Back Issue #137

TOTALLY ’80s ’80s DC PRE-CRISIS MINISERIES ISSUE! 2022

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Green Arrow TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

MIKE W. BARR & TREVOR VON EEDEN’s

Secrets of the Legion • Tales of the Green Lantern Corps • Superman: The Krypton Chronicles • America vs. the Justice Society • Legend of Wonder Woman & many more!

RetroFan: 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? If you love Pop Culture of the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, TwoMorrows’ new magazine is just for you! Editor MICHAEL EURY (author of numerous books on pop culture, former editor for DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics, and editor of TwoMorrows’ Eisner Award-winning BACK ISSUE magazine for comic book fans) has assembled an unbeatable roster of regular and rotating Celebrity Columnists to cover the pop culture you grew up with: • ANDY MANGELS (best-selling sci-fi author and award-winning pop culture historian) • ERNEST FARINO (Emmy Award-winning visual effects designer, animator, and director) • SCOTT SHAW! (acclaimed cartoonist, animator, Emmy Award-winning storyboard artist, and historian) • WILL MURRAY (pulp adventure novelist and pop culture historian) • SCOTT SAAVEDRA (graphic designer, cartoonist, and COMIC BOOK HEAVEN creator) • MARK VOGER (renowned pop culture newspaper columnist and book author), and others!

RETROFAN #21

RETROFAN #22

RETROFAN #23

RETROFAN #24

RETROFAN #25

Meet JULIE NEWMAR, the purr-fect Catwoman! Plus: ASTRO BOY, TARZAN Saturday morning cartoons, the true history of PEBBLES CEREAL, TV’s THE UNTOUCHABLES and SEARCH, the MONKEEMOBILE, SOVIET EXPO ’77, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns

by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Surf’s up as SIXTIES BEACH MOVIES make a RetroFan splash! Plus: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, ZORRO’s Saturday morning cartoon, TV’s THE WILD, WILD WEST, CARtoons and other drag-mags, VALSPEAK, and more fun, fab features!

Like, totally! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet the stars behind the Black Lagoon: RICOU BROWNING, BEN CHAPMAN, JULIE ADAMS, and LORI NELSON! Plus SHADOW CHASERS, featuring show creator KENNETH JOHNSON. Also: THE BEATLES’ YELLOW SUBMARINE, FLASH GORDON cartoons, TV’s cult classic THE PRISONER and kid’s show ZOOM, COLORFORMS, M&Ms, and more fun, fab features! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Interviews with Lost in Space’s ANGELA CARTWRIGHT and BILL MUMY, and Land of the Lost’s WESLEY EURE! Revisit Leave It to Beaver with JERRY MATHERS, TONY DOW, and KEN OSMOND! Plus: UNDERDOG, Rankin-Bass’ stop-motion classic THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY, Christmas gifts you didn’t want, the CABBAGE PATCH KIDS fad, and more!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet Mission: Impossible’s LYNDA DAY GEORGE in an exclusive interview!

Celebrate Rambo’s 50th birthday with his creator, novelist DAVID MORRELL! Plus: TV faves WKRP IN CINCINNATI and SPACE: 1999, Fleisher’s and Filmation’s SUPERMAN cartoons, commercial jingles, JERRY LEWIS and BOB HOPE comic books, and more fun, fab features! Edited

by MICHAEL EURY.

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The Future of Pop History.

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RETROFAN #20

Dark Shadows’ Angelique, LARA PARKER, sinks her fangs into an exclusive interview.

Plus: Rankin-Bass’ Mad Monster Party, Aurora Monster model kits, a chat with Aurora painter JAMES BAMA, George of the Jungle, The Haunting, Jawsmania, Drak Pack, TV dads’ jobs, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by FARINO, MANGELS, MURRAY, SAAVEDRA, SHAW, and MICHAEL EURY.

Our BARBARA EDEN interview will keep you forever dreaming of Jeannie! Plus: The Invaders, the BILLIE JEAN KING/BOBBY RIGGS tennis battle of the sexes, HANNABARBERA’s Saturday morning super-heroes of the Sixties, THE MONSTER TIMES fanzine, and more fun, fab features! Featuring ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW!, and MICHAEL EURY.

Interview with Bond Girl and Hammer Films actress CAROLINE MUNRO! Plus: WACKY PACKAGES, COURAGEOUS CAT AND MINUTE MOUSE, FILMATION’S GHOSTBUSTERS vs. the REAL GHOSTBUSTERS, Bandai’s rare PRO WRESTLER ERASERS, behind the scenes of Sixties movies, WATERGATE at Fifty, Go-Go Dancing, a visit to the Red Skelton Museum, and more fun, fab features!

MAD’s maddest artist, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, is profiled! Plus: TV’s Route 66 and an interview with star GEORGE MAHARIS, MOE HOWARD’s final years, singer B. J. THOMAS in one of his final interviews, LONE RANGER cartoons, G.I. JOE, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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Volume 1, Number 137 August 2022 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTISTS Trevor Von Eeden and Dick Giordano (Originally published as Green Arrow vol.

1 #1, May 1983.

Original art courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions.)

COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER David Baldy SPECIAL THANKS Mike W. Barr Andy Mangels Aaron Bias Brian Martin Jonathan Brown Dave Merill of Tim Brown Mister Kitty Kurt Busiek powerlordsreturn.com Gary Cohn Oliver Queen DC Comics Ron Randall Jim Ford Trina Robbins Grand Comics Rose Rummel-Eury Database John Schwirian Jack C. Harris Tom Speelman Heritage Comics Bryan D. Stroud Auctions Roy Thomas Don Hudson Eddy Zeno Paul Kupperberg James Heath Lantz Jason of Bad Gunpla Paul Levitz Ed Lute

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BACKSEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 FLASHBACK: Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Unlock the secrets behind the history of the future fighting team BACKSTAGE PASS: Tales of the Green Lantern Corps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 How a single Green Lantern cover inspired a spinoff miniseries BEYOND CAPES: The Krypton Chronicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Superman and Supergirl discover their Kryptonian roots BACKSTAGE PASS: Green Arrow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Behind the scenes of GA’s first solo book, with Barr and Von Eeden THE TOY BOX: Power Lords. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 DC chases the action-figure tie-in market with this toy-based comic BEYOND CAPES: Spanner’s Galaxy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 The inventive space saga that went beyond its Star Wars inspirations INTERVIEW: Roy Thomas: America vs. the Justice Society. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 The superstar scribe discusses Batman’s diary and its accusations against the JSA THE TOY BOX: Robotech Defenders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 This ill-fated two-issue toy tie-in is better known for its odd history than its content PRO2PRO: Gary Cohn and Ron Randall: Conqueror of the Barren Earth. . . . . . . . . . . . 51 The co-creators of Warlord’s breakout backup discuss their sci-fi series OFF MY CHEST: Legionnaires 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 The Time Trapper gets inside the heads—and hearts—of the founding Legionnaires PRO2PRO: Trina Robbins and Kurt Busiek: The Legend of Wonder Woman . . . . . . . . . 64 An in-depth dialogue with the artist-writer combo behind the 1986 retro miniseries BACK TALK: Reader Reactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 BACK ISSUE™ issue 137, August 2022 (ISSN 1932-6904) is published monthly (except Jan., March, May, and Nov.) by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Back Issue, c/o TwoMorrows, 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: $90 Economy US, $137 International, $39 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Green Arrow TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

All editorial matter © 2022 TwoMorrows and Michael Eury. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 1

by M

This issue is a sequel, or perhaps a companion issue, to BACK ISSUE #132, our “1980s Marvel Limited Series” edition. Therein my editorial explored the creation and evolution of the comic-book miniseries.

A quick recap for the benefit of those who missed that issue (or have short memories): In 1976, television stretched beyond its traditional season-based programming by releasing the first American television miniseries, Rich Man, Poor Man, adapting Irwin Shaw’s 1969 bestseller. It was followed in early 1977 by a top-rated TV miniseries adapting Alex Haley’s celebrated book, Roots. A new programming format was born, and comic books followed suit. DC published the first comic-book miniseries in 1979, the three-issue World of Krypton. That was a matter of happenstance, since those three issues were created to run in the tryout title Showcase. But Showcase’s cancellation and the success of the theatrical release of Superman: The Movie prompted the publisher to release World of Krypton as its own, albeit finite, series… …and the rest, as they say, is history.

The proliferation of the comic shop in the early 1980s encouraged DC and Marvel to solo-spotlight characters in miniseries who had never before received their own books. It was an exciting time for fans!

BACK ISSUE has been in print for nearly 20 years now, and in previous editions we’ve covered many of DC’s (and Marvel’s, for that matter) miniseries and maxiseries. This issue’s contents spotlight a handful of pre-Crisis DC miniseries that have not, until now, received the BI treatment, headlined by our cover feature, Mike W. Barr and Trevor Von Eeden’s 1983 Green Arrow—which, my inner fanboy reminds me, thrilled me to no end during its original release.

Which brings me to an appeal to our friends at DC Comics: It’s puzzling—some might argue criminal—that this Green Arrow miniseries has never been reprinted. It’s certainly worthy of a trade paperback. Or perhaps it’s time for a Green Arrow Bronze Age Omnibus, commencing with The Brave and the Bold #85, which introduced GA’s bearded huntsman makeover, and continuing through numerous backups (in Action and World’s Finest), random guest-appearances (with Superman in Action, in The Joker, etc.), and team-ups, as well as the Green Arrow mini, which was the first time in decades of publication that the Emerald Archer had received his own title. Please consider it, DC! Presented here is a list of DC miniseries and maxiseries, some pre-Crisis and some post-Crisis, that have previously been covered in BACK ISSUE. Many of those earlier issues are now sold out in print form but are available in digital editions through twomorrows.com.

In the meantime, enjoy the articles that await!

All covers and related characters TM & © DC Comics.

2 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

Ambush Bug (BI #39) Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld (BI #24) Aquaman (BI #46, 108) (The Legend of) Aquaman (BI #108) The Atlantis Chronicles (BI #108) Batman: The Dark Knight (BI #50) Batman: The Long Halloween (BI #60) Batman: Sword of Azrael (BI #117) Black Canary (BI #46) Black Orchid (BI #52) Camelot 2000 (BI #27) Catwoman (BI #40, 113) Cinder and Ashe (BI #127) Cosmic Boy (BI #68) Cosmic Odyssey (BI #9, 104) Crimson Avenger (BI #106) Crisis on Infinite Earths (BI #34, 82, 84) DC Challenge (BI #98) Deadman (BI #15) The Demon (BI #15, 131) Doc Savage (BI #10) Electric Warrior (BI #98) Elongated Man (BI #123) Forever People (BI #104) Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters (BI #18) Guy Gardner (BI #91) Hawk & Dove (BI #97)

ichael Eury

(Shadow War of) Hawkman (BI #97) Hawkworld (BI #97) Invasion! (BI #82) Jemm, Son of Saturn (BI #115) Jonni Thunder (BI #106) Legends (BI #82) Lois Lane (BI #57) Masters of the Universe (BI #16, 130) Millennium (BI #82) Peacemaker (BI #79) Phantom Stranger (BI #92) Phantom Zone (BI #109) Plastic Man (BI #77) Red Tornado (BI #72) Robin (BI #22, 73) Shazam!: A New Beginning (BI #93) Silverblade (BI #24) Sun Devils (BI #98) Superman: The In-Between Years (BI #62) Superman: The Secret Years (BI #62) Super Powers (BI #16) Tales of the New Teen Titans (BI #102, 122) Untold Legend of the Batman (BI #50) Watchmen (BI #12, 79, 112) The Weird (BI #78) Wild Dog (BI #98, 102) World of Krypton (BI #62)

Legion of Super-Heroes benefactor R. J. Brande lies in a coma, stricken by Yorrgian Fever. One of the Legionnaires holds the key to his recovery, and it is this plot narrative that leads us through the team’s history to learn the Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

by J i

m Ford

Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes was a three-issue miniseries published in late 1980 by DC Comics, cover-dated January through March 1981. The story was plotted by E. Nelson Bridwell, with scripting by Paul Kupperberg and art by Jim Janes and inker Frank Chiaramonte. Kupperberg had written a number of shorter Legion stories leading up to Secrets, sometimes working with another Legion writer, Paul Levitz, as plotter. “What drew me as a professional to the Legion was the editor asking, ‘Want to write a Legion story?’”

Kupperberg tells BACK ISSUE. “Unless a writer was regularly assigned to a title, that was the way a lot of assignments got handed out during that period. Often it was as simple as being the first writer or artist the editor saw when they stuck their head out their office door.

“I was a LSH fan going into the assignment—I didn’t collect Adventure Comics as a kid, but Paul Levitz and I became friends in middle school, and I read the run in his collection, going all the way back to [the Legion’s first appearance in Adventure Comics #247, paul kupperberg Apr. 1958]—but I didn’t have the deep knowledge of the characters © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. and universe down the way Paul did.

Still, I knew enough that I didn’t embarrass myself in the gig.”

Bridwell knew the Legion well, as an assistant editor during their early days in Adventure Comics and as an occasional writer on the series. Bridwell wrote “The Origin of the Legion” in Superboy #147 (May–June 1968), as three teenagers combined their powers to save R. J. Brande, the richest man in the universe.

The three teenagers founded the Legion as Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl. “Any research I could have done would have been superfluous to the knowledge Nelson carried around in his head,” Kupperberg adds. “Nelson provided the research and the continuity, and I wove it into what little plot was necessary to give the illusion of movement to what was essentially a Legion of Super-Heroes encyclopedia.”

Most of what we know of the early Legionnaires’ origins and planets of birth come to us from “The Origin and Powers of the Legion of Super-Heroes” feature in Superman Annual #4 (1961). Many of the early Legionnaires were given little more than a descriptive name and a costume, and never had their origins told in the panels of a comic story before Secrets.

Clubhouse of Secrets Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes #1 (Jan. 1981). Cover art by Jim Janes and Dick Giordano.

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3

Text features offered up many of the Legionnaires’ secrets before they were dramatized in the pages of a Legion story. Interestingly, it was not until the “Know Your Legionnaires” text feature in Adventure Comics #329 (Feb. 1964) that many of their real names were first revealed and that the three Legionnaires who inducted Superboy into the Legion in Adventure Comics #247 were acknowledged as its founding members.

It was also first revealed in that text feature that Chameleon Boy was the leader of the Legion Espionage Squad, and Invisible Kid a member. The Espionage Squad would not see action until “The Legion Chain Gang” in Adventure Comics #360 (Sept. 1967). The “Know Your Legionnaires: The Origin of Cosmic Boy” text feature in Adventure Comics #352 (Jan. 1967), likely written by Bridwell, presaged their dramatized origin story in Superboy #147 by over a year.

The villain Lightning Lord told of how he and his brother Lightning Man had been charged by lightning monsters on the planet Korbal in a flashback in “The Legion of Super-Villains” story in Superman #147 (Aug. 1961). Yes, Lightning Man. Lightning Lad received an almost identical origin, except that his sister Lightning Lass was exchanged for Lightning Lord in a flashback in “The Return of Lightning Lad” story in Adventure Comics #308 (May 1963). Lightning Lord was then restored to the story in the “Meet the Legionnaires: Lightning Lad and Lightning Lass” text feature in Adventure Comics #354 (Mar. 1967), again likely written by Bridwell. That story was visually retold during the now-familiar flashback presented in Superboy #147.

Prior to that flashback, Lightning Lord had only been known as a member of the Adult Legion of Super-Villains until an appearance by the teenaged Lighting Lord in the “School for SuperVillains” in Adventure Comics #372 (Sept. 1968) added him to contemporary Legion continuity.

Star Boy had very different powers during his first appearance in paul levitz Adventure Comics #282 (Mar. 1961), and received two distinctively © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. different origins. “Lana Lang and the Legion of Super-Heroes” was, as Legion writer Paul Levitz detailed in the text feature in Adventure Comics #493 (Nov. 1982), “…a curious case. Readers will note that Star Boy is really the only Legionnaire who appears, and he demonstrates powers very much unlike those he currently possesses (which, in fact are the powers he’s used in every other appearance he’s ever made). A simple explanation can be found by opening Adventure Comics #195 (Dec. 1953) and looking at ‘Lana Lang’s Romance on Mars’—almost the same story featuring a hero named Marsboy who gained powers identical to Superboy’s from a strange comet.

“Then-Superman Family editor Mort Weisinger frequently ‘updated’ old stories by polishing the scripts and giving them to new artists to work on,” Levitz wrote, “and this was the story behind Star Boy’s debut.

The introduction of the Legion to the story was almost Brande-d accidental—just a way of working it into the Superman (top) The impending death of Legion founder R. J. Brande assembled mythos more firmly.

“No one knows whether Weisinger did this to the future team for the miniseries’ revelations of Legion history. Page 1 of balance tight budgets, tight deadlines or both,” Levitz concluded, “or whether occasionally the writers themissue #1. Plot by Bridwell, dialogue by Kupperberg, pencils by Janes, selves volunteered the updating. However, in the years inks by Chiaramonte. (bottom) From Superman #147 (Aug. 1961). before reprints became common, and collecting back issues was unknown, it seemed harmless.”

TM & © DC Comics.

4 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

Daddy Dearest In addition to interconnecting random former stories into a cohesive narrative, Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes revealed a startling new secret about the father of one of the Legionnaires.

Covers to issues #2 (Feb. 1981) and #3

by Dick Giordano. (below, center) From Adventure Comics #323 (Aug. 1964). (bottom) From Action Comics #276 (May 1961).

TM & © DC Comics.

