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The “Irreverent” BILLY GRAHAM • Black Panther • Black Goliath • Black Lightning • TONY ISABELLA interview • Mal Duncan • Black Bomber (who??) • DON McGREGOR & PAUL GULACY’s Sabre with CLAREMONT • ENGLEHART • O’NEIL • THOMAS • VON EEDEN & more

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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! NOW SHIPPING! #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.

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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 114 August 2019 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Billy Graham (Produced for the 1975 ACBA Art Portfolio, contributed by Jerry Boyd.) COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Jeff Aclin Terry Austin Mike W. Barr Robert Barrett Jerry Boyd Dewey Cassell Ed Catto Shaun Clancy Chris Claremont Jon B. Cooke J. M. DeMatteis Steve Englehart Cliff Galbraith/ East Coast Comicon Mike Gold Shawnna Graham Grand Comics Database Paul Gulacy Dan Hagen Jack C. Harris Heritage Comics Auctions Sean Howe Tony Isabella Rob Kirby

Paul Kupperberg James Heath Lantz Joseph Lenius Paul Levitz Ed Lute Ralph Macchio Don McGregor Marsha McGregor Robert Menzies Christopher Mills Evan Narcisse Luigi Novi Barry Pearl John Roche Bob Rozakis Rose Rummel-Eury Jason Schachter John Schwirian Andrew Standish Joe Staton Dan Tandarich Joel Thingvall Roy Thomas John Trumbull Gerry Turnbull James Warren John Wells

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BACKSEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 FLASHBACK: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Bronze Age adventures of Marvel’s Power Man BACKSTAGE PASS: The Irreverent Billy Graham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 A biography of the revolutionary Luke Cage and Black Panther artist UNKNOWN MARVEL: Censoring “Panther’s Rage”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 British readers encountered an altered version of this ’70s classic FLASHBACK: Brains and Brawn: Black Goliath. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 The Life and Times of Bill Foster, Black Goliath/Giant-Man II/Goliath III FLASHBACK: The Unsung Legend of Mal Duncan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 DC Comics’ first black superhero and his tumultuous Teen Titans tenure INTERVIEW: Tony Isabella and Black Lightning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 A candid conversation with the creator of Black Lightning GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: The Black Bomber. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 One of comicdom’s most infamous narrowly avoided wrong turns ART GALLERY: Black Lightning by Trevor Von Eeden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 FLASHBACK: Black Lightning, Beyond Isabella . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Tracking Jefferson Pierce’s journeys through backups and super-teams PRO2PRO: Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 The Sabre writer/artist team looks back at their hero BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Reader reactions and a few never-before-published images NEW IN PRINT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 The spirit of the Bronze Age is alive in Atomic Action’s new comics line

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 Billy Graham. Luke Cage, Hero for Hire TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2019 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue • BACK ISSUE • 1

by M

It was with the introduction of Luke Cage, in Marvel Comics’ Hero for Hire in 1972, that the medium finally evolved to an acceptance of a non-white superhero starring in his own comic book. I cannot overstate how important this was at the time. First, for readers: Several of my black male friends have told me that with Luke Cage, they finally had a superhero “who was like me”; and for white fans, Hero for Hire was a cultural awakening (especially for those of us growing up in the South, which was struggling with integration, and in rural areas with little or no non-white populations). And second, for the comics business itself: As Shaft proved to Hollywood, commercial success was not relegated to the color of one’s skin. Throughout the ’70s, more African-American superheroes (and supervillains) premiered in comic books, often carrying the adjective “Black” in their names (a rather embarrassing trend that mostly faded after Hollywood’s “Blaxploitation” fad ran its course). It is their stories we share in this issue (although we’re saving the histories of Green Lantern John Stewart and Iron Man James “Rhodey” Rhodes for our December issue, BI #117). This issue is a sequel to our previous “Black Superheroes” theme, the critically acclaimed BACK ISSUE #8 (Feb. 2005). These two editions aren’t the only times we’ve explored the adventures of African-American characters in our pages. Please consult the checklist in this issue’s Back Talk column to direct you to our previous coverage of everyone from Black Lightning to Vixen. As I write this on February 25, 2019, the ugly specter of racism continues to taint the ideologically divided US in our daily headlines… but in brighter news, just last night Marvel Studios’ Black Panther won three Academy Awards®, and scored other Oscar nominations including one for Best Picture. We often look to our storytellers—our filmmakers, musicians, authors, illustrators, and comic-book creators—to inspire us with visions of a world where ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, body type, and disabilities don’t restrict us but instead help define us for the better. May this issue’s look back at these influential black superheroes and the gifted creative artists behind them play a small step in imagining a more inclusive society.

2 • BACK ISSUE • Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue

Black Panther movie characters TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Contemporary superhero comic-book and movie universes are multicultural, reflecting the real world. But that wasn’t the case in 1970, at the dawn of comics’ Bronze Age. Then, the four-color pages of comic books predominantly featured characters—both starring and supporting—of only one color, white. From today’s perspective one might rush to judgment of this, but as my one-time boss at DC Comics, the late, great Dick Giordano, once told me, the primary reason that comics’ original icons—Superman, Batman, Captain America, Sub-Mariner, Wonder Woman, the original Captain Marvel, you name ’em—were white is that, in Dick’s words, “They were created by Jewish and Italian men who wrote and drew what they knew.” However, even before the Man of Steel first leaped tall buildings in a single bound, in 1937 African-American cartoonist Jackie Ormes launched her Torchy Brown syndicated comic strip, featuring black characters. The comic book, the offspring of the newspaper “funnies,” was slow to follow. During the Golden Age, there were efforts to produce comic books with black stars. Perhaps the most ambitious was the product of Orrin C. Evans, an African-American Philadelphia newspaperman, who in 1947 published the first issue of All-Negro Comics. As explained in Evans’ editorial, this new comic book featured black characters written and drawn by black creators (and targeted toward black readers). The title’s main features were John Terrell’s Ace Harlem, a gumshoe, and George J. Evans, Jr.’s Lion Man, a jungle lord, with humorous characters fleshing out the rest of the book’s pages. A second issue of All-Negro Comics never reached newsstands, as the periodicals-distribution network was in those days as segregated as America’s communities and limited the circulation of material intended for African Americans. Over time, however, African-American characters began to appear in traditional comic-book stories, sometimes in crowd scenes, and on rare occasions, in “message” stories. Marvel’s first black headliner was the Tarzan knock-off Waku, Prince of the Bantu, who starred in short stories in mid-’50s issues of Jungle Tales. With the Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s, comic-book publishers— and the distributors that circulated their wares—took small but important steps to include African-American characters in significant roles. The first black hero to star in his own comic book (outside of biographical comics) was Don Arneson and Tony Tallarico’s Lobo, a Western from Dell Comics that ran two issues in 1965. The next year, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced T’Challa, the Black Panther, into the pages of Marvel’s Fantastic Four, and the comics world began to change. This renaissance was not relegated solely to the confines of what was read within the panels: Creators of color, including the late Billy Graham, whose exhilarating cover art graces this issue, also began to find employment in the business.

ichael Eury

His rationale and his rage are all right there in his name: “Cage.” It’s the trap that he’s in, the prison where he began, and the symbol of his unyielding strength. Although he wasn’t the first black superhero when he debuted in March 1972, Luke Cage was arguably the one closest to readers—the street-level super-guy, not especially interested in saving the day, who was as tough and steamed-up as the Harlem pavement on a hot summer afternoon. And when he was introduced in Marvel Comics’ Hero for Hire #1 (cover-dated June 1972), he had plenty of reasons to be angry.

