. Lu and the other Masters of Evil kidnap Pym while he is in court. A battle with the Avengers ensues, with Radioactive Man draining the gamma radiation from She-Hulk, forcing her to revert to Jennifer Walters. An entranced Shocker tells the Avengers that Pym engineered his own escape, but the truth is later discovered by a mind-scanner created by Tony Stark.

Pym, meanwhile, singlehandedly defeats the Masters of Evil, not as Ant-Man, Giant-Man, or Yellowjacket, but as Dr. Henry Pym. He uses his intelligence and ingenuity to bring down an entire group of supervillains. This is yet another blow to Chen Lu’s ego.

Avengers scribe Roger Stern tells BACK ISSUE how he perceived Radioactive Man, while giving his reasons for putting him in the Masters of Evil seen in “The Trial of Henry Pym”: Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 29

How About a Simple “No Thank You” Next Time? (left) Radioactive Man’s not in a talkative mood on this page from Iron Man #179 (Feb. 1984), during the James Rhodes-as-Iron Man phase. By Denny O’Neil/Luke McDonnell/Steve Mitchell. (right) Radioactive Man (and his criminal cronies) weren’t taken seriously by scribe Simon Furman in this sequence from Sensational She-Hulk #24 (Feb. 1991).

Art by Bryan Hitch and John Beatty.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

“He struck me as arrogant but calculating, Could Chen Lu have wandered into our universe? someone who liked to be in control, but who One shudders at the thought. was willing to play along with others, as long Radioactive Man went solo after his last as it suited his own purposes. experience with the Masters of Evil. He returned “Re-introducing the Radioactive to China, became a henchman for the Man was my idea,” Stern continues.

Mandarin, and worked for Stane “I wanted to include one of the International to help finance his original Masters of Evil in the radiation experiments in Iron Man #179–181 and 234, group. But the villainous Black respectively. The first three Knight and the first Baron comics show Lu under the Zemo were dead, and the Melter was kind of a joke.

Mandarin’s control. This could The Radioactive Man, on the be due to the villain’s rings’ other hand, was a powerful powers. Yet it could also be that threat—and played off well Lu felt an obligation to save his against the [gamma-radiationcountry, and the Mandarin spawned] She-Hulk.” was the means in which he On an interesting side note, believed he could do so. roger stern around the time Stern was Iron Man #234 (Sept. 1984) bringing Egghead’s Masters of saw Lu at last attempting to Evil together, the New York Post had the drain radiation from Spider-Man in his quest headline “Radioactive Man Loose in City.” for more knowledge. Iron Man saved Spidey, According to Stern, someone had broken into who returned the favor during Shellhead’s fight the freight depot of JFK Airport and stolen some with Radioactive Man. Lu was beaten. Yet that packages. Among the parcels were radioactive wasn’t the last we saw of him. Dr. Chen Lu was isotopes. The Post urged the thief to turn about to get another chance to be a hero in himself in for radiation-poisoning treatment. the next stage of his career.

30 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

RADIOACTIVE THUNDER

Mean, Green Fighting Machine

Radioactive Man and other baddies try to take a mysterious vase Radioactive Man mixes it up with Sub-Mariner on this Tom from She-Hulk in issue #24 (Feb. 1991) of her Sensational title.

Grummett/Gary Erskine cover to New Thunderbolts #9.

He was silently a part of Marvel’s Heroes Reborn titles, and he worked as a bodyguard for Tiberius Stone in 2001–2002’s Iron TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Man #37-40 and Wolverine #170. Lu most likely did all these to gain funds for his experiments. Yet he also could have been seeking a path to redemption for his past. He found what he sought with others like him, former bad guys seeking to do good.

As mentioned earlier, the concepts of hero and villain are a matter of perception. Many of the men and women in Marvel Comics have been on both sides of those fences.

Dr. Chen Lu is an example of such a character. He had a taste of being a hero in the graphic novel Avengers/Death Trap: The Vault, in which he stops a nuclear reactor’s meltdown, and Avengers #130. However, he truly got the chance to do good when he joined the Thunderbolts after Atlantean terrorists attacked China and the United Nations building in 2005’s New Thunderbolts #3.

Of Radioactive Man’s place in the Thunderbolts and the Marvel Universe, writer Fabian Nicieza tells BACK ISSUE, “It was actually [original Thunderbolts scribe] Kurt Busiek’s roster choices that launched New Thunderbolts, not mine.

I purposely wanted to stay out of that because I was worried I would lean too heavily into characters that I had an emotional attachment for after having written Thunderbolts for basically 50 issues. I never would have picked characters like Radioactive Man or Joystick, so I’m really glad that I stayed out of that and let Kurt decide along with editor Tom Brevoort. Once I had him on the book, I really enjoyed having to understand what his role would be.

“I read as many back-issue appearances [of Radioactive Man] as I had in my own collection,” Nicieza recalls.

“Because he had appeared so many times in so many titles, I didn’t have them all, but I wanted to get a feel for how he had been best portrayed (and portrayed poorly as well). I saw the hook that had been established that his radioactive surges had dictated whether you portrayed him as a raving maniac or a smart, conflicted ideologue. I preferred the smart, conflicted, ideologue, so that’s the direction I went.”

Nicieza goes on to discuss his views on Chen Lu’s psychological mindset: “I think he is a brilliant man who was never very well versed fabian nicieza in social interactions. I think he was raised— intelligent as he is—in a belief system that © Luigi Novi / made him blind to other ideological points of Wikimedia Commons. view, whether they be forms of government, religion, history, or cultural. He had spent so much of his adult life being ‘the other,’ seeking to please ruling masters (who would never be pleased and would always see him as the other), that by the time he got to the T-Bolts, he was ready For Precious. Thank you for all the love and laughter you gave our entire family.

Dedicated to my beautiful and incredible wife Laura, who created a nuclear meltdown and willing to look for something new.” in my heart; Pupino, Odino, and our four-legged Masters of Mischief; my nephew Radioactive Man’s time with the Thunderbolts led to his Kento, who could truly deflect Thor’s hammer; and Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, helping Reed Richards and Hank Pym build a prison for heroes John and Sal Buscema, Steve Englehart, Roger Stern, Al Milgrom, Fabian Nicieza, and all and villains who defied the Superhuman Registration Act in the creators past, present, and future in Radioactive Man’s attempts to find his place in Marvel’s 2006–2007 Civil War crossover. He eventually became the Marvel Universe. May Uatu always look out for all of you. disheartened with the Thunderbolts when he learned his government’s true intentions for his joining the team. They wanted JAMES HEATH LANTZ is a freelance writer who was heavily him away from China to prevent further deaths caused by his influenced by television, film, old-time radio shows, powers. Chen Lu remained with the Thunderbolts in spite of and books—especially comic books—growing up in Ohio. this until Norman Osborn had him deported during the Skrulls’ He’s co-authored Roy Thomas Presents Captain Video Secret Invasion. He became part of the People’s Defense Force, with Roy Thomas. He also wrote the introductions for and later, more recently, worked for villains plaguing the All-New Pre-Code Classics: Weird Mysteries Volumes One and Two and Roy Thomas Presents Sheena - Queen of the All-Different Avengers.

Even before he became Radioactive Man, Chen Lu has been trying to find his place in the Marvel Universe of Earth-616.

Let’s hope he finds it one day, be it with a team of heroes or villains, or working solo on either side of the spectrum.

Jungle Volume Three (published by PS Artbooks), self-published his Trilogy of Tales e-book (available at Smashwords.com and other outlets), and reviews various media for Superman Homepage. James currently lives in Italy with his wife Laura and their family of cats, dogs, and humans from Italy, Japan, and the United States.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 31

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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

34 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

ROBERT MENZIES: What was your first work for Marvel, Dave?

DAVE GIBBONS: It was actually lettering. Anytime you see words like “colour” or “honour” or “centre” in the first 20 or so issues of The Mighty World of Marvel, chances are, I re-did the teeny, tiny lettering!

[Interviewer’s note: Publication of MWOM #1–20 encompasses October 7, 1972 through February 17, 1973.]

MENZIES: How familiar were you with the character of the Hulk before taking the assignment for Hulk Comic #1? Had you read many of his comics or seen any episodes of the TV series?

GIBBONS: I bought all the Marvel superhero comics as they appeared in the early ’60s, and The Hulk was one of those. It was a while before I got the first issue, but I certainly had the other four or five issues of the initial run when they were drawn by Jack Kirby and, I think, also Steve Ditko did one of them. [Interviewer’s note: Ditko did indeed draw The Incredible Hulk #6 (Mar. 1963).]

So I was very familiar with the idea of the Hulk and completely familiar with him in the comics by the time I came to draw this. I’d seen a couple of the episodes of the TV series, but that didn’t quite excite me as much.

[Interviewer’s note: The Hulk TV series debuted in the UK on May 26, 1978. The rest of Season 1 was shown over June, July, and August. Season 2 started in November 1978.] I thought the Hulk worked much better drawn in the pages of a comic book.

MENZIES: What is your general opinion of the Hulk as a character?

GIBBONS: Well, basically, it’s someone gets angry and breaks things, but given as that was a kind of shorthand description of a very prevalent human trait it was quite an easy thing to relate to. I’m sure everybody has lost their temper and broken things or been more aggressive than perhaps they needed to be.

So I thought as a character, it had a good primal inspiration behind it, although particularly in the early run of The Hulk they could never quite get it right whether he really was bad and wicked and a complete Mr. Hyde or whether he was a sensitive flower who really regretted all the things that he did.

MENZIES: And what about Hulk’s relationship with his tag-along sidekick, Rick Jones?

GIBBONS: The position of his sidekick Rick Jones always seemed a bit ambiguous to me. They could never quite work out what to do with Rick.

MENZIES: Did you have a particular artist whose version of the Hulk inspired you or that you were given as reference?

GIBBONS: Well, obviously, once Jack Kirby has drawn someone, it becomes Jack Kirby’s character. He was the original artist on The Hulk and it’s his visualization I would always think of when I thought of the character… although Steve Ditko, with his ability to draw those really brooding faces and sunken eyes, I think he added something to it as well.

MENZIES: Was it Dez Skinn who hired you for the job?

GIBBONS: Yes. He was running Marvel UK at that time, and it had always been his idea to integrate the UK publications with the American publications

Dave Smash! (opposite page) Dave Gibbons’ rendition of the Gamma-spawned Goliath. Page 1 of the Steve Moore-scribed tale from Hulk Comic #1. (this page) Pages 2 and 3 from the Moore/Gibbons tale in Hulk Comic #1.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 35

and if possible to sell it back to them. In this case, I think the format of the job would have made its appearance in an American comic a little bit difficult. It really needed the bigger page space of a UK comic.

When we did Doctor Who, we did the pages at exactly the same proportion, size-wise, as the American comics, so that’s designed to work like that. [With] the Hulk [story], I don’t think Dez had that in mind.

MENZIES: Steve Moore was the writer of Hulk Comic. Had you worked with Steve prior to this assignment?

GIBBONS: I don’t think I had. I think this was probably just before I started doing stuff for Doctor Who. I think this was while I was still working for 2000AD, and somehow I must have found the time to slip in these three pages.

Familiar Faces (top left) Cover to the Incredible Hulk sticker album that came as a free gift with Hulk Comic #1.

[Editor’s note: Want to read an interview with TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno?

There’s one in the first issue of ye ed’s other magazine, RetroFan, which is still available from the publisher at www.twomorrows.com.] (top right) Cover to Brown Watson’s 1979 The Superheroes Annual. Artist unknown. (bottom) Frontispiece to Brown Watson’s 1979 The Superheroes Annual. Art by Dave Gibbons. According to Robert Menzies, Dave’s Thor drawing may have been inspired by the cover of 1972’s Thor #197, with the Thunder God’s figure reversed. The Surfer figure is obviously a swipe from the cover of 1968’s Silver Surfer #1, and Spidey illo is a swipe of a 1977 John Romita, Sr. drawing that was used for a lot of promotional pieces.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. TV Hulk © Universal.

36 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

I was aware of Steve Moore. He was one of the first people working in comics that I ever met when I was trying to break into comics. He was a huge American comics fan as well, so he was a pretty good choice for writer.

MENZIES: What did you think of the script? It is very dense for only three pages. Hulk becomes electrified and accidentally kills two criminals who are escaping from the police. One is a murderer, but the other is a reluctant accomplice, and it’s much less clear-cut that he deserves to be punished so severely.

GIBBONS: It was like a typical old-style Fleetway or DC Thomson comic in that there were seven or eight pictures to a page. It was a whole story told in three pages, and quite heavy with words. It was a strange beast, because it did feel very much like a British comic story that happened to feature an American character. I don’t know

if the morality of it was worked out very carefully. I remember it was quite good fun to do.

MENZIES: The comic was very much based on the TV series, with the Hulk’s comic cast of Rick Jones, Thunderbolt Ross, etc., ignored. (The cover emphasized “TV’s No.1 Hero” and its free gift was an empty sticker book with Lou Ferrigno on the cover.)

Were you happy with this choice, or would you have liked the opportunity to draw a classic Hulk character like the Leader or the Abomination?

GIBBONS: The comic was to be promoted on the back of the TV series, and for that reason the setup, and the general feel of it was much more like one of the TV series’ stories.

Dez was always one with an eye toward getting as much publicity, as much bang for the buck, as possible. That made perfect sense that it should tie in to the TV series rather than the comic.

Of course, it would have been great to draw some classic Hulk character, but I imagine that would have then trampled on the toes of the American continuity. I wasn’t too worried [about it] at the time.

MENZIES: That you drew the Hulk tale in the first issue, and only the first issue, is curious. You also drew the first cover to Fury, Marvel’s British war comic, a few years earlier. So, I am wondering if that was deliberate, that you were headhunted to help get the new comic off to a great start?

GIBBONS: I had known Dez for quite a while, and he had helped me break into comics. I was quite an easy person [for him] to deal with as I lived just down the road and he could chat things over with me.

I suppose I was starting to make a name for myself in British comics in 2000AD, so I was a known quantity. Again, [Hulk] may just have been one of those one-off things I was able to fit in because I had a spare few days or I needed some extra money or something like that. I have very little recollection of actually drawing it or the circumstances that surrounded it.