The “Origins and Powers…” text feature in Adventure Comics #316 (Jan. 1964), updated with entries of Legionnaires who had joined after the text feature in Superman Annual #4, and amazingly visualized in a flashback during “The Menace of Dream Girl” story the very next issue, explained that Star Boy was born on a satellite-station and draws mass from the stars to make objects super-heavy. The text does not mention that Star Boy ever gained Superboy-like powers after flying his space-mobile through a comet’s tail. Secrets takes these two origin stories and logically presents them in a sequential timeline consistent with both.

Similarly, Weisinger took plot elements in “Superboy’s Big Brother” in Superboy #89 (June 1961) from an older story, “Superman’s Big Brother,” from Superman #80 (Jan. 1953). In that Superman story, it was Halk Kar who came from the planet Thoron, a planet in the same solar system as Krypton, rather than Legionnaire Mon-El, who came from the Krypton-like planet Daxam. Both arrived on Earth with no memory, and both only later remembered they had met Jor-El, Superman’s father, years before on Krypton.

Famously, Superboy was inducted into “The Legion of Super-Heroes” in Adventure Comics #247 (Apr. 1958). His cousin Supergirl joined the Legion, along with Brainiac 5, years later, when she met “Supergirl’s Three Super Girl-Friends” in Action Comics #276 (May 1961). Yet, Secrets makes a point of noting Supergirl joined the Legion prior to Superboy, with no further explanation.

Secrets was the first Legion story to acknowledge what had long been known among Legion fandom, that Supergirl joined the Legion prior to Superboy. A single panel, a flashback during “The Eight Impossible Missions” in Adventure Comics #323 (Aug. 1964), tells the tale. There, the Legionnaire Brainiac 5 was clearly depicted at the initiation of Superboy into the team.

Why did the founding members travel back in time in their new Time Bubble to induct Supergirl into the Legion before her cousin?

The answer was never revealed within the context of a Legion story, but Levitz offered a possible explanation in the Legion of Super-Heroes Sourcebook I (Mayfair Games, 1986). “[Brainiac 5] began a life’s work in science and transformed the theories of Chronarch Circadia Senius into a practical Time Bubble and Time Monitor. Using the monitor, 1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 5

Fatal Felons Editor Jack C. Harris added informative text pages to Secrets of the LSH, including this fact file on villains, from issue #2.

TM & © DC Comics.

6 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

Here Comes the Sun(-Eater) (left) Retelling Ferro Lad’s noble sacrifice, from Secrets #3 (Mar. 1981). Art by Jim Janes and Frank Chiaramonte. (right) From Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 2 #301 (July 1983).

TM & © DC Comics.

he saw a beautiful heroine out of legend named Supergirl, and fell in love with her. In turn, he calibrated the first Time Bubble to visit her.”

Brainy did ask Kara to be his girl during their very first meeting.

The origin of Brainiac 5, like those of Mon-El and Supergirl, spans a thousand years back into the 20th Century with the first appearance of the evil space mastermind Brainiac in “The Super-Duel in Space” from Action Comics #242 (July 1958). Brainiac was originally portrayed to be an organic humanoid, and Brainiac 5 described himself as his direct descendent. That changed in “The Team of Luthor and Brainiac” in Superman #167 (Feb. 1964), when we learned Brainiac was actually a robot spy created by the Computer Tyrants to look humanoid. The letters column in that issue explained the change.

“Shortly after the first ‘Brainiac’ story appeared in Action Comics, in 1956 [sic; actually July 1958], we learned that a real ‘Brainiac’ existed… in the form of an ingenious ‘Brainiac Computer Kit’ invented in 1955 by… a distinguished scientist and world authority on automation, computers, and robots.

“In deference to his ‘Brainiac,’ which pre-dates ours, with this issue of Superman we are changing the characterization of our ‘Brainiac’ so that the master-villain will henceforth possess a ‘computer personality.’

We are confident that our readers will approve of this transformation; it should make ‘Brainiac’ a mightier adversary of the Man of Steel.”

This would have introduced a continuity gap for Brainiac 5, were it not revealed in that same story that Brainiac had been assigned an adopted son, Brainiac II, to enhance his humanoid disguise. With this retroactive continuity change, Brainiac 5 was descended not from the robot Brainiac, but from his adopted son Brainiac II.

The “Meet the Legionnaires: Brainiac 5” text feature in Adventure Comics #335 (Aug. 1965) further details that it was Brainiac II, whose name was revealed in Adventure Comics #329 to be Vril Dox, who had led the revolt against the Computer Tyrants. Although the liberation of a world from Computer Tyrants seems a story eager for the telling, it was not until decades later, beginning in “Homecoming” in L.E.G.I.O.N. ‘89 #1 (Feb. 1989), that the story would be told.

Unfortunately, all that we learn about Shrinking Violet in Secrets is taken from Superman Annual #4. All inhabitants of her home planet Imsk have the ability to shrink. The wild story that the inhabitants of Imsk must manually pry volatile radioactive scales from the backs of Space Dragons and expose themselves annually to that radiation to maintain their shrinking powers on a world that itself periodically shrinks was told in “Wanted—Dead or Alive: The Composite Legionnaire” in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #234 (Dec. 1977).

In “One of Us Is a Traitor” from Adventure Comics #346 (July 1966), Nemesis Kid was accepted into the Legion along with Princess Projectra, Karate Kid, and Ferro Lad, the only Legionnaire to wear a mask. To hide his treacherous deeds, which would not be revealed until the next issue, Nemesis Kid received an entry in that issue’s “Meet the Legionnaires” text feature. The true nature of Ferro Lad was also hidden. “I wanted Ferro Lad to be the first black Legionnaire,” creator Jim Shooter said in an interview in the Legion Companion (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2003), “and Mort [Weisinger] said, ‘No, we’ll lose our distribution in the South.’ So I said, ‘Whatever. He has a mask on. Who’ll care?’ [laughs] But I couldn’t do it. I said, ‘How is it that you can have orange people from other planets and green 1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 7

people from other planets, and you can’t have a guy from China, or a black character?’ But those were the rules back in those days.”

The reason, we were told, that Ferro Lad wore a mask was revealed after his death in Adventure Comics #354 (Mar. 1967). “The Adult Legion” revealed that he and his twin brother were born with grotesquely inhuman faces. The face of his twin brother would be revealed in “The Future Is Forever” in The Legion of Super-Heroes (2nd series) #300 (June 1983).

Shadow Lass, as the adult Shadow Woman, and Chemical King both first appeared on the cover of “The Adult Legion” amongst the Legion’s Honored Dead. As revealed in the fanzine The Legion Outpost #1 (June 1972), reprinted in the Best of the Legion Outpost (TwoMorrows

IN MEMORIAM

JIM JANES

JULY 17, 1947–SEPTEMBER 1, 2020

Writer Paul Kupperberg tweeted, “I just learned of the death of artist Jim Janes, my long ago collaborator on the Secrets of the Legion of SuperHeroes miniseries. Jim was a complete pro who didn’t blink at these overstuffed scripts. ‘It’s the Legion,’ he said. ‘Bring them on!’”

While Legion fans know Janes as the Legion of Super-Heroes series penciler for 15 issues from LSH vol. 2 #263 (May 1980) through #282 (Dec. 1981), he was most recognized for his long career as a storyboard artist from 1985 through 2005 on such animated series as G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spiral Zone, Exosquad, X-Men: The Animated Series, Princess Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic, The Incredible Hulk, RoboCop: Alpha Commando, Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, and as the main model artist on Fantastic Four: The Animated Series during its second season, among others.

Publishing, 2004), both were the creation of fans George Vincent and Mike Rickford. “…We came up with the idea of a [black] girl who... had the power to create darkness,” Vincent wrote.

“She would be a mutant born on a planet that was colonized by Blacks following the racial wars of the 1990s that swept through Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. Mort Weisinger, the now-departed editor of the Legion, said the concept was too controversial for comics to handle. (And he gave no thought to trying to improve the junk-image of comics.) However, Shadow Lass interested him, and he said he’d consider using an altered version of her.

“We had at one time created a character named Time Master—the complete master of time. But he was rather omnipotent, and by page two, he would have handled any problem we could have thought of.

So we lessened the power of one of our other creations and came up with Chemical King, who Weisinger said he’d consider.”

Shadow Lass did not have her origin revealed until the pages of Secrets, and to that origin, Bridwell added Shadow Kid, a character also created by a reader, Dennis Coughlin, who appeared a year earlier in “The Super-Stalag of Space” in Adventure Comics #344 (May 1966). “If anyone ever found a ‘home’ in the comics business, it was Nelson,” Kupperberg tells BACK ISSUE. “He loved comic books and knew his DC Comics history backward, forwards, and inside out, and he was able to find connections between characters from the most diverse backgrounds; it was like the database in his brain under that crewcut was always searching for even the most minute commonalities to tie the DCU up into one tidy little bundle.

He was equally knowledgeable in the works of Shakespeare and the Bible, and who knows what else.” Shadow Kid would join the Legion Academy, though he had little expectation of eventually replacing his cousin on the team.

The conclusion of Secrets reveals that Chameleon Boy, the most alien in appearance of the Legionnaires, was the son of R. J. Brande, meaning that Brande himself was a shapechanger from the planet Durla. Kupperberg tells BACK ISSUE, “That was Nelson’s idea, a revelation I think he’d had in mind for a long time.” This recollection makes sense given that Bridwell created Brande in “The Outcast Super-Heroes” in Adventure Comics #350 (Nov. 1966), though Jack C. Harris, editor of the miniseries, remembers it differently. As he said in an interview in The Best of the Legion Outpost, “I think it was my idea to have him be the father of one of the Legionnaires, and I think it was Paul Levitz’s idea to have him be Chameleons Boy’s because that would be the most unlikely one. I think that was the thinking behind it. I remember saying, ‘Let’s have him be the father of one of the Legionnaires, Which one?’ And I think Paul said, ‘Well, why not Chameleon Boy?’ and I said, ‘How can we do that?’ and he goes, ‘We can figure out a way, but that’s the most unlikely character that he can be.’ I said, ‘That would be the biggest surprise,’ and he said, ‘That’s great.’ And that’s what we did.” When asked for his own recollection, Levitz told BACK ISSUE he had confidence in Harris’ memory of events.

Levitz would soon after use the son-father relationship between Chameleon Boy and Brande during “Different Paths, Different Dooms” in The Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 2 #301 (July 1983) as a springboard to examine the origins of the entire shapechanging Durlan race.

Their abilities evolved as a survival response to a nuclear Six-Minute War that left their planet a radioactive husk.

Many Legionnaires would have their origins retold and expanded in the years following Secrets. Some would have their origins altered in the telling. Revisions have always taken place, even before the term “retcon”—retroactive continuity—became a term of art to explain away any update in a character’s history to fit a new storyline. If a secret was worth telling once, it was often worth retelling anew.

Long Live the Legion!

8 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

JIM FORD shouts out to Mark Waid! Once again, his Illustrated Index of the Legion of Super-Heroes was an indispensable resource. Thanks to Mark for sending Jim a copy of the completed, but unpublished, Index manuscript many years ago.

That completed Index is now available on the web at https://darkmark6.tripod.com/legionind.html

It’s pretty likely that Hal Jordan realized, upon bestowal of the battery of power with the accompanying power ring by the dying Abin Sur back in Showcase #22 (Sept.–Oct. 1959), that he was not the only Green Lantern in the universe. Did he, however, realize when he took over those duties that he was, in fact, one of 3,600 members of that elite group? In time, he would find out.

THE COVER THAT INSPIRED A MINISERIES

by B r y a n

D. Stroud

Leaping ahead a number of years, a new three-issue miniseries hit the outlets, Tales of the Green Lantern Corps. Issue #1 (May 1981) boasted an impressive list of talent: Len Wein as scripter with Mike W. Barr plotting, and penciler Joe Staton and inker Frank McLaughlin on art, with John Costanza, letterer; Anthony Tollin, colorist; and Dick Giordano occupying the editor’s chair. As it happens, however, Giordano had taken the reins of editor from none other than Jack C. Harris, who had started the ball rolling long in advance of publication of this series. Mike W. Barr recalls: jack c. harris “Jack C. Harris, then-editor of the Green Lantern series, asked me to Facebook. plot the story, which Len Wein would dialogue. Such three-issue miniseries were doing well, so DC decided to do one about the Green Lantern Corps.”

Jack C. Harris confirms, “That was actually the last project I was working on before moving on to other pursuits. There was a lot of interesting background to it, as well, as far as how it happened.

“It started from a whole lot of directions at once, so it’s kind of hard to pinpoint exactly the order of everything, but the first thing is this: Showcase had a resurgence. Then it was cancelled again. The last Showcase was going to be The World of Krypton.

That would have been the next Showcase. But [Showcase] was cancelled. So, they had it and they said, ‘We’re not going to throw it away, so let’s just make it a miniseries.’ [World of Krypton] was actually DC’s very first miniseries. It was a rousing success, so people said, ‘We ought to do [more miniseries].”

[Editor’s note: See “World of Krypton: Comics’ First Miniseries” in BACK ISSUE #62 for our previous coverage on this topic.]

Harris continues, “So, they looked around, and they decided on Green Lantern. The Green Lantern Corps, specifically, because of one cover. It was a Brian Bolland cover. It had Green Lantern leading the Corps right toward the reader and Green Lantern

Ring Me Up Sometime Detail from Brian Bolland’s spectacular cover to Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #1 (May 1981).

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 9

brian bolland © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons.

has two power rings on. Green Lantern #127 (Apr. 1980), and it came out in January of 1980. The sales of this particular issue had spiked. It did very well, so they said, ‘Let’s do a series about the Green Lantern Corps.’”

Issue #1 of Tales of the Green Lantern Corps also boasted a Brian Bolland cover featuring members of the GL Corps in a defiant posture with the disembodied heads of the Guardians of the Universe in the background. As it happens, this cover had a prior inspiration from the movies. Harris elaborates: “Now, to go back a little further, the reason Brian did that cover is this. Some months or years earlier, Richard Burton, who was the editor of 2000AD, which was a Brit comic that came out weekly, had come to visit the DC offices. We embraced him.

We were all fans of 2000AD and Richard and I made a deal. He said if I would send him DC comics each month, he would send me the 2000s as they came out. So, every month I would get a

package of the 2000s and he would get a package of DCs. And reading the 2000s was where Judge Dredd first appeared. Brian Bolland was one of the Judge Dredd artists, and I really fell in love with his artwork.

“Some months after that, Joe Staton, who had been drawing Green Lantern for me, amongst many other things, was over in England visiting Brian Bolland.

And they gave me a phone call. I got this call from Joe, and he wanted to know if Brian could do some work for DC. I said, ‘Absolutely.’ I loved his work. So, I commissioned from him a few Green Lantern covers for the regular book. And that was one of them, the one with the Green Lantern Corps on issue #127.”

The original editor’s choice of cover artist posed a logistical problem for the new Green Lantern Corps miniseries. “I wanted [Brian Bolland] to do three covers for the series,” Harris recalls. “I talked this over with Joe Orlando because of the time constraints in sending the material across the Atlantic Ocean, back in the days of snail mail only. Joe said, ‘Okay, we’ll have Brian do the three covers,’ and we had not even ordered the book yet. We had no idea what the book was going to be about, except the Green Lantern Corps.”

May the Corps Be With You (left) Brian Bolland’s Lantern-laced cover to Green Lantern #127 (Apr. 1980)—with Hal Jordan wearing two rings!—inspired the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps miniseries. (right) Bolland’s cover to Tales of the GLC #1 (shown on this article’s opening page) drew inspiration from the Hildebrandt Brothers’ iconic poster for 1977’s Star Wars. Movie poster courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

Green Lantern Corps TM & © DC Comics. Star Wars © Lucasfilm.

10 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

Next, cover editor Ross Andru entered the picture. “So, I sat down with Ross Andru, and Ross did the layouts for these three covers,” Harris explains. “All I had were the titles. The first one was ‘Challenge!’ The second one was ‘Defeat!’ And the third title was ‘Triumph!’ And we worked out the three covers. The first cover is based on the Star Wars poster. It’s the exact same layout. Instead of Darth Vader’s face in the background, it’s the Guardians. And instead of Luke Skywalker, it’s Green Lantern with his power ring. It’s a swipe of the Star Wars poster.

And then Ross came up with the other two.

The one with everyone defeated and the last one, the very triumphant thing and that was based on Brian’s cover that sparked the whole thing, except for them coming in at a swooping angle.”

“CHALLENGE!”

Issue #1’s “Challenge!” kicks things off dramatically with a double-page spread following the splash page, featuring many members of the Green Lantern Corps from scores of worlds, joe staton including the young lady known as Arisia from the planet Graxos IV. She’s been newly © Luigi Novi / assigned to space sector 2815, right next to Wikimedia Commons.

Hal Jordan’s 2814.

The summons to the Guardian’s HQ planet of Oa leads the members to a massive auditorium with the various representatives in every conceivable shape and size. To the sharp-eyed, what appears to be a crystal mountain in the background is, in fact, a Green Lantern as well (see image).

Jack C. Harris recalls, “I remember when Joe [Staton] brought in the pencils for The Green Lantern Corps, and I was just blown away. There’s that one scene where all the Green Lanterns are gathered on Oa and one of the Green Lanterns is a great crystal mountain. I remember asking, ‘What’s that big crystal mountain?’ ‘Oh, that’s a Green Lantern!’”

It’s old home week as Hal Jordan, with Arisia at his side, meets and greets many of his peers. Even Charley Vicker is in attendance, another Earthman who wields the power ring, last seen in a prior story in Green Lantern #55 and 56 (Sept. and Oct. 1967) that also featured the Green Lantern Corps. Hal goes into flashback mode and explains to Arisia how he came to be a holder of the power ring and the many foes he’s dealt with over his career, until the time comes when the assembly is called to order and the Guardians of the Universe address them.