BRONZE AGE DIVERSITY

by D a n

Hagen

Cage was part of a second wave of Marvel superheroes that appeared a decade after the first wave, and has proven to be among the most durable of them. He began as an African-American Count of Monte Cristo—a masterful, wrongly imprisoned man who escapes and adopts a secret identity so he can use his abilities to exact revenge. Roy Thomas tells BACK ISSUE that he and the other creators of Luke Cage didn’t explicitly consider the 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas during their character-development discussions. “But Stan [Lee] or Archie [Goodwin] may have read it, and it might’ve had a conscious or subconscious effect,” Thomas adds. The groundbreaking character would also take literary inspiration from a 1930 science-fiction novel by Philip Wylie and, in an odd way, anticipate headlines about a major American scientific scandal that would be exposed just a few months later. “Since none of these characters is real and the possibility of them ever existing is basically nil, superheroes become representations of human ideals, emotions, tragedies, evils and conflicts,” wrote Alex S. Romagnoli and Gian S. Pagnucci in their book Enter the Superheroes: American Values, Culture and the Canon of Superhero Literature. “These themes of difference, alienation and mutantism make superhero stories an excellent genre for exploring the concept of ‘the other,’ the person who is different and never quite gets accepted by society. When it comes to superhero literature, issues of otherness are also complicated by a nonfictional history that reflects monoculturalism among most of the comic creators. To a great extent, comic writers, artists, inkers, editors and other members of the many creative teams are predominantly white males.” Although his creators were mostly white, their intention in publishing the first comic-book title devoted to a black superhero was not condescension, but uplift. Cage had the good fortune to arrive at the point in history when American popular culture was finally ready to spotlight black heroes and protagonists. Superheroes represent an ideal of human perfectibility, and Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, and the artists at Marvel Comics clearly thought that ideal ought to embrace a wider spectrum of humanity. So Marvel introduced the world’s first black superhero—the Black Panther, in Fantastic Four #52 (July 1966)—then launched a female superhero into her own solo feature—the Black Widow, in Amazing Adventures #1 (Aug. 1970)—then unveiled an Asian superhero— Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, in Special Marvel Edition #15 (Dec. 1973). And in between, they debuted a Native-American superhero— Red Wolf, in Avengers #80 (Sept. 1970). In his book Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, Sean Howe noted that one of Thomas’ first responsibilities when he was named Marvel editor-in-chief in 1972 was to further diversify the Marvel Universe. Not as easy a task as one might think.

Uncaged Jazzy John Romita, Sr. provided Marvelites with this iconic cover art for Hero for Hire #1 (June 1972), and designed the hero’s appearance as well. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3

Trailblazers Black Panther, Black Widow, Red Wolf, and Shang-Chi paved the way for Luke Cage’s premiere in his own title. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

“It’s kind of a shame,” Thomas says. “You could get blacks to buy comics about whites, but it was hard to get whites to buy comics in which the main character was black. And it was even harder to get boys to buy comics about women.” Comics historian Barry Pearl notes, “In 1972’s America, it took courage to produce Luke Cage, the first African-American hero to have his own national title.” The black audience for superhero comics was always large, but could be ambivalent. “The racist administrative government with its Superman notions and comic-book politics,” sneered activist Bobby Seale during the Chicago Seven trial in 1969. “We’re hip to the fact that Superman never saved no black people.” Seale had a point—in a Silver Age superhero comic, you were more likely to find a green face than a black one. But Marvel’s attitude on racial justice had long been clear. For example, in the Tales of Suspense storyline that culminated in Captain America #100, Cap tackled a redoubt of the Nazi supervillain Baron Zemo, the man who had

seemingly killed his partner Bucky and who now wielded a space death ray that threatened the entire planet. Odds against him, Cap met and teamed up with the African king who was the world’s first black superhero—a nice thematic irony given the fact that Steve Rogers’ archenemy was dedicated to the subjugation of “inferior races,” whether black or Jewish. It made perfect sense to me that, soon after, Cap would recommend the Black Panther as his replacement in the Avengers. They shared a similar power set and true-blue virtues, despite the fact that one was a democratic citizen and the other presumably a monarchist.

A MARVEL HERO FROM THE STREETS

Luke Cage arrived as both a complement to and a thematic reversal of Marvel’s Black Panther concept. While the Black Panther ruled a hidden, super-technological African kingdom, Cage walked the ordinary streets of a recognizable New York City. Where the Black Panther was a king, Cage was a common man. Cage was born in the era of the “Blaxploitation” films, although it’s not a term I particularly like. In movies like Shaft (1971), Hollywood wasn’t “exploiting” black audiences so much as providing them with stories they were eager to see—crime dramas about effective, independent black heroes and heroines. I count that a considerable step up from the virtual ghetto of sidekick, victim, and buffoon roles to which black actors had been confined since the beginning of the film industry. John Shaft, a character created by Ernest Tidyman in his 1970 novel Shaft, was an African-American heir to the knight-errant role played by figures like Philip Marlowe and Mike Hammer—tough customers who must walk mean streets alone, dispensing justice where they can. The film proved extremely popular with both black and white audiences, and was one of only three profitable movies made by MGM that year. “A parade of copycats stalked the screen in the footsteps of the black private eye taken as a model soul brother,” noted Roland Leander Williams, Jr. in his book Black Male Frames: African Americans in a Century of Hollywood Cinema, 1903–2003. Nor was Shaft’s influence confined to one medium. “Publishers were eager to tap into a market segment that they had ignored for too long,” wrote Jeffrey A. Brown in his book Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics and Their Fans. “But instead of producing straight blaxploitation heroes, the comics publishers melded the superficial conventions of the film genre with the characters they knew best, the superheroes. The comicbook versions may have looked and talked like John Shaft, but they were given fancy costumes and superpowers. The comic-book blaxploitation heroes were also watered down for a younger audience so that such prominent film conventions as the hero’s sexual prowess were left out of the stories.” And just as John Shaft became the first African-American action hero with his own film series, Luke Cage became the first African-American superhero with his own comic-book series. “In the 1970s, Cage’s costume wasn’t a hoodie but a metal headband, bracelets, and a chain-link belt— attire inspired by the blaxploitation films,” noted Charles Moss in Atlantic Magazine. “Characters in these films typically rebelled against the white establishment and were considered more or less antiheroes—especially significant following the turmoil of the 1960s and the civil-rights movement.” Hero for Hire #1 begins in maximum security Seagate Prison, where militant inmates Shades and Comanche

4 • BACK ISSUE • Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue

are trying to force another tough prisoner named Lucas to join them in a demonstration against the warden. The 2016–2018 Netflix series Marvel’s Luke Cage, filmed in warm, golden hues in Harlem, features Theo Rossi as Shades and Thomas Q. Jones as Comanche. Mike Colter, who plays Cage, was introduced the year before as a supporting character in Netflix’s Jessica Jones. Cage flatly rejects Shades and Comanche’s scheme, but has already attracted the unwelcome attention of the racist guard Captain Rackham (played on TV by Chance Kelly). “It’s all the excuse we need to come down on that uppity…” says the guard Quirt. Writer Archie Goodwin lets the implied racial slur hang in the air. “Don’t go puttin’ personal pleasure aheada duties, Quirt,” Rackham replies. “There’s other possibilities.” Rackham wants Lucas to turn informer, but he’s not about to do that either. Quirt administers a beating to Lucas, but is interrupted by the arrival of the new reform-minded warden, who asks Lucas how he feels. “Boxer I knew used to say long as you’re standin’, you ain’t hurtin.’ I can stand.” Lucas is tough… and about to get a lot tougher. The new warden not only fires Quirt but leaves him locked alone with Lucas in a cell for ten minutes—with predictable results. While on the mend, Lucas gets a visit from Dr. Noah Burstein (played on TV by Michael Kostroff). “I’ve a medical project started that requires a unique breed of man, and I’ve a silly hunch you could fill the bill,” Burstein tells Lucas as lightning flashes outside, silhouetting the portentous bulk of Seagate Prison as if it were Frankenstein’s castle. Popular culture often provides a funhouse mirror view of a nation’s culture—the things it reflects are real enough, but distorted by imagination. And so Luke Cage’s origin anticipated dark aspects of the times in which he was created. No cosmic rays or radioactive spiders for him. He gained his powers through a prison experiment in a sinister, shadowy reflection of Captain America’s origin. As Luke Cage’s first adventures were being published, the infamous Tuskegee experiments were coming to light in the New York Times and the Washington Post. Between 1932 and 1972, the US Public Health Service studied the progression of untreated syphilis in rural African-American men in Alabama under the guise of receiving free government health care. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study’s ruthless mistreatment of black men seriously and permanently damaged the black community’s trust in US public-health efforts. Ironically, the experiments became a front-page scandal in July 1972, just four months after the first issue of Hero for Hire appeared on newsstands. “Probably no connection unless Archie, Stan, or I had seen earlier reports somewhere, since obviously Hero for Hire #1 was plotted out roughly half a year earlier,” Roy Thomas notes. “We just followed human nature, which is suspect in the best of times, even irrespective of race. The story was about powerful people experimenting on less powerful ones. Race wasn’t really a major factor in that part of the plot… Lucas just happened to be the unlucky recipient of the bad guys’ attentions because he was in jail.” Nevertheless, the comic book they created ended up echoing the zeitgeist, for the very reason Thomas cites. The less powerful the race, the bigger the target on its members. Cruel scientific experimentation on black men turned out to be no comic-book fantasy. The Netflix Luke Cage TV series debuted at a similar moment of cultural synchronicity in 2016, with the headlines carrying accounts of unarmed black men shot to death by American police and vigilantes. Who better to wade into that political minefield, metaphorically, than an invulnerable black man? Cage’s TV “action outfit” of a hoodie evokes the iconic images of Trayvon Martin— but this time, not as a victim. “Given the conversation around police brutality, to get a call to do something like this related to a very positive black superhero who is bullet¬proof and trying to make a difference in his community— that’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” composer Ali Shaheed Muhammad told Time Magazine.