The same with the cover for Fury, other than I dealt with Neil Tennant, later of the Pet Shop Boys, who was briefly an editor at Marvel UK. I remember talking to him on the phone about the Fury cover.

But it’s a long while ago, and with these kinds of jobs you tend to fit them in very quickly between other jobs and they don’t stay on your drawing board or in your head for very long. All of the details are a bit fuzzy, I’m afraid! [laughs] MENZIES: Was there any reason why you only drew the first installment?

GIBBONS: I guess it was all I had the time to draw. There was quite a lot of work in that. I think I’d have found it hard, even if I hadn’t been doing anything else, to draw three pages like that every week.

I possibly just did it as a favor for Dez for the first episode.

MENZIES: As he did throughout the 1970s with other Marvel titles, Stan Lee came over to promote the new comic. Were you involved in any of the media events with Stan or Dez? GIBBONS: No, I wasn’t. Dez kept all that for himself, which was fine—he does that sort of thing very well. I think [Stan] and Dez were good enough about media events and publicity without me needing to be involved at all.

I was in the presence of Stan around that time. I went into my agent’s office one day to deliver some artwork and I was shooed out again very quickly because they were having an important discussion with an American. That American turned out to be Stan Lee! I only saw him from the back and didn’t get to introduce myself.

It was some years later before I did actually get to meet Stan.

Sincere thanks to Dave Gibbons, who was a delight to communicate with and couldn’t have been more helpful.

Also to Paul Menzies, my little brother, for sharing his copies of Hulk Comic when we were kids!

ROBERT MENZIES is very much looking forward to reading Dave Gibbons’ autobiography. He is a big Rogue Trooper fan and was wearing a Helm hat when he met Rogue’s co-creator.

Wall-Crawling Evolution (top) Dave Gibbons’ Spider-Man, from a page in the 1979 Superheroes Annual. While Robert Menzies posits that Dave’s inspiration for this pose stretches back to (bottom left) the Romita/Harry Rosenbaum cover for the 1968 magazine, Spectacular Spider-Man #1, (bottom right) this Steve Ditko pinup from 1964’s Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 webbed that pose into the annals of iconography.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 37

THE INCREDIBLE HULK

by JACK KIRBY

compiled by

Michael Eury

Born in a fiery explosion of a gamma radiation bomb, the Incredible Hulk rages forth in this 1977 commission by Ol’ Jadejaws’ co-creator, “The King” himself. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

38 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

by DALE KEOWN

HULK #369 ALTERNATE COVER

Penciler Keown signed this unfinished, unpublished cover art originally intended for Incredible Hulk #369 (May 1990), pitting the then-Grayskinned Goliath against Freedom Force. (inset) In the published version, inked by Bob McLeod, Hulk looks much more menacing.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 39

The Children of the Atom, Marvel’s mightiest mutants, the X-Men, four of whom—

X-MEN

by JOHN BYRNE

Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Colossus—were captured in this 1980 pencil illo by the artist who helped elevate them to stardom during the Bronze Age. Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

40 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

by JOSE DELBO

DOCTOR SOLAR #28 ALTERNATE COVER

The Man of the Atom, Doctor Solar—whose Valiant adventures will eventually be explored in these pages—was winding down his Western Publishing (he was originally under the Gold Key Comics imprint) series when this rejected cover was penciled for issue #28 (Apr. 1981). The inset shows Delbo’s published cover. ® & © Random House, Inc.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 41

FURY OF FIRESTORM #2 ALTERNATE COVER

by PAT BRODERICK

Our cover artist originally had this staging in mind when penciling the cover of the second issue of Fury of Firestorm (July 1982). While Pat’s take on this scene was rejected, his request (as seen in the bottom margin) for Dick Giordano as his inker was granted, as the published cover in the inset shows.

TM & © DC Comics.

42 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

Earth teen Dirk Morgna was booted into an atomic reactor by the insidious Dr. Regulus… and emerged as the heat-generating Sun Boy, becoming a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Artist Greg LaRocque enjoyed a successful run on Legion in the ’80s. From the collection of Michael Zeno.

SUN BOY

by GREG LAROCQUE & JOSE MARZAN, JR.

TM & © DC Comics.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 43

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

Famous Firsts (top) Our spotlighted bad guy didn’t appear on the cover of Action #487, but his handiwork did in this disaster that has created a job for… Superman!

Cover by GarcíaLópez. (middle) In the swinging ’70s, the microwave oven—called a “science oven” by Christian Bale’s Irving Rosenfeld in the 2013 ’70s-set film, American Hustle—was the Next Big Thing. (bottom left) The logo font for Steven Spielberg’s popular Close Encounters of the Third Kind inspired (bottom right) Milt Snappin’s lettering style in several panels of Action #487, including panels 1 and 2 on the page shown. Script by Cary Bates, art by Curt Swan and Frank Chiaramonte. CE3K poster courtesy of Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com).

CE3K © Columbia Pictures.

Superman TM & © DC Comics.

46 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

extraterrestrials for four decades, along with his trusty vehicle, while the spacecraft explored the Milky Way. Later, as the reporters are checking in with their respective bosses, Perry White and Morgan Edge, it’s apparent that the majority of the “eyewitnesses” lacked credibility, but then Jimmy mentions a unique factor in Padgett’s talk. Lewis added the additional claim that he was once the first super-scientific criminal on Earth, and that he called himself Microwave Man. The revelation causes Perry White to blanch and utter his famous line, “Great Caesar’s Ghost!” He mutters that perhaps Microwave Man has returned after all these years.

Before the tale continues, readers are given a behind-the-scenes “Publishorial” by DC Comics publisher Jenette Kahn, noting the price increase with this month’s offerings (from 35 cents to 50 cents) and heralding it as the “DC Explosion,” with more bang for your comic-book buck with additional pages, etc. A scant three months later, that explosion would become the infamous “DC Implosion,” with a repricing effort among other initiatives. Cary Bates remembers that the Implosion was highly impactful to the company, but that he was “…one of the lucky ones to dodge that bullet…” [Editor’s note: TwoMorrows has produced the ultimate, cary bates in-depth look at this publisher-quaking event in the form of the 2018 book © DC Comics.

Comic Book Implosion: An Oral History of DC Comics Circa 1978, by Keith Dallas and John Wells.]

Returning to our story, Perry describes the villain he remembered from over 40 years ago, who boasted of his “micromatic powers” that ultimately led him to a breakthrough in making his body a walking receiver of microwave energy from radio transmitters. Editor Julius “Julie” Schwartz inserted a typically helpful note: “Microwaves are extremely high frequency radio waves, lying just below the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum.”

Elsewhere, a discouraged Lewis Padgett, unbelieved and mocked at the seminar, is walking the streets of Metropolis and ponders whether he can still summon his micromatic abilities. Testing it on the famed globe atop the Daily Planet building, he is astonished at the enhanced power he has, undoubtedly due to the greatly increased number of microwaves in the modern atmosphere, and inadvertently turns the globe into a white-hot inferno. Julie again offers the science behind it all: “This is the same principle employed by modern microwave ovens—which cook food from the inside out—by agitating molecules to produce heat!”

The blazing globe goes airborne to the shock and dismay of Padgett, who, thanks to his extensive research on Superman, manages to nudge it toward the Galaxy Building with the theory that the Man of Steel’s close ties there afford a chance he’ll be nearby to stop the burning orb. Fortunately, his gamble pays off when Clark Kent discovers the phenomenon and does his patented quick change to Superman and knocks the globe into space.

Checking on his friends, Superman notices the photo of Lewis Padgett on the desk and asks about it, explaining that he’d met the man earlier in the week.

They soon decide Lewis’ story had to be true.

Padgett, meanwhile, has gone to an isolated mountain cabin, last seen before he left the Earth in the spacecraft.

It’s his research laboratory, complete with the equipment that allowed him to contact the aliens. He is using it to that end again, and with the aid of the extraterrestrials is soon transformed into his younger self. Garbed in his yellow Microwave Man costume, he makes plans to challenge Superman. Readers are then invited to return next issue for the “Duel of the Century!”

A future lettercol contribution in Action Comics #492 (Feb. 1979) commented on this costume, leading to a reply by E. Nelson Bridwell: “And just for the record, any blame or credit for the Microwave Man costume goes to Joe Orlando, who designed it with a small assist from yours truly.” Author Bates offers that he wasn’t certain why Joe Orlando would have been involved, speculating that he may have been “functioning in some sort of art director capacity.”

Action Comics #488 (Oct.1978), containing “Superman Battles Microwave Man!”, began with a bang as the antagonist blows up a statue of Superman on the splash page and then uses the powers he holds in his hands to leave a message in the turf: “Microwave Man Wants You.” Back at Galaxy Communications, that he got his “signal.” MM comments Morgan Edge, Jimmy Olsen, and Lana that they “meet again.” Superman then Lang are going over what they know so recognizes the much younger, but distinctive far when Clark walks in and tells them voice of Lewis Padgett, thanks to that the destruction of the statue was super-hearing. Then, the battle is on caused by instant molecular friction, and to our hero’s surprise, they’re fairly curt swan maybe from a “tremendous surge of evenly matched. microwaves.” Perry White then summons Caricature by Stan Drake.

It soon occurs to the Man of Tomorrow them to the projection room, where he’s loaded up some how this could be: “TV transmissions, microwave ovens, old footage from the newsreel library. Soon, they’re seeing advanced radar systems, CB radios, all of them transmit Microwave Man in action from 40 years prior. He’s seen microwaves! And the list goes on and on! There must using his powers to burn through a bank wall and vault be a thousand times more microwave energy in the air and to stop the police dead in their tracks by hitting their now than there was 40 years ago! No wonder Padgett car with microwaves. Per Cary Bates, MM’s ability to fly is so much more powerful in 1978 than 40 years ago when microwave technology was just beginning!” was directly due to his ability to “ride” the microwaves.

With this knowledge, Superman now has a strategy: Clark Kent is beginning to assemble the pieces of this puzzle when WGBS and all other broadcasts in propel Microwave Man 100 years into the past through Metropolis are being blocked. Reasoning that TV and the time barrier when there were no microwaves. radio transmissions are carried over microwaves, it’s likely But before he can try it, the pair engage once more, Microwave Man is sending out a challenge. Superman is this time in a superpowered game of mercy. Once our soon tracking the microwaves with infra-red vision, hero concedes, MM triumphantly says, “That’s all I leading directly to Microwave Man, who is delighted wanted to hear!” Then he rapidly ages and collapses.

So, We Meet Again…

Even while getting walloped, Superman’s super-mind is hard at work on this dynamite original art page from the conclusion of the Microwave Man two-parter, Action #488. Signed by its penciler, Curt Swan.

Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 47

Contact with the Mothership (top) Microwave Man gets a little help from above on page 6 of Action #488. (bottom) Cary Bates introduced a “Microboy” in an episode of TV’s Superboy series.

TM & © DC Comics.

The reader then learns that Superman had been in touch with the alien friends of Lewis Padgett and it was a setup. The extraterrestrials had not only temporarily given Padgett the gift of youth, but allowed him to quickly pass with the satisfaction of having “beaten” Earth’s greatest hero. “Only a true champion would deliberately lose a battle for the sake of a lesser opponent!” They then allow that they’ll set his remains adrift in the cosmos per his request, ending this two-part tale of Microwave Man. The story was influenced by Close Encounters of the Third Kind with the concept of benevolent aliens, but according to Cary Bates, there was much more to it than riding those coattails. “Given Julie’s [Schwartz] long career as a masterful SF pulp editor, which he put to good use during his tenure on the Strange Adventures comic, I’m sure he was behind many stories about friendly aliens over the years, long before CE3K.” Cary also eagerly acknowledges his collaboration with artist Curt Swan: “Although I occasionally worked ‘Marvel style’ with other artists (adding dialog after the pencils were turned in), with Curt I always gave him full scripts with detailed panel descriptions. Invariably, the pages he turned in exceeded my expectations.

We had a really good working relationship.”

Another important anecdote shared by our author describes the challenge of creating a one-shot character like Microwave Man, who appeared in only 30 pages: “I’d say page limitations vary in how they affect specific stories. And writers (or even editors) don’t always know whether a new villain will end up as a one-shot wonder or evolve into a reappearing arch-foe. Given that Microwave Man had a backstory that spanned 40 years, a two-story, two-issue approach served this particular storyline.”

Finally, Cary Bates reveals that there was a second act for his creation, although in a very different time and place: “About ten years after this story appeared, I reworked some of the plot elements into a script I wrote during my tenure as story editor for the Superboy [live-action syndicated television] series that Viacom produced in the late ’80s–early ’90s. The episode was titled ‘Microboy,’ and dealt with a teenager who had uncontrollable microwave-based powers that made him a public menace. As in the DC story, time travel figured prominently here as well. Superboy finally staved off disaster by relocating the kid 70 years in the past (well before the proliferation of microwaves), where the kid would be able to live out his life without menacing anyone.”

As can be seen, our writer managed to craft a memorable story combining two of our longstanding topics of fascination, time travel and life on other worlds, and perhaps by sheer coincidence made Microwave Man resurface almost exactly 40 years from the conception of Action Comics and its perennial star, Superman!

BRYAN D. STROUD is a longtime fan of DC Comics, particularly the Silver and Bronze Ages, and has been contributing to the website of his lifelong best friend, Ron Daudt, for over a decade, doing reviews of those classics.

48 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

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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

Audio Comic Books Kids of the mid- to late 1970s enjoyed their favorite comic-book heroes and media characters coming to life thanks to Peter Pan Records and its Power Records brand.

Superman TM & © DC Comics.

Planet of the Apes TM & © 20th Century Fox. Captain America and the Falcon TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

comic-book and record sets with memorable covers, often packaged by artists from Neal Adams and Dick Giordano’s Continuity Associates.

Never having been much of a comic-book fan before, Kasen was unaware that he had hired some of the best and most popular artists in the business. Power Records did Marvel and DC superheroes—both in reprints and new stories—but also TV series characters like Kojak and the Six Million Dollar Man. The idea for Holo-Man combined Kasen’s personal and business interests, with the project’s original intent being “to create a series of comics and eventually a TV series.”