One of the first questions posed to the blue-skinned leaders is whether it was wise to call all 3,600 members of the Corps together, but they are reassured that the universe is not unguarded as members of the Guardians themselves have been strategically placed to handle any emergencies.

Arisia is in awe of all that is going on around her, and Hal explains that the members of Oa weren’t always this evolved. He recounts how one member of their race, Krona, had dangerous ambitions to learn about the very origins of the universe itself. Unfortunately, it seems the legends Krona scoffed at were true and when he uses the machine he’s created to probe further and further back, a bolt of cosmic lightning splinters his machine and simultaneously released evil into the universe.

All My Children Krona was placed into a prison composed of pure energy (top) That’s not a jeweled mountain, that’s a GL! (bottom) A and sent hurtling through the universe as punishment by his fellow members of Oa, who then formed a council and brave, bold BACK ISSUE No-Prize to the DC fans who can name created the massive power battery as a means to contain all the Green Lanterns shown here! Original Joe Staton/Frank the evil that had been unleashed, ultimately leading to the creation of the Green Lantern Corps.

McLaughlin art to page 11 of Tales of the Green Lantern Corps After that history has been shared, the Guardians explain #1. Courtesy of Heritage. the reason for their summons, a huge threat that faces the universe. A huge monitor screen then shows Krona TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 11

Wanted: The Universe’s Most Dangerous Villains The miniseries’ bad guys: (left) Krona, from page 18 of issue #1, and (right) Nekron, from page 18 of issue #2.

TM & © DC Comics.

himself with multiple menacing creatures at his side, and they are coming to destroy everything in their path.

The Guardians then call on the assembly to gather at the massive central battery to charge their power rings in preparation for this cosmic challenge. All 3,600 do so and repeat the well-known oath: “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight, let those who worship evil’s might, beware my power, Green Lantern’s light!”

No sooner is the ritual complete then the massive battery begins to shudder and explode, wounding some and killing others. The Guardians have departed to fight their own battle and the remaining members of the Green Lantern Corps are left to take on Krona and his minions with only 24 hours of power left with which to do so.

“DEFEAT!”

The saga continues in issue #2 (June 1981) with “Defeat!”

While the Corps tend to their dead and recovery, Hal Jordan reminds them that their objective is to deal with the rogue Oan Krona and that their power rings have less than 24 hours of charge left. It is time to take action. As the members of the Corps search out Krona and his army, they soon discover an awful truth.

The universe is contracting. Krona is actually un-creating the universe as part of his nefarious plan.

Soon, the Corps members encounter the supporters of Krona, and a battle in space is underway. The Lanterns 12 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

are victorious, but they sustain more casualties, but not before capturing one minion named Tylot. Hal uses his power ring to probe the creature’s mind in an attempt to learn the source of Krona’s new powers. It is then that they uncover that while Krona was in his pure energy imprisonment, his arc led him to Nekron, Lord of the Unliving. Death itself. Mike W. Barr confirms that his character was a take on Necrology: “Exactly right. But I changed the ‘c’ to a ‘k’ to give the name that nice, hard ‘k’ sound to avoid mispronunciation. Imagine my surprise when he reappeared, decades later!”

When Nekron and Krona cross paths, the Lord of the Unliving seized the opportunity to widen the dimensional rift created by the immortal Krona’s entrance into Nekron’s domain. Krona was thus empowered

by Nekron and given the army as a way to kill the Guardians of the Universe and fully open the rift between the two domains for ultimate conquest. It is also revealed that the members of Krona’s army are among the unliving, simply having been given a semblance of life so that they could function in the universe.

The final, dramatic action occurs when one of the Guardians appears to warn the Corps that Krona is now striking at the heart of the universe by attacking Oa. Incredibly, the immortal Guardian then dies, spurring the Green Lantern Corps to speedy action and vengeance. When they engage Krona, however, they find they cannot match his power and he leaves them beaten at the issue’s conclusion, striding to an interdimensional portal toward final victory.

“TRIUMPH!”

The final issue of the miniseries has our heroes down, but after a rallying cry by Hal Jordan, they are not out and go forth to take on Krona. As they burst onto their foe with his army in tow, the battle begins anew, but soon the Green Lantern Corps receive an unexpected ally. Tylot has been conflicted ever since the Corps showed him mercy and turns against his former master, beginning by saving Arisia. Observing Tylot’s actions, Hal Jordan takes the extraordinary measure of outfitting him in a Green Lantern uniform and passing on the power ring of a fallen comrade.

As the war continues, Nekron gloats that he has control of all who have ever lived, and it triggers an idea in Hal Jordan. He asks his comrades to combine their emerald force to “strengthen my protective shield to its limits” and then flies straight into the dimensional rift separating the living from the dead.

Hal’s hunch bears fruit as the spirits of his fellow, fallen Green Lantern Corps colleagues respond and attack Nekron, providing the necessary distraction that allows the Guardians of the Universe to regain the upper hand, defeating and once again banishing Krona. All this is witnessed by Hal Jordan, but he realizes he cannot escape this netherworld and his protective aura is nearly gone.

But then he hears the approving voice of his predecessor, Abin Sur: “Well done, my brave successor… Abin Sur is proud…” (see above). Jordan then feels two hands push him through the warp between the dimensions and into the arms of his fellow Green Lantern Corps members.

Jack C. Harris shares his delight with the final product that he began, stating that Len Wein’s dialogue left a lasting impression on him: “…The thing I loved most when it was all finished was that Len’s dialogue was just fabulous. There’s that one scene where Abin Sur helps Hal out of the dimension of death, and the dialogue that Len gave him was just fabulous. It gave me chills when I read it. It was perfect.”

The finale on Oa includes an offer by the Guardians to make Hal Jordan a member of the elite Green Lantern honor guard, but he declines. The assembly gathers anew at the restored giant master power battery to recharge their rings and to again undertake their duties as the greatest force against evil in the universe.

As an epilogue to this article, some final, fascinating, behindthe-scenes information is provided by plotter Mike W. Barr: “I was delighted with the intricacy of the plot and its final resolution. When I told Len about the final plot twist, he was so impressed he shook my hand.

“I figured a series of this type had to have some long-lasting implications on the Corps, so I decided to create some new members. The names Arisia and Eddore were taken from Edward Elmer ‘Doc’ Smith’s Lensman series; I figured it was about time DC owned up, if only obliquely, to the inspiration for the Green Lantern Corps. Arisia, I realized years later, was a prototype of Halo of the Outsiders. I have since learned that DC gave her the last name ‘Rrab,’ which I got a kick out of.”

Lanterns Forever Tales of the GLC #2 (June 1981) and 3. Cover art by Brian Bolland.

TM & © DC Comics.

The author gives his grateful thanks to the generous and invaluable contributions of Mike W. Barr and Jack C. Harris.

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. Beginning in 2007, Bryan seized an opportunity to begin interviewing the creators of the comics he’s loved and has been fortunate enough to conduct many to date at www.thesilverlantern.com.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 13

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ROOTS COMES TO COMICS

by E d d y

Zeno

An adaptation of Alex Haley’s 1976 bestselling novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, premiered as an eight-part television miniseries in January 1977. Not unlike the cultural impact of Lin Manuel-Miranda’s Broadway musical Hamilton, Roots spanned the period from 1750 when Mandinka warrior Kunta Kinte was captured in West Africa and sold into slavery, to his emancipated descendants’ land purchase in Tennessee after the Civil War. The TV blockbuster’s quality and brutal honesty made an enraptured society more selfaware. In addition, it ignited a burgeoning need for millions of viewers to learn about their own ancestors.

Roots remained prominent in the public consciousness when E. Nelson Bridwell (E.N.B.) penned the threeissue comic-book miniseries, Krypton Chronicles (Sept.–Nov. 1981). (The miniseries’ penciler was Curt Swan; the inker, Frank Chiaramonte; and the editor, Julius Schwartz.) With Nelson’s guidance, Kal-El and Kara Zor-El, Superman and Supergirl, were inspired to undertake their own genealogical quest.

The idea originated with Morgan Edge. Summoning Clark Kent and Perry White to his Galaxy Building office, Morgan assigned Clark to write a series of Daily Planet articles regarding Superman’s Family Tree. The boss was envisioning huge profits from an ensuing book and a television epic that would top both Roots and another TV miniseries ratings bonanza, 1980’s Shogun. When Kent shed his outer clothes and flew to the Fortress to begin his research, Supergirl was already there. She reminded her cousin that Kandor, transplanted to a red sun phase-world named Rokyn, had temporarily re-entered our dimensional plane. It was time for a visit.

Knowing they would be powerless on arrival, Nelson Bridwell sent Superman and Supergirl by spaceship to the former bottle city. They were greeted by Kara’s parents, Zor-El and Alura, along with another close relative, Van-Zee. The trip began with a little sightseeing before commencing work on the El family’s heritage.

The first episode of KC was prettier than the rest. A revivified Kandor, freed from its glass jar just two years prior, catered to Curt Swan’s optimistic art. Frank Chiaramonte’s inking sometimes flattened the illusion of depth that Swan insinuated with his pencils. Still, what they produced together took well to bright color.

The miniseries’ second issue hovered between current and earlier eras, well before planet Krypton exploded.

The third portrayed lives from primitive epochs, reaching back 10,000 years heretofore. Discoveries included a lodestone compass and makeshift hourglass.

Krypton Chronicles left no time to revel as Supergirl was reunited with her folks, or to mourn for a city laid waste during Krypton’s last nations war. No tears of joy or sadness—a tale steeped in feelings it was not. The entire saga was, however, a look into what made writer E. Nelson Bridwell tick.

STATUES

One El of a Family Kal-El invites readers to meet the Superman Family Tree. Cover to Krypton Chronicles #1 (Sept. 1981) by Rich Buckler and Dick Giordano.

TM & © DC Comics.

Leo Dorfman and Mort Weisinger co-wrote “Father’s Day on Planet Krypton!” in Adventure Comics #313 (Oct. 1963). In the eight-and-two-thirds page vignette, Superboy encountered five statues and a chest full of objects from the El family crypt. Superboy sprayed the statues, which had transmuted into kryptonite, with molten lead and reunited the carvings with their corre-

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 15

The Hall of El The legendary El family statues, as seen—actually, unseen, since this page was pulled from publication— in issue #1 (July 1979) of DC’s first miniseries, The World of Krypton, which preceded The Krypton Chronicles.

Script by Paul Kupperberg; art by Alan Kupperberg (uncredited layouts), Howard Chaykin (pencils), and Murphy Anderson (inks).

Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

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sponding relics: ship’s wheel for a sea explorer, telescope for its inventor, tablet for the writer of Krypton’s constitution, lightning bolt for the discoverer of electricity, and building model for an architectural pioneer, props to discern how each predecessor advanced the culture of his birthplace.

An unpublished page of original art featuring statues in the El family vault recently came up for auction; it was cut from DC’s first miniseries, the three-issue World of Krypton (July–Sept. 1979). The writer was Paul Kupperberg. Paul tells BACK ISSUE: “I don’t doubt that deep down Nelson really wanted to write this one himself, but he tried to not let that get in the way of editing it, and he understood when I couldn’t cram his wish list of 30 pages’ worth of story into the 20 pages I had available.”

Upon shifting from editor of World of Krypton to author of Krypton Chronicles, Bridwell more than made up for the earlier deletion, increasing the number of carvings in the El family crypt. Nelson’s fresh approach had Kara’s dad, Zor-El, point out that the statues Superman found as a boy were damaged. Each likeness could relay either a detailed history via mind messages or, before such tech existed, voice recordings. The first issue ended with Kara fully invested in her cousin’s quest to uncover their family’s roots.

By the start of the next installment, it was time to scrutinize the oldest sculptures, those that pre-dated mind messages and voice recordings. Fortunately, Zor-El unveiled his latest contraption: a power board with eye and ear attachments to absorb the brainwaves from each ancestor’s headband. The wearer could now “see, hear, and feel” what the forebear encountered, providing the most authentic experience of all. Bridwell had conceived of a virtual reality device. His scientific explanations were not detailed but they seemed plausible; it was easy to go along with him.

Perhaps it was injected to make up for the lack of El women who contributed to 100 centuries of Krypton’s ascendance. Of the stone likenesses, only one was of an unnamed female and, from more than two dozen ancestors pictured in the flesh, Fedra Shu-El was the lone woman. Fedra served as a legislator who helped set up Kandor’s first Science Council.

Writers and editors built a male-dominated Krypton long before Bridwell’s tenure at DC. He followed their precedent, but with an inherent sensitivity. For example, in the second issue, Nelson stressed that women serving under famed ocean explorer Val-El were equally prized as sailors. Also, while Jor-El’s wife Lara Lor-Van was not a character in the 1981 miniseries, earlier, Nelson played a large part in updating her credentials to astronaut. No doubt if he was writing KC today, attention would be paid to other than just the El clan patriarchs, including a more thoughtful approach to gender as a personal rather than a social construct.

A further subplot dealt with Vathlo Island’s discovery. Introduced

by Nelson himself in Superman #234 (Feb. 1971), E.N.B. likened the sovereign island-nation to Marvel Comics’ Wakanda when he described Vathlo as the “home of [a] highly developed black race.” In Krypton Chronicles, Val-El and his mariners of yesteryear were navigating the Dandahu Ocean before landing on the “hitherto unknown island.”

Black skins and white skins were amazed by the others’ appearance at first; soon they developed a mutual respect and became trading partners. Would there have been marriages between individuals from Vathlo and the El’s if Bridwell (who died in 1987) had more chances to retrofit history? In terms of the El family’s roots, it would have enhanced their ethnic mosaic.

THE THIRD ISSUE: BEGINNING ANEW

With KC’s second issue about to conclude, the line of statues ran out as the dimensional portal was closing. It was time for Kara Zor-El and Kal-El to go home. Determined to further their ancestral search, the finale began back in our universe with Superman pioneering a light-gathering device to peer across a greater expanse of time. (It seems the El family was always inventing something.)

Seeking images from captured light rays in space meant there could be no sound; Superman and Supergirl had to read lips. Cleverly, Nelson had them figure out what transpired in spite of missing parts of conversations when backs were turned. The tale was refreshed, but he was also taking a risk. By moving opposite from the way multigenerational sagas usually progress—back in time rather than forward—those forebears with more primitive lifestyles might seem less relatable as the saga wound down.

SUBPLOTS

During their sojourn, Superman and Supergirl were re-introduced to some of their former enemies. Atoning for past misdeeds, each had volunteered to architecturally shape a new and grander Kandor. Brenn-Bir and his cronies were obscure criminals who once plagued Superman. Fifteen years earlier in Action Comics #336 (Apr. 1966), Nelson was asked to finish scripting their debut in a tale that veteran writer Edmond Hamilton was unable to complete. Bringing them back was a salute to the pioneer pulpster (Hamilton’s first short story was published in Weird Tales in 1926). It was also a way for Bridwell to acknowledge his own roots as a writer.

The lone adversary pretending repentance, but still creating mischief, was Zora Vi-Lar (Black Flame). Lurking in the shadows, she sought to upend things in the El family crypt. Long ago, the Girl of Steel had outwitted Black Flame during the supervillainess’ rampage on Earth by exposing her to Gold Kryptonite (Action Comics #304, Sept. 1963).

Because she could no longer gain super-abilities under a yellow sun, Zora wished to strand Kara on Rokyn, where she would be equally powerless.

She had no qualms about taking Superman down, too, if she could.

Figuring out the source of the sabotage, Supergirl left the Hall of El by another entrance to surprise and capture Black Flame. Though it gave the Maid of Might a bigger role, Bridwell’s subplot seemed superfluous.

Last Son of Krypton The Man of Steel yearns for knowledge of his ancestors on the opening page of Krypton Chronicles #1 (Sept. 1981).

TM & © DC Comics.

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Rokyn Their World (top) Superman and Supergirl go home!

Original art to page 8 of Krypton Chronicles #1.

Courtesy of Heritage. (bottom) Long Before Ancestry.com, Kal-El used Kryptonian technology to discover his roots. Covers to Krypton Chronicles #2 (Oct. 1981) and 3, penciled by Ross Andru and inked by Dick Giordano.

TM & © DC Comics.

ANCIENT STORIES: FROM EARTH TO KRYPTON

Paul Kupperberg notes that E.N.B. “could hold his own with experts on the Bible, Shakespeare, and numerous other topics.” In the miniseries’ second issue, this scholar of the sacred text told how the Kryptonians (led by Hatu-El) overthrew the space-invading Vrangs who once enslaved them. Unfortunately, Nelson could only elaborate on a tale whose roots traced back to Superman #176 (Apr. 1965). He had a much cleaner slate to work with in the third and final issue. Revising the story of Noah (with Jaf-El standing in his stead), rather than fashioning an ark to save the animals, the animals saved the people. A group of horn-beaked, sharp-taloned, flying white reptiles soared with the righteous on their backs and fed them food stored in throat pouches. When the creatures grew fatigued, they took turns resting on the planet’s highest peak.

After the Great Flood, they were protected by law and renamed in Kryptonese as Tanthuo Flez, or the Winged Ones. In Superman comic books, Curt Swan was particularly adept at illustrating flying creatures such as Terra-Man’s loyal steed Nova or Viking Valdemar’s giant falcon Skaggerak. He had five pages in Krypton Chronicles to grant dozens of Winged Ones their majesty.