The Men Behind Cage (top) Thomas and Romita helped co-create Marvel’s Hero for Hire, while (bottom) Tuska and Graham were the feature’s primary artists. From a 1975 Bullpen gallery from FOOM Magazine. © Marvel.

He’d Risk His Neck for Brotherman… …so sang Isaac Hayes. Writer Ernest Tidyman’s Shaft (1971), directed by Gordon Parks, made a star of Richard Roundtree and gave Hollywood its first African-American action hero. Poster courtesy of Heritage (www.ha.com). © 1971 MGM.

Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue • BACK ISSUE • 5

There have been a great number of African-American artists in every medium that have greatly influenced our world and its culture. Ernie Barnes, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Prince Rogers Nelson are just a few of the names that have made an impact on people of all races. However, one person that belongs among those mentioned is comic-book artist William Henderson Graham, better known as Billy Graham, or the Irreverent Billy Graham, as he was credited in his Marvel work. Artists such as Matt Baker and E. B. Stoner opened doors for other African Americans such as Graham to work in comics, but Graham himself blazed trails for those that followed him. BACK ISSUE will take a look at Billy Graham as we explore the career of a man who paved the way for the likes of Christopher Priest, Reginald Hudlin, Jamal Igle, Denys Cowan, and so many other African-American comic-book writers and artists who followed in his footsteps.

AN IRREVERENT LIFE

by J a m e s

16 • BACK ISSUE • Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue

Heath Lantz

Black Panther and Hero for Hire TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Sabre © Don McGregor.

Art, especially comics, had been a part of Billy Graham’s life from a very young age. According to an interview published in Shazam/The Wonderful World of Comix #7, Graham, born on July 1, 1935, became interested in comics thanks billy graham to a cousin who read them regularly. This led to Billy tracing the panels. Graham’s interest in drawing grew through his youth. While still in elementary school, Billy participated in a “Keep Your City Clean” drawing contest in which he won $25 for his advertisement. This was the first time the Irreverent One was paid for his artwork, but it would not be the last. After attending New York City’s High School of Music and Art and the School of Visual Art, where he learned under Tarzan artist Burne Hogarth, Graham went into commercial art before applying his unique visual style in the comic pages. According to the Shazam interview, Graham got his start in comics by working in the mailroom at EC Comics. He’d show his artwork to the artists whenever they were in the office. “Al Williamson used to help me a lot,” Graham stated. “So did Johnny Craig, Marie Severin, and Bill Gaines.” Moving forward to 1969, the Irreverent One became influenced by fanzines and underground comix, producing adult-oriented strips. One piece of Graham artwork recently uncovered predates the October 1969 cover-dated Vampirella #1, one of Billy’s earliest mainstream comics. Page 16 of the June 6, 1969 Screw, issue #16, features a sequential serial that combines Graham’s style with one possibly inspired by Richard “Grass” Green. Meanwhile, one day before Apollo 11 lifted off for its historic trip to the Moon, Warren Publishing’s Vampirella #1 was released, on July 1, 1969. The 64-page magazine was not only the debut of the title character, it also served as Graham’s first outing as a mainstream comic-book artist. “Death Boat,” a vampire tale inspired by the film Lifeboat, features eerie images that seem to be influenced by Al Williamson, one of Graham’s idols, and many of the others who had

drawn EC horror stories less than two decades before “Death Boat” set sail. Graham went on to pencil and ink stories in Vampirella #2–12, experimenting with styles that paid tribute to the aforementioned Williamson, Frank Frazetta, and others, while adding details that were his own. Billy Graham was promoted to art director not long after by Warren Publishing’s publisher, having become the first African American in that position at Warren and in the mainstream comics industry. Graham is also credited as managing editor for the July 1971–April 1972 cover-dated Warren magazines Eerie, Creepy, and Vampirella. Publisher James Warren recruited him to draw bloodcurdling scare-fests in Vampirella and guided him into becoming art director at Warren Publishing. Warren himself had stated an interview with Jon B. Cooke in Comic Book Artist #4 that he saw that Graham could handle the art directing job’s responsibilities. It had only taken the Irreverent One roughly a fortnight to learn the ropes. Warren said of Graham, “Certain artists and writers are great, but they can’t shift out of their specialty and do something else. Billy could. I taught him how to art direct during our slow period, and it only took a couple of issues—and he did pretty well, though I gave him a nervous breakdown.” That “nervous breakdown” led to some of the most memorable Warren magazines of the time with Graham working both behind the scenes and at the drawing board, creating pages that blended story genres and art styles in the same way Prince did for music in 1987’s Sign o’ the Times album. “Amazonia and the Eye of Ozirios,” written by Gardner Fox for Vampirella #12, combines horror and fantasy made popular in Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian and influences of Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta with Graham’s

own unique visual rendering. Readers get a look at which storytellers helped the Irreverent One hone his craft in images that pay tribute to his mentors and tell fans the way Graham sees the events shown on the pages. Of all of Billy Graham’s Warren work, perhaps “The Alien Plague,” published in Eerie #31, stands out the most. The eight-page tale was written and drawn by Graham, and it feels like it’s a nod to the classic sciencefiction tales of Wally Wood and other artists at EC who taught him about sequential storytelling in comic books. There is also a twist worthy of the best plots from Alfred Hitchcock or Rod Serling. As the title suggests, an alien plague has spread across the universe. A starship’s crew investigates, with one member of its away team finding an illustrated magazine about the disease. He even sees the story’s first page and Cousin Eerie’s introduction. The men find no trace of other paper, including books, throughout much of the debris. They surmise that like vampires who transform into bats, the extraterrestrial parasites, who make people sick, attack them with metal bits and mutate them into nothingness. The creatures would take refuge wherever paper can be found. The men end up in a garbage dump, struck by staples. The final page of Graham’s chilling tale shows a pair of photographed hands holding the comic, reading of the astronauts’ final fate.

Early Published Work Black-and-white Graham art from early in the artist’s career, from Warren’s (left) Vampirella #1 and (right) Eerie #31. © New Comic Company.

UNCAGED IRREVERENCE

Graham eventually left Warren Publishing to be part of the Marvel Comics Bullpen. While there, he got to work with one of his idols, George Tuska, inking a character Roy Thomas, John Romita, Sr., Archie Goodwin, and Tuska created. Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1 (June 1972) marked the debut the first African-American superhero to have his

Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue • BACK ISSUE • 17

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by R o b e r t

Menzies

In the 21st Century, British fans experience the Marvel Universe like everyone else. We have dedicated comic shops, mail order, and digital subscriptions so that no one with money to their name will miss out on any American titles. That was not, however, the case in the 1970s. Back then, British fans were mainly exposed to Marvel through the reprint weeklies that the House of Ideas launched in late 1972, starting with The Mighty World of Marvel (MWOM). And that could mean a quite different reading experience of muddled continuity and sometimes even doctored stories. One of the most intriguing examples of the latter is the epic “Panther’s Rage” by Don McGregor, Rich Buckler, Billy Graham, Klaus Janson, and others. “Panther’s Rage” was the classic Black Panther story arc that ran in the bimonthly Jungle Action (JA) #6–18 (Sept. 1973–Nov. 1975). This lengthy storyline had not long reached its conclusion when its serialization began as a backup feature in Britain’s Planet of the Apes (POTA) weekly #58–83 (Nov. 29, 1975–May 22, 1976). In my opinion, it was the greatest series to appear in that title’s 123-issue lifespan, beating out worthy contenders like Thomas and Kane’s Warlock and Starlin’s Captain Marvel. For reasons that will become clear, few series in the British weeklies differed so much from the original in their presentation as did “Panther’s Rage.” While some of those differences are positive, most, however, are assuredly not. The central problem is, of course, the censorship.