The 1976 ad touted the comic and record package but also included “the Holodisc,” described as “a real, laser-produced three-dimensional pendant!” Kasen recalls for BACK ISSUE, “We created a dichromate hologram which never came to retail. Was very cool-looking. I brought on Dr. Don White from Bell Labs to help and created the first flat hologram of its kind.

I purchased a laser and set up a small lab.”

Any longtime comic-book fan might recognize that the small amount of art showing various characters in that initial ad was by comics veteran Joe Giella, known for his Silver Age inks and sometimes pencils on Batman. “We did research and found him on Long Island,” remembers Kasen. “Wonderful man. I worked with many super talented artists like Neal Adams when we were doing the Power Records titles, but Joe was the right guy for this project.”

Many comics art experts and historians, myself included, feel that the actual pencil layouts for the book were done by longtime Marvel artist John Buscema, with two pinup pages by Don Heck. Both men were likely brought in by Giella himself to assist as Kasen was unaware that any other artists had worked on the book. Giella’s strong, solid, familiar inking gives a unified look to the entire project. (Unfortunately, Mr. Giella was unavailable for an interview for this article.)

“The ad was a one-time shot to see what the response would be,” says Kasen. “As first-time original comic-book superhero creators, we were thrilled to see people send in cash, checks, and money orders to receive anything! We were excited even though the response was generally what might be considered small.”

There’s some question as to whether the comic had ever even been drawn at the point it was advertised since the final book that did appear two years later prominently features US President Jimmy Carter, and Carter didn’t even take office until January of 1977. The US Copyright Office, though, shows that the copyright on The Amazing Adventures of Holo-Man was granted to Vincent A. Fusco and Donald Kasen on February 16th, 1976.

52 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

The character in the comic is simply referred to as “the President,” but he seems clearly to be visually intended to be Carter.

Kasen’s take? “You’re making an assumption that it’s Jimmy Carter.

Was it a good guess on our part he’d be in office? Ha, ha!”

Holo-Man finally surfaced in 1978, in the Power Records format but technically released by the parent company, Peter Pan Records (which had been founded

by Kasen’s father). A painted Bob Larkin cover—credited to Giella and Larkin—tops this final product with a heroic pose from our star and the first appearance of the unnamed character presumed to be a villain (or perhaps a young Laserman?).

Although the splash page has no logo, it does show the Heck/Giella pencil-and-ink version of the cover painting, unusually colored, and offers this bit of exposition: “The coherent laser beams converged within your body and transformed you into the world’s first living hologram! Your abilities are awesome and may be called upon by concentrating your thought energies with definite purpose! Just concentrate and these powers will be yours!” Simplistic, but hardly the worst origin story ever.

The credited writers include Fusco and Kasen, but also Jason V. Fusco, Donald White, Joseph Giella, Audrey Hirschfeld, and Barry Van Name (who was also the credited editor).

In spite of all the other people listed, Donald Kasen tells BACK ISSUE that he and Fusco were the two who collaborated on the script.

“I’m Holo-Man,” says Kasen today. “Vinnie was Laserman.

I have to re-read the book to tell you who the other characters were.”

WHEREFORE ART THOU, HOLO SQUAD?

In actuality, if he did read the book, he wouldn’t find those other characters, the Holo Squad, anywhere except on a pinup page in the back. Holo-Man is, of course, our colorful hero; Laserman is the Shazamstyle science wizard from a “future time dimension” who gives Holo-Man his powers. The other characters are identified as Laserwoman, a caped female; Utopia, some sort of royalty; and Wavelength, a little boy.

In that same Holo Squad image but unnamed, there’s also the bearded fellow from the cover, a balding, bespectacled radio operator, and what appears to be Wavelength’s oddly colored pet raccoon. Sadly, these characters were all fated never to be seen again.

In the story, we learn that Holo-Man is in reality Dr. James Robinson.

After enemy agents arrange an explosion in Texas while Dr. Robinson is demonstrating a thermonuclear fusion device to the president of the United States, he finds himself rescued by the wizened Laserman, who turns him into the living hologram. This gives him powers that include the ability to holographically warp his body molecules to travel through time and space, to create illusionary holograms, and to use holographic molecular alteration to basically turn invisible.

Since every hero needs his limitations, Laserman also gifts Dr. Robinson with the Holodisc. Unless Holo-Man uses the Holodisc to recharge his powers every 12 hours, they’ll start to fade away.

It’s at that point—the center of the book—that the reader gets two pages on the history of holography.

Then it’s straight back to the action as our heroic scientist awakens, only to have his dying assistant admit to helping to sabotage the experiment as part of a plot to enslave America. What happened to the president and the others present when the explosion occurred we’re never told—just that they “left hours ago.” In a few pages, though, Jimmy’s back in his office a thousand miles away as if nothing had happened. Holo-Man arrives to warn him of the impending danger but never thinks to ask, “Hey, why did you just leave me and my assistant to die, you…?”

Ahem.

Holo-Man gives the commander-in-chief the lowdown and then a brief demonstration of his new holographic abilities. As he leaves the White House, he realizes it’s somehow already time to renew his energy using the Holodisc.

That, of course, would be where we get the big cliffhanger as holographic nuclear missiles appear over the Washington Monument, and panic ensues! One can almost hear the announcer voice: “Don’t Miss ‘The Surrian Confrontation’ in the next superiffic issue of The Amazing Adventures of Holo-Man!!!”

As of this writing, four decades later, we’re all still waiting.

POISED FOR A COMEBACK!

Kasen today owns all rights to Holo-Man and would love to see him make a comeback. “I co-owned Power Records when it was published. I bought out my partner in 1989.

We sketched an outline of the sequel. It’s outlined. It’s not all written.” There’s talk from time to time of re-releasing the original book and audio in a digital format.

“I can tell you it was a wonderful introduction to my knowledge of holography. It was a very interesting time in the very early stages of holography.”

In 1985, Jeff Rovin’s popular book, The Encyclopedia of Super-Heroes, reproduced Bob Larkin’s striking cover in full color, likely introducing more comics fans to Holo-Man than his own adventure ever did.

As with the many other audio and comic combinations, the 45 RPM read-along record that accompanies the comic features anonymous actors and sometimes overwhelming music and sound effects, giving the impression of a brief radio episode in the style of the classic 15-minute serialized Superman chapters of the 1940s. Two performers known to have been involved with some of the Power Records presentations were the prolific radio actor/director Elliot Lewis and Peter Fernandez, who had been the US voice of Speed Racer.

When asked today if he has any recollections as to any of the actors who might have been in Holo-Man, Kasen sadly replies, “I can’t offer you any additional information on the recording.” Although he himself was largely responsible for the Holo-Man comic book,

as head of the company he didn’t deal with the actual recording on a day-to-day basis and thus is not aware of, or can’t recall at this late point, who actually voiced these exciting little dramas some 40+ years ago now.

In this era of CGI special effects and even entire movie characters, holograms seem almost quaint, but hey, retro is in these days and rainbows are trendier than ever. Who knows? Maybe it really is time for Holo-Man to make his long-awaited comeback… and for the HoloSquad to finally make its formal debut!

STEVEN THOMPSON is Booksteve of Booksteve’s Library (http:// booksteveslibrary.blogspot.com) and a dozen other blogs. He has written for Fantagraphics, TwoMorrows, Yoe Books, Bear Manor Media, and Time Capsule Productions.

Here’s Comes Holo-Man (top left) This Joe Giella-drawn ad caught the eye of many comic-book readers. (top right) Pages from the comic showing Holo-Man’s origin. (bottom) Is that President Jimmy Carter with our hero? You decide. © Peter Pan Music Company LLC.

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 53

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

Beside Myself Dr. Manhattan’s startling lovemaking surprise, from Watchmen #3.

TM & © DC Comics.

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.

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continued from page 55.

something that isn’t there? Having a crush on a comic character is difficult enough because of their lack of general realism, so if Dr. Manhattan is made to be even less human than the correlating characters, how can one find him to be an object of desire? He is just a beautiful observer, and almost every pose is simply statuesque. And he’s almost an alien, in the way we think about the Roswell green alien.

SCHOOL’S (BRIEFLY) IN SESSION: SOME OF DR. MANHATTAN’S LITERARY AND SCI-FI ROOTS

Secret Origin Cover and page 8 of Watchmen #4, the issue chronicling Jonathan Osterman’s transformation into Dr. Manhattan.

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TOM: Considering what you and I do as college English teachers, Hal, with your strong background in early American literature, what can we add to our appropriately nonlinear discussion of Dr. Manhattan in order to provide a better understanding of the character?

HAL: I’m immediately thinking about Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” which is where God’s omnipotence is used as a way for Edwards to say, “You should be really grateful God hasn’t tortured you” before the author goes on to list all the ways he can torture you. I think that’s a big part of this idea. But I think that occurs, also, in every one of these stories where the Puritans are looking for signs to interpret. All of the Puritans interpret that when they arrive in New England and a big earthquake happens, they assume that they pissed off God, and they need to figure out why and how to be good people. Or Mable’s cow died down the street, and before they get into the pointing to witchcraft thing, they just simply say that Mable did something wrong, so the cow was her punishment for that.

As another example, in William Bradford’s piece “Of Plymouth Plantation,” he talks about how a sailor on the Mayflower kept mocking the Puritans for getting sick, and he got washed overboard. And there’s this joy with which Bradford describes this guy getting killed as a sign of God punishing him. However, the joy doesn’t rest so much in the fact that the guy died but as a confirmation of the Puritans’ belief they are good people because they didn’t die as well. That is one thing that I really enjoy about this perspective. The early Americans are constantly looking for proof they’re worthy of their place. What is interesting is that the Puritans won’t allow themselves to question God. Anne Bradstreet has a moment in her “Dead Grandbaby” poems where she actually says, “With dreadful awe before Him let’s be mute,/ Such was His will, but why, let’s not dispute,” which in effect means, “Let’s not question why because clearly God has a plan.” The idea that you cannot question why is the predestination problem.

By contrast in Watchmen, the challenge that Dr. Manhattan faces is that he knows exactly what he is. He can see the strings, but it doesn’t empower him enough to stop things from happening. It is the other side of the predestination coin.

What happens when you do know everything, but you can’t stop it anyway? Dr. Manhattan walks on water towards the end of the original series in issue #12 (Oct. 1987), which works as a Jesus reference. Although he was also once human, he’s accepting his godhood here, but his actions are like Jesus acknowledging that he is both human and God. At the same time, Dr. Manhattan cannot truly enjoy being God because he doesn’t have the freedom that we see a true god having.

TOM: You’ve now got me thinking about T. H. White’s interpretation of Merlin from King Arthur’s perspective in The Once and Future King, in that he “lives backwards in time” or has a foreknowledge of future events, which perplexes Arthur. But it also shows that he’s similar to Dr. Manhattan since he’s able to see his own future, which likewise annoys the Comedian and Silk Spectre.

But I’m more of a sci-fi guy, so I’m into the idea that Watchmen’s vision of Dr. Manhattan can be compared to the character of Billy Pilgrim in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five. Pilgrim’s “unstuck in time,” meaning he relives multiple points in his existence in a nonlinear way, including his experiences of being a soldier in World War II, living in an alien zoo on Tralfamadore, and finding

Fantastic Voyage Original Dave Gibbons art for page 21 of Watchmen #3, where Dr. Manhattan departs Earth and leaves the planet without its omnipotent protector. Courtesy of Heritage.

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Every Breath You Take The all-knowing Dr. Manhattan seems to have forgotten Laurie’s need for oxygen during their Martian getaway in Watchmen #9.

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himself a dying old man who’s just been shot.

But, you know, unlike Dr. Manhattan by the end of Watchmen, Pilgrim cannot “unstick” himself from his fate of reliving his life again and again.

Doctor Who’s another obvious influence for Watchmen. Incidentally, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons worked on Marvel UK’s Doctor Who Weekly (later Monthly) in the late 1970s and early ’80s, respectively penning some backup strips and illustrating comic-strip adventures for the Fourth and Fifth Doctors. Now around this time in 1980, a Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) story called “Meglos” aired in the UK. This tale involves the Doctor and his companion Romana, a fellow Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, and his mechanical dog K-9 encountering the villainous Meglos, this cactus creature who’s the last of his race. Well aware of the threat the two Time Lords pose to his plan to steal this massive power source (the Dodecahedron) from the planet Tigella, Meglos entraps them in a time loop within the Doctor’s time machine, his TARDIS, and the only way he and Romana escape is by finally doing something different right before the time loop resets again. I guess when you compare this situation to Dr. Manhattan’s once he gets past Ozymandias’ tachyon particles in Watchmen #12, all of these characters are at last free to move on with their lives and do something new that isn’t weighed down by knowing what’s going to happen next.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE OMNIPOTENT: THAT IS THE QUESTION OF DR. MANHATTAN

HAL: We need to talk about the physical dichotomy that Dr. Manhattan embodies. Nuclear energy can be a force for good that brings life to the world. But it’s also a primal force that evokes fear and anxiety.

In other words, Dr. Manhattan, when viewed from this direction, is a walking nuclear bomb. After all, in Watchmen #4, we see that Jon became 60 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

Dr. Manhattan in a nightmare scenario which was a nuclear experiment involving intrinsic fields gone wrong.

TOM: In that same issue, there’s that great sequence on page 12 when Dr. Manhattan rejects the silly hat with the atomic symbol on it that the PR people gave him and literally “brands” himself, so to speak, by burning a hydrogen atom symbol into his forehead. For me, this is like the Möbius strip of infinity or the serpent Ouroboros devouring its own tail. In a way, just as we are predestined to write the article and our fellow BACK ISSUE readers are meant to read it, Dr. Manhattan was always meant to create his own image. But there still is a sense of agency in his decision as he remarks during his self-branding in panel 5, “If I’m to have a symbol, it shall be one I respect.”

HAL: The hydrogen atom symbol, too, is perfect for Dr. Manhattan because, again, most people are afraid of him. He is destructive. The symbol is utter simplicity in terms of its design, but the hydrogen bomb is likewise what defines power in the late 20th Century and makes Nixon ascendant forever in the Watchmen universe. However, I don’t think Dr. Manhattan even fully understands what he believes the symbol means before he makes this choice.