LIFE’S FULL CIRCLE

The final flashback knotted Superman and Supergirl together with the ancestors they were viewing. Erok, an exact double for the Man of Steel, was the first to appropriate the El surname. He dubbed his son Kal-El (translation: the Star-Child), and—you guessed it—the toddler was another dead-ringer for his modern namesake at the same age. To complete the circle, Erok-El drank a potion that multiplied his human strength. Leading his men to victory over an army of superior numbers, he ruled benevolently. Thus began a more ethical, civilized version of Krypton starting 10,000 years in the past.

The reporter’s field work was done. Light rays were too scattered to reach further back. Some weeks later, Morgan Edge confabbed again with Clark and Perry.

Flush with the success of Krypton Chronicles, Edge rambled on about their next Roots-style miniseries: “…Hawkman’s an alien, too! If we can get him… I can see it now: the Thanagar Saga!” Even gruff Mr. White flashed a cigar-filled smirk as Kent snuck away with a wink.

Bridwell’s penchant for humor had surfaced at last in a saga that needed release.

Superman historian EDDY ZENO is the author of the books Curt Swan: A Life in Comics, Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing, and Drawn to Greatness: Wayne Boring and the Early Superman Artists.

18 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

Genealogic-El Study Superman’s Family Tree, as prepared

by E. Nelson Bridwell, with assistance from Nick Pascale.

From Krypton Chronicles #3.

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 19

MORE FROM PAUL KUPPERBERG REGARDING E. NELSON BRIDWELL

E.N.B. caricature by Kurt Schaffenberger.

TM & © DC Comics.

“I liked Nelson and spent plenty of voluntary time with him over the years, in addition to when he was my editor on World of Krypton and other Supermanrelated stories, as well as the co-plotter of the Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes miniseries I scripted.

He did like to insert Kryptonian slang and references into scripts which then required a footnote explanation.

I remember one in a Nightwing and Flamebird story I wrote that he edited for Superman Family; he changed ‘crooks’ to ‘lawjumpers,’ then added a footnote that explained it meant ‘crooks.’

“Nelson was a gentle soul and always willing to help, answer questions, provide research or background material, whatever you needed. Editors and freelancers went to him all the time for his knowledge.

You could spend two hours looking for something in the library or ask Nelson, who would likely have the answer right off the top of his head. He had a great sense of humor—he wrote for MAD Magazine and created and wrote the very funny Inferior Five and

the Maniaks—but his humor didn’t flow as easily in his conversation.

“Nelson came across as strange. He was a round little man, dressed always in a dark suit, white shirt and tie, his hair clipped to a crewcut. He was sickly, suffering from, among other things, gastro-intestinal problems for which he had undergone several surgeries, including, I believe, the loss of much of his intestines, and his ailments caused him to produce a steady stream of odd noises, grunts, and ticking sounds of which, I think, he was totally unaware. Nelson was a practicing nudist— he frequently spent his vacations at resorts—but I always got the feeling he wasn’t really comfortable in his own skin. Maybe that was why he became a nudist, to be able to expose his skin, his real self, in a place where he wouldn’t be judged or made fun of.

“And because he was such a gentle soul, Nelson was the target of a lot of bullying and mockery, behind his back and to his face. Mort Weisinger [who hired the Oklahoma native to be his assistant editor on January 13, 1964] had been brutal to him, Julie Schwartz treated him terribly, and I think a lot of us, in ways big and small, took him for granted or treated him with disrespect. I’m embarrassed to say I made my share of Nelson jokes. When one of us would be going into Nelson’s office for an editorial conference, we’d arrange to have someone come fetch us on some excuse after 15 minutes or half an hour, whatever was appropriate, to pull us out of an E.N.B. monologue; ask Nelson if Iago was a character in Othello, he was likely to reply with a detailed outline of the play’s plot.

“I have a lot of respect for Nelson. He was a nice man, dedicated to his job, which he did well and with enthusiasm. He was a talented writer. Inferior Five. Maniaks. The Secret Six. All great stuff. And later on, he had an amazing, loving run on Captain Marvel. He was always generous with his knowledge… sometimes, as I said, to excess, but because he was so enamored with the subject, not to be a bore. And despite the kicks and curses from Mort and Julie, Nelson was always loyal to his editors. Or maybe it was the characters, which he clearly loved, that had his loyalty.”

20 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

by B r i a n

Martin

To say that Green Arrow had been around for a long time before receiving a book with his name on it would be a massive understatement. It would also not be a stretch to say that I was not a huge fan of the character for quite a while. His self-righteous tone in the 1970s always rubbed me the wrong way, especially in the Justice League where he had a rivalry with Hawkman, one of my favorite characters. So the fact that Green Arrow’s 1983 miniseries is one of my all-time favorites is saying something.

Green Arrow, a character created in the Golden Age (More Fun Comics #73, Nov. 1941, to be exact), had been a recurring backup feature for his entire existence, though he did become the very first addition to the roster of the Justice League of America (#4, Apr.–May 1961). The closest he had come to headlining was his co-starring role in the Green Lantern title from #76–122 (Apr. 1970–Nov. 1979… with time off due to cancellation), though despite gaining half of the book’s logo, his name was never added to the indicia. At the time of the Green Arrow miniseries, GA was just coming off his latest backup stint, a long run in the giant-sized World’s Finest Comics (WFC), from issues #244–284 (May 1977– Oct. 1982) with a couple of exceptions (see BI #57 for the full story of DC’s “Dollar Comics”). For our purposes, it is worth noting that Trevor Von Eeden was penciler for the majority of the stories appearing in WFC #248–281 (Jan. 1978– July 1982). Towards the end of both GA’s and Trevor’s stays, Mike W. Barr joined them as writer, from #274– 278 (Dec. 1981–Apr. 1982).

Before applying their talents to the Emerald Archer’s mini, the creative duo of Barr and Von Eeden collaborated on the well-received and fondly remembered Batman Annual #8 (1982). As a preview of their upcoming series, it was a fitting showcase for the talents of both gentlemen. mike w. barr As for their pairing on this mini, Mike W. Barr tells BACK ISSUE, “DC asked me to write the miniseries and I was told Trevor was available to pencil it. It was probably assumed— correctly—that Trevor and I, having worked on several short GA features, as well as a lot of other stories, would have no problems collaborating on a longer project. I recall DC—probably editor Len Wein— approached me about the mini, with Trevor ‘attached.’

I assume he was approached the same way.”

Famous First Edition After four decades of backup stories and team appearances, the Amazing Archer finally gets his own mag! Detail from Green Arrow #1 (May 1983). Cover art by Trevor Von Eeden and Dick Giordano.

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 21

For his part, Trevor Von Eeden told the website The Arrow Cave in a 2011 interview, “All of the jobs I’d done for DC during my entire 25-year-tenure there were assigned to me.”

Further to the notion of the duo’s collaboration, Von Eeden continued, “Working with Mike W. Barr was a great pleasure for me. I liked both his writing and he as a person the few times that we’d met. I’d never met Bob Haney [the veteran DC writer who scripted many of Von Eeden’s GA stories], and the scripts of his that I’d drawn (such as I remember them) were essentially generic superhero fare.”

“By the time, I pretty much knew what I would get when I gave Trevor a plot,” remarks Barr. “He never ignored the plot, but he would sometimes take an elaborate physical maneuver I had conceived and reduce it to a less elaborate bit of business that was still very dynamic.”

sarcasm, but Len cut me off. ‘No, no,’ said Len, ‘He’s not like that.’

And I almost hugged him.

“Somehow I got talked into continuing the series and was able to devise a plot I was comfortable with. To this day, I find it very different from my other work, in both plotting and pacing, but I can reread it with a great deal of pleasure, which is not something I thought I’d ever be able to say.”

The same Dick Giordano that Barr and Wein had that meeting with was also a legendary inker and was enlisted to help break Green Arrow out into his own miniseries. How did the other creators feel about this addition? Both are quite succinct. Von Eeden stated on The Arrow Cave, “I LOVED Dick Giordano’s inks!” Barr opines, “Dick Giordano did a gorgeous job inking the series.”

ALONE AGAIN, NATURALLY

The plot that Mike had so much trouble with begins with a standard superhero introduction showing Arrow helping a deli owner deal with a couple of toughs prepared to rough him up. In this sequence, though, we see an early example of the synergy between the two creators. Towards the end of the WFC run and blossoming in that Batman Annual, Von Eeden began to develop a highly distinctive style both in the look of the artwork in general as well as his inventive and experimental layouts and storytelling, which would probably be considered to reach their apex in the Thriller title (see BI #98 for coverage).

“Trevor worked from my plots on the miniseries, rather than full scripts,” reveals Barr. “This is evident in the number of panels he packed into some of the pages, which is obvious as early as page two of issue #1. If I were full-scripting a story, I would never write 15 panels for the penciler to draw, thinking this an excessive amount of work for him.

“But Trevor liked breaking my plots into groups of smaller and smaller panels, which is fine with me, as long as the story is told—and Trevor was a wonderful storyteller.”

And break them into smaller panels, he did. There are a significant number of beautifully designed pages in the series with panels numbering into double digits, culminating with eighteen on page 11 of issue #2.

Trevor Von Eeden explained his thought process this way.

“The GA mini, like Batman Annual #8, was an extended story, which allowed me to develop my storytelling and drawing abilities in a real way—like a real artist and professional—rather than just knocking out light, ‘fluffy’ pieces one after the other.

I took the opportunity to develop my own skills (drawing, layout/page design/storytelling), using those jobs essentially as… fodder.”

The Barr/Von Eeden duo continued to develop their synergy as the series went along, with the former telling BI, “Later in the series, when Trevor’s layouts became more complex, it became a challenge to place the dialogue balloons so the reader’s eye was guided in the proper order. It became kind of a game between Trevor and me.”

With a cover date of May 1983, Green Arrow #1’s banner trumpets the fact that we had “The Battling Bowman—in his own magazine AT LAST!” However, we fans only ever see these results of the creators’ labor, and often never know how much blood and sweat goes into getting them to us “at last.”

Where the Green Arrow miniseries is concerned, story-wise it had a particularly difficult gestation.

Mr. Barr lets BI in on the details: “My problem was that when I took on GA as a series assignment, I had only three or four really good ideas for the character, which was unusual for me. So when I agreed to write the miniseries, I realized I was out of ideas for GA. By ‘ideas for GA,’ I mean not just fight scenes for an archer, but stories about the man. So I started to dig deep, determined to find some more.

“But early in the series’ production—maybe after issue #1 had been penciled and dialogued— I became very dissatisfied with the story and asked DC to cancel the series. I should have realized that wasn’t going to happen, since DC had already expended a fair bit of money on the series, but Len played along and got us an appointment with VP Dick Giordano to discuss the problem. Len and I went into the appointment, during which I detailed my problem with the story. Throughout this, Giordano hadn’t even looked at me, he just kept inking a page from one of his freelance assignments.

Finally, Dick looked up—at Len— sighed wearily, and said, ‘Okay, how much does he want?’ I opened my mouth with the intent of explaining the difference between his motivations and mine with an Ollie-like blast of

The Bright Knight The colorful cover by Trevor Von Eeden for Batman Annual #8 (1982), written by Mike W. Barr.

TM & © DC Comics.

TECHNICAL ECSTASY

22 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

OLD FRIENDS

Oliver Queen has had a long relationship with After that opening encounter, GA returns home to Black Canary, a stunning blonde when in wig and find a lawyer with an invitation to the reading of costume, and the youthful Cynthia fit that bill as well (sans wig and costume). Barr was not worried the will of an old friend. This is not an ordinary that the two women would be carbon copies, acquaintance, however. Abigail Horton knew though. “Trevor and I had worked Oliver Queen before he ever became together enough by that time that I Green Arrow. She was rich. And she realized all he needed was a couple was a fair bit older than Ollie. Oh, of lines of suggestion for a new and she had a daughter, Cynthia, character’s appearance and his/ much closer to Oliver’s age. And her relationship with Ollie for his she had never appeared before. bountiful imagination to come up Mr. Barr provides some backwith a design we were both comground. “When making notes for fortable with. It’s interesting to note the miniseries I realized GA had a very that both Cynthia Horton and Black small supporting cast and a very short Canary are beautiful blondes, yet backstory, so I developed Abby and they have totally different faces.

Cynthia to try and flesh that out. trevor von eeden Many artists have just one woman’s “When creating Abby, I was very face they differentiate by changing conscious of the pop-culture stereoCourtesy of Trevor Von Eeden. its hairstyle.” types of elderly women such as the As the second issue moves towards a close, the ‘Where’s the beef?’ lady in the Wendy’s commercial and the woman who howled, ‘Whoop-de-do for my story begins to veer more into the area of a standard Subaru!’ I told Trevor neither of these were what superhero tale as the villainous Count Vertigo we wanted. We wanted a dignified yet obstreperous makes an appearance. Vertigo was a logical choice older woman who had made her own way her entire as he was not only one of GA’s personal villains, but life and wasn’t about to stop now. Trevor agreed, he was “a character introduced in one of the WFC and we were off.” The circumstances surrounding eight-pagers [#251, July 1978, a Black Canary story] Abigail’s death form the plot of the series as she has I’d drawn—and one whose costume I’d designed,” according to Von Eeden. left control of her company to Oliver.

Cinematic Staging From multi-paneled action sequences (left) to money-shot splashes (right), Von Eeden beautifully adapted Barr’s plot. Pages 2 and 3 of Green Arrow #1. Inks by Dick Giordano.

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 23

Queens for a Day (left) Readers meet Abigail and Cynthia Horton in issue #1. (right) Oliver Queen, jailbird, in the opening page to an earlier Barr/Von Eeden collaboration, the “Green Arrow and Black Canary” tale in World’s Finest Comics #275 (Jan. 1982) TM & © DC Comics.

For his part, Barr says of the Count’s inclusion, “That was probably my idea, which I knew Len would agree with. The membership of GA’s rogues’ gallery at that point numbered precisely two—Count Vertigo and the Clock King, and the Clock King wasn’t suitable for this story.

“The idea of a villain who can upset a man’s balance going up against a hero whose only skill is a superb sense of aim was too good to pass up.”

(Barr had recently used Clock King in World’s Finest #284, Oct. 1982.)

KERMIT THE FROG’S BIRTHDAY

In the third issue, Ollie begins to take his investigation into interesting directions. After an amusing opening in which he shoots increasingly smaller fruits off of the head of Count Vertigo in an attempt to elicit information, he plays hardball with the company board of directors. This move totally backfires and causes Ollie to spend a little time reflecting on one specific incident from his history.

Back before Neal Adams redesigned GA’s costume in The Brave and the Bold #85 (Aug.–Sept. 1969), Green Arrow was, to put it kindly, a Batman clone.

He was a rich playboy with a young sidekick, an Arrowcave, an Arrowplane, and a bunch of gimmicks in a utility bel—umm, wait… in his quiver of arrows.

You get the idea, though. Then it all came crashing down. A swindler by the name of John Deleon took his riches away from him.

24 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

Barr included the board-meeting sequence because “I had no interest in ignoring the character’s past, and even found acknowledging it made for a fascinating contrast with his previous status, and the status he temporarily enjoyed. I used his temporary return to wealth to give him a chance to replenish his supply of arrows, practical guy that I am.

“I asked Len about the possibility of keeping Ollie wealthy permanently, as the concept of a character constantly whining about his poverty had gotten old with Peter Parker, but Len vetoed that.” It is interesting to note that in current continuity Oliver is wealthy once more.

For his part, Green Arrow’s loss of wealth and subsequent changes resonated with Trevor Von Eeden.

As he told The Arrow Cave, “Am I a fan of GA? Not until Neal got ahold of him and gave him a hip, new costume, a likeable, free-wheeling personality— and turned him into a person of high moral integrity— all in the famous GL/GA series with Denny O’Neil.”

After his board meeting in the miniseries, Oliver realizes he is making the same mistakes again. So, “Fool me once, shame on me…,” he decides to change tactics and begins to act like a total buffoon.

He lights cigars with money, spends his nights partying, propositions the prim lawyer who initially brought him into the case, and proposes to make Kermit the Frog’s birthday a company holiday.

Unfortunately, he has no more success with this method than he did before.

Topsy-Turvy Troublemaker (top left) GA rogue Count Vertigo takes the archer for a spin on the Von Eeden/ Giordano cover of Green Arrow #2 (June 1983). (top right) The Emerald Archer and his ally Mr. Jones defy the odds on the blazing cover for issue #3. (bottom) Another study of the Von Eeden/Giordano team’s artistic wizardry in a stylish two-page sequence cleverly staged by author Barr.

Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 25

Good Thing He’s Not Shooting At Grapes (top) The count isn’t enjoying the Battling Bowman’s target practice on page 1 of GA #3. (bottom) Ollie acts up, in issue #3.

TM & © DC Comics.

WATCHING THE DETECTIVES

Throughout the second and third issues, Oliver spends a lot of his time trying to unravel the mystery that has been presented to him by a variety of methods. Being a Batman clone, you would think this would be second nature to him, but… well, not so much.

“I played Ollie in this setup as a guy who was trying to be a detective, but was in way over his head,” remarks Mike W. Barr. “He even admits this to himself at one point after he tries a bluff on some of the suspects and fails spectacularly. GA did solve a whodunnit some months earlier in a World’s Finest continuity, but that story was much less complex than the miniseries.”

His big breakthrough comes when he gets assistance from that most often neglected resource, his secretary. Having benefited from a lifetime in that business (oil, in this case), she gives Ollie the clue he needs to finally retrieve vital information from Abigail’s computer. Unbeknownst to him, the bad guys have the computer tapped and finally have the break they have been waiting for. It also very smoothly leads us toward the climax in the final issue of the series.