THE POSITIVES

Black Panther in Black and White While UnKnown Marvel’s Robert Menzies rightly contends that Marvel UK’s reprinting of “Panther’s Rage” minus its color was unfortunate, this original art to a Billy Graham-drawn T’Challa pinup from the mid-1970s shows a sleek example of the illustrator’s linework. Courtesy of Jason Schachter. Black Panther TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Firstly, let me deal with the pluses for the British fans. British continuity operated at a faster speed than was found in the US editions. The original “Panther’s Rage” story took 26 months to run its course: in Britain, it was only six. For fans over here brought up on a traditional diet of weekly comics, a month’s wait between issues was alien and ridiculously long. Jungle Action wasn’t even that frequent: It ran on a bimonthly status—and a delay meant that there were four months between #8 and 9! Don McGregor himself has spoken about how he had to ensure that his rotating cast be featured regularly, so that he wasn’t expecting readers to maintain an emotional connection after a gap in appearances of four or six months. So, the British comics definitely had a massive advantage in that respect. The other positive, I would argue, is the extra art, even if it didn’t quite match the stellar heights of the original. The UK weeklies saw nine new splash pages. As each issue was bisected, a new splash was needed every fortnight. On occasion, the editor would repurpose the JA covers, but they switched to using entirely new splashes every fortnight for the final eight weeks. Thanks to researcher Jason Schacter, we now know that most of this art was created by regular British Department contributor David Wenzel, with the final one created by Mike Nasser/Netzer. These pluses notwithstanding, the British version was undeniably less satisfying, as we will see.

AND NOW, THE NEGATIVES

Few Covers As was normal, we missed a lot of covers. Under normal circumstances this is not ideal, and considering that we are talking classic covers by Gil Kane and Rich Buckler—the figure on #8 is an iconic Panther image— it’s an even greater loss. Although some were repurposed

Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue • BACK ISSUE • 23

The Black Panther made his first appearance in Fantastic Four #52 (July 1966), with the distinction of becoming the first African hero in Marvel Comics. Two months later, William (Bill) Barrett Foster would debut in the pages of The Avengers, significant because of the rarity of African-American supporting characters in comics at that time. From scientist to superhero, Bill Foster went through the growing pains of becoming Black Goliath, a.k.a. Giant-Man, a.k.a. Goliath, hero at large. As the name suggests, Foster, in his many guises, could increase his size up to 25 feet, resulting in superhuman strength and the psychological advantage of towering over his opponents. Diversity had come to Marvel Comics, and Bill Foster helped lead the way.

BIG MAN ON CAMPUS

Henry “Hank” Pym started his career as a biochemist, one that studied the chemical substances and vital processes occurring in living organisms. Pym, a.k.a. the original Ant-Man, along with his partner-in-peril, Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp, were founding members of the Avengers. Pym’s work as a scientist and his size-changing ability led him to become the original Giant-Man, and then Goliath. Complications arose when Hank became stuck at giant size. He needed help in the form of a lab assistant and went to Tony (Iron Man) Stark, who had money, knowledge, and resources. Tony knew just the right biochemist at Stark Industries in the plans and research division. Enter: Bill Foster! Avengers #32 (Sept. 1966), by Stan Lee and Don Heck, featured the first appearance of Bill Foster. It also featured the first appearance of the Sons of the Serpent, a racist hate group that believed, “As the original serpent drove Adam and Eve from Eden—so shall we drive all foreigners from this land!” In his introduction to these Avengers stories in Marvel Masterworks vol. 38 (2004), Avengers scribe Roy Thomas related, “Hard as it may be to imagine now, in 1966 it was rare to see matters of race and heritage handled in the pages of a ‘mere’ comic book, even obliquely. I say ‘obliquely’ because you’ll note that the Supreme Serpent keeps talking about driving ‘all foreigners’ from the U.S.— but everybody knew that, by ‘foreigners,’ he also meant people who had been born in America but with the ‘wrong’ skin color. To push the point home, Stan and Don gave Hank Pym a new assistant—Bill Foster, one of the first African-Americans to be given a meaty and non-stereotypical supporting role in a U.S. comic.” In “The Sign of the Serpent,” an attack on Bill by the hate group pulls the Avengers into the case. Foster demonstrated good-guy qualities in Avengers #33 and 34 and encountered his first real supervillain in the form of the Living Laser. Avengers #35 handed off the writing baton from Stan Lee to Roy Thomas, Roy’s first issue as scripter. Thomas cemented the partnership between Pym and Foster with the following dialogue: Pym: “We’ve still got a million experiments to perform… as a team!”

Walking Tall Cover to the Bronze Age classic, Black Goliath #1 (Feb. 1976). Cover art by Rich Buckler and Frank Giacoia. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

28 • BACK ISSUE • Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue

by D a n

Ta n d a r i c h

Growth Spurts (top) Prior to Bill Foster’s big moment, (left) Hank Pym/Giant-Man (from Avengers #28, May 1966, cover below) and (right) Clint Barton/Hawkeye (from Avengers #63, Apr. 1969) become Goliath I and II, respectively. Scans courtesy of Dan Tandarich. (bottom) Stan Lee and Don Heck introduce scientist Bill Foster in The Avengers #32 (Sept. 1966). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Foster responded: “That’s fine by me, big boy… as long as I don’t have to call you by a corny name like Ant-Man!” Thomas explains to BACK ISSUE his use of Bill Foster: “I simply felt that we needed more African-American characters, and since Stan had already introduced him, I simply wanted to solidify that.” Foster continued to assist Hank in the pages of the Avengers while encountering the likes of Diablo and Dragon Man (#41) and the Radioactive Man (#54). He then traveled for field study with Hank and Jan to the wilds of Alaska (#75). His partnership with Hank Pym was firmly established when he next appeared in Marvel Feature #9 (May 1973), standing up for the rights and interests of the “deceased” Hank and Jan while not giving up the idea that they could still be alive (they were!).

BLACK GOLIATH STEPS IN

Foster made no appearances for two years until he came back larger than life in Luke Cage, Power Man #24 (Apr. 1975), by Tony Isabella and George Tuska. As the cover blurb suggested, “Among Us Walks… Black Goliath!” Isabella filled in Bill’s missing years by having Foster married to Claire Temple, making them one of the first AfricanAmerican couples at Marvel, though they would be divorced by the time any reader knew of the marriage. BACK ISSUE corresponded with Tony Isabella about the creation of Bill Foster as a superhero. “I always tried to find ways to utilize characters who had not appeared recently or who hadn’t made the major impact I thought they deserved,” Isabella says. “When I needed a physically powerful foe for the Luke Cage story in which he reunited with Claire Temple and also a good reason for her to have left in the first place, Bill Foster, being both Claire’s ex-husband and a new Giant-Man, came to mind.” Isabella also related this idea of using lesser-known characters to greater effect in the Ant-Man/Giant-Man Marvel Masterworks vol. 3 (2018): “I have always hated to see good characters go by the wayside. It’s why I took Greer Nelson from her four-issue Claws of the Cat title and turned her into Tigra.” In Luke Cage, Power Man #24, Isabella revealed that Bill Foster continued to experiment with Hank Pym’s size-changing formula. Foster eliminated the harmful side effects of changing sizes, but he stayed trapped at 15 feet. Claire Temple explained to Luke Cage, “Bill’s sure he can bring his size-changing under control, but that’ll take money. He was too proud to go to either Henry Pym or to Stark for help. He joined this circus [unbeknownst to him, the Circus of Crime!] to get some fast money.” The rivalry between the new Black Goliath and Power Man for Claire’s affection continued in Luke Cage, Power Man #25 (June 1975), with a plot by Isabella but with the script by Bill Mantlo and art by Ron Wilson. The Circus of Crime were the antagonists galvanizing

the rivals into teamwork. But Claire walked out with Cage by the end of the issue. Of note on the letters page of Luke Cage #24: “The costume design for the new Goliath was the work of a promising young Canadian artist named John Byrne… an artist to watch.” The costume design came complete with an exposed abdomen, a belly window to show off Foster’s impressive six-pack. Regarding Foster’s superhero name, Isabella explains, “I can’t remember who told me I couldn’t use the ‘Giant-Man’ name for the newly enlarged Bill Foster. Apparently, Giant-Man had sold badly when he was headlining Tales to Astonish. That might be why Stan changed Hank Pym’s superhero nom de guerre to Goliath in those old issues of Avengers. Inspired by the black action films [Blaxploitation] I was seeing with Marvel artists like Ron Wilson and Arvell Jones in Times Square, I went with ‘Black Goliath.’ It would be years before Marvel writers would be allowed to use the ‘Giant-Man’ name as Bill’s superhero moniker.”