AMANDA: Well, it also equates to life. Hydrogen is needed to create life.

His usage of the symbol represents life in death, through his own rebirth and through a circle, much like the Ouroboros that you mentioned, with the two dots representing the duality of his existence.

HAL: That’s true. It isn’t just one dot he burns onto his forehead but two. So, yeah, Dr. Manhattan is life and death.

TOM: But he’s also caught in the act of passively witnessing the two extremes in existence. Even after he debuts in Watchmen #4 as Dr. Manhattan to the world via a TV news report in March 1960, Janey says to him, “You’ve arrived” at the bottom of page 13, and he perplexedly replies in panel 9, “Have I? Sometimes I feel as if I’ve been here all the time.” This part is poignant for me as it shows he’s trapped in the paradox of predestination, meaning there are no surprises or any chance of experiencing a personal victory in his life since he always knows when they are going to happen within his timeline.

HAL: But that doesn’t mean that Dr. Manhattan’s not surprised by certain events that occur in his life. For instance, Laurie asks Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen #9 (May 1987) on page 5 (panel 2) why

he disappeared after the journalist from the Nova Express harassed him in Watchmen #3, wondering why he did so if he knew that moment would occur, to which he replies that all his response are preordained. And then she asks him if he’s god or a puppet, leading to his famous line on panel 4 that’s recently been repeated at the end of “The Button” crossover (The Flash #22, July 2017): “We’re all puppets, Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings.” That is the definition of God itself. If you are all powerful, you shouldn’t be on the string. You shouldn’t be constrained. How can you be on the string and omnipotent? This is the clockwork god’s dilemma. It is Jon’s father who was obsessed with watches. You can set all these watches and see what happens but still not have any control at a given point.

TOM: To add to what you’re saying, we can bring up that terrible scene set in Saigon during Watchmen #2 (Oct. 1986) on pages 13–15, where the Comedian’s Vietnamese and very pregnant lover tells him she’s having his baby. But he rejects her, which leads to the woman breaking a bottle and slashing his face with it, which, in turn, provokes the Comedian to shoot her dead in a rage. Yet Dr. Manhattan just stands there and watches the event, weakly saying, “Blake, don’t… do it,” because he already knows it has occurred.

HAL: Watchmen #9 similarly addresses the problem of Dr. Manhattan not always being in control of his life or

others when he brings Laurie to Mars. On pages 2 and 3, this is where you find out he’s a goober god because he forgets to give her air.

TOM: And if he is so omnipotent—or omniscience— then why would he forget?

AMANDA: Perhaps they wanted a scenario that would illustrate their loss of communication? To me, with the sixth panel on page 3, as Laurie’s on her knees grasping for air as she desperately grabs his legs and stares directly at his exposed genitals, it looks like she is hesitantly deciding to provide Dr. Manhattan with oral sex. The oxygen he then gives her in the ninth panel sexualizes her as her mouth is open in an erotic way.

HAL: Yeah, there’s that questionable image, but the issue later does go on to show Dr. Manhattan’s more poetic and romantic side when it comes to Laurie.

I’m referring to page 22, when, at Laurie’s request, he lands his clockwork citadel upon the Argyre Planita, and she asks to be taken back to Earth. With this page and the following ones, we have a conflation of this blue god’s intricate clockwork architecture with his father’s obsession with clocks. But it is also conflated with nostalgia, and so there are a lot of images that you can do with him shattering stuff. Laurie is shattering the nostalgia of the past because she breaks everything. In other words, it’s not Manhattan who brings his citadel to come crashing down upon the Mars soil on page 25. We are

Strings Attached (left) A pivotal discussion between Jon and Laurie from Dr. Manhattan’s citadel, from Moore and Gibbons’ Watchmen #9. (right) In the DC/ Watchmen crossover “The Button,” Moore’s words are echoed by scribe Joshua Williamson in The Flash #22 (early July 2017).

Art by Howard Porter.

TM & © DC Comics.

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talking about Laurie dealing with the fact that her father is the Comedian. With both the perfume bottle she hurtles furiously at Dr. Manhattan’s citadel and the snow globe from her childhood memory, there is some kind of slow time occurring while Laurie experiences this instant, frenzied breakthrough by breaking everything else. Dr. Manhattan then delivers the greatest little romantic speech in comics ever that touches upon her life, and I love it when he tells her on page 28, “Come… dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly.” Again, some other force is the creative force. Something that is not him is in charge.

TOM: Towards the end of the last Watchmen issue, #12, we also see what happens when it’s a man—Ozymandias—who’s been the one

messing with Dr. Manhattan’s perception of time via his disruptive tachyon particles. This puts him in a place where’s he not pre-aware of his own timeline. I’m talking about the scene on page 13, when Dr. Manhattan finds Ozymandias’ rather obviously situated intrinsic field subtractor and stops in front of it in panel 6 and remarks, “Very well.

If I must… If I must follow this through to the bitter end…”

HAL: We have to think about that phrase, “If I must…” Dr. Manhattan, this omnipotent being, is unable to change his own timeline. This is so bizarre to him that he’s almost fascinated and/or upset by the possibility. At the same time, it is almost as if Moore and Gibbons are stabbing you in the face with this paradox.

TOM: I appreciate that you’re touching on Dr. Manhattan feeling some sort of pleasure from not knowing what happens next in his life. Also, earlier in the issue, when he and Laurie are standing in the

INTERVIEW WITH JOHN HIGGINS, COLORIST OF WATCHMEN that would reflect an external light source or the base BACK ISSUE: Please tell us what your thoughts were color, which could be influenced by other light on coloring Dr. Manhattan. sources, such as a street lamp or sunset, JOHN HIGGINS: In 1986 for me as a Dr. Manhattan could only ever be that slight professional comic artist, it was just another glowing blue. job. The only major difference at that time BACK ISSUE: In terms of how Watchmen to anything else I had worked on was looks on current paper stock, do you prefer having the pleasure of working with two it in the original format or the more glossy of my best talented friends. But after the stuff? Why? initial meeting, I saw how different this HIGGINS: Since the Absolute edition collaboration was and how different the in 2005 when I had to opportunity to comic was to anything I had ever read in digitally color the art, adding a subtly to comic literature before, and since that graduated tones and consolidating certain time, Watchmen proved itself to be a john Higgins Watchmen-esque color choices I made in seminal graphic novel but at the time just 1986, the best paper another fun job.

ComicVine. stock is essential to BACK ISSUE: What its reproduction. does the character BACK ISSUE: Are there mean to you? any other thoughts you HIGGINS: He is the would like to share about ultimate god figure coloring Watchmen? in the superhero HIGGINS: Working in pantheon, not only comics is always a due to his powers but collaboration, from his position in human the editor out, but when life in the Watchmen you work with the best universe as well, in creators, that collaboration how he developed can create something from and became completely distinctive in more than human. the same way, as when a BACK ISSUE: Which music group breaks up. colors worked best They can never recreate for Dr. Manhattan’s that original sound, no citadel in issues #4 matter how talented and 9? Why? other musicians they HIGGINS: Every color collaborate with may be. was based on the Watchmen achieved limited DC printing something distinctive palette that all by all the collaborators colorists worked from involved in that year. at that time. I picked In that time of readers’ the colors that gave perceptions of what they him a base set of wanted from comics and complementary colors From Watchmen #9. TM & © DC Comics. other factors that might to make him stand have been prevalent in 1986, it was a once-in-a-lifetime apart from all other elements of the page. He projected event in comics publishing. an inner light. As opposed to other “terrestrial” objects 62 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

middle of New York after everyone’s been killed by Ozymandias’ bizarre giant vagina monster, it looks as if he’s actually smiling as he comments to her about the tachyons affecting his sense of time, “I’d almost forgotten the excitement of not knowing, the delights of uncertainly” (page 7, panel 3). This definitely makes him more human than god for a brief moment.

Later in the issue, and I’m back to the part where Dr. Manhattan’s standing in front of Ozymandias’ intrinsic field subtractor, I would like to think he’s worried about Ozymandias’ genetically engineered lynx, Bubastis, as well. The two do make eye contact in panels 3 and 4 of page 13, and Dr. Manhattan pleads with Ozymandias on panel 3 of the following page, “Veidt?

Don’t…” as he stares down at Bubastis, who is howling in fear. There still is obviously some humanity left in Dr. Manhattan since he doesn’t want the poor elegant creature to become scattered molecules.

HAL: He likewise shows such a tremendous amount of empathy for Laurie later on page 25, as he encounters her sleeping nude next to Nite Owl after making love to him and smiles at this stark reality of her newfound happiness. So there’s no indication that Dr. Manhattan doesn’t feel that way about everyone else as well, like God would. That is, if you buy into the idea of an omnipotent god who can see and feel and do everything. To me, it is impossible to love more than one person at a time, at least with a burning love. The idea is that he could do exactly so through his sympathy for both Nite Owl and Laurie is something that is always there too. When he later makes the comment near the end of the issue along the lines of “Maybe I will go create human life” to Ozymandias on page 27, it is not as arrogant as if Adrian Veidt had said those words.

TOM: Going back for a moment to page 26, you can also see an M. C. Escher influence on how Gibbons draws Dr. Manhattan defying gravity and physics by walking upon and through the walls of Ozymandias’ lair before appearing behind him. This page is practically saying that this is all a game of sorts to Dr. Manhattan at this point as he playfully eschews the confines of human architecture.

HAL: Good observation, which leads us to have to look at what’s inside the dome that’s in front of Ozymandias on that page and the following one. Veidt’s trying to make his own bottled galaxy there, but it is so funny that he’s sitting standing next to someone who can see the universe and microverse inside and out. So his pretense of being this Buddha-like figure is a joke, one that’s completely being demolished by Dr. Manhattan’s relaxed presence as he walks into and dissolves in this sad mock-up version of a galaxy right after he burns him with his famous final cutting line, “Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends” (page 27, panel 5).

TOM: But when there are distinct endings in Watchmen #12, particularly when it comes to Rorschach’s death on page 24, why does Dr. Manhattan have to kill him?

This has always bothered me.

HAL: It’s the way he kills him, which is astonishing, although it is pretty quick. So there is something merciful about his actions here. I’ve always taken it as two different things. It is almost the inverse of the scene in Watchmen #2 with the pregnant Vietnamese woman and the Comedian. Dr. Manhattan may not like Ozymandias’ warped plan for world peace, but he can see that it is going to work, at least in theory.

As a result, he can’t let it be risked. But Rorschach is a tortured soul. He lives according to a black-and-white code in a world that is anything but black and white.

When he takes off the mask in panels 2–3, you don’t see Rorschach but Walter Kovacs. It is almost as if he

is asking to be killed, to be put out of his misery.

I’ve often thought of this as a mercy killing instead of a protect-the-plan killing. He is crying, and that is not rage. That is almost the face I imagine is under the mask when he realizes what has happened to the murdered little girl in Watchmen #6 (Feb. 1987).

He has made himself as vulnerable as he can to receive Dr. Manhattan’s mercy.

TOM: So you’re saying Dr. Manhattan’s like a benevolent god who is letting Rorschach ascend?

HAL: Yes. There’s also all of this red representing Rorschach’s emotions when Dr. Manhattan obliterates his body in panel 4, but in the center of this destruction, Kovacs’ body is blue. He is being calmed. As Dr. Manhattan walks away in panel 5, we see the dissipation of the red, and the surrounding blue swallows it up, so it is like he brings peace to Rorschach. This sequence used to upset me as well, but if I were terminally ill, I would hope that someone would do something like this for me.

Situation Out of Hand Dr. Manhattan puts a stop to Ozymandius’ machinations in this dynamic, climactic scene from Watchmen #12.

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All in a Day’s Work From Watchmen #12, pages 24 and 25, pivotal scenes revealing the dichotomous nature of Dr. Manhattan.

TM & © DC Comics.

BEFORE WATCHMEN: DR. MANHATTAN: NEW DIMENSIONS FOR THE OMNIPOTENT DR. MANHATTAN

Having said that, though, Hughes’ book does accomplish something that I am extremely fascinated by, which is, when you get this kind of a miniseries that TOM: Moving on to Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan, is so introspective that it is supposed to humanize if we weigh this work against the original series to make somebody, it does the exact opposite by showing that a comparison to other famous or infamous prequels, Dr. Manhattan is still, at the end of the day, essentially in your opinion, does it add anything new to a god. You’re given this insight into him, but the the character of Dr. Manhattan? comic also takes you further away from the HAL: You can’t read Before Watchmen: character. Basically, Before Watchmen: Dr. Dr. Manhattan without reading Watchmen.

Manhattan represents an expanded It is kind of like watching Star Wars: version of the flashback issue, #4, of the Episode I before watching Episode IV. original series, where he jumps back and In other words, Before Watchmen: forth in time. When I teach Watchmen in class, that issue is the one where my Dr. Manhattan is predicated on knowing students either check in or check out. what happened in Watchmen. I couldn’t even imagine someone doing a chronoIf you haven’t read a comic, this is going logical reading of this. to blow your mind. But if you have read a comic, even a current comic, it will Then again, Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan is a little more like Alan still blow your mind if you have never Moore’s Promethea work. In some read Watchmen. adam hughes ways, Adam Hughes is channeling TOM: I definitely agree. So, what about Moore to cover his more experimental Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan page layouts, especially when you’re reading the upside- issue #3, when writer J. Michael Straczynski and down pages that occur in issue #4. Upside-down panels Hughes depict how Dr. Manhattan’s mother died in are extremely challenging because you have to rotate Germany? I’m talking about page 10, where they the comic. If you read a comic illustrated in that fashion show the Nazis shooting her after she runs to distract online, it can make it extremely difficult. The exception them from searching the wagon where young Jon would be David Mack’s Kabuki stuff. has been hiding. Then, on page 14, Jon’s father talks

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INTERVIEW WITH GARY FRANK, ARTIST OF DOOMSDAY CLOCK BACK ISSUE: Gary, as artist for Doomsday appeared in the Watchmen comic.