ARROW THROUGH ME

A huge nod goes to the creative team for presenting a self-contained story that really required no deep knowledge of the character. The general familiarity that any fan of the DCU had was really all you needed. In addition, Barr used a feature in each issue that used to be omnipresent in comic books, the plot summary. Basically extinct now, it had certainly begun to fade from use at the time of this series. Mike states, “I am continually infuriated by television series in which the producers obviously feel there is no need to recap the plot or reintroduce the characters from episode to episode, assuming viewers will be familiar with them. I used to think it was lazy writing, but now I realize the writers were probably never taught any better (which is almost the same thing). These people need to read the Sherlock Holmes stories of Doyle or Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series, in which a quick recap of the series premise is given in every story.”

The GA series wraps up on a happy note and, not being a story that attempted any major changes to the character, leaves things ready for the next creative team. Were Barr and Von Eeden ever offered the chance to be that team and follow up the series?

Von Eeden told The Arrow Cave, “When I was first told about the GA mini in ’83, there was absolutely no mention of it becoming a series. […]

There seemed to be no desire on DC’s part to put me on any type of regular series—I was usually given one-shot jobs.”

For his part, Mike W. Barr says, “I was offered a follow-up series, but felt I had exhausted my luck in making the first one readable. I respected Ollie too much to take that chance with him again.”

This series was a sort of last hurrah for the original, trick-arrow conception of the character. When he next appeared in his own title it was Mike Grell’s Longbow Hunters (see BI #10). This was followed by a long-running regular series in which the character became more of an urban vigilante and used the type of arrows found in the real world. But, as I stated at the beginning, this series is one of my favorites, and if you have never read it I thoroughly recommend it.

We’ll give Mr. Barr the last word: “Trevor’s and my series has never been reprinted, and none of the events or characters introduced in it have ever been referred to again. I think that’s called being thrown down a continuity hole.”

The writer would like to thank Mike W. Barr and Aaron Bias for their contributions to the composition of this article.

BRIAN MARTIN lives in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, owns a condo with one whole room full of comics, and spends a lot of his free time trying to hit bull’s-eyes writing articles for BACK ISSUE magazine.

26 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

Move Over, Matt Murdock… …you’re not comics’ only daredevil. Dizzying derring-do from our favorite huntsman on the cover of Green Arrow #4 (Aug. 1983).

Original Von Eeden/Giordano art courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 27

While most people think of superheroes when considering comic books, there are many other genres including those based on licensed properties, going back to the Golden Age of Comics. Some have been based on movies (2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars), live-action TV shows (I Love Lucy, Babylon 5), cartoons (Mighty Mouse, Scooby-Doo), celebrities (The Adventures of Bob Hope, The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis), books (Conan the Barbarian, The Stand), and even advertising icons (Ronald McDonald, Smokey Bear).

Another popular licensed-comic genre is toy lines, especially action figures, which have been popular and worthwhile properties. During the Bronze Age, Marvel Comics scored massive hits with their longrunning G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, ROM: Spaceknight, Micronauts, and Transformers comics, all based on action-figure lines.

DC Comics took notice of the sales and popularity of these comic books and wanted a piece of the action, publishing comics based on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and M.A.S.K. Neither gained the fan following and long-running status of Marvel’s tiein books, but DC continued to produce toy-related comic-book series, including a three-issue miniseries for the Power Lords toy line.

POWER LORDS: THE TOYS

The 1970s and 1980s were a Golden Age for action figures: Mego’s World’s Greatest Super-Heroes (combining Marvel and DC characters as well as Conan and Tarzan), Kenner’s Star Wars, Hasbro’s G.I. Joe and Transformers, and Mattel’s Masters of the Universe are just a few of the many action figures, with related vehicles and accessories, that populated the toy aisles. In the 1980s, a trend began to premiere: a new action-figure line with an accompanying television animated cartoon series and comic-book series. G.I. Joe, He-Man, and their ilk became more than just toys to many kids as they were able to

He’s Got the Power Cover to the toy tie-in Power Lords #1 (Dec. 1983). Cover art by Mark Texeira (misspelled “Texiera” by the cover letterer) and Dick Giordano.

TM & © Strongin/Mayem, International.

28 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

by E

d Lute

recreate scenes from comic books, cartoons, or movies or create new adventures using their fertile imaginations.

Revell, mostly known for plastic model kits that were often advertised in comic books, wanted to expand their reach and get in on the extremely lucrative action-figure market. The company hired toy creators Ned Strongin and Len Mayem to develop a new line. The pair in turn brought on acclaimed sci-fi writer-artist Wayne Douglas Barlowe to help create the designs for the toys.

Together they created Power Lords: The ExtraTerrestrial Warriors, which premiered in 1983. While this line didn’t have the popularity of other action figures of the time and only consisted of two waves over two years, it was graced by Barlowe’s imaginative depictions of aliens. Barlowe’s designs of aliens were immortalized in Ian Summers and Beth Meacham’s 1979 book, Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials.

In a 2021 interview on powerlordsreturn.com, Barlow stated, “The book was successful for its time; there was every indicator that I should have done another straightaway. That didn’t happen, but its odd descendants were the Power Lords. When toy-packagers Ned Strongin and Len Mayem contacted me, they were looking for a line that replicated what was in the book. Due to rights issues, I could not agree to that, but I could provide them with designs that were similar.

“Obviously, it was new and fun for me. I really do like branching out and trying new forms of design and this was a blast. I love toys—still collect a lot of them—

but this was extra rich in that I was designing aliens.

I love aliens, and the kick here was that I’d actually get to hold the designs and put them on my shelf. Ned and Len were really agreeable fellows and they enjoyed seeing the reams of paper come off my desk. I did dozens of potential designs—each with an eye towards some kind of mechanical action that would translate into a fun toy. We discussed many of the possible actions and, yes, they did have some guidelines—target concepts that they wanted to see integrated into the line. I had very little to do with the backstories. If memory serves me, those were created by people at Revell. Same with the Adam Power’s volcano base, Volcan Rock. That must have been done at Revell or elsewhere.

“I love toys and wanted to make these guys exceptional,” Barlowe said. “And we all wanted these toys to have cutting-edge features that our competitors did not have in their lines. A tough request as Masters of the Universe were going strong and were really well-made and creative. And, why not have weird stuff in alien figures? They’re ALIENS! Too bad if parents couldn’t get it. That certainly wasn’t anything I was

Barlowe’s Best Power Lords’ aliens were designed by fantasy master Wayne Douglas Barlowe.

Here, they’re interpreted by penciler Mark Texeira and inker Tod Smith on the original cover art for DC’s Power Lords #2 (Jan. 1984). Original art courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Strongin/Mayem, International.

Let’s Do the Twist This ad for Revell’s Power Lords action figures ran on the back covers of DC titles.

TM & © Strongin/Mayem, International.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 29

concerned about. Not my department! That was for Ned and Len and maybe Richard Zien who doing the marketing for Revell to worry about. Adam and Shaya, who were both characters that Ned and Len wanted in the line, were pretty bizarre. Incidentally, I think the only character I named was Sydot— a nod to my parents, Sy and Dot.” The first wave of the line was made-up of the heroic Adam Power and his companions, including Shaya and Sydot, along with the villainous Arkus and his henchmen Ggripptogg and Raygoth. The line featured some of the most dynamic and inventive alien designs found in the toy aisles at the time.

Each figure had an action feature, such as Adam Power’s ability to change into Lord Power when a child pushed a button and the top of the figure spun around, turning the human-like Adam into a blue-skinned alien. Similar to the G.I. Joe line, each Power Lords figure included a card on the back of the package that provided details about the character.

The second wave featured four new evil henchmen Tork, Bakatak, Disguyzor, and Drrench, but no new heroes. The second wave also featured the Beast Machines, tank-like creatures with humanoid/alien features on top. The line also featured the required vehicles and playsets that kids would hopefully want to add to their collection.

Regarding his toy designs, Barlowe revealed, “My ‘vision’ remained pretty much intact throughout the process. It may be a strength that only one person designed the line. There is an innate homogeneity that naturally occurs when a single designer is responsible for building characters or a world, be in in toys or in film. One needs look only towards [artist] H. R. Giger (Alien) or [concept artist] Syd Mead (Blade Runner) to understand that.

I do know that kid-testing occurred, but I had nothing to do with that. Same with committee approval. Ned and Len were in on those facets of creation.”

POWER LORDS: THE COMIC BOOK

Toy companies want to get as much out of an intellectual property that they can, and Revell was no different with Power Lords. A puzzle, coloring book, board game, and Colecovision video game were developed alongside the action-figure line—as well as a three-issue miniseries from DC Comics.

The miniseries was written by Michael Fleisher, with pencils by Mark Texeira. Jeff Dee inked the first two issues, while Pablo Marcos inked the final issue.

Power Lords #1 (Dec. 1983) provided readers with Adam Power’s origin. The issue michael fleisher opened with Shaya attempting to evade Arkus’ forces as she raced towards the planet Earth in order to locate Adam. Upon finding him, Shaya revealed that Adam wasn’t human as he thought, but instead a member of the hereditary power caste of the planet Toran.

Shaya placed an individual power jewel upon Adam’s forehead. When she did this, Adam learned that Arkus, Ggripptogg, and Raygoth, warriors from diverse races, put aside their differences in order to conquer the galaxy as the Extraterrestrial Alliance. They came to Toran when Adam was still a child.

His parents—Izah, a.k.a. Lord Power, and Queen Moria—used the molecular disassembler to send him to Earth to protect him from the invasion.

Unfortunately, they were killed in the attack.

In addition to revealing Adam’s history, the jewel changed him into the blue-skinned Lord Power. Along with these cosmetic changes he was provided with the ability to fly and shoot energy bolts out of his hands, with more powers revealed as the miniseries progressed. He used these powers to defeat Arkus’s forces that had located him and Shaya. Shaya, who up until this point appeared to be human, was also revealed to be a Toran and ally to Adam’s parents. Her skin turned red.

Adam and Shaya found their way to the fortress stronghold of Volcan Rock.

The fortress floated in outer space and could be used to help defend the galaxy.

Personnel Change Texeira’s splash pages as inked by (top) Jeff Dee (from issue #2) and (bottom) Pablo Marcos (from issue #3).

TM & © Strongin/Mayem, International.

30 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

However, Raygoth and Ggripptogg led a surprise attack against the stronghold, easily defeating the heroes.

Issue #2 (Jan. 1983) saw the two Toranians transported to an intergalactic prison called the Doom Dimension, where they met Sydot who helped them escape. After escaping, the trio made their way to Toran to replenish the power in Adam and Shaya’s power jewels. They discovered that the great power crystal, used to refresh the power jewels, had been destroyed. After a failed attempt to restore his power with a wellspring on the planet, Adam Power found that his abilities weren’t from the crystal or even the wellspring, but within himself. He was able to restore his own power.

The third issue (Feb. 1984) was the only one to contain the subtitle Texeira, Dee, and Marcos did a “The Extra-Terrestrial Warriors” on the good job of illustrating Barlowe’s cover as a part of the logo. The issue exotic creature designs, providing exposed Arkus’s plan to use Volcan the story with an alien feel.

Rock to help the Extraterrestrial Several revivals of the Power Lords mark texeira Alliance conquer the galaxy. Arkus action-figure line have since been used the fortress to destroy a planet to attempted. Hopefully, we get © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. keep the galaxy under his control, another one soon because we similar to how the Empire used the Death Star in Star Wars. need Adam Power and his companions to help Adam Power led an assault on Volcan Rock and, defend the galaxy! along with help from Sydot, defeated Arkus and his minions. The villains were transported to the Doom All quotes from Douglas Barlowe Dimension. The issue ended with “The End?,” indicating are from a 2021 interview on that this might not be the last comic-book adventure powerlordsreturn.com. for Adam Power. However, no further adventures were created, and both the action figures and the comic Elementary school teacher and comic-book fan ED LUTE also loves a book faded away. good action-figure line. As a child, Regarding if he had any input into DC’s Power Lords, his room was filled with figures Barlowe stated, “None, Zip. Nada. I was as surprised as from many different lines, and he the next person when they came out.” still has many of them to this day.

DC Comics’ miniseries not only showcased Revell’s He also loves the tie-in comics that toy line, but it was a fun science-fiction adventure. make up his collection.

Final Countdown (left) Texeira and Giordano’s cover to the third and final issue of Power Lords, the first issue of the miniseries to bear the series’ subtitle. (right) Page 11 of that issue shows a gathering of Arkus and his evil extraterrestrials.

TM & © Strongin/Mayem, International.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 31

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by E d

Lute

Even though superhero comics continue to reign supreme in the hearts and minds of fans, during the late 1970s and early 1980s science fiction became popular again in comics. The genre had become a hot commodity during this time in movies, TV shows, animation, toys, and comic books. What caused this sudden resurgence of the genre’s popularity? The 1977 premiere of George Lucas’ Star Wars, of course, bringing about a sci-fi renaissance.

While there was a popular Star Wars title published

by Marvel, many other science-fiction comics appeared during this time, some based on licensed properties (Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Flash Gordon, Atari Force) as well as original concepts (Omega Men, Sun Devils, Jemm: Son of Saturn).

Spanner’s Galaxy was another sci-fi comic that fell squarely into the second category, but its creators, writer Nicola “Nick” Cuti and artist Tom Mandrake, were obviously influenced by George Lucas’s epic space opera. The six-issue Spanner’s Galaxy miniseries published by DC Comics wore its Star Wars influences on its sleeve, but made those influences its nick cuti own and turned them into something original.

Join BACK ISSUE as we take a galaxy-spanning Hey Kids Comics Wiki. trip to explore this cult-favorite miniseries, how it took familiar Star Wars tropes and placed its own spin on them, and how it wasn’t the typical comic-book fare at the time.

SPANNER’S GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY

Spanner Under Fire Polaris Spanner’s not exactly making friends on the cover of Spanner’s Galaxy #1 (Dec. 1984). Art by Tom Mandrake.

TM & © DC Comics.

Let me know if you’ve heard this one before: a sci-fi tale about a farm boy from a distant planet who left his home to face adventures throughout the galaxy, all the while being hunted by an intergalactic police force and bounty hunters. He helped a young girl, with the assistance of a rogue space pirate. He was also joined on his adventures by a furry creature that could repair spaceships. He visited a swamp planet and a space station. He had special powers that he was trained to use by an alien creature. Oh, and he also wielded a mythical weapon.

If you thought we were talking about Star Wars, you would be wrong. Although Spanner’s Galaxy shared many similarities with those adventures from a galaxy far, far away, this DC Comics series put its own spin on them, as we shall see.

The inaugural issue (Dec. 1984) introduced readers to a young boy named Polaris “Poli” Spanner, who helped a young homeless girl named Andromeda “Andi” Jones. The space pirate Marcus Baka was also introduced when he helped save Spanner and his father from horse-like humanoids called Kamorians, who attacked them to obtain the “shek” that they possessed. A shek was a mythical weapon that required special training to properly use, and only those who had the power to use it could possess one.

After their failed attempt to obtain the shek, the Kaborians realized that Spanner was special. They trained him how to use the shek and also how to “castle.” Castling was a special power that not every1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 33

one possessed. It allowed someone to teleport themselves to another city or even a planet. However, the castler would switch places with another castler in that location when they teleported. After his training was complete, Spanner was given the title of Kaborian Knight.

While aspects of the story may seem familiar to Star Wars fans, Cuti and Mandrake didn’t go down the same road.

The first issue ended with Spanner on the run from an intergalactic police force that was working with Baka and bounty hunters led by Jones, who oversaw the Bounty Hunters Guild! Readers would have to wait until the final issue to find out why Spanner was being hunted, but they would be treated to an intergalactic adventure on the journey there.

SPANNING THE GALAXY

With a title like Spanner’s Galaxy, readers were no doubt expecting an intergalactic adventure with exciting locales and exotic humans and aliens.

They wouldn’t be disappointed with this miniseries. Spanner was a castler who had the ability to teleport to different parts of the galaxy. Since he was on the run from various factions, this was a great talent to have. However, Spanner’s Galaxy #2 (Jan. 1985) revealed that he could be tracked when he castled, allowing Baka, Jones, and their respective groups to locate him. All Baka and Jones had to do was to find out where the person who switched with Spanner was from and then travel there.

With his castling power, each issue saw Spanner travel to a new planet or location, where a sci-fi adventure ensued. Even though Spanner was on the run, the second issue found him helping human Isoli Cre-Rivors—or as he referred to her, Icy Rivers—because she had the ability during times of stress to drop her metabolism to almost nothing to appear tom mandrake dead. More importantly, though, he also met Gadj, a small, cute, feline-like alien called a “gadgeteer,” who could repair almost any- © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. thing. Gadj became Spanner’s companion for the rest of the miniseries.

Spanner and Gadj found themselves on a swamp planet called New Okeefenokee in issue #3 (Feb. 1985). The planet was inhabited by the alien San-Os, humans, and a host of other creatures, helping to make the alien planet come to life. The pair helped Dida, the daughter of the human Po family, learn about secrets from her past that been hidden by her parents.

Everybody Wants You (top) Half-page house ad for Spanner’s Galaxy, as seen in late 1984 DC titles. (bottom) A flashback to Spanner’s origin. Page 2 of issue 1, written by Nick Cuti and illustrated by Tom Mandrake.

TM & © DC Comics.

34 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

Spanner’s Run (top) The deaddropping Icy Rivers in issue #2 and perilous swamp world of New Okeefenokee (a Pogo homage) in #3 kept a highoctane pace that “castled” readers from issue to issue. (bottom) Spanner’s Galaxy #3, page 2.