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue • BACK ISSUE • 29

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NEW BOOK BY BACK ISSUE EDITOR MICHAEL EURY!

HERO-A-GO-GO!

Welcome to the CAMP AGE, when spies liked their wars cold and their women warm, good guys beat bad guys with a pun and a punch, and Batman shook a mean cape. HERO-A-GO-GO celebrates the camp craze of the Swinging Sixties, when just about everyone—the teens of Riverdale, an ant and a squirrel, even the President of the United States—was a super-hero or a secret agent. BACK ISSUE magazine and former DC Comics editor MICHAEL EURY takes you through that coolest cultural phenomenon with this all-new collection of nostalgic essays, histories, and theme song lyrics of classic 1960s characters like CAPTAIN ACTION, HERBIE THE FAT FURY, CAPTAIN NICE, ATOM ANT, SCOOTER, ACG’s NEMESIS, DELL’S SUPERFRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA, the “Split!” CAPTAIN MARVEL, and others! Featuring interviews with BILL MUMY (Lost in Space), BOB HOLIDAY (It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman), RALPH BAKSHI (The Mighty Heroes, Spider-Man), DEAN TORRENCE (Jan and Dean Meet Batman), RAMONA FRADON (Metamorpho), DICK DeBARTOLO (Captain Klutz), TONY TALLARICO (The Great Society Comic Book), VINCE GARGIULO (Palisades Park historian), JOE SINNOTT (The Beatles comic book), JOSE DELBO (The Monkees comic book), and many more! By BACK ISSUE & RETROFAN editor MICHAEL EURY!

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by J o h n

Schwirian

Mal Makes the Scene The first appearance of DC’s first black superhero, Mal (whose last name had yet to be revealed), in Teen Titans #26 (Mar.–Apr. 1970). Written by Bob Kanigher and drawn by Nick Cardy. TM & © DC Comics.

Mal Duncan holds the honor of being DC Comics’ first African-American superhero… well, not super, but DC’s first costumed black hero… Um, actually, it’s kind of complicated. While Marvel Comics introduced Black Panther in 1966 and the Falcon in 1969, DC only had Jackie Johnson, an African-American G.I. in Sgt. Rock’s Easy Company. Johnson debuted in 1961, making him DC’s first recurring black hero. However, this was a war comic, not a superhero feature. Molo, the African Sea Devil, made a one-shot appearance in 1965, and August Durant debuted in 1968 as a member of the Secret Six espionage team. Still, none of those characters were superheroes.

THE TITANS’ “BLACK STAR”

In 1970, Dick Giordano was the editor of Teen Titans, but he had not settled on a regular writer for the series. After experimenting with Marv Wolfman and Len Wein as scribes, he hired Robert Kanigher as part of a directive from publisher Carmine Infantino to “de-power” the Teen Titans and make them more relevant. Giordano felt that Kanigher was the best man for the job, as he had done the same thing with Wonder Woman the year before. Kanigher’s first issue (Teen Titans #25, Jan.–Feb. 1970) delivered everything asked of him. In the story, following their failure to prevent an assassination, the Titans take a vow to give up using their powers and costumes in order to train with the mysterious Mr. Jupiter.

Teen Titans #26 (“A Penny for a Black Star”) extends this idea as the heroes begin the new program. After a bizarre training exercise, Jupiter gives each Titan a penny and then leaves them to manage on their own in Hell’s Corner, a poor neighborhood in an unnamed major city. As per instructions, they start looking for jobs and lodging when Lilith informs them that there is another task to fulfill—find a “black star.” Confused by this cryptic message, they search the neighborhood for clues. They find a young black girl named Cindy selling lemonade for a penny and decide to buy a drink. However, an all-white gang called Hell’s Hawks resents the outsiders invading their territory and pulls the old protection racket on Cindy. When the Titans refuse to respond violently, the gang members grab Lilith and Wonder Girl for some “fun.” Suddenly, Mal leaps into the fray to defend his kid sister (Cindy), and the Titans fight back at last. Once the Hawks are driven off, Mal advises the Titans to head out, as they don’t belong there. Before long, the Titans find employment and a place to stay. Ten days later, at a boxing match at the local boys’ club, they watch Mal deliver a beat-down to Storm Trooper, leader of the Hell’s Hawks. Realizing the meaning of their mission to find a black star, they recruit Mal and take him to Mr. Jupiter for training. Despite his success in his initial testing, Mal still feels the need to prove himself and sneaks off to pilot a space probe destined for Venus with no return to Earth. Mal’s idea was to be “the first guy to wing outta Hell’s Corner—

Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue • BACK ISSUE • 37

That Cat’s Got Chops! (top left) Mal gigs at his Gabriel’s Horn club in The New Titans #56 (July 1989). (top right) Later in that issue, Mal as Herald sounds his mechanical horn. Story by Wolfman and Pérez, art by Mark Bright and Romeo Tanghal. (middle) Mal, as Vox, now a member of the Doom Patrol, in Teen Titans #36 (July 2006). Cover by Tony Daniel. (bottom) Mal as Guardian, from TV’s Young Justice. TM & © DC Comics.

like light through a prism. Reality warped—time sped up, slowed down, and rewound—over and over again. The Red Tornado was destroyed at the same moment the Gabriel Horn exploded. Mal’s blood froze in the vacuum of space as parts of the Red Tornado’s android form sliced through Mal’s body. The shattered beam carried Mal and a few others to Earth, but the rest were transported to parts unknown. Exposure to these energies had various results on everyone exposed, with Bumblebee shrunk to the size of a doll and Mal’s lungs and vocal cords destroyed. Parts of the Red Tornado had fused to Mal’s body, including his voice box, which repetitively blurted, “It’s coming! 52! 52!” [Editor’s note: These events transpired in Infinite Crisis #2–3, Outsiders #32, and 52 Weeks 4–5.] Mal recovered with the aid of the Chief of the Doom Patrol, who replaced Mal’s lungs and vocal cords, but left him unable to speak except through the Red Tornado’s voice box. Calling himself Vox, Mal could now control every sound except his own voice. He and Bumblebee joined the Doom Patrol and would battle alongside them against Black Adam, the Brotherhood of Evil, and the new Secret Six. [52 Week 50, World War III #1 and 3, Teen Titans #35–37, and Secret Six #4.—ed.] Mal disappeared after that. When the new Doom Patrol series appeared, Bumblebee was there, but Mal wasn’t. At one point, it was stated that he and Karen were now divorced. However, in The Outsiders #29 (June 2010), a man named Harold Winer (who was obsessed with the Outsiders’ Looker) was given a ram’s horn by a villain named Veritas. Winer became the new Herald and appeared in The Outsiders #38–40, but had his horn destroyed by Metamorpho. Shortly thereafter, in 2011, the DC Universe was transformed once again, into the New 52. Mal made no appearances until the miniseries Titans Hunt (2015). In this tale, the original Teen Titans are reunited through the meddling of Brom Stikk (a.k.a. the Gargoyle). Mal is once again manipulated into weakening the fabric of reality, and the Titans begin to remember the world as it was before the New 52. Additionally, their defeat of Brom Stikk sets the stage for the return of Wally—and the start of the DC Rebirth! So, why has no one done much with ol’ Mal Duncan all this time? “No one has ever seemed to have the interest in developing Mal,” Bob Rozakis explains. “He started out with a disadvantage among the Titans: ‘I’m Robin, I’m Batman’s partner!’ ‘I’m Kid Flash; I work with the Flash!’ ‘I’m Speedy, partner of Green Arrow.’ ‘I’m Mal… um, that’s me, Mal.’ Neither the Guardian nor the Hornblower identities proved exciting to the readers.” The same seemed to hold true for the writers, as after Rozakis, Geoff Johns in Infinite Crisis was the first to try to do something with Mal, and even that did not last. Mal has, however, become enough a part of the Titans family to earn a smattering of appearances on DC TV shows: Mal as the Herald (voiced by Khary Payon) popped in on a Season Five episode of Teen Titans, and Kevin Michael Richardson voiced Mal, as Guardian, on episodes of Young Justice. In live action, Mal was even referenced as playing a nightclub gig in an episode of The Flash! As of this writing, Mal Duncan looks like he may finally have a role again in the DC Universe. It only took 37 years, but he has a recurring part in the Titans series, and is being included in Oscar-winning writer (12 Years a Slave) Justin Ridley’s miniseries, The Other History of the DC Universe, which examines events in DC history through the eyes of minority characters. By day, JOHN SCHWIRIAN is a mild-mannered college English professor, but by night, he dons the role of comic-book historian. In addition to his passion for Bronze Age comics, he explores the sunken regions of the DC Universe in his self-published fanzine, The Aquaman Chronicles.