Clock, which serves as a direct sequel to BACK ISSUE: In your career, you have drawn Watchmen, what does the character of many powerful characters (e.g., the Hulk Dr. Manhattan mean to you? and Superman). How has this pedigree GARY FRANK: He’s almost a hero, but of experience shaped your portrayal of ultimately he isn’t. He’s a tragic figure.

Dr. Manhattan?

He has the power to do anything but, FRANK: Those characters carry their in the end, he turns his back on the world power in different ways. Hulk is like a big as his humanity falls away. Dr. Manhattan silverback. That physical threat is part of doesn’t start that way, but we see it happen what he’s projecting. My approach to in Watchmen. He ends up alone and sees Superman is that he is usually almost gary frank that as growth. He finishes Watchmen minimizing the effect. He rarely wants to leaving for “a galaxy less complicated” project intimidation. He doesn’t need CmdrClow. (maybe one where to. Quite the opposite. heroes and villains are Dr. Manhattan is easier to identify?), completely uninterested but, at the same time, in the effect his he talks about maybe physical form and creating some human demeanor communicate. life, so it feels like he He simply is. still has some issues to BACK ISSUE: What are resolve. You’re left with your feelings on illusthe feeling that even a trating the showdown god might be capable between Dr. Manhattan of terrible foolishness. and Superman in BACK ISSUE: Taking Doomsday Clock into consideration #8 (Nov. 2018)? how Dave Gibbons FRANK: Slight established the look trepidation. It doesn’t of Dr. Manhattan in take a genius to work Watchmen (i.e., his out that there is a facial characteristics mismatch. Superman and body language), might be tough, but how have you he’s still made of approached visually atoms, so nothing depicting the character will be resolved by a in Doomsday Clock? simple slugfest.

FRANK: I’ve essentially BACK ISSUE: Would tried to make sure that you like to share any it is as true to Dave’s other thoughts that vision as possible. you have working on I actually tried to pick the character and Dave’s brain on a few collaborating with points, but he said that writer Geoff Johns on he prefers not to get this historic comic? involved and that I FRANK: Honestly, should do my own I was not keen on thing, so, given that, being involved in I’ve tried to make sure the beginning. I was that it is the original skeptical about the character seen through initial premise, but the filter of my style. when Geoff pulled I’ve deliberately avoided some threads together From Doomsday Clock #7. TM & © DC Comics. looking at any of the and fleshed out the subsequent versions. Someone else’s interpretation is plan, there came a moment when I thought, “Yeah, irrelevant. I’m only interested in the version that this book is really going to be something special.”

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 65 From Doomsday Clock #7. TM & © DC Comics.

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.

66 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

TM

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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Atomic Agent In the fictional Simpsons universe, the character of Radioactive Man was created by Morty Mann, and made (gutter, this page and following) his debut in Interesting Stories #27. The first issue of An atomic sampling of Radioactive Man Radioactive Man Comics appeared in 1952, as noted above.

The character also appeared in a movie serial sponsored Bongo Comics appearances. (top) Two

by Laramie Cigarettes and a campy 1970s series similar to the Adam West Batman TV series of the 1960s. screen grabs featuring Radioactive Man Starring as Radioactive Man in this fictional TV version from episodes of The Simpsons. was Dirk Richter, who was murdered in a brothel after the series ended, parroting the real-life mysterious death © Bongo Entertainment, Inc. of TV Superman George Reeves. There was also supposed The Simpsons TM & © 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. to be a movie version of Radioactive Man starring Ranier Wolfcastle (an Arnold Schwarzenegger parody) and Bart’s friend Milhouse Van Houten as sidekick Fallout Simpsons Comics and Stories was the first standardBoy, but the film was never completed. size Simpsons comic book published, and paved the From 1993 to 2012, Bill Morrison, currently the way for Bongo Comics. The issue was polybagged executive editor of the recently revamped and rebooted and featured a poster featuring Radioactive Man MAD magazine, was creative director of Bongo Comics, and Bartman (Bart’s super-alter ego). Radioactive the real-life publisher created to produce comics Man was also featured on the issue’s cover and in based upon The Simpsons and Futurama (another the issue’s lead story called “Lo, There Shall Come…

Matt Groening-created animated TV series) cartoon a Bartman!!” characters. (Bongo ceased its publication of GroeningIn this issue, Bart is shown reading panels from a related titles in October 2018, with Simpsons Comics Radioactive Man comic book, but by the time Bongo #245 being its final title released.) Regarding Comics was created, the decision was made to give Radioactive Man’s first actual TV appearance, Radioactive Man his own six-issue miniseries on the “Three Men and a Comic Book” independent of The Simpsons.

“When we decided to launch Bongo Simpsons episode, Morrison remarks, Comics with a Radioactive Man comic“Yes, his first full appearance was book series, we took the origin shown in that episode, but there was at least one earlier episode of The in the episode, which was based on Simpsons that showed Bart reading the Incredible Hulk’s origin, and a Radioactive Man comic book. fleshed it out,” recalls Bill Morrison.

He looked very different from how “We gave him a secret identity he appeared in the ‘Three Men and [Author’s note: In the Bongo Comics a Comic Book’ episode, though. version of Radioactive Man, his alter ego “Matt Groening told me once that was Claude Kane III], a cast of recurring Radioactive Man was designed to look friends and villains, and explained a bit like Homer,” Morrison reveals. that the lightning bolt in his head bill morrison “There was a built-in irony in that Bart wasn’t part of his costume—it was a worshipped Radioactive Man as a hero, Gage Skidmore. shard of metal that was lodged in his but his father, who really should be the object of Bart’s skull from the explosion that gave him his powers, respect and awe, was the real Radioactive Man because and that if he removed it he would die. So Matt and of his job at the nuclear power plant. So, it’s a pretty [writers] Steve and Cindy Vance and I did contribute safe bet that Matt is the creator of at least the name and to the character’s creation as well.”

A decision was also made to give the illusion that concept of Radioactive Man.” Radioactive Man had been published consistently since RADIOACTIVE MAN EXPLODES INTO 1952 for over 1000 issues, and instead of issuing the books COMIC BOOKS chronologically, they would be numbered randomly The very first comic-book appearance of Radioactive in order to correspond with issues paralleling similar Man actually predated Bongo Comics with Simpsons events published by DC, Marvel, and other comic-book Comics and Stories #1 from 1992, published by Welsh publishers. Later issues took jabs at publishers Archie and Publishing Group. Welsh had just completed Gold Key. Morrison reveals, “That was an idea hatched publishing a Simpsons Illustrated magazine that lasted by Matt and editor/writer Steve Vance. They thought it for ten issues and an Annual, from 1991 to 1993. would be fun to set his origin at the dawn of the Atomic 68 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

Sketchy Character Bill Morrison-signed sketch cover to Simpsons Comics #230, spotlighting our bolt-headed hero. © Bongo Entertainment, Inc. The Simpsons TM & © 20th Century Fox Film Corporation.

Age, but to make each issue a decade or so later until the final issue of the six-issue series was set in the present day (1994) and was a parody of Image Comics. And there was an arc that carried through all the issues, that of Richard Nixon being a recurring villain. Steve actually created a chart that played out the fictional publishing schedule of Radioactive Man. It was mostly a monthly comic, but in order to make the final issue #1000 (a feat that predated DC’s Action Comics #1000 by 24 years!), the comic would have been published twice a week for a period in the 1980s (that’s inspired by the period when Action Comics went weekly for a time).”

A LARGE “BODY” OF WORK

The Simpsons Archive Wiki attempts to explain the fictional erratic publishing schedule of the 1000-issue series: “In Radioactive Man #412, the historical publishing schedule was supplied as ‘eight times a year from 11/52 to 5/59, then monthly until 4/72, then twice a month until (at least) issue #412, October 1980.’ Then, in Radioactive Man #100, the historical publishing schedule was further detailed, ‘Radioactive Man has not only published more issues than any other comic-book series with 1000 issues in total (excluding annuals, giants, and “For those of you driven to ask if the Bongo-supplied crossovers), but it is also the most frequently published detail precisely matches what has been ‘reprinted’ comic as well. In fact, from issue #413 (11/80) to #418 thus far… well, not exactly.”

(12/80), Morty Mann experimented briefly with a ‘trimonthly’ schedule, before launching BONGO’S RADIOACTIVE MAN into the notorious ‘weekly’ schedule from SERIES #419 (1/81) to #679 (12/85) that has After the initial six-issue Radioactive Man been documented in The Duff Book of series of 1993–1994, a co-starring World Records. After a furious four years appearance in Bartman #3 (which came of unequaled creative productivity, polybagged with a Radioactive Man Morty fell into a more comfortable and Bartman trading card), and a Hero ‘week and a halfly’ schedule starting Illustrated giveaway, there was a with #679 (1/86) and ending with the Radioactive Man 80-Page Colossal issued theoretically final issue of #1000 (1/95). in 1995, and appearances in random issues The rumor that publishing had ceased of Simpsons Comics issued from 1996–2000. is true; nonetheless, we are happy to The Simpsons Comics appearances report that after a mere three-month at this time were of a comic bookmorty mann hiatus publishing resumed monthly within-a-comic type like in #19, where in Apr. 1995 with issue #1001, as © Bongo Entertainment, Inc. The Simpsons TM Bart Simpson is reading the adventures evidenced by reprint and background & © 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. of Radioactive Man rather than story information supplied by Simpsons interacting with him, or with the regular Summer Shindig #3 that indicated that issue #1173 was Simpsons characters dressing up like Radioactive Man being published in September 2009. like in #31, where Homer dresses up as the character “Therefore we have the following (below): to help with a Springfield budget fundraiser.

Issues Dates Frequency –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Ordered by Original Publication Date 1–55 Nov. 1952–May 1959 Eight times a year 55–208 May 1959–Apr. 1972 Monthly 208–412 Apr. 1972–Oct. 1980 Twice a month 413–418 Oct. 1980–Dec. 1980 Trimonthly 419–679 Jan. 1981–Dec. 1985 Weekly 679–1000 Jan. 1986–Jan. 1995 Week and a halfly 1001–1173 Apr. 1995–Sept. 2009 Monthly

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RADIOACTIVE MAN BONGO COMICS APPEARANCES, 1993–2017 (excludes non-starring trade paperback reprints)

• Simpsons Comics and Stories #1 (available with and without poster) (Jan. 1993) (Welsh Publishing) • Radioactive Man #1 (available with and without poster and glow-in-the-dark cover), November 1952 (#1, 1993) • Radioactive Man #88, May 1962 (#2, 1994) • Radioactive Man #216, August 1972 (#3, 1994) • Radioactive Man #412 (includes trading card), October 1980 (#4, 1994) • Bartman #3 (includes trading card) (Aug. 1994) • Radioactive Man #679 (includes trading card), January 1986 (#5, 1994) • Radioactive Man #1000, January 1995 (#6, 1994) • Bartman and Radioactive Man #1 (Hero Illustrated mini-comic giveaway, listed as Bartman in indicia) (1994) • Radioactive Man 80-Page Colossal #1, Summer 1968 (listed as Radioactive Man in indicia) (#1, 1995) • Simpsons Comics #19 (Apr. 1996) • Simpsons Comics #31 (June 1997) • Simpsons Comics #36 (this and the next three issues have a flip-cover of Radioactive Man #160, May 1968) (Apr. 1998) • Simpsons Comics #37 (June 1998) • Simpsons Comics #38 (Aug. 1998) • Simpsons Comics #39 (Oct. 1998) • Simpsons Comics #50 (flip-cover is Radioactive Man #99, April 1963) (Aug. 2000) • Radioactive Man #100, May 1963 (vol. 2, #1, 2000) • Simpsons Comics Presents Radioactive Man #222, November 1972 (vol. 2, #2, 2001) • Simpsons Comics Presents Radioactive Man #136, May 1966 (vol. 2, #3, 2001) • Simpsons Comics Presents Radioactive Man #4, March 1953 (vol. 2, #4, 2001) • Simpsons Comics Presents Radioactive Man #575, January 1984 (vol. 2, #5, 2002) • Simpsons Comics Presents Bart Simpson #9 (Aug. 2002) • Simpsons Comics Presents Radioactive Man #106, November 1963 (vol. 2, #6, 2002) • Bongo Comics Presents Radioactive Man #7, June 1953 (vol. 2, #7, 2003) • Bongo Comics Presents Radioactive Man #8 (“The Official Bongo Comics Group Movie Edition”) (vol. 2, #8, 2004) • Bongo Comics Presents Radioactive Man #197, June 1971 (vol. 2, #9, 2004) • Bongo Comics Presents Simpsons Super Spectacular #1 (Nov. 2005) • Bongo Comics Presents Simpsons Super Spectacular #2 (Feb. 2006) • Bongo Comics Presents Simpsons Super Spectacular #3 (July 2006) 70 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

• Bongo Comics Presents Simpsons Super Spectacular #4 (Jan. 2007) • Bongo Comics Presents Simpsons Super Spectacular #5 (July 2007) • Radioactive Man #711 (7-Eleven giveaway; says Bongo Comics in indicia), 2007 • Bongo Comics Presents Simpsons Super Spectacular #6 (Jan. 2008) • Bongo Comics Presents Simpsons Super Spectacular #7 (July 2008) • Bongo Comics Presents Simpsons Super Spectacular #8 (Feb. 2009) • Simpsons Comics #155 (Part One of “The Best Radioactive Event Ever!”), June 2009 • Simpsons Comics Presents Bart Simpson #48 (Part Two of “The Best Radioactive Event Ever!”), (June 2009) • Simpsons Summer Shindig #3 (June 2009) • Bongo Comics Presents Simpsons Super Spectacular #9 (Part Three of “The Best Radioactive Event Ever!”), July 2009 • Best Radioactive Event Ever (San Diego Comic-Con exclusive), 2009 • Bongo Comics Presents Simpsons Super Spectacular #10 (Jan. 2010) • Bongo Comics Presents Simpsons Super Spectacular #13 (June 2011) • Bongo Comics Presents Simpsons Super Spectacular #14 (Dec. 2011) • Simpsons Comics Presents Bart Simpson #67 (Jan. 2012) • Simpsons Illustrated #2 (Apr. 2012) • Simpsons Summer Shindig #6 (May 2012) • Bongo Comics Presents Simpsons Super Spectacular #15 (June 2012) • Radioactive Man: Radioactive Repository vol. 1 (July 17, 2012) • Treehouse of Horror #18 (Sept. 2012) • Bongo Comics Presents Simpsons Super Spectacular #16 (Jan. 2013) • Simpsons Comics Presents Bart Simpson #85 (July 2013) • Simpsons Comics Presents Bart Simpson #86 (Sept. 2013) • Simpsons Comics Presents Bart Simpson #91 (July 2014) • Simpsons Winter Wingding #9 (Nov. 2014) • Simpsons Comics Presents Bart Simpson #98 (Sept. 2015) • Simpsons Illustrated #22 (Mar. 2016) • Simpsons Comics #241 (Nov. 2017)

Rare Ashcan Radioactive Man, cover-featured with the Simpsons cast on The Official History of Bongo Comics, a limited edition ashcan distributed at the 1993 San Diego Comic-Con. © Bongo Entertainment, Inc. The Simpsons TM & © 20th Century Fox Film Corporation.