TM & © DC Comics.

Issue #4 (Mar. 1985) saw Spanner and Gadj trapped on the Leviathan Space Station. Once again, they were being pursued by Jones’s bounty hunters and Baka and the police force. Spanner and Gadj got the opportunity to entertain some of the station’s young children with their thrilling adventure stories, in between trying to escape capture.

In the penultimate issue (Apr. 1985), Spanner and Gadj castled to the Starfield, Inc. drilling rig. Spanner was made an investigator on the rig to help find a murderer called the Butcher. Spanner was chosen because he wasn’t on the rig when the original murders happened, so he couldn’t have been the Butcher himself. Spanner also encountered his father and the rest of his family for the first time since the hunt for him began. The issue ended with Spanner being captured by the intergalactic police force and placed into custody.

The final issue (May 1985) contained a lot of twists and turns as this part of Spanner’s story came to an end. The comic revealed why Spanner was being hunted. Baka had convinced the police that Spanner was a dangerous person and needed to be stopped. He also hired the bounty hunters to help track Spanner. However, Spanner wasn’t dangerous.

Baka wanted the gem inside of Spanner’s shek because it could be used to power a black-hole machine that would make Baka the most powerful person in the galaxy. Jones, who had been helping to hunt down Spanner, ended up dying trying to save his life from Baka. The space pirate escaped after murdering Jones. The issue ended with Spanner hunting Baka in a reverse of the ending for the first issue.

Spanner’s Galaxy was a fun adventure that not only distanced itself from other science-fiction stories, but also established itself as something different than the other comics on the racks. Each issue, except for the final one, was set up like a police procedural, with various participants telling their side of the events that occurred as they were interrogated. Each issue also contained a prose section that helped to detail the backgrounds of the characters. The first issue contained a prose piece about Spanner when he was still a young farm boy. Subsequent issues revealed stories from Jones’s past, as well as stories featuring other members of the supporting cast.

These brief text pieces helped to enhance and expand the world that Cuti and Mandrake had created.

While the ending of the Spanner’s Galaxy miniseries set up the possibility of a sequel, one never materialized. There were many aspects of this galaxy left to explore, but that wasn’t to be.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 35

DESIGNING THE LOGO

A logo can help to make a comic stand out on a crowded rack and sell a book to readers. The eye-catching logo for Spanner’s Galaxy was created by letterer/logo artist Todd Klein.

Klein reveals to BACK ISSUE, “I was designing quite a few logos for DC at the time. I don’t recall who assigned this one to me, but Nick Cuti was a friend, as was the book’s editor Alan Gold, so it was probably at their request, which would have likely come through art director Neal Pozner. I don’t remember any discussions about it with any of them, nor do I have any logo sketches, just a photocopy of the final design. In this case, the word SPANNER’S begins and ends in an S, which is an expressive letter that lends itself to interesting designs. I made each large, giving the logo impact and symmetry. I liked the idea of each S continuing off the page at the sides, and that’s how it was used. I was trying for something futuristic to fit the space opera or science-fictional theme, which is expressed best in the triangular As. The starfield filling the word GALAXY doesn’t look like my work, so perhaps Tom Mandrake did that, or even Nick Cuti. It works well to enhance the science-fiction direction.

“I’m sure I worked with Nick on the design along with Alan Gold. I didn’t work with Tom at all on this, and probably didn’t even see his cover art until after my design was finished. Tom would likely have been given a copy of the finished logo so he’d know how much space it would need, but that’s a guess, it didn’t always happen.

“I don’t remember anything specific about it except that I enjoyed reading it. Nick was a writer who was full of ideas… they just flowed out of him, one after another. Sometimes he was not the best at developing those ideas fully, but I think Alan Gold would have helped with that.”

The miniseries’ writer took a moment some 34 years after Spanner’s Galaxy’s publication to reflect on the series. In a February 13, 2019 Twitter post, Nick Cuti, who died in 2020, stated, “Tom Mandrake, the artist, did a bang-up job on the illustrations.

It was never a big seller for DC, but it does have a cult following.”

Spanner’s Galaxy was a science-fiction series that dared to share the racks with a multitude of superhero comic books. It contained aspects similar to Star Wars, but turned them on their head to create something new and different. It stood out and did its own thing when other comics were just following trends. Readers should definitely castle themselves into Spanner’s Galaxy.

The author would like to thank Todd Klein for his time and assistance with this article.

A Logo Unplugged (top) Todd Klein designed the Spanner’s Galaxy logo, although the starfield was an add-on. Logo art scan courtesy of Todd Klein. (bottom) The cover to issue #6.

TM & © DC Comics.

36 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

When freelance writer and educator ED LUTE gets bored with superheroes (his absolute favorite), he can choose a science fiction, horror, or humor title.

As he writes this, he just finished up a reread of the Batman: Knightfall storyline and is about to start reading Planetary (outside of the BI timeframe, but he’s heard great things about it and can’t wait to dive in). He thinks it’s great to be a fan and wouldn’t change his passion for comic books (and everything related to them) for anything.

Few superhero teams have such a rich history as the Justice Society of America, and few know that history as well as Roy Thomas. The legendary comics scribe who brought the Golden Age of comics to the Bronze Age wrote a detailed and definitive version of it in the four-issue America vs. the Justice Society. Walk with us, BACK ISSUE readers, as we stroll through the hallowed halls of the JSA headquarters in Civic City and discuss the making of this miniseries that would change the lives of every character involved. Hurry… Hourman says time will run out soon.

As the DC Universe heroes of Earth-One were preparing for a crisis, their counterparts on Earth-Two, whom said crisis would eventually affect, had their hands full with their own series of events. They began with a shocking revelation from beyond the grave. Batman, whose death was chronicled in Paul Levitz and Joe Staton’s “Only Legends Live Forever” classic in Adventure Comics #461–462, in his diary accused the Justice Society of America of treason. That allegation is the core of America vs. the Justice Society.

Roy Thomas was kind enough to speak with BACK ISSUE about the 1985 miniseries.

– James Heath Lantz

by J a m e s

Heath

JAMES HEATH LANTZ: Can you tell the folks reading who may not be familiar with the comic what America vs. the Justice Society is, and how it came to be?

ROY THOMAS: Yes, definitely. Of course, I’d already been doing a lot of reading on World War II, especially the home front, from when I was doing The Invaders and even before. But then, I’d read a fair amount of medieval history before Arak, too, just without any definite aim in mind.

Lantz LANTZ: You mentioned in our discussions of Arak: Son of Thunder [in issue #121] that you and your wife Dann did a bunch of research to make it as historically accurate as possible. Was this also the case with America vs. the Justice Society?

THOMAS: As accurate as possible, since once you would inject superpowered beings into history, that history will be irretrievably changed.

Probably a real All-Star Squadron, Dragon King, etc., would have made history a lot more different—even if the JSA missed Pearl Harbor—by early 1942 than I allowed. Consider those alternate-history versions of World War II in prose fiction, which generally veer off considerably from real history soon after a few new elements are introduced. I felt I wanted to keep the history as close to accurate as I could. roy thomas LANTZ: In fact, I often wondered what it would be like if superheroes IMDb.com. like the JSA existed during wartime.

You satisfied that curiosity in a way without going the grim-and-gritty route of Watchmen or other comics that came after America vs. the Justice Society.

Grave Allegations Accusations made in the late Batman’s diary placed DC’s original super-team in peril; detail from America vs. the Justice Society #1 (Jan. 1985). Cover by Jerry Ordway.

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 37

You described this series as “The real history of the Justice Society” in your intro to America vs. the Justice Society #1. The last panel on page six and all of page seven of that issue in particular show your attention to those details regarding DC’s various heroes’ individual histories. In fact, you’ve often stated the importance of such things when writing for characters and teams who have been in the comics medium as long as the JSA. Do you still feel that’s the case?

THOMAS: No change there. I have a real disdain for people who don’t appreciate the importance of history. I feel they’re morons.

LANTZ: Like Spanish philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” History is more appreciated if it is remembered.

You stated in your intro that America vs. the Justice Society was intended to be a six-issue miniseries. Do you recall what led to

it becoming four issues instead?

THOMAS: DC dictated it. However, the AvJSA issues contained no ads whatsoever. This meant the story content was at least as much as it would have been with six regular issues.

LANTZ: One of my favorite things about America vs. the Justice Society and The Last Days of the Justice Society one-shot was the skeleton key on the inside covers, so as not to overrun the story with footnotes. I wish more comics did that. I think I only saw something similar in a Star Trek comic. Was this your idea or something you discussed with the powers-that-be at DC? THOMAS: It was my idea, but I had to get approval from DC. They didn’t have ads in that mag, so it worked.

LANTZ: The entire series feels like one of those classic mysteries where the characters and the reader alike ask who the real culprit might be while they all try to figure things out as they read or experience events in the story. Was this your intention? What influenced this particular type of writing?

THOMAS: Dann and I were kicking around things, and she came up with the “Batman’s Diary” thing based on the “Hitler’s Diary” hoax then going around. Dann loves mysteries, and I enjoy playing around with them to some extent.

LANTZ: You and Dann worked a lot together during your tenure at DC. Did you two bounce ideas back and forth while writing America vs. the Justice Society? How much of the series was you both together, and how much was one or the other’s idea?

THOMAS: I can’t recall how much was her idea or how much was mine, but of course I was the one who interfaced with DC and was the official generator of ideas.

Dann never tried to push me to do a particular series or idea since she really had no objective interest in being a comics writer. It was all about (a) helping me, and (b) potential income for her, as it should have been.

LANTZ: The Justice Society has such a rich, varying roster. Did you make the decision on which members to include in America vs. the Justice Society? How did you decide who starred in and who just wouldn’t work for the series? continued on page 42

Returning All-Stars Writer Roy Thomas’ previous All-Star Squadron artists illustrated pages 1 (this page) and 12 (opposite) of America vs. the Justice Society #1: Rich Buckler (inked by Alfredo Alcala) and Jerry Ordway.

TM & © DC Comics.

38 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 39

Robin’s Roundup Following in his late monitor’s footsteps, Robin supervises the arrest of his teammates in issue #1. This remarkable double-page splash by penciler Rafael Kayanan and inker Alfredo Alcala is courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

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1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 41

In the Shadow of the Batman In this interview, Roy admits his pride in his handling of the late Batman’s protégés, Robin and the Huntress.

These examples of exchanges between the two hail from (top left) issue #1 and (top right) issue #3. (bottom) The cover to issue #2.

TM & © DC Comics.

42 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

continued from page 38

THOMAS: I don’t recall, really. Actually, I tried to use everybody.

LANTZ: Do you recall if DC disagreed on any characters or plot points in America vs. the Justice Society?

THOMAS: Not really. It was partly an excuse to retell the history of the JSA, then unavailable to most readers to read in a series. I don’t think any other editor or artist had any plotting input at all. Most of them wouldn’t have had enough knowledge of All-Star Comics to be of help anyway, and I would have strongly resisted any attempt at input I didn’t agree with.

LANTZ: Your characterizations of the various JSA members are spot-on. Spectre and Superman especially come to mind at the moment. Did this come from research or your time as a fan of the comics medium, or was it a little of both?

THOMAS: Both. Of course, I never read a Spectre story till I was in my 20s, although I’d seen the character in one 1944 issue of All-Star that I picked up when I was a Cub Scout.

LANTZ: While we’re on the subject of characters, there are a lot of believable and engaging character interactions in America vs. the Justice Society. This works especially well when the Huntress and Robin are debating about what to do and who to believe. How much of this was research, and how much of it was due to the way you wrote the miniseries?

THOMAS: I’m a little proud of the Robin/Huntress scenes, although there wasn’t room for a lot of that in the series.

There wasn’t really much research on them, except to the extent that I pored over things like the 1970s run of

All-Star Comics and Paul Levitz’s “Huntress” series [the backup feature in Wonder Woman], etc.

LANTZ: Those Bronze Age JSA stories were really good.

It seemed like your Invaders stories may have influenced them to some degree, especially the origin story from DC Special #29. That felt a lot like a tribute to GiantSize Invaders #1.

There are a number of historical references in America vs. the Justice Society, and Joseph McCarthy’s hunt for communists and Frederic Wertham’s crusade against comic books came to mind when I read it. Did any of those or any other event from the past influence the story in any way?

THOMAS: Not really. I don’t really see Joe McCarthy as being that important as an influence on the story.

I think Paul Levitz’s JSA tales had just as many influences from other investigations over the years. McCarthy just becomes a sort of shorthand, which I think is generally over-simplified by making him an irredeemable villain, and everyone who stood up to him a hero. I don’t think either assumption is true. There’s good and bad in almost everything, even Wertham.

LANTZ: Are there any unknown or little-known anecdotes or behind-the-scenes stories regarding the making of America vs. the Justice Society that you wish to share with BACK ISSUE? THOMAS: There probably are, but I don’t recall any.

I know I was frustrated at the various artist changes.

LANTZ: Rafael Kayanan, Rich Buckler, Jerry Ordway, Mike Hernandez, Howard Bender, and Alfredo Alcala brought their unique artistic talents to America vs. the Justice Society. Were there any particular

challenges involved with having so many artists on the miniseries?

THOMAS: Yes, keeping a consistent, quality look to the series was the biggest challenge. It would’ve been better to have one penciler for the whole job, except maybe for a few guest artist pages—which was generally used to burn up inventory—but I couldn’t chain Rafael Kayanan to a chair to keep him, so I had to do what I could. All the people involved were talented and did their best, I believe. I simply had to react to what artists were available to me at a given time.

LANTZ: I get what you’re trying to say. One artist can give a comic consistency, but, unless there are cases like what you pointed out, more than one can turn into too many cooks spoiling the broth as it were, making varying styles clash. America vs. the Justice Society doesn’t suffer from that, even if one person on pencils and inks would have made it look more uniform.

What, if anything, would you say sets America vs. the Justice Society apart from your other comicbook stories?

THOMAS: It was more self-contained and intended as a four- or six-issue series.

LANTZ: There have been a lot of positive reviews of America vs. the Justice Society, even in the current comics culture. Looking back on the miniseries, what would you say makes it one of the highest-regarded JSA stories published?

THOMAS: Probably just the fact that readers who then didn’t have even potential access to a full reprinting of All-Star Comics #3–57 wanted to know the story of what happened. This series was designed to retell those

Multiple Artists Splash pages to (left) issue #2, penciled

by Mike Hernandez, and (right) issue #4, penciled by Howard Bender.

The embellishments of inker Alfredo Alcala unified the look of America vs. the Justice Society despite the rotating roster of pencilers.

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 43

A Matter of Fate (top left) America vs. the Justice Society #3 and (top right) 4. Cover art by Jerry Ordway. (bottom) Courtesy of Tim Brown, a 2004 Dr. Fate sketch by artist Paul Rivoche.

Dr. Fate TM & © DC Comics.

stories in abbreviated form while, of course, delivering the entirely new Batman’s Diary/JSA-on-trial storyline, and perhaps the final end of Per Degaton. At least it was the end I meant for him.

LANTZ: It feels like you are going full circle with your DC books with the use of Per Degaton in America vs. the Justice Society. He appears in All-Star Squadron quite a bit. Your storytelling throughout those comics feels so natural for all the characters, particularly Degaton.

Would you say that AvJSA is also a definitive conclusion to your Squadron books and Degaton’s arc?

THOMAS: Yes, in some ways, except that nothing besides the end of World War II should have concluded All-Star Squadron, around issue #500 or 1000 or so.

LANTZ: If given the opportunity, would you write another Justice Society story?

THOMAS: Yes, of course. I consider it idiocy for DC not to give me the opportunity, but I gave up trying to figure them out a long time ago.

Batman’s diary turned out to be an elaborate plot to expose present-day Per Degaton’s final scheme against the Justice Society of America. The heroes of Earth-Two are found innocent of the Dark Knight’s charges, allowing Superman, the Flash, Wonder Woman, and the rest of the team to get on with their lives.

While America vs. the Justice Society ended well for the titular superhumans, it was far from the finale of Roy Thomas’ association with them. Roughly a year after AvJS, he wrote the 68-page special one-shot The Last Days of the Justice Society of America. BACK ISSUE hasn’t covered that as of this writing, but if you ask nicely, dear readers, we’ll be more than happy to shine our Bronze Age spotlight on the first team of superheroes in their final adventure under the guidance of Roy Thomas.

In the meantime, you can check out individual issues or collected editions of America vs. the Justice Society in physical form from your local comic shop or digitally from Comixology.

Special thanks to Roy Thomas for taking time out of his very busy schedule to do this interview. Dedicated to my beautiful and amazingly super wife Laura, whose love is stronger than every superhero; Jadis, Pupino, and Odino, our four-legged feline and canine Justice Society who defeated Per Degaton; and my nephew Kento, who is the one who really wrote Batman’s diary. Your patience and guidance are pure treasures that will be with me forever.

JAMES HEATH LANTZ is a freelance writer whose stories, essays, and reviews can be found online and in print at Sequart.org, Superman Homepage, his blog, and such publications as his self-published Trilogy of Tales and PS Artbooks’ Roy Thomas Presents Sheena vol.

3. James currently lives in Italy with his wife Laura and their family of cats, dogs, and humans from Italy, Japan, and the United States.

44 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

by T o m

Speelman

In the 1980s, the deregulation of advertising on television effectively meant that TV shows—TV shows for kids— could be big commercials. This led to a gigantic toysto-TV pipeline, creating an age that saw beloved cartoons popularizing franchises that are still with us, like Transformers, G.I. Joe, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Comics, of course, were in on the ground floor.