42 • BACK ISSUE • Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue

by J o h n

Tr u m b u l l

transcribed by Rose Rummel-Eury

Meet the Creator of Black Lightning (left) It all started here—Black Lightning #1 (Apr. 1977)! Cover by Rich Buckler and Frank Springer. (right) As you’ll read, this interview panel featured a surprise walk-in from this unidentified Black Lightning cosplayer, who took a moment to meet Tony Isabella. Black Lightning TM & © DC Comics.

“Justice, like lightning, should ever appear, to some men, hope, and to other men, fear!” With that paraphrase from a Thomas Randolph poem, Black Lightning began. Since creating Jefferson Pierce and his superpowered alter ego for DC Comics in 1976, Tony Isabella has had a fascinating journey with his signature character, from Black Lightning’s original 1977–1978 series, to the title’s short-lived revival in 1995–1996, to today, with a primetime Black Lightning TV series on the CW television network and Isabella’s return to the character in the miniseries Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands. The following is a transcript of my conversation with Tony Isabella at the East Coast Comicon on April 28, 2018. It has been copyedited by Mr. Isabella and myself for clarity. – John Trumbull JOHN TRUMBULL: Welcome everybody. This is the Black Lightning panel. My name is John Trumbull. I write for BACK ISSUE magazine for TwoMorrows, and also for a website called The Atomic Junk Shop. We’re very happy to be speaking today to the guy who created Black Lightning, along with Trevor Von Eeden, Mr. Tony Isabella. [applause] TONY ISABELLA: Thank you everyone. Just to make this clear, I am the creator of Black Lightning, Trevor drew the first series. That does not make him a co-creator. However, the credits now read, and I wrote

the current credit line: “Black Lightning, created by Tony Isabella, with Trevor Von Eeden,” because “with” is nice and ambiguous, you can believe it means whatever you want it to mean. Also, the reason I did it that way is so Trevor can get money from Black Lightning, now that there is money to be made from Black Lightning. But yeah, my correct title on this character is “creator,” not “co-creator.” And it’s the thing I’m most proud of, so I kind of insist upon that. I’m not really this much of a prick, really. Sorry, kids, I didn’t say that, I said, “Rick.” TRUMBULL: You created Black Lightning over 40 years ago, back in 1976. ISABELLA: Yes, I created him in ’76, and the first issue came out in ’77. TRUMBULL: There is some interesting backstory about the character. Could you tell us about the Black Bomber? ISABELLA: DC Comics hired me away from Marvel because I had written a lot of the black characters at Marvel. I had written Luke Cage. I had written Misty Knight. I had written the Falcon and the Living Mummy, although not everybody realized the Living Mummy was black, because he was covered in bandages. But they called me, I went over to DC, and they handed me two scripts that had already been written of a character created by Gerry Conway and Bob Kanigher, called the Black Bomber. Now, the Black Bomber was a white racist who took part in chemical camouflage experiments while serving in Vietnam that would enable him to blend into the jungle better. And this gets worse and worse—

Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue • BACK ISSUE • 43

Tough Teacher (top) Splash page from Black Lightning #1. Note the credits clearly state that writer Isabella is the concept’s creator. (bottom) From superhero to schoolteacher, from BL #1. Black Lightning TM & © DC Comics.

they basically have one or two faces they draw, so everybody in the comic looks like they’re related to everybody else. If I have a really good black artist, or a really good artist, on anything, that can make characters look different, that’s important to me, too. Because at their heart, these stories are about characters, and you want the characters to be their own people in these stories. Because often as you’re writing these characters, they take on lives of their own, and they tell you where they’re going. And that’s happened a lot with Black Lightning characters. I’ve now written the character three different times [over the years]. Every 20 years, like locusts, I’ve returned to write Black Lightning. TRUMBULL: Lightning has struck three times and counting! Now, you mentioned before that you had that 20% participation agreement with DC, and you said that DC violated it almost immediately. How did that happen? ISABELLA: The very first time—you have to realize that my solo credit on Black Lightning was the credit they used in the comic books for over two years, until I asked about buying the character back, buying out their interest in the character, and then they added Trevor to the [creator] credits. But the first time, and it’s why I quit the book the first time out, was Hanna-Barbera wanted to put Black

Lightning in the Super Friends. I was literally told that Black Lightning would be in the Super Friends. And according to our original agreement, I would have gotten… let’s say that DC got $1000 per episode, and there were ten DC characters in that show. Well, I would have gotten 20% of 1/10th of what DC got. And it would have come out of DC’s pocket. DC didn’t want to pay out even that kind of chump change to me. So DC told Hanna-Barbera that they had to pay extra for Black Lightning, and Hanna-Barbera said, “No, we’re just going to steal the character.” So Black Lightning became Black Vulcan. Amazingly—I got away with this because Joe Orlando has a sense of humor and satire… [but] my last Black Lightning story [in BL #10, Aug. 1978] was called “The Other Black Lightning.” It had a con woman named Barbara Hanna, who had a phony Black Lightning she was taking around the country. I was amazed DC let me do that! TRUMBULL: So Joe Orlando was the one who let that through? ISABELLA: Yeah. Joe was fine with it. TRUMBULL: That is amazing! Did anyone else at DC say anything to you about that story? Did they pick up on what was going on? ISABELLA: No, the suits weren’t reading the books. TRUMBULL: Did Jack Harris say anything to you about it? ISABELLA: No. Jack was never a heavy editor. I bent the deadlines a lot with Jack on that first series, but Jack never cared because, he said, “His script comes in and it takes me less than an hour to go over it, because Tony gets it all right. There’s no clumsy dialogue, there’s no clumsy captions. I don’t have to work hard on it.” And that was the way Jack and I worked on it. Throughout my career, I’ve had a couple of different kinds of editors. I’ve had the editors I hate, that want you to write their stories. And I’ve had editors who just leave me alone, because they figure I’ve been doing this for forever and he knows what he’s doing. I like those better than the editors who want me to write their stories. But the current series that I just wrote, with Jim Chadwick and Harvey Richards as editors, were the best editors I ever had. They gave me great notes; they never tried to make my story their story. Everything they did was to make my story a better story. And it was never carved in stone. TRUMBULL: So they were suggestions, not directions. ISABELLA: They gave suggestions, and they were often very good, and I would take their suggestions. TRUMBULL: We’ll talk a little more about Cold Dead Hands later. Let’s go chronologically. So you quit the book in protest over Black Vulcan. Other writers are writing the book now, and they’re doing some things with the character that you don’t necessarily approve of. Did you totally divorce yourself from the book, or were you still reading his appearances? ISABELLA: I was still reading them. Because I was reading everything— because back then you could still read everything. Then Mike Barr, who’s a friend of mine—he’s from Akron, Ohio, originally, which is close to Cleveland—said he wanted to use Black Lightning in The Outsiders. I knew Mike was a fan of the character and had respect for the character. He didn’t need my permission, but I was happy to see Mike work on the character. I liked what Mike did with the character. I didn’t like the fact that he played down Black Lightning’s super-strength. But he felt that he had Geo-Force for the super-strength stuff, but I was cool with Mike Barr writing him. TRUMBULL: You did use the powers in very different ways. I was reading your 1970s stories, and you had much more emphasis on his force-field, whereas Mike and Jim Aparo mostly had him slinging lightning bolts around. Different interpretations. ISABELLA: And that was part of the inspiration. I’ve said that the Black Lightning in Cold Dead Hands is the smartest Black Lightning ever, and he’s figured out different things to do with his powers. TRUMBULL: What sort of new things can he do now?