Simpsons Comics #36–39 feature an independent flipcover story arc of Radioactive Man #160, which pays homage to Jim Steranko’s 1968 S.H.I.E.L.D. series. Simpsons Comics #50 features a standalone story of Radioactive Man, parodying the Superman Bizarro universe, plus a singlepage Hostess ad parody for Krusty Snak Kakes (sic). Radioactive Man also makes a cameo appearance on the issue’s wraparound cover. This led to a new Radioactive Man series.

This second Radioactive Man series was intended to be ongoing. Bill Morrison explains, “We did it for a while with Batton Lash as the writer.

It actually won an Eisner Award during that run, but ultimately the sales were not strong enough to keep it going. We ended up starting a new title Simpsons Super Spectacular, which starred Radioactive Man with stories of other Simpsons characters as superheroes (Bart as Bartman, Homer as Pie Man, etc.). The sales of that title were stronger and that kept Radioactive Man alive for a while longer.”

The second Radioactive Man series lasted nine issues from 2000–2004. During this series’ run, Radioactive Man made a cameo appearance in Bart Simpson #9. Like his previous Simpsons Comics appearances, Radioactive Man doesn’t interact with Bart Simpson as a living, breathing character, but appears in stories here as a cereal-box character, an action figure that Bart mail-orders, and on Bart’s T-shirt.

After his second series cancellation, Radioactive Man appeared in most issues of the 16-issue Simpsons Super Spectacular from 2005–2013, either has himself or as someone else dressing up as him. During this period, Radioactive Man made a story arc appearance called “The Best Radioactive Man Event Ever!” that crossed over in three Bongo titles: Simpsons Comics #155, Bart Simpson #48, and concluding in Super Spectacular #9. This story arc was the first time Bart interacted with the real Radioactive Man. The complete story was reprinted together as the Best Radioactive Man Event Ever trade paperback in 2009. This TPB tends to command high prices these days as it had a low print run because it was a San Diego Comic-Con exclusive and most copies are signed by Bill Morrison or artist Tone Rodriguez.

Another out-of-the-ordinary appearance is Simpsons Summer Shindig #3, with a story written and drawn by Scott Shaw! that features Radioactive Man meeting Radioactive Rabbit.

Radioactive Man made one final starring appearance, in a 7-Eleven store special edition in 2007—conveniently

released as issue #711—that compiled some standalone reprints and features some new material. Morrison remembers, “He did live on in Simpsons Super Spectacular after that issue, but that was the end of Radioactive Man in his own title. I was always keen to bring him back in his own book, but it was a tough sell.”

Since 2007, Radioactive Man has appeared in at least one cameo appearance or story appearance in the various other Bongo Simpsons titles, even after 2013.

He appeared again as a movie character portrayed by Simpsons semi-regular Ranier Wolfcastle in Bart Simpson #67; a straight appearance in Simpsons Summer Shindig #9; a humorous horror appearance in Treehouse of Horror #18; more character cameos in the Bart Simpson world in Bart Simpson #85, 86, and Winter Wingding #9; and “Radioactive Milhouse” in Bart Simpson #91.

Radioactive Man: Radioactive Repository vol. 1 is a hardcover collection from 2012 that compiles most of Radioactive Man’s previous appearances.

There was even a Bartman and Radioactive Man video game produced!

One of the weirdest Radioactive Man stories appeared in Bart Simpson #98, entitled “A Nose for Adventure,” a two-page story that has a surprise ending that I won’t reveal here.

Radioactive Man’s most recent appearance at this writing was in Simpsons Comics #241, in 2017, apart from reprints in Simpsons Illustrated and in various Simpsons trade paperbacks. In the most recent story, “Introducing: Radioactive Woman,” Bart’s Aunt Selma is cast as Radioactive Woman when Krusty the Clown gets the rights to make a Radioactive Man movie.

Bill Morrison has fond memories of doing Radioactive Man and recalls which issue he liked the most: “I co-wrote and drew issue #216, the parody of the Neal Adams/Denny O’Neil Green Lantern/Green Arrow series. That was probably the most fun I had writing and drawing Radioactive Man, and I think it still holds up pretty well. However, at the time we had decided that the inking style on Radioactive Man should match the Simpsons TV show, so I inked it with a dead line (a single-weight line with no thick and thin variations).

Later on we opened up the style and did some lavish brush inking with lots of black spotting, and I wish I’d been able to ink RM that way in those early issues.”

MARK ARNOLD is a comic-book and animation historian. He has written many books including ones on Harvey Comics, Archie Comics, Dennis the Menace, Cracked magazine, and much more. He is currently at work on a book about the Chipmunks, a Monkees solo book, and a TTV Scrapbook, and is making commentaries for Kino Lorber’s DePatieFreleng DVD and Blu-ray series.

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Send your comments to: Email: euryman@gmail.com (subject: BACK ISSUE) Postal mail: Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief • BACK ISSUE 112 Fairmount Way * New Bern, NC 28562

Find BACK ISSUE on

Since Back Talk was bumped from last issue’s info- and art-drenched issue, we’ve got multiple issues’ worth of material to cover, so let’s get right to it…

A NEW BI READER FROM SOUTH OF THE BORDER

So, I finally managed to complete my reading of the great BACK ISSUE #104… and how much I enjoyed it! The graphic material is wonderful, but the content is superb! I want to congratulate all the people involved in the making of this issue, which is the first of many, as I’ve asked MLCS [that’s My Local Comic Shop; I saved you a Google search—ed.] to get me your magazine.

Although I’ve always loved the Fourth World characters, many of the runs and titles you discussed weren’t available for me in my country (Mexico), but thanks to the electronic gods, now there are chances to buy online, so I’ve decided I’m going to read much of this Bronze Age material, mainly, The Forever People and Mr. Miracle.

Nonetheless, I’ll end up getting the New Gods stuff (as I recently got the Orion by Walter Simonson Omnibus).

I have one suggestion to make: Just as you made a Batman: The Animated Series issue (which I have to get—I’m on the hunt for your back issues), why don’t make one featuring The Super Friends?

I’d love to read something like this in your style! Right now I’m reading a past issue, #93, with my favorite comic-book character ever on the cover! And after reading some lines I know now that I need BACK ISSUE #30 in my life!

Don’t stop printing this marvel of a magazine! Looking forward for a long list of future (and past) issues!

– Pollux Dioscuros Welcome to our world of Bronze Age comics! By the way, readers, BI #30, to which Pollux refers, contains an article by Andy Mangels about DC Comics’ Super Friends title.

An actual Super Friends spotlight issue? That’s a good idea, one we’ll consider for the future. In the meantime, as you’re discovering back issues of BACK ISSUE, for more Super Friends-related material check out BACK ISSUE #38 (Wonder Twins), 61 (the Limited Collector’s Edition Super Friends tabloid), and 83 (Global Guardians).

And while many print copies of early BIs are now sold out, the entire run is available digitally through twomorrows.com.

A REAL NOSTALGIA TRIP

I’m the guy who has dropped a couple of letters in the past few years, asking about a Kung Fu issue of BACK ISSUE, and now it’s here, and I couldn’t be happier with the job you did. Issue #105, from the gorgeous cover forward, was a fabulous nostalgia trip for me.

When I was 11, to keep me occupied while she shopped, my mother bought me one of those pre-bagged comic three-packs they sold back in the ’70s at drug stores. I was interested in its Daredevil comic, but there was also a Son of Satan (how the Hell did that happen?) issue, and then Iron Fist #5. That latter book remains to this day one of my favorite comics. Iron Fist’s early issues, plus his Marvel Premiere appearances, were the first comics I ever 72 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

collected as back issues, in a dingy/scary used bookstore in downtown Columbus, Ohio. This series was really what made me a comic collector.

I loved Iron Fist and Shang-Chi, so BACK ISSUE #105 hit all my sweet spots. I also loved the article on Deadly Hands of Kung Fu… I didn’t buy that particular magazine (to be honest, I was afraid to—I thought they’d call my parents if I tried! I was sure it was only for grownups), but I remember doing my best to read it at the drugstore when I thought no one was watching. DHoKF’s Daughters of the Dragon two-parter is something my 12-year-old self sneaked back to read dozens of times, for reasons that will be obvious to anyone who remembers it.

Anyway, thanks for coming through for me. Loved every page.

The only downside is that now I think my bank account is going to have to take a bit of a hit—those DHoKF Omnibuses seem too good to pass up.

– Dan Stewart In Memoriam: Daniel DeAngelo, the writer of BI #105’s Deadly Hands of Kung Fu article, passed away in late February 2018. Danny was always joy to work with and will be sorely missed. He’s shown in the photo below with “The Man” himself, Stan Lee, for whom BI readers are also grieving, after his death on November 12, 2018. Our sister magazine, Alter Ego, edited by Stan’s one-time protégé Roy Thomas, will soon be paying tribute to The Man’s career. Rest in peace, Stan Lee and Daniel DeAngelo.

GULACY-A-GO-GO

I just finished reading BACK ISSUE #105 (the “Deadly Hands” issue), and it was simply outstanding. It made me realize how “hooked” I was on all of those kung-fu comics from the ’70s. I literally picked up most of those comics.

Steven Thompson’s Master of Kung Fu article was thoroughly enjoyable. His style of writing was both informative and entertaining.

It was not just a rehash of the series’ history. His inclusion of creator comments, along with his own insights and perspectives, made it an engaging reading experience.

With regard to Mr. Thompson’s mention of MOKF #19 paying tribute to the Kung Fu TV series and David Carradine’s portrayal of the lead character Kwai Chang Caine, whose likeness was drawn by Paul Gulacy (for the story’s character Lu Sun), but with a mustache, readers may want to check out the original art by Gulacy which was later printed in the Marvel UK comic magazine The Avengers Weekly Starring Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, in issue #s 36–37 in 1974. This version had the Lu Sun/David Carradine character without a mustache (see photo on next page). One could presume that Marvel had decided to add the mustache to the character in MOKF #19 in order to avoid any potential legal difficulties with Warner Bros., which owned the Kung Fu TV show.

The Marvel UK division apparently decided to “let it ride,” keeping the art as it was originally drawn, providing readers with the unique team-up of Shang-Chi and Kwai Chang Caine, for the first and only time.

GULACY-A-GO-GO, PART 2

Best BACK ISSUE ever [#105]!

The Norem cover choice was right on the money.

Hands down, a very good job covering an important part of comic-book history.

Really proud to be a part of it, Mike.

Thanx for the comps!

Your friend, – Paul Gulacy And thank you for being a part of the issue, Paul!

You’re right… that repurposed Earl Norem Iron Fist/Shang-Chi painting did make a great cover! Eventually, Paul, we’ll have you grace our cover again (I’m thinking a Gulacy Batman/Hugo Strange BI cover would be cool; whattaya think, readers?).

Regarding my article on “How Paul Gulacy’s Master of Kung Fu Splash Pages Became Foreign Edition Covers,” it is interesting to note that even to this day, foreign publishers are continuing to use Paul’s MOKF splash-page art to sell their books. This most recently occurred in 2017 when Panini Comics in Spain published the Shang-Chi: Juegos De Engano Y Muerte (Games of Deceit and Death) hardcover, which is a Marvel Limited Edition book.

This collection reprinted the stories from MOKF #29–51, which includes much of the classic [Doug] Moench and Gulacy run from the 1970s. The wraparound cover for this book features an enlarged version of Paul’s splash page art from MOKF #33 (below, following letter).

I also uncovered another classic Gulacy MOKF splash page that was used as the cover to Kung Fu Magasinet #101 in Denmark by Interpresse in 1985 (see inset). It is from MOKF #43 with the story title, “A Flash of Purple Sparks.”

I love seeing these Gulacy “splash page covers” being used for Master of Kung Fu comic books in other countries. It’s the way it could have been, or should have been, for those original Marvel MOKF comics in the ’70s.

– Dave Lemieux

Master of Kung Fu TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Master of Kung Fu TM & © Marve

l Characters, Inc.

NICE TO GET TO KNOW SHANG-CHI

Thanks for sending these images to complement your BI #105 article, Dave.

By the way, our next commentator is an authority on Gulacy art and martial-arts comics…

Thank you for another highly enjoyable issue of BI. But then, aren’t they all?

I have to confess I never read Master of Kung Fu. At that time I was pretty much strictly into superheroes, and later on there just seemed to be too many issues to catch up on. After reading the excellent article in the issue and the follow-up on the publication of the Omnibus books, I might have to catch up now, though.

This does highlight one of the things I love about BI. The writers always have such passion for the material that as a comic-book fan I get caught up in the excitement and become enthusiastic about books I previously had little or no interest in. I felt this way long before I became a contributor, so I don’t feel bad about saying so.

As I have mentioned in a letter before, this does my wallet no favors, but really satisfies the comic-book geek within.

Both MOKF articles mention in passing the one and only MOKF Annual, which happens to be the only issue I own. I also came to it by accident! I love the Invaders, so I had picked up Fantastic Four Annual #11, in which the Invaders guest-starred. At the end, though, I found the story was continued. The only place I was able to find the continuation, in Marvel Two-in-One Annual #1, was in a doublepack with the MOKF Annual. I’m not sure if those double-packs were just something done by a local chain or not as I don’t remember them being packaged with trade dress, just two comics back-to-back with a red sticker.