With Marvel and DC’s business model for most of their histories being “craft compelling stories with interesting-to-great characters wrapped in cheap advertisements for things,” toymakers saw it only natural to hire them to craft a story for their lines and promote them with comics (famously, Denny O’Neil named Optimus Prime during his 1980s stint as a Marvel Comics editor-writer).

Of all those, of course, the titans are the three mentioned above. Marvel’s Transformers and G.I. Joe comics were both so much better than they needed to be and so successful that both series are still being continued today by other publishers. Archie’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures—which began adapting the cartoon before going off on its own wild path in the original indie comic’s spirit—may not be as well known today, but it ran for nearly ten years (slightly less than the cartoon) and still holds up today.

Other comics of this era and ilk... less so. Case in point: DC’s 1984 Robotech Defenders miniseries by writer Andrew Helfer, pencilers Judith Hunt and Mike Manley, inkers Murphy Anderson (yes, that Murphy Anderson!) and Dan Zolnerowich [a former Golden Age artist and Murph’s one-time colleague who came out of retirement to work with Anderson on the project—ed.], colorists Bob LeRose and Nansi Hoolahan, letterer Ben Oda, and editor Barry Marx. A tie-in to Revell’s shortlived model kit line of the same name, it’s a fascinating curio of the moment of comics history it sprung from.

Fiction with a clear mandate to sell toys but still doing its best to offer a compelling story… even if, in this instance, it doesn’t fully work.

But why is this? What made this toy tie-in miniseries obscure, while others became immortal? Does this series have anything to do with the more famous Robotech you might’ve heard of? And why is that series such a big deal?

A PACKED STORY… FOR BETTER OR WORSE

Robotech Defenders opens with all-out war on the planet Zoltek, where the United Worlds Confederation’s (UWC) Tactical Squadron is trying to protect the besieged capital Zoltek City from the evil, lizard-y Grelons (think the Gorn from Star Trek, but if they were telepathic, had normal faces, and spoke like “thissss,” albeit inconsistently). Armed with hyper-advanced warships be-

First of… How Many Issues?

DC initially planned its toy tie-in miniseries Robotech Defenders to run three issues.

Fate had other ideas. Issue #1 (Jan. 1985) cover art by Judith Hunt and the legendary Murphy Anderson.

TM & © Revell Inc.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 45

yond even anything the UWC has, the Grelons annihilate Zoltek City, devastating squadron leader Malek, leaving her second-in-command Dex embittered and confounding the rest of their squadron: sloth/panda-looking alien Ikic, pterodactyl man Akros, Bigfoot-esque bruiser Scal, fish lady Silky, and the Martian Manhunter–like (in temperament, if not appearance) Eedon, who points out that the Grelons aren’t a very advanced race, so there’s no way they could’ve developed those warships on their own.

Alone on the desolated city’s outskirts, Malek—brooding over how the Grelons initially seemed receptive to the UWC’s offer of first contact and improvement of their world, only to turn hostile and murderous when the UWC opposed them colonizing other worlds. (Their rationale was that their own world “iss hosstile—dessolate” and “itss decay cannot be allayed!”) Now all that remains of Zoltek City is “…a stone statue that stood in this desert for a hundred thousand years before my people even existed!” Then she notices it crumbling away to reveal metal and an entrance. Turns out this ancient stone statue is actually a giant robot, complete with what Malek calls “brain clamps” that download all the info needed to pilot it directly into her brain.

To Malek and her squad’s astonishment, the robot also contains a map of their solar system, revealing the location of a similar robot on each planet. Realizing this is just the weapon they need to fight back, they retrieve all the rest and advance on the Grelons. But the fight gains a whole new dimension when it turns out the robots are actually sentient Robotech Defenders, scientists and engineers from the planet Technor who say that “—individually, you may call us by the names of the planets on which you discovered us. Our true names are far too complex for you to pronounce.” Their world, the robot Zoltek explains, was destroyed when they decided to help the seemingly dying species, the S’landrai, who were actually energy parasites that drained their planet (and are using the Grelon to help them do the same to the rest of their solar system), and that they only survived by “transferr[ing] our minds into the robot bodies you see now. We scattered ourselves across the universe… until the day the S’landrai would hunger once again—and now, that day is upon us all!”

As that brief summary indicates, there’s… a lot going on here.

Perhaps too much. As a standalone story/pilot for a series that would ultimately never happen—and indeed, was cut from three issues to two in between issues, resulting in the second issue being released at 32 pages without ads with a vague editor’s note at the start saying the cut was “for reasons too numerous to mention”—it’s a fascinating setup. Introducing Malek

Meet the Defenders Robotech Defenders’ cast, as rendered by Judith Hunt for the promo giveaway comic DC Sampler #3.

Original art courtesy of Heritage (www.ha.com).

TM & © Revell Inc.

and the other pilots and slightly fleshing them out before they discover the Defenders, then revealing the Defenders’ true nature, is a neat twist. But Helfer’s story is still too rushed to make much impact, with fun but ultimately thin characters who aren’t given enough time to be properly established and a plot that moves too fast to get a proper grip on who anyone really is. Hunt, Anderson, and company’s artwork is generally quite well done. But the robot designs look so generic, and having no faces to distinguish themselves means that visually, they all kind of blend together. There are good ideas and some fun characters despite their one-noteness, but it all adds up to a so-so story.

Dave Merrill is a little harsher toward the miniseries. A longtime cartoonist and blogger who writes about classic anime at his blog Let’s Anime and hosts both original webcomics and comedy writings by himself and several others at his website Mister Kitty, Merrill covered Robotech Defenders as part of Mister Kitty’s “Stupid Comics” series. That post (available like all of Merrill’s others at misterkitty.org) described the miniseries as “a really terrible looking comic book starring some of the least visually interesting giant robots ever designed.” While that post is a few years old, Merrill is no less blunt in his assessment of it today, telling me that “certainly… [Defenders] is one of the worst toy tie-in comics produced by a major comic-book publisher during the 1980s… I don’t think any of the creative staff had any idea that the model kit properties they’d licensed were anything other than model kits—this was regarded as one more toy line to attempt to create a story around.”

Jason, the one-man (and onenamed) army behind the modelbuilding YouTube channel Bad Gunpla, recently did a video on the miniseries and the model kits themselves, and is a bit more charitable. In the video, Jason describes one of the model kits, which he found secondhand—the same one rendered in the comic as the one under the colossus statue, called Zoltek—as “a storage shed with legs” and “pretty uninspired ’80s plastic metal kit [whose] pieces are held together with equal parts hope and plastic cement.”

And while his video describes the flexographic printing process that DC Comics was using for special projects and miniseries at the time as resulting in LeRose and Hoolahan’s coloring “pop[ping] off the page about as well as a photocopied homework assignment from grade school… if budget cuts forced teachers to reuse toner,” in an email interview, Jason is kinder towards the miniseries.

“I think… the comic had a lot of potential,” he says. “It’s a story about alien races coming together to fight a common enemy and discovering that the icons of their homeworlds are actually massive war machines with the potential of stopping the enemy onslaught.

That is a cool plot! Mix in the extra dimensions that the… Grelons had in the comic, where their hostile nature is spurred by their own needs to survive, you have the making for a compelling space opera. Unfortunately, the comic really needed to be fleshed out for a full run, instead of cutting corners on a 3-then2-part miniseries that tried to jam the content of a full run into a very limited space... I really would have liked to see what DC and Revell could have done with a full Defenders comic run.”

46 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

But just as that full comic was not to be, so too did Robotech Defenders as a model kit line sink into obscurity.

Despite licensing a grab bag of mecha/giant model kits from TakaraTomy from unconnected giant robot anime Fang of the Sun Dougram, Super Dimension Century Orguss, and Super Dimension Fortress Macross, none of the model kits made an impact. Given that 1984 was a time when modelmaking was such a declining hobby in America that Revell was spun off by its then-parent company and forced to shutter its American production plants, this probably isn’t surprising.

What is surprising is that, like the more famous Robotech, Robotech Defenders also utilized designs from Super Dimension Fortress Macross. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Why exactly is this other Robotech “more famous”?

And just what is it?

SYNDICATION LEADS TO STRANGE BUSINESS

The 1980s also saw a boom in syndicated television, particularly in genre TV (like Star Trek: The Next Generation and, a decade later, Xena: Warrior Princess) and animation, with many of the biggest cartoons airing in syndication rather than the Big Three. And anime was right there as well.

Although anime long had a presence on American TV going back to Astro Boy, Gigantor, and Kimba the White Lion airing in the States not too long after they first aired in Japan, it was often an obscure background presence, and often edited to hide its origins. Still, with its long episode counts and serialized storytelling, it seemed a natural fit for syndication.

But Carl Macek, longtime anime dub writer and producer, then working for syndicated TV powerhouse Harmony Gold, had a problem. The mecha show he wanted to dub into English and get on TV—1982’s Super Dimension Fortress Macross, one of the series Robotech Defenders licensed model kits from and created by the legendary Tatsunoko Production (makers of, among many other things, the series that the West knows as Speed Racer)—was only 35 episodes long, as it’d been a weekly show. For syndication, at least 65 episodes were needed so they could be sold in blocks that could be run five episodes a week in any appropriate timeslot.

Macek and Harmony Gold had actually released Macross dubbed on mail-order home video before, but to get it on TV, they needed a plan. And since adding more episodes was impossible, the solution they hit on was pretty ingenious for the time: combining Macross with two other unrelated Tatsunoko mecha anime, 1983’s Genesis Climber MOSPEADA and 1984’s Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, then scripting and editing the shows to be one united, original story taking place across multiple eras.

But the plan to call their new, stitched-together show “Robotech” actually put them in conflict with Revell, since the latter’s model kit was using both that name and Macross designs. However, the two companies quickly reached a cobranding agreement that let both use the name and Robotech the show premiered in national first-run syndication in 1985.

The result would change everything.

(Disclosure: In 2019, Funimation Entertainment, to whose blog this writer contributes as a reviewer-writer, announced that they were the latest in a long line of companies to distribute both the original Robotech series and two of its sequels on home video.)

A PIONEER

Robotech used each of its source anime’s footage to make up three separate story arcs, which together told a sweeping, multi-generational saga of not only an alien warship crashing on Earth, but a now-united humanity fighting hostile alien races like the Zentraedi and Invid. Whereas earlier anime to make it to American TV had severely toned down and excised the source material’s violence and tone to appease censors, Robotech largely did not. And the result definitely had impact.

World At War (top) Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions, original Judith Hunt/Murphy Anderson artwork to page 1 of Robotech Defenders #1. (bottom) Don’t blame colorist Bob LeRose—it was DC’s experimental printing techniques that produced the published comic’s garish hues and inconsistent color separations.

TM & © Revell Inc.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 47

A Rapid Windup (left) Mike Manley and Murphy Anderson original art to Robotech Defenders #2, and (inset) its published form.

In addition to losing its third issue, the cover date changes from the original art to the printed version reveal production delays as DC raced to complete the project.

Original art scan courtesy of Heritage. (right) This Editor’s Note from Barry Marx appeared on the inside front cover of Robotech Defenders #2 (Apr. 1985), announcing (without explaining) the miniseries’ abrupt truncation.

TM & © DC Comics.

Robotech Defenders TM & © Revell Inc.

Merrill, a teenager at the time, recalls how the series’ airing was received by the local anime fandom scene where he lived: “When ROBOTECH first aired (for us, on WATL-36 in Atlanta), I was in high school. Thanks to the earlier popularity of shows like Star Blazers, local anime fans were already putting an anime club together. We had advance notice through conversations and fan publications that the show was coming and that it was made up of three Japanese series… Any questions anyone had about the original nature of the show—at least, any questions anyone asked while we were in earshot—did not go unanswered for long.”

Hugo-nominated sci-fi author Gideon Marcus, who also manages the ’60s SF research website Galactic Journey, was slightly younger when the show aired and was a bit more awestruck. “I was 11… I had already been a fan of Battle of the Planets and Transformers, and I loved Star Trek, so I was hooked. I watched it from the very beginning, every episode, then recorded the second round on VHS. I was not aware that it was three shows in one at the start... It was not until the next year, when I got the ROBOTECH ART 1 book… that I learned Robotech was originally three separate (and unrelated!) anime.”

Jason of Bad Gunpla had a different entry point into the series. “My main familiarity with Robotech is really through curiosities spurred

48 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

by the Defenders kits and comics. I think every kid that grew up in the ’80s and ’90s had at least caught a few episodes of Robotech on rerun at some point, and I know I did as well.

But on the whole, I’ve never actually seen the entire series.”

But, he continued, “I really don’t think it’s a stretch to say that without Robotech, anime in America would be nothing like it is today.

The series was essentially head-canon living in Macek’s mind. And after Robotech[’s success], he went on to found Streamline Pictures with Jerry Beck and Fred Patten. Streamline was the first company to bring Akira, Fist of the North Star, and many of the early Studio Ghibli films to America—films that are now legendary in the global anime fandom. Despite what anyone thinks of the series, the kits, or the comics, the Robotech experiment was a major launching point for [W]estern anime fandom.”

Marcus seems to agree with that assessment.

Although he states that personally, “I don’t think I’d watch Robotech ever again,” he feels that “as a reasonably true adaptation of three anime from Japan, strung together so as to survive into syndication, with some pretty good production values and music, it was a tremendous success…

I can say that Robotech, leagues ahead of any domestic-origin cartoons I’d ever seen, made me interested in finding other anime. So when

Blockbuster [Video] began carrying them in the ’90s, I was a ready market.”

Merrill concurs, although he’s rather blunt when giving his opinion on where Harmony Gold’s biggest success stands today. “Harmony Gold and Robotech are definitely a part of Japanese animation’s success in the US… I do think Robotech right now is a legacy property that has failed to demonstrate any ability to move forward in any sort of narrative fashion, in spite of decades’ worth of attempts to do so. The brand’s greatest value right now is as an ’80s nostalgia property. New people are not getting into Robotech.”

While that might be true, the fact is Robotech itself was and still counts as the first recognizable anime for a whole generation, helping just as much as Astro Boy did in the ‘60s and Toonami and Pokemon did in the ‘90s to bring about the world we have today, where most anime airs at the same time virtually all around the world. And that’s not nothing.

As for Robotech Defenders? Well, while it may have been doomed to obscurity from the very start—and, as Jason points out, “[l]aunching less than a year after… Marvel[’s] Transformers comic probably didn’t do DC any favors…”—it’s just as much a fascinating “road-not-taken” series to ponder in DC history as Alan Moore’s never-made 1987 DC crossover proposal Twilight of the Superheroes or any of the series that were announced but never made as a result of the 1978 DC Implosion; like the solo series that would’ve introduced Vixen much earlier or the Gerry Conway/Dick Ayers Western series The Deserter.

But in comics, as in life, they can’t all be winners.

Still, it can’t be denied that Robotech Defenders stands on its own as an odd curio for fans of the original Robotech or its assorted component franchises to track down. And it’s also a fascinating monument of the moment in comics where pre-Crisis DC was trying just about anything and everything.

Robotech Times 2 (left) Don’t confuse Robotech Defenders with Harmony Gold’s 1980s’ syndicated TV property Robotech, which was brought to comics in the mid-to-late ’80s by Comico the Comic Company.

Cover to Robotech: The Macross Saga #15 (Aug. 1986) by Mike Leeke and Chris Kalnick. (right) Original Manley/Anderson art (courtesy of Heritage) to what became the back cover of Robotech Defenders #2.

Its top-lined notations reveal that it was produced to be issue #2’s cover, suggesting that the previously shown image published as #2’s cover was originally intended for the unpublished Robotech Defenders #3.

Robotech: The Macross Sage TM & © Harmony Gold. Robotech Defenders TM & © Revell Inc.

Co-host of the Pokémon rewatch podcast with Tyler Gorman, TOM SPEELMAN has written for Comic Book Resources, Polygon, Comics Alliance, Funimation, and other websites and has edited, proofread, or adapted 100+ manga and novels for publishers like Cross Infinite World, Seven Seas Entertainment, and Kodansha Comics. He lives in Northwest Indiana and can be found on Twitter @SpeelmanTom, probably yelling about how awesome Spider-Man is.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 49

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by J o h n

Schwirian

When someone mentions Gary Cohn, the topic quickly changes to Amethyst or Blue Devil, but Cohn had been writing for DC Comics long before either of those two series emerged. “The Barren Earth,” by Gary Cohn and Ron Randall, first appeared as a backup series in The Warlord #63 (Nov. 1982). In the early 1980s, Warlord featured several six-page series including “OMAC,” “Claw,” and “Arion, Lord of Atlantis.” “The Barren Earth” was the last backup feature, running 23 installments before being promoted to a four-issue miniseries, only to disappear after that, save for a brief spot in the second issue of DC’s Who’s Who. A science-fiction story, The Barren Earth was the tale of a dying planet, super-heated by a sun turned into a red giant. For the last 5,000 years, humanity fought an interstellar war with the insectoid QLOV—a war that had begun to turn in favor of the QLOV. After a two-millennium absence, humans headed back to Earth in search of weapons and technology left there by their ancestors. A band of intrepid warriors fought their way past QLOV battleships, only to crash-land into the scorching sands that now covered humanity’s birth world. Jinal Ne Comarr and her companions believe that they are alone in this vast desert, but are proven wrong as bizarre predator species attack and devour them, one by one. Soon, Jinal is alone and battling to survive.