46 • BACK ISSUE • Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue

ISABELLA: I don’t want to give away too much because some of the new uses are pretty cool. Some of them involve ways he can use his natural bioelectrical energy to power improvements to his suit and other gear. He’s a problem solver and he’s working with a tech guy who can make the solutions work. TRUMBULL: So you’re away from the character, and you’d done a few things for DC in the meantime. You did The Shadow War of the Hawkman in the ’80s, which I have fond memories of, but you didn’t come back to Black Lightning again until the mid-1990s. How did that come about? ISABELLA: [DC’s then-editorial director] Dick Giordano, who had liked my Hawkman work. And in fact it was Dick Giordano who asked me to pitch a Hawkman series to them, because he wanted to do something with Hawkman, and nobody came up with anything he liked. So Dick asked me to do the same thing with Black Lightning. So I started to think about what I wanted. I wanted to make it a little more modern, a little bit more urban, inner city, because that’s where my heart was for these stories. I found Eddy Newell. I was the guy who found Eddy Newell for DC, who had a great, gritty style. I actually wrote nine issues, but you only saw eight of them. But I wanted to do a very realistic Black Lightning, because the same issues that Black Lightning had faced in Metropolis were still there. [Tony laughs as a Black Lightning cosplayer enters the room] Speaking of which… Hi, Jeff! TRUMBULL: Ladies and gentlemen, Black Lightning himself has just walked into the room! Welcome. Actually, you walking in just now reminds me that Black Lightning made his television debut in the 1990s in a sketch on Saturday Night Live. ISABELLA: With Sinbad playing Black Lightning. Sinbad and I have become friends over the years. We only met recently for the first time in person. We’d talked over the phone. He’s a big Black Lightning fan; he’s a comics fan. He called me, I think, in December [2017]. He said, “I’ll be performing at the Cleveland [Hard Rock] Rocksino. You have to come and see me.” I go, “But the tickets are all sold out.” “You don’t need tickets! [laughter]” So I come down to the show. Great show, by the way. He wrote about ten minutes of new Cleveland-centric material. And apparently, he does this for every city. TRUMBULL: I’m a stand-up, and writing that much new material for each city is impressive. ISABELLA: He’s a terrific writer. Besides being a terrific performer, and he’s actually a great actor, a terrific writer. So I come down there, and after the show, we’re hanging out. We’re talking, and he really wants to do a cameo [in the Black Lightning TV series]. He said, “Even if it’s just a walk-by, I want to be on the TV

show.” And correct me if I’m wrong, I think the universe demands that somewhere there be a photo of Sinbad with Cress Williams. TRUMBULL: Absolutely! We need to see that. ISABELLA: So I’ve been asked, and I’m hoping this is going to happen, to pitch for the second season, and both of the two stories I want to pitch have roles for Sinbad in them. He’s a terrific guy, and he’s a big fan. And [CW Black Lightning producer] Mara Brock Akil, when she was just Mara Brock, actually worked for him as his receptionist on the Sinbad show. TRUMBULL: Wow. Small world. ISABELLA: It is. We were talking about the ’90s series. TRUMBULL: Yes, we got a little sidetracked. ISABELLA: Up until the new series, I think the 1990s series was the best work I’d ever done in comics, and it was going really well. Before I wrote it, I spent a year working in the inner city of Cleveland, working with schools, with police, with churches. I was tutoring gang kids. I had harrowing adventures, like the time the cops said, “Hey, come on with us on a drug-house raid.”

Whale of a Time Tobias Whale makes trouble on the cover of Black Lightning #3 (July 1977). Rich Buckler (inked here by Vince Colletta) was tapped to draw the original series’ covers—but the Trevor Von Eeden Art Gallery later in this issue gives BL’s original artist the opportunity to reimagine a couple of those Buckler classics. Courtesy of Heritage (www.ha.com). TM & © DC Comics.

Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue • BACK ISSUE • 47

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by E

d Lute

In the 1970s, while Marvel Comics was giving readers more diversity in its comics with characters such as the Black Panther, the Falcon, Luke Cage, Misty Knight, and Storm, DC Comics gave its readers the nonsuperpowered hero Mal Duncan, who first premiered in Teen Titans #26 (Apr. 1970), and John Stewart, who first took the oath in Green Lantern #87 (Dec. 1971). Otherwise, from the Golden Age forward, DC didn’t offer much in the way of diversity where its superheroes were concerned. DC’s offerings of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and others of their pantheon were not representative of the multicultural makeup of our country. But with a flash of lightning, Marvel’s Distinguished Competition struck back with one of the finest African-American characters to enter the comic-book field: Black Lightning. Although the House of Ideas’ premier black superhero, Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, presented readers with an empowering depiction of an African American, DC Comics took its character Jefferson Pierce (Black Lightning’s alter ego) to a new level by making him a schoolteacher. In doing so, DC provided African-American readers with a superhero that not only looked like them, but presented a positive role model who was successful in an important and life-changing career. Writer Tony Isabella created Jefferson Pierce/Black Lightning in Black Lightning #1 (Apr. 1977), with artist Trevor Von Eeden. However, Isabella would leave the book after the first ten issues over a dispute discussed in this issue’s interview with the Black Lightning creator. The question then became, Without Isabella’s guiding vision, would the character of Black Lightning survive? The answer was yes, but not without some growing pains, including a cancelled series, the loss of Black Lightning’s powers, the loss of Von Eeden, and the character’s lower-profile backup features in World’s Finest Comics and Detective Comics before finding his home in a team book. So let’s look at Black Lightning’s exploits beyond those originally chronicled by Isabella.

BLACK LIGHTNING IMPLODES

Dark Night in Suicide Slum Splash page to the first post-Isabella issue, Black Lightning #11 (Sept.–Oct. 1978), with Denny O’Neil as the new writer. TM & © DC Comics.

When Isabella left Black Lightning, scripting of the series was put into the hands of legendary comic-book writer Denny denny o’neil O’Neil. At the time O’Neil took over writing duties on Black Lightning, © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. he was best known for his work on DC Comics’ Batman and, along with artist Neal Adams, for bringing social issues such as racism, ecology, urban decay, and most notably drug use into the groundbreaking Green Lantern/Green Arrow run which began in Green Lantern #76 (Apr. 1970). For Black Lightning editor Jack C. Harris, no other writer at the time was better suited to follow Isabella. “Two of the writers I respected most for their professionalism and talent are Denny O’Neil and Tony Isabella,” Harris tells BACK ISSUE. “It seemed a natural selection for me.” O’Neil took over writing Black Lightning with issue #11 (Oct. 1978). So, what drew him to the character of Black Lightning? “I imagine that my interest in the character reflected my desire to get more diversity into comics,” O’Neil tells BACK ISSUE. In O’Neil’s first story, Jefferson Pierce as Black Lightning saved the life of one of his students from the villainous Major Corpo, who took advantage of illegal immigrants. Just like now, illegal immigration was an important, socially relevant topic when this issue was published. Although O’Neil layered the story with social commentary, the tale itself was a self-contained one that was the usual modus operandi for DC Comics at the time. The pencils for the issue were provided by Black Lightning’s defining artist, Trevor Von Eeden. Von Eeden recalls, “I’d penciled BL #11 in about three days (yep… seven pages a day, no kidding)—but I’m hard-pressed to remember why, to be perfectly honest. I was never the kind of artist to cut corners, or deliberately do a half-assed job (most especially at the very beginning of a dream-job career)—so I know that was neither a factor, nor the reason—but I definitely remember drawing that job in

Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue • BACK ISSUE • 59

Von Eeden Unplugged …or make that uninked. A photocopy of Trevor’s pencil art from Black Lightning #11, page 2, and the completed, published page. Pencil copy courtesy of Trevor Von Eeden. TM & © DC Comics.

my 6’ x 9’ room in my mother’s house, the same way In case you don’t know: In the late 1970s, DC Comics that I’d drawn everything else: sitting on my bed, with a attempted to compete with Marvel Comics by raising drawing board propped up on my lap. I actually the price of its comics but providing more content never used a drawing table in those early per issue, offering readers a better value and years, except for the ones at Neal Adams’ newsstand retailers a bigger profit margin Continuity Studios, where I’d worked on DC titles. This initiative was called concurrent with my 25-year DC career.” the DC Explosion. Quickly on its heels, Black Lightning #11 was part of however, followed the DC Implosion, the DC Explosion initiative (explained an unfortunate market reversal where below). The Black Lightning story was a slew of weak-selling DC titles were the same page length as previous abruptly cancelled, and some staff stories, so the extra pages were taken personnel terminated. (See TwoMorrows’ up by a “Ray” backup feature. The Ray 2018 book, Comic Book Implosion: An Oral History of DC Comics Circa 1978 by story was written by Roger McKenzie, with artwork by John Fuller and Bob Keith Dallas and John Wells, for more Wiacek. A second Ray backup story information on this complex, tragic comic-book industry incident.) would never be seen by the comictrevor von eeden reading public. Black Lightning was a casualty of the Courtesy of Trevor Von Eeden. Black Lightning’s solo title wouldn’t DC Implosion. The last issue of Black last long under O’Neil (only one issue, to be exact). Lightning to be published was #11, although #12 This wasn’t through any fault of the new writer, but a had been written and illustrated. That issue did appear result of the infamous DC Implosion. (along with the cover to issue #13) in black-and-white photocopy form in Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #1 (June 1978), the first of two such issues that primitively published Implosion-canned material for copyright preservation. Neither issue was made available to the public. Comic buyers wouldn’t see the story until over a year later. Von Eeden states, “I found out the BL series was to be cancelled shortly after drawing issue #10—and I’d assume it was [Black Lightning editor] Jack C. Harris who told me. I was quite disappointed that DC Comics lacked such faith in their very first black superhero. I was already somewhat insulted that I’d been instructed to draw issue #10 ‘in a Carmine Infantino style’— something I’d never heard of any veteran comics artist ever being asked to do—yet there I was, a 17-year-old black kid, barely a freshman in college with no professional training in art, nor anything else

60 • BACK ISSUE • Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue

Magnetic Personality Courtesy of Heritage (www.ha.com), original Rich Buckler/ Vince Colletta cover art for the unpublished Black Lightning #12. TM & © DC Comics.