No matter the reason, I really loved that story with Shang-Chi and Iron Fist battling seemingly endless hoards of minions. I’ve always loved a non-powered hero facing off against a bevy of baddies.

Maybe I watched too many Batman reruns as a kid where the Dynamic Duo battle three or four flunkies for a couple of minutes.

Either way, I still love that Annual, but it was self-contained, so I guess it did not draw me into the regular book.

One thing from the Iron Fist article that I really appreciate is the listing of where you can find reprints of the comics that are talked about. As mentioned, BI articles often cause me to seek out the comics discussed. I usually prefer the actual comics, but as time goes by collected editions are often a lot easier to come by, and in this case, owing to Iron Fist #14 being the first appearance of Sabretooth, the originals may be prohibitively expensive.

The Hong Kong Phooey article brought back some great memories, and I could completely visualize his plunge into the filing cabinet and his inability to get out! I haven’t thought of that sequence in, well, too many years, but it came back quite vividly as I read that article.

The [’80s] Suicide Squad is one of my all-time favorite comics, so it was really nice to have an insider give us the lowdown on one of its pivotal characters, Bronze Tiger, as well as the memories of writer John Ostrander.

I have often heard that Joe Kubert was the original artist chosen for Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, but the consideration of Kurt Schaffenberger was quite a revelation. Given the differences between his style and Neal Adams’, it is almost impossible to visualize exactly how that would have turned out.

– Brian Martin Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 73

A-MAZE-ING GRACE

Regarding “Girls’ Club,” the sidebar to BI #106’s “Jonni Thunder” article, how come no love for Jennifer Mays of The Maze Agency?

I know you’re aware of the character…

– Mike W. Barr Oops! Ye ed must have been on autopilot when editing writer Ed Catto’s sidebar on lady PIs. I should have suggested we include Ms. Jennifer Mays, star of the gonebut-not-forgotten whodunit comic series The Maze Agency, which got its start in 1988 at Comico the Comic Company. Maze was created and written by Mike W. Barr and was originally drawn by Adam Hughes and Rick Magyar and edited by… Michael Eury. (For those wishing to revisit this exceptional series, check out BACK ISSUE #2, which cover-features Jen and includes a Barr/Hughes Pro2Pro interview conducted by yours truly.)

AN ALL-STAR CRISIS

Nice issue on the JSA and related series of the 1970s and ’80s. I haven’t read that much of it yet, but I did peruse the panel Jerry Ordway, Arvell Jones, and I did.

And I was sorry to see, on p. 40, that because of the particular way I phrased things when talking about Crisis, I may have made it seem as if I was saying that, when I was told early on that Crisis on Infinite Earths would not happen without my blessing, the justmentioned Len Wein and Marv Wolfman were “lying” to me.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The “they” I was referred to, but didn’t make clear, was DC’s powers-that-be, primarily at that time Jenette Kahn and Dick Giordano. And probably “lying” is a bit too strong a word.

It’s more like I was told something— several somethings, in fact, over the course of Crisis—and then, one by one, those statements became “no longer operative,” to use the Nixon-era phrase I employed at one point on the panel. To me, the effect was pretty much the same: I was told things would be one way with regard to All-Star Squadron after the end of Crisis, and then DC reversed itself and threw me (or at least All-Star Squadron) under the bus. But it had nothing to do with Len or Marv!

– Roy Thomas

THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS

BACK ISSUE #106 was a fun read. I’ve been an Earth-Two fan since I started reading comics in the ’70s and always looked forward to the annual JLA/JSA team-ups. Naturally, the All-Star Comics revival was the best thing since sliced bread and I really liked seeing the Golden Age Superman. This issue was a fun and informative trip down memory lane. Thanks for including some information on the Spectre revivals of the late ’80s (and ’90s).

Gene Colan’s and Gray Morrow’s art was perfect for the book.

My only regret is there wasn’t an article on Young All-Stars, a very underrated book. I always wondered where Mr. Thomas was planning to go with his tease of a storyline involving the Frankenstein Monster.

Great work to everyone involved!

– Mike Rickard II 74 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

I agree that Young All-Stars warrants the BI treatment, and space limitations prohibited that taking place in #106. Eventually we’ll circle back around to that series.

SAINTS BE PRAISED!

First off, thanks for the “Return of the Saint” welcome in the letter column. Much appreciated!

Second, thanks for printing my recent letters.

Now, BI #106...

I’ve been looking forward to this issue since I saw the cover, based on Joe Staton’s splash page to DC Special #29.

All-Star Comics revival: I missed All-Star #58 when it came out (would get it later), so I started with #59. I really loved what Gerry, Paul, Ric, Keith, and Wally were doing storyand art-wise, and I was in Seventh Heaven when Superman appeared.

I thought it was a great idea making Clark Kent editor of the Daily Star (and Bruce Wayne commissioner of police).

Clark’s change to Superman in silhouette was great, but it would be years before I found out that it was an homage to the Fleischer cartoons! Joe Staton, whose work I was a fan of in Charlton’s Six Million Dollar Man series, was a welcome successor in the art department.

The Bob Layton interview [in our new UnKnown Marvel department —ed.] was okay, though I would’ve liked it better had he been asked about his All-Star days.

Liberty Legion: I hadn’t gotten into The Invaders yet when the LL appeared in Marvel Premiere. I got around to them when I started getting the issues of The Invaders I had missed. I liked them, but I’m not sure if I would’ve bought an LL series at the time.

Air Wave: I liked the character from the word go. Would find out The Maze Agency TM & © Michael W. Barr. about his father the Golden Age version later. Never understood why his father’s costume literally disappeared from his body in that “Whatever Happened to…?” story. I’m glad I missed out on that “Maser” period.

The All-Star Squadron interview: This was the highlight of the issue. Roy surpassed his work on The Invaders with this run.

Jerry Ordway really came into his own on this book. Rich Buckler was a good artist when he wasn’t swiping left and right. Adrian Gonzales, Rich Howell, and Rick Hoberg helped keep the art end up.

I have to be honest—Arvell Jones’ and Mike Clark’s work did nothing for me, but I kept buying. If I could put up with Milgrom’s run on Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (God, that was long), I could put up with these guys. It’s a shame DC reneged on their promise to Roy regarding the use of the GA Superman, Batman, WW, etc.

Jonni Thunder: I tried to get into it. Bought the first issue, but it did nothing for me.

Crimson Avenger: That Secret Origins #5 story was excellent!

Had Gene Colan been involved in the miniseries I would’ve bought it. Greg Brooks’ work did nothing for me so I passed, and later heard about what Brooks had done, joining Bob Wood in comic-book infamy. Thanks for not glossing over the murder.

The Spectre: Bought and liked the Moench run, stayed away from the Ostrander run, as I’m no fan of Mandrake’s art.

Keep ‘em flying!

– Delmo (The Saint) Walters, Jr.

First off, another excellent issue of BI. I loved the extensive coverage of Golden Age characters’ treatments during the Bronze Age. I have most of the issues you mentioned, but you brought some new insights and invigorated me to re-read these stories again. Brought out the seven-year-old geek in this middle-age geek’s brain box.

I believe the Rough Stuff feature needs some correcting. I’m referring to the Marvel Two-in-One #20 cover by Kirby and Frank Giacoia (with John Romita, Sr.).

The article suggests that Kirby did the image with “meticulously arranged incredible complexity. The scene’s receding layout is tremendously intricate.” Also: “…is far beyond an artistic rough or preliminary layout.”

I strongly believe this was not the case at all.

First, Kirby was an instant idea man. He never did cover roughs. He’d do completed pencil covers and sometimes they were rejected, but never cover layouts for approval. At least, not since the mid-’60s. He was gifted enough to bang out a finished cover faster than most artists could do tight layouts.

Second, when Kirby returned to Marvel, he did his own covers for his own books (Eternals, Captain America, Black Panther, Devil Dinosaur, etc.), but— and it’s been widely known among those who have read The Jack Kirby Collector for decades— when others’ Marvel books wanted Kirby covers, Marie Severin was the cover designer. (See the attached Severin sketch for Skull the Slayer next to its Kirby pencils and the final inked version.)

Marie Severin was a cover-designing machine.

In my opinion, there’s a huge difference in coverlayout quality when Marie did them, as opposed to Kirby’s own “Kirbyverse” covers. That said, I’d have a strong guess that Marie laid out MTIO #20’s cover.

BTW, Paul Carbonaro’s idea for a letterhack-turned-pro issue is a great one! I was one of the lucky guys who did exactly that.

And reading older comics, I see many future legends express their opinions of previous issues and many of them are good enough to be articles themselves.

– Drew Geraci Last things first: our own letterhack-turned-BI writer Brian Martin is taking on the mission of an article, or perhaps a series of articles,

following the whereabouts of the letterhacks we grew up with.

We’re not rushing this one into print but allowing Brian the time to develop it as needed.

Regarding your comments about BI #106’s Rough Stuff feature, at the bottom of the page are the three stages of the Marie Severin-sketched, Jack Kirby-penciled, Frank Giacoia-inked cover to Skull the Slayer #8 (Nov. 1976).

Drew, I shared your letter with Rough Stuff’s writer, Len Gould; his reply: I really enjoyed Drew Geraci’s passionate response, but I disagree wholeheartedly.

Drew is correct that Marie Severin laid out many a piece that essentially followed the same path at the Skull the Slayer example.

As pointed out, TJKC readers have seen this.

However, to assume that was the only way the nonKirby-book covers were done is preposterous.

At this point in the King’s career he was penciling out most everything. So there isn’t anything special in that regard.

What was special, however, was the intense intersection of some potential motivations: Mr. Kirby’s material affinity for the Thing; his personal, on multiple levels, hatred of the Nazis; the timing of this one’s creation (the Bicentennial). These all set the stage for what looks dead-on “Kirby” to me. Just look at the crowd in the background or the angles of the floating heads.

Perhaps we will find out some day.

Could Drew be right? Of course, he could be!

But to assume that there was a hard and fast “rule” that fit every single cover he did in that era is a heck of a leap.

TM & © Marvel.

– Len Gould

ME AND MR. JONES

I really enjoyed your BI issue with the Golden Agers. The cover was wonderful. Great issue!

The best was your article on All-Star Squadron. It’s a series that should be reprinted in trade paperbacks.

I also learned that Arvell Jones was an artist on it! He did great work. I met him this weekend [at a convention] and he a [sketch of the] original Sandman for me.

I liked the Roy Thomas interview about The Crimson Avenger.

DC should do something with these characters.

– Patrick Moreau

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

KIRBY KOVER KOMMENTARY

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 75

Patrick, thank you for sharing that superb Sandman sketch by Arvell Jones, and the photo of the two of you, below…

the skin torn off her face in full, un-obliterated color? It’s a bit of a dichotomy?

Anyway, still love BACK ISSUE, so keep up the great work!

– Martin Downham, Surrey, UK

Sandman © DC Comics.

That’s the American Way, Martin! Our broadcast TV offers no end of violence and gore, but even “soft” nudity, like someone in the bathtub or shower, is taboo.

Robert Menzies’ “UnKnown Marvel” reappeared in BI #110 and is in this issue, too, with a return slated for issue #114, plus others to follow. To date, Robert has no plans to cover Apeslayer—but we’ll take it under advisement. Apeslayer was included in my TwoMorrows book Comics Gone Ape, as you’re aware, and before that was covered in Jon B. Cooke’s Comic Book Artist magazine, so longtime TwoMorrows readers are familiar with this reworking of Planet of the Apes stories. But if Robert can find an angle to include it in his column, he’s got ye ed’s blessings!

MORE THAN A FANZINE

DOUBLE STANDARD?

Just took delivery of issue #106, the revival of the JSA. The cover article was brilliant, but it’s two of the other features I’d like to comment on, if I may.

The Unknown Marvel/UK showcasing early art by US artists in the British B&W weekly reprints was a great read. These represented my first exposure to Marvel— while DC Comics were generally readily available, the distribution of Marvel “all-color” comics was sporadic at best. Imagine reaching the final page of the “All-new, all-different” X-Men issue #101, then forlornly waiting in vain for issue #102 to reach the British shores—it never shipped. But if Unknown Marvel/UK returns, please do consider a feature on the weekly B&W Planet of the Apes issues #23 to 30. These weekly reprints featured the tale of the Apeslayer. Sounds good, right?

Only, on closer inspection, these were repurposed Killraven comics as Marvel UK had run out of original US-produced Apes stories. It’s an admirable but unintentionally hilarious undertaking where the Martians are clumsily replaced by apes.

The other feature I’d like to comment on regards the Doug Moench Spectre article.

From the outset, and without wishing to appear a prude, I have no doubt that a number of expletives are edited out of some of the interviews you publish and I for one appreciate that. This magazine should appeal to a wide audience and the contents should be balanced and appropriate. But I question your editorial stance on nudity versus extreme graphics? The simply beautiful Gray Morrow art you have elected to censor with the nude Madame Xanadu, writhing in ecstasy alone on her bed, having black bars covering her breasts, and yet, one page later, there are two panels depicting a woman having Batman TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

76 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

Longtime reader and first-time writer here. I first discovered BACK ISSUE at the SDCC TwoMorrows booth in 2007. I started with #23 and I haven’t missed one since. Your magazine is always informative, always entertaining, and a great way to relive the comics of my youth. My hope was to one day meet you at SDCC and thank you personally, but I don’t think I ever saw you there.

(And with SDCC becoming what it is these days, I probably won’t be attending much more.)

Anyway, let me say “THANK YOU!” for the work you do chronicling the Bronze Age (and beyond). BACK ISSUE isn’t just a momentary diversion like most magazines. It’s a reference work and a library that can be returned to again and again.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve dug out an old issue to re-read an article about a series or creator I’m currently interested in. I’ve even found myself reading past articles that I skipped the first time around. (This is why I buy every issue, even the ones with less-interesting themes… I never know when I will be interested, and I will be thankful to have that issue on hand.) Because of its wealth of knowledge, I truly believe that your magazine will be looked upon as the definitive chronicle of the Bronze Age. Thank you also for the BACK ISSUE Facebook group, one of the nicest spots on the Internet and a great place to interact with other Bronze Age Babies.