Rescued by the dashing Skinner, she joins his band of marauders, allies with Lord Barasha (leader of the reptilian Harasham), fights the monstrous Mulge (mindless mushroom men), and encounters the enigmatic Ancient Ones who claim to have guided Earth’s evolution after humanity left for the stars. The miniseries introduced a new nemesis—Zhengla Koraz, a yellow-skinned barbarian warlord reminiscent of Genghis Khan and Attilla the Hun. Jinal and her team overcome many challenges in preparation for the pending QLOV invasion, with the series gary cohn ending on a cliffhanger with the arrival of Jinal’s mentor Admiral Rizzek in her personal intergalactic warship.

On November 15, 2021, writer Gary Cohn and artist Ron Randall graciously took the time to speak to me about the development and history of The Barren Earth.

– John Schwirian JOHN SCHWIRIAN: Gary, prior to Barren Earth, you and Ron had not yet met. You had done some odd projects here and there…

GARY COHN: Very odd.

SCHWIRIAN: Amethyst [with co-writer Dan Mishkin] was underway, so how did Barren Earth get started?

COHN: Ron and I had done a story for one of the mystery magazines, maybe Unexpected, called “Samurai Nightmare” (Unexpected #216, Nov. 1981)—I’m pretty sure that came before Barren Earth—so we knew each other from around the office and—I don’t know if we had done anything else, but we did that one. We were both in [DC editor] Laurie Sutton’s office, I think…

RON RANDALL: Oh, no—I’ve got the juicy story. I have a great memory of how this went, at least how you and I got hooked up.

COHN: Good, because I don’t.

RANDALL: I had done some backup stories in various DC books. I had gone to the Joe Kubert School of Art, so I got to do some war stories in the back of the Sgt. Rock book that Joe was still editing at the time,

Liberated from ‘The Warlord’ Gary Cohn and Ron Randall’s cult favorite “The Barren Earth” backup graduated from the back pages of The Warlord to its own four-issue miniseries. Conqueror of the Barren Earth #1 (Feb. 1985) cover by Randall.

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 51

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Jan, “Are these yours?” She said, “No, they’re my and from that I was doing little things in books like friend Ron’s.” Laurie, at the time, was looking for House of Secrets and House of Mystery and some of a new backup story for the Warlord book the other non-superhero genre books. All of a and, I believe, she had already spoken sudden, I wasn’t getting any more jobs to Gary about developing something from DC, and that went on for a while. new and writing it and thought At one point, one of my friends, my art might go good with that.

Jan Duursema, was doing work Originally, what we were going for Laurie Sutton, and I had just to do—correct me if I am wrong, finished a pretty cool, I thought, Gary—is that Aztec story… backup story for Joe in the back COHN: I was going to ask you of the Sgt. Rock book that I wrote which came first, but I think the and drew myself that was about Aztec story came first. a samurai, and I was really happy RANDALL: It was a story that Gary with the original art. I knew that DC had basically shaped, and I was had a professional photocopy doing some designs for, but for machine, so I asked Jan, “Could ron randall whatever reason they decided you take in my original art and not to do that one—I don’t know make nice photocopies so I could Ocean Yamada. if it was Gary who came up with use it for samples?” She went into the idea or they suggested straight-up science the offices, was at the photocopy machine, and got fiction—so instead we cooked up The Barren Earth, called away. Laurie Sutton walked by and saw my a much more high-concept science-fiction story. original art on the photocopy machine and asked

Welcome to Our World (this page and opposite) Proposal materials for the “Barren Earth” concept, which became a backup feature in the pages of The Warlord. Text by Gary Cohn, art by Ron Randall, with the exception of this page’s Jinal Ne Comarr portrait, which is by Cohn and Randall. Scans courtesy of Ron Randall.

The Barren Earth TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 53

Did You Buy ‘Warlord’ for ‘The Barren Earth’?

Some readers did!

Original art to the title page of Chapter 15, “Pursuit!,” which ran as the backup in The Warlord #80 (Apr. 1984). Scan courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

Gary might remember more about where the spark for that came from than I do.

COHN: Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was my homage to the John Carter stories. I wanted to create my Barsoom, and that’s what we did, created our Mars with all the various races, the arid climate, the need for water, a lot of things that were clipped from Barsoom stories and then stirred up in our own inimitable way.

SCHWIRIAN: That answered my next question, because I saw three possible influences—I was thinking about Barsoom, but also Harry Harrison’s Deathworld series…

COHN: Never read those.

SCHWIRIAN: …and the third one was Dune by Frank Herbert.

COHN: Yeah, and there were other things, too. Every time you’re building a world, you have some connection to the other worlds you’ve read—Larry Niven’s Ringworld stuff—but the desert planet, that was definitely Barsoom, and maybe [Star Wars’] Tattooine, too.

RANDALL: For me, Dune was definitely part of the inspiration as far as trying to visualize the planet as I had read the Dune book. I grew up in Oregon and spent a lot of time on the Oregon coast, in Florence, walking

54 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

on as I found out later the same sand dunes that Frank Herbert was studying as a budding environmentalist.

So that sort of landscape was something that had been in my subconscious from the time I was a young kid.

That was certainly an influence on me in coming up with how to sculpt those vast expanses of sand.

SCHWIRIAN: So that was the genesis of the series. Next comes the development into a regular series. What are some of the challenges of doing a recurring backup as opposed to the feature series?

COHN: It’s shorter. We had six-page installments and so there’s some thought of it being like an old movie serial where you leave each episode off with some sort of cliffhanger, and then you answer the cliffhanger immediately, only to move on to the next cliffhanger.

Six pages was pretty tight for doing that.

RANDALL: I’m just so amazed and gratified that I got to work with somebody like Gary on this, because he had such a firm hand on the genre and the tone and a great mind for colorful characters and had the ability to make it all work in these incredibly tight six-page installments. The characters were being developed and the world was being enriched and deepened in little six-page chunks, and I think that it felt like a very rewarding read.

I know when I started working, one of the things I had in mind was Mike Kaluta’s “Carson of Venus” backup story in the Korak, Son of Tarzan book, and I would often buy the book just for that short backup story. I said, if we can do that with The Barren Earth, and have people buy the book for our six-page backup story, then we’d be doing pretty good. I’ve had people come up to me, and I’ll bet you have, too, Gary— COHN: Yep. RANDALL: —to this day at conventions and say, “I bought this book because you were doing the backup in it,” and that has been really gratifying.

COHN: And we had plans [beyond the backup] for a six-issue finish called Conqueror of the Barren Earth, but that plan never reached fruition.

RANDALL: As I recall, and correct me if I’m wrong, Gary, but when I read the outline for the miniseries, and I saw it came to a cliffhanger, I pointed it out and you said that it was almost our way to blackmail DC. Should we get good reader response, DC will be forced to let us do the rest of this series. Unfortunately, I guess we did not get the human outcry that we would have liked to have gotten from the readers, or the market just didn’t seem to find it was justifiable to them—whatever— DC will have to answer for themselves as to why we did not get more Barren Earth. We gave it a try.

COHN: It was going to be epic.

SCHWIRIAN: How or why did the series change from a backup in Warlord into a four-issue miniseries?

COHN: You know, it was 40 years ago, so some of these things I am blank on.

RANDALL: I don’t remember specifically. I don’t remember having a discussion with anybody where they or either we said that it needs to be the miniseries we think it warrants it or it was somebody’s idea up at DC. I do know at the time, and I think this is largely because of Dick Giordano who, as managing editor, was largely invested into doing diverse genres of stories.

Dick himself loved detective stories and Westerns. At the time we were getting the green light for our miniseries, other science fiction and other genre miniseries were getting green-lit, so maybe they were just looking at different properties they had and said, “Let’s see what the potential for this one is and what the potential for that one is.” But that is just a guess, and you’d have to talk to someone who was there at the time.

COHN: The early ’80s were probably the best time ever for pitching weird stuff. There was an openness and a receptiveness that I doubt existed before and certainly has not existed since.

SCHWIRIAN: My theory is that, seeing as how “Barren Earth” was the last backup series in Warlord, DC wanted to expand the Warlord stories to fill the book, bumping out the backups, but “Barren Earth” was not even close to ending, so it graduated to a miniseries.

COHN: That’s as good an explanation as any. I kind of think that Crisis on Infinite Earths gelled some things at DC that locked them into a particular direction. That once they had invested all that stuff in Crisis, that was what they were going to be doing. From then on, it was going to be their superheroes and they weren’t very interested in new properties at that point. But that’s what they had the Vertigo line for.

RANDALL: Yeah, that was pretty much it. If it couldn’t be tied tightly into the DC Universe continuity, then you’d put those books in Vertigo so you wouldn’t have to interact with what is going on in this month’s issue of The Flash or something like that.

SCHWIRIAN: The Vertigo line always struck me as the British line—the home for all the great British writers and artists.

COHN: [laughs] I have a story for you. Dan Mishkin and I were part of the negotiations for an Amethyst toy line with the vice presidents from Kenner. One day, Dan and I were there, maybe [editor] Karen Berger, somebody from DC, and three vice presidents from Kenner. One of them looked at us and said, “So who is the best writer in comics?” and without missing a beat I said, “We are.” Now, a couple of days later, I picked up Alan Moore’s “The Anatomy Lesson” [Saga of the Swamp Thing #21, Feb. 1984], and I realized how woefully wrong I was.

RANDALL: But you gave the most honest answer you could at the time.

COHN: I was convinced that I was supposed to be having fun. So, I think, pretty much, whatever I touched was fun and had some bounce to it. And I’m not sure that was as great as the Brits are, but I never found any fun in their stuff.

RANDALL: They can be powerful, emotional, and imaginative, but that sense of fun might not have been there. I know that I have always felt grateful that the first ongoing job that I had in comics was working with Gary on The Barren Earth because it checked pretty much all of my fun boxes. I always loved science fiction and there weren’t many opportunities to do science fiction in comics ever.

He came up with one of the earliest examples of a strong female character who was self-defining, self-directed, and that was a lot of great fun to be involved in. And then there were all the accessories, our versions of light sabers, and people riding around on giant lizards, fungus people living underground…

COHN: The mushroom guys—the Mulge!

RANDALL: There were so many Edgar Rice Burroughs elements, and you could draw a line to Star Wars, even Robin Hood with the swashbuckling stuff, too. All these things that the 12-year-old in me has never stopped being delighted in doing. We got to play with that, and we

Read the Dirt on ‘Conqueror of the Barren Earth’ Ron Randall refined the Jinal pose from the proposal into this pinup, with the Conqueror of the Barren Earth cast included. It first saw print in the 1984 giveaway DC Sampler #3 but has also appeared elsewhere. Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

got to work with characters that Gary wrote as vivid and compelling people too, because the other stuff is all the trappings. But it’s the characters that add some heart and reality that as a reader—that is what I respond to. So right from the get-go on The Barren Earth, I was assuming that was the way my career was going to go, and I was wrong.

One time, I was talking to Dick Giordano in his office, and he said something like, “Ron, you know that over the course of your career you are probably going to spend maybe 25% of your career working on the stuff that you love and the rest you will be drawing comics.” And I thought, “Oh you poor, sad, son of a bitch, that’s what it was for you, but I’m already on The Barren Earth”—well, guess who was right. Still, it was a great series to start out on.

SCHWIRIAN: Which brings us back to the concept of the series, the quick hit-and-run format. You never knew what was coming. As fast as you got to know a character—BAM!— he or she got killed.

COHN: The idea was that you just have to roll with it. You have your grand strategy, but your tactical choices are in the moment.

While I had some sense of where it was all going, for each installment I had to decide, “What am I going to do with this one?”

One of my favorites is where I just stopped it all and had her sitting under the stars and had the head lizard guy come out and look at the stars with her for a while and recite a poem. And that was it. I liked that one a lot, but I also liked the one that took place where the wizard gets his stuff back. And a big part of it too was, “How do I get more whacky this time?”

RANDALL: Challenging yourself a bit, huh?

COHN: Yeah, yeah. I’ve got these mushroom guys and I’ve got this guy with mushrooms growing out of his head, so why don’t I give her a trip using the mushrooms growing out of his head? Give her a mushroom trip. Why not?

RANDALL: Sure, why not? There’s a great quote that I will only be able to get part right, but it is something that David Bowie once said about artists, that artists should always be wading out into the water where they are just almost in over their head. That’s where you do the interesting stuff. If you stay in the shallows, it’s very familiar and safe and you sort of go through the motions. Of course, if you go out too deep, then it’s chaos and you’re out of control. You have to find that sweet spot, challenging yourself to be out of your comfort zone, pushing your abilities, and stumbling onto new things. Sometimes

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 55

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you’ll make mistakes that way, take some missteps, but that’s what keeps it alive.

SCHWIRIAN: So how did you keep that creative energy alive?

Were you plotting partners, or did Gary write full scripts…?

RANDALL: Oh no, no. Gary had the concept and the characters and all that stuff mapped out really, really well, but—and this was another reason why it was such an incredibly fortuitous first series to work on—what Gary would do is, he would write a little outline—it was almost like a draft of a short story for this six-page chapter— and then send that to me. I would then sort of adapt it by breaking it down in my thumbnail drawings panelby-panel, and then send my thumbnails back to Gary, who would then draft a basic script for it, send it back to me to do the finished pencils. Then it would go back to Gary to finalize the script. It was just so collaborative and so very organic that I felt I had plenty of input so that my “voice” on how to structure a scene would go. It was all very fluid, and I felt that I was 100% involved with a great balance where we both had plenty of input.

COHN: Part of the fun was not knowing what Ron was going to give me until he gave it to me. Having thumbnails to work with allowed us to go back-and-forth, back-andforth… I gave him a plot, he gave me the thumbnails, there were times where I might say, “Change this a little bit” and other times where I would say, “Wow, I hadn’t imagined that would be there, let’s see what I can do with this.” It’s really the way I most enjoyed working—I worked with Ron that way, I worked with [Blue Devil’s] Paris Cullins that way, and I worked with [Amethyst’s] Ernie Colón that way. Three really, really creative artists—I’m not going to tell them what to draw. They’re artists! They have a much richer visual imagination than I do. I will tell them what I am imagining, and then they are going to give me back something better, throwing in some stuff that I hadn’t imagined. So now I have to make that work, I add dialogue to that and try to rationalize that. So, yeah, back-andforth, back-and-forth, back-and-forth.

SCHWIRIAN: Do you think that the end product comes out better, stronger that way?

COHN: Yeah, absolutely. There are writers that are real control freaks who need to micromanage every piece of the story. What they want from the artist is a rendering exactly as they wanted it. There are people that claim that the writers are the sole creators of comic-book properties. That’s an impossibility. No matter what you as a writer saw, the artist made it better. The artist who first visualized the property is the co-creator. I look at Ron as my complete partner on The Barren Earth. We created that together. If I had written it as prose fiction, it would not have been as good.

RANDALL: That’s a very nice thing to say, Gary. Thanks.

You know, one thing I would like to slip in if I could, as you said, The Barren Earth did not look like anything else out at the time, and that was due to two big influences on my art—Al Williamson and Joe Kubert. A lot of my storytelling—pacing and trying to make characters vivid—that came from Joe and the Kubert School of Art, and that

Excavating ‘The Barren Earth’ (opposite page): From the second issue of the miniseries, Conqueror of the Barren Earth #2, Gary Cohn’s plot, roughs, and dialogue, plus the published version, for page 1. (this page) Captive, Warrior, Conqueror. Ron Randall cover art on issues #2–4 of Conqueror of the Barren Earth.

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 57

Third Planet from the Sun …and not too far from that blazing red star, as shown on this panoramic double-page splash from issue #3 of the miniseries.

TM & © DC Comics.

sense of the otherworldly romanticism with a capital R version of the universe came from Williamson—and, of course, Hal Foster and Alex Raymond. They were my influences, and I’d like to tip my hat to the giants upon whose shoulders I always stood.

SCHWIRIAN: And that influence was clearly evident as you made the world itself a character in the series.

RANDALL: Well, the series was called The Barren EARTH, and Gary chose that title deliberately, which flew in the face of the wisdom of the time in that you named the book after the main character. He was able to get away with it because it ran as a little backup and flew under the radar, but the world had such an impact on the choices that the characters make and the situation of the world—that the sun was expanding into a red giant and baking the planet. That’s why everything happened the way it did, because the planet was the dominant character in the book. The early chapters really emphasized this as in the first or maybe even the second chapter there was this sort of “And Then There Was One” vibe going on as survivors from the ship go down to the planet, and then one-by-one they got eaten. And you didn’t know that Jinal was going to be the main character. She was just one of the survivors. It was kind of like Alien, where you have to whittle the cast down until you’re three-quarters of the way through the movie before you know who the protagonist is.

COHN: Establish right from the start just how dangerous the place was.

SCHWIRIAN: But that changed when you switched to the miniseries. Things seemed to calm down once you

58 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

had a full issue to work with. The focus changed from Jinal to— COHN: Zhengla Koraz—Genghis Khan—he’s a Mongol with a horde of Mongols conquering the world. I wanted a shift in tone. I wanted people to feel like Jinal had given in, that she had lost the war and was just going along with the program. I wanted it to seem like she completely bought into Koraz’s mythos that he had created for himself—and then she kills him.

SCHWIRIAN: I cheered at that point. He annoyed me to no end…

COHN: But he was a good villain, right?

SCHWIRIAN: It wasn’t clear that he was the villain. He looked like he might become the new main character.

After all, the miniseries was titled CONQUEROR of the Barren Earth, and he was the guy who conquered the world.

RANDALL: And that’s a risky thing to do as a storyteller and writer for as long as Gary spun that out. You are used to the characters being put into jeopardy and things are called into doubt, but your anxiety as a reader grows with each page that it continues. Gary was really taking some risks doing things that just aren’t done much in comics.

COHN: He was the conqueror until she takes it away from him. She lets him do the job for her. When he’s finally got it and he’s conquered everything, that’