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And the Bronze (Age) Medal Goes to… Black Lightning and his fellow Outsiders face off against Maxie Zeus and the New Olympians at the Summer Olympics in Batman and the Outsiders #9 (Nov. 1984), penned by Mike W. Barr and guest-illustrated by Trevor Von Eeden. TM & © DC Comics.

many African Americans would have considered unlikely when Black Lightning debuted in the 1970s. Black Lightning finally became a member of DC Comics’ premier superhero team, as well. Although Black Lightning assisted the Justice League of America starting with Justice League of America vol. 2 #1 (Oct. 2006), he wouldn’t officially join the JLA until issue #7 (May 2007). Even though there were several revivals of the Outsiders, Black Lightning wouldn’t appear with the team again until The Outsiders vol. 4 #15 (Apr. 2009). A new Batman and the Outsiders series, written by Bryan Hill and drawn by Dexter Soy, was supposed to premiere in December 2018. Although the first three issues were solicited, in late 2018 the series was put on hold until sometime in 2019 [at press time, the series had yet to make it onto DC’s schedule—ed.]. This incarnation of the team is to consist of Batman, Black Lightning, Katana, and new Outsiders Orphan (Cassandra Cain) and the Signal. Jefferson Pierce and Lynn Stewart had two daughters, Annisa and Jennifer Pierce. Both of the girls are metahuman superheroes. Anissa made her first appearance as the superhero Thunder in Outsiders vol. 3 #1 (Aug. 2003). Anissa has the ability of density manipulation and she can withstand bullets and cause shockwaves. She was created by writer Judd Winick and artist Tom Raney. Although Lightning made her first appearance in the Elseworlds miniseries Kingdom Come #1 (May 1996), her first appearance in regular DC Comics continuity was in Justice Society of America vol. 3 #12 (Mar. 2008), by Geoff Johns and Dale Eaglesham. Jennifer has similar powers to her father. [Editor’s note: As discussed in this issue’s Tony Isabella interview, these characters’ backstories have been altered in recent continuity.]

BLACK LIGHTNING’S LEGACY BEYOND ISABELLA

Over 40 years after his creation, Black Lightning is more popular than ever, with a hit television series and the return of Isabella to writing his adventures. But even in the absence of creator Tony Isabella, Black Lightning not only survived, but he thrived. No matter how great of a character Black Lightning was and continues to be, without these excellent and memorable tales beyond Isabella, our electrified hero might only have been a footnote in DC Comics’ history.

Paul Levitz states, “He’s important as the first superhero of color DC gave his own title.” Jack Harris contends, “I think anything I might say would be like stating the obvious. [Black Lightning] was the first in many ways and I am thrilled by his current success and in my part in shaping his origin.” Trevor Von Eeden tells BACK ISSUE, “In general, I appreciate the fact that Black Lightning holds the place in comics history that he does—the very first original black superhero (preceded by GL knockoff John Stewart) to have his own title (comics series) published by the same company that had introduced the first superhero of them all to the world, Superman. That’s as valuable a distinction to future generations as the election of the first black president of the United States of America was, and will always be. But personally, I’ve always felt that Black Lightning, as he’s been presented in comics (to the best of my knowledge, since I haven’t read every BL story ever written)—has always been a white man’s idea of what a black man or hero is, could, and/or should be. The writing for the TV show is much better representative of how I see the character, and think he should be presented to the public—especially in this century, and in these political times, when we have a blatantly ignorant White Supremacist occupying the most important office in the land. Mass self-delusion is not what black people need more of in America!!! So between the excellent Black Panther movie, and BL’s awesome debut TV series, I’m hoping that this is the first step in providing actual good, honest, intelligent, and responsible role models for our kids to look up to in the coming generations— all of our kids, and of every color.” The author would like to thank Mike W. Barr, J. M. DeMatteis, Jack C. Harris, Paul Kupperberg, Paul Levitz, Denny O’Neil, Bob Rozakis, and Trevor Von Eeden for their time and recollections. Thanks also go out to Gerry Conway and Marty Pasko who responded to a query for this article but were unable to assist with it. Opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of this magazine or its publisher. ED LUTE is an educator, geek, and freelance writer (amongst many other things) who wishes that he had lightning powers. He lives in southern New Jersey with his family.

70 • BACK ISSUE • Black Superheroes of the 1970s Issue

by E d

Catto

paul gulacy

[Editor’s note: The final black hero of ’70s comics to be spotlighted this issue is the sci-fi buccaneer Sabre. While he isn’t a superhero like the other characters you’ve read about, Sabre is doubly significant, both as one of comicdom’s first African-American stars and for the format in which he premiered—in the first graphic novel (or “graphic novelette,” according to its author) to be produced for comic-shop distribution. The 1978 38-page Sabre black-and-white graphic novel, featuring the story “Slow Fade of an Endangered Species,” was written by Don McGregor and illustrated by Paul Gulacy. It pitted the swashbuckler and his allies against the mercenary Blackstar Blood in a topsy-turvy post-apocalyptic world. Following the graphic novel, publisher Eclipse Comics released 14 issues of a Sabre comic book, cover-dated August 1982 (#1) through August 1985 (#14). Issues #1 and 2 reprinted the graphic novel in color, and McGregor penned new stories beginning in issue #3, mining story territory that was quite daring and groundbreaking for its day (as he had done the previous decade at Marvel). Our cover artist Billy Graham penciled Sabre #3–9, while artist Jose Ortiz completed the rest of the run. In this interview, McGregor and his original collaborator Paul Gulacy recall the early days of Sabre.] ED CATTO: The first question is, to set the stage, can you give me, or remind me, a little bit of background about where you were in your careers when you started working on Sabre? DON McGREGOR: Okay, none of these are short answers; it is all fairly complicated. Sabre arose out of the fact that I was being taken off all the books I did at Marvel, including Killraven [McGregor’s “Killraven” feature Amazing Adventures, herewith Killraven] and the Black Panther [McGregor’s “Black Panther” feature in Jungle Action, herewith Black Panther]. Essentially when I was taken off the Black Panther after “The Panther vs. the Klan” [McGregor’s controversial 1976 storyline in Jungle Action #19–22], work at Marvel was scarce and money was getting very tight. Doing those books, as exciting as they were to create, The Black Panther and Killraven, especially working with Rich Buckler and Billy Graham on the Panther and Craig Russell on Killraven, came at a cost. Working with them, that part was very stimulating and exciting, but it was also very traumatic because the books weren’t believed in much by editorial. For me, it was like having to keep blinders on while you were doing those books in terms of keeping your focus on what it is you hoped to do with the stories. To do a big project like “Panther’s Rage,” that was a TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. two-and-a-half-year graphic novel or maxiseries (not sure what you want to call it). That meant that despite the fact that a lot of people didn’t believe in it, you have to keep not just a belief, but the focus and intent of what you originally saw in your head and hoped you could achieve. That part was very exciting because with the fans and the readers, they took much of those books to heart. They wrote about them and I met the people at conventions and that really showed me that there were people who cared and were affected by the stories, and they were reacting on a personal level to the different themes and levels I hoped I had successfully woven into the stories.

The Most Explosive Hero in Comics October 1978’s Sabre, the first graphic novel to be exclusively distributed in comic shops. Cover by Paul Gulacy. © Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy.

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