Thanks again, and I look forward to the next 108 issues of BACK ISSUE! – Dean Anderson Well, Dean, you know how to bring a smile to an editor’s face. Thank you for your support of this magazine. (BTW, I used to attend SDCC regularly, but my last trip there was 2006. Maybe our paths will cross at a different convention one day.)

Next issue: Batman movie 30th Anniversary Issue! Featuring a guest column and interview with Batfilms producer MICHAEL USLAN, an interview with screenwriter SAM HAMM, and a chat with the man who might have been Two-Face: BILLY DEE WILLIAMS. Plus: 1989: DC Comics’ Year of the Bat, DENNY O’NEIL and JERRY ORDWAY’s Batman movie adaptation, MINDY NEWELL’s Catwoman, GRANT MORRISON and DAVE McKEAN’s Arkham Asylum, MAX ALLAN COLLINS’ Batman newspaper strip, and JOEY CAVALIERI and JOE STATON’s Huntress. Featuring a classic Michael Keaton Batman cover by JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, with cover design

by MICHAEL KRONENBERG. Don’t ask—just BI it! See you in thirty!

Your friendly neighborhood Euryman, Michael Eury, editor-in-chief

TM

Editor’s note: Issue #106’s All-Star Squadron Pro2Pro interview between Roy Thomas, Jerry Ordway, and Arvell Jones was the sleeper hit of BACK ISSUE #106, engendering a lot of love from readers who miss Roy’s World War IIbased superhero book.

John Joshua is one of those fans. John has commissioned a “continuation” of the Thomas-scribed series (which ended with issue #67, cover-dated Mar. 1987) from a variety of artists with fantasy covers based upon classic Marvel covers—each of which happened to be written, plotted, or scripted by none other than Roy Thomas!

We’re happy to share this special All-Star Squadron gallery with you, accompanied by our deepest gratitude to John Joshua, the participating artists, and, of course, to Mr. Thomas himself for the wealth of entertainment he’s provided us over the decades. You can follow John’s growing gallery of All-Star fantasy covers on ComicArtFans.com.

All-Star Squadron #68 by Ian Richardson based on the cover of Fantastic Four #158

by Rich Buckler

All-Star Squadron #69 by Brendon and Brian Fraim based on the cover of X-Men #90 by John Buscema

All-Star Squadron #70 by Chris Ivy based on the cover of Avengers #83 by John Buscema and Tom Palmer (Krysalis is a character Roy intended to use but never got around to, as revealed in the second volume of All-Star Companion.)

All-Star Squadron #71 by Brendon and Brian Fraim based on the cover of Avengers #75 by John Buscema

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 77

All-Star Squadron #72 by Shawn van Breisen based on the cover of Sub-Mariner #26 by Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito

All-Star Squadron #73 by Michael T. Gilbert based on the cover of The Invaders (1993 miniseries) #3

by Dave Hoover

All-Star Squadron #75 by Ian Richardson based on the cover of Avengers West Coast #61 by Paul Ryan

All-Star Squadron #76 by Brendon and Brian Fraim based on the cover of All-Star Squadron #1

by Rich Buckler

78 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue

All-Star Squadron #77

by Craig Cermak based on the cover of Daredevil #53

by Gene Colan and George Klein

All-Star Squadron TM & © DC Comics. Avengers, Avengers West Coast, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Sub-Mariner, and X-Men TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

All-Star Squadron #78 by Matt Childers based on the cover of The Invaders #5

by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott

All-Star Squadron #79 by John Watson based on the cover of Avengers #54

by John Buscema and George Klein

All-Star Squadron #88 by Mike Collins based on the cover of X-Men #88

by Dan Adkins

Nuclear Issue • BACK ISSUE • 79

GET A FREE COPY! Help us find a few missing pages, and better scans of others. Anonymity will be respected.

JACK KIRBY’S DINGBAT LOVE

In cooperation with DC COMICS, TwoMorrows compiles a tempestuous trio of never-seen 1970s Kirby projects! These are the final complete, unpublished Jack Kirby stories in existence, presented here for the first time! Included are: Two unused DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET tales (Kirby’s final Kid Gang group, inked by MIKE ROYER and D. BRUCE BERRY, and newly colored for this book)! TRUE-LIFE DIVORCE, the abandoned newsstand magazine that was too hot for its time (reproduced from Jack’s pencil art—and as a bonus, we’ve commissioned MIKE ROYER to ink one of the stories)! And SOUL LOVE, the unseen ’70s romance book so funky, even a jive turkey will dig the unretouched inks by VINCE COLLETTA and TONY DeZUNIGA. PLUS: There’s Kirby historian JOHN MORROW’s in-depth examination of why these projects got left back, concept art and uninked pencils from DINGBATS, and a Foreword by former 1970s Kirby assistant MARK EVANIER! SHIPS OCT. 2019!

(160-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $14.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-091-5

rs. ctive owne their respe All characte

In the latest volume, KURT MITCHELL and ROY THOMAS document the 1940-44 “Golden Age” of comics, a period that featured the earliest adventures of BATMAN, CAPTAIN MARVEL, SUPERMAN, and WONDER WOMAN. It was a time when America’s entry into World War II was presaged Look for the 1945-49 volume by the arrival of such patriotic do-gooders as WILL EISNER’s Uncle Sam, HARRY SHORTEN and in early 2020!

IRV NOVICK’s The Shield, and JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY’s Captain America—and teenage culture found expression in a fumbling red-haired high school student named Archie Andrews. But most of all, it was the age of “packagers” like HARRY A CHESLER, and EISNER and JERRY IGER, who churned out material for the entire gamut of genres, from funny animal stories and crime tales, to jungle sagas and science-fiction adventures. Watch the history of comics begin! SHIPS JUNE 2019!

rs TM & ©

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: 1940-44

OR -COL FULLDCOVER HAR RIES SE nting me docu ecade of ! d each s history ic m co

(288-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $45.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-089-2

MAC RABOY Master of the Comics

Beginning with his WPA etchings during the 1930s, MAC RABOY struggled to survive the Great Depression and eventually found his way into the comic book sweatshops of America. In that world of four-color panels, he perfected his art style on such creations as DR. VOODOO, ZORO the MYSTERY MAN, BULLETMAN, SPY SMASHER, GREEN LAMA, and his crowning achievement, CAPTAIN MARVEL JR. Raboy went on to illustrate the FLASH GORDON Sunday newspaper strip, and left behind a legacy of meticulous perfection.

Through extensive research and interviews with son DAVID RABOY, and assistants who worked with the artist during the Golden Age of Comics, author ROGER HILL brings Mac Raboy, the man and the artist, into focus for historians to savor and enjoy. This FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER includes never-before-seen photos, a wealth of rare and unpublished artwork, and the first definitive biography of a true Master of the Comics! Introduction by ROY THOMAS! ISBN: 978-1-60549-090-8 • SHIPS AUG. 2019!

(160-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.95 Roger Hill’s 2017 biography of REED CRANDALL sold out just months after its release—don’t let this one pass you by!Pre-order now!

Silver ary ers Anniv -2019 1994 ears 25 Y

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The Future of Comics History.

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BACK ISSUE #113

BACK ISSUE #114

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AMERICAN COMIC BOOK COMIC BOOK IMPLOSION ORAL HISTORY OF DC COMICS CHRONICLES: The 1990s AN CIRCA 1978! Marking the 40th anniver-

BATMAN MOVIE 30th ANNIVERSARY! Producer MICHAEL USLAN and screenwriter SAM HAMM interviewed, a chat with BILLY DEE WILLIAMS (who was almost Two-Face), plus DENNY O’NEIL and JERRY ORDWAY’s Batman movie adaptation, MINDY NEWELL’s Catwoman, GRANT MORRISON and DAVE McKEAN’s Arkham Asylum, MAX ALLAN COLLINS’ Batman newspaper strip, and JOEY CAVALIERI & JOE STATON’s Huntress!

BLACK SUPERHEROES OF THE 1970s!

History of Luke Cage, Hero for Hire! A retrospective of artist BILLY GRAHAM, a TONY ISABELLA interview, Black Lightning, Black Panther in the UK, Black Goliath, the Teen Titans’ Mal and Bumblebee, DON McGREGOR and PAUL GULACY’s Sabre, and… Black Bomber (who?). Featuring TREVOR VON EEDEN, STEVE ENGLEHART, ROY THOMAS, & a BILLY GRAHAM cover!

SCI-FI SUPERHEROES! In-depth looks at JIM STARLIN’s Dreadstar and Company, and the dystopian lawman Judge Dredd. Also: Nova, GERRY CONWAY & MIKE VOSBURG’s Starman, PAUL LEVITZ & STEVE DITKO’s Starman, WALTER SIMONSON’s Justice Peace (from the pages of Thor), and GREG POTTER & GENE COLAN’s Jemm, Son of Saturn! With a Dreadstar and Company cover by STARLIN and ALAN WEISS!

sary of the “DC Implosion”, one of the most notorious events in comics (which left stacks of completed comic book stories unpublished and spawned Cancelled Comics Cavalcade). Featuring JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, and others, plus detailed analysis of how it changed the landscape of comics!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships June 2019

Year-by-year account of the decade when X-MEN #1 sold 8.1 million copies, IMAGE COMICS was formed, Superman died, Batman had his back broken, and Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN led to the VERTIGO line of adult comic books. Go behind-thescenes in that era of gimmicky covers, skimpy costumes, and mega-crossovers. By KEITH DALLAS and JASON SACKS.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships July 2019

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ALTER EGO #158

ALTER EGO #159

ALTER EGO #160

DRAW #36

FCA SPECIAL! Golden Age writer WILLIAM WOOLFOLK interview, and his scripting records! Art by BECK, SCHAFFENBERGER, BORING, BOB KANE, CRANDALL, KRIGSTEIN, ANDRU, JACK COLE, FINE, PETER, HEATH, PLASTINO, MOLDOFF, GRANDENETTI, and more! Plus JOHN BROOME, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and the 2017 STAR WARS PANEL with CHAYKIN, LIPPINCOTT, and THOMAS!

Peter Cannon–Thunderbolt writer/artist PETE MORISI talks about the creative process! Plus, his correspondence with JACK KIRBY, JOE SIMON, AL WILLIAMSON, CHARLES BIRO, JOE GILL, GEORGE TUSKA, ROCKY MASTROSERIO, PAT MASULLI, SAL GENTILE, DICK GIORDANO, and others! Also: JOHN BROOME’s bio, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY!

REMEMBERING STEVE DITKO! Sturdy Steve at Marvel, DC, Warren, Charlton, and elsewhere! A rare late-1960s Ditko interview by RICHARD HOWELL— biographical notes by NICK CAPUTO— tributes by MICHAEL T. GILBERT, PAUL LEVITZ, BERNIE BUBNIS, BARRY PEARL, ROY THOMAS, et al. Plus FCA, JOHN BROOME, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

Spider-Man cover by DITKO!

MIKE HAWTHORNE (Deadpool, Infinity Countdown) interview, YANICK PAQUETTE (Wonder Woman: Earth One, Batman Inc., Swamp Thing) how-to demo, JERRY ORDWAY’s “Ord-Way” of creating comics, JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews the latest art supplies, plus Comic Art Bootcamp by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY! May contain nudity for figure-drawing instruction; for Mature Readers Only.

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BRICKJOURNAL #56

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #19 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #20

KIRBY COLLECTOR #75

MIKE GRELL

LIFE IS DRAWING WITHOUT AN ERASER

Career-spanning tribute covering Legion of Super-Heroes, Warlord, & Green Arrow at DC Comics, and Grell’s own properties Jon Sable, Starslayer, and Shaman’s Tears. Told in Grell’s own words, with PAUL LEVITZ, DAN JURGENS, DENNY O’NEIL, MARK RYAN, & MIKE GOLD. Heavily illustrated!

(160-page FULL-COLOR TPB) $27.95 (176-page LTD. ED. HARDCOVER) $37.95 (Digital Edition) $12.95 • Now shipping!

KIRBY COLLECTOR #76

LIFE-SIZE LEGO and what it takes to build them (besides a ton of LEGO brick)! HELEN SHAM’s sculptures of giant everyday items, MAGNUS LAUGHLO’s GI Joe®-inspired models, military builds by ERIC ONG, plus “Bricks In The Middle” comic by KEVIN HINKLE, “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, Minifig Customization by JARED K. BURKS, & more!

Celebrating the greatest fantasy artist of all time, FRANK FRAZETTA! From THUN’DA and EC COMICS to CREEPY, EERIE, and VAMPIRELLA, STEVE RINGGENBERG and CBC’s editor present an historical retrospective, including insights by current creators and associates, and memories of the man himself. PLUS: Frazetta-inspired artists JOE JUSKO, and TOM GRINDBERG, who contributes our Death Dealer cover painting!

NOT YOUR AVERAGE JOES! Interview with JOSEPH MICHAEL LINSNER (CRY FOR DAWN, VAMPIRELLA), a chat with JOE SINNOTT about his Marvel years inking Jack Kirby and work at TREASURE CHEST, JOE JUSKO discusses the Marvel Age of Comics and his fabulous “Corner Box Collection,” plus the artists behind the Topps bubble gum BAZOOKA JOE comic strips, CRAIG YOE, and more!

KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID! The creators of the Marvel Universe’s own words, in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and TV interviews, painting a picture of JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s relationship—why it succeeded, where it deteriorated, and when it eventually failed.

Includes a study of their solo careers after 1970, and recollections from STEVE DITKO, WALLACE WOOD, & JOHN ROMITA SR.

FATHERS & SONS! Odin/Thor, Zeus/ Hercules, Darkseid/Orion, Captain America/ Bucky, and other dysfunctional relationships, unpublished 1994 interview with GIL KANE eulogizing Kirby, tributes from Jack’s creative “sons” in comics (MUMY, PALMIOTTI, QUESADA, VALENTINO, McFARLANE, GAIMAN, & MILLER), MARK EVANIER, 2018 Kirby Tribute Panel, Kirby pencil art gallery, and more!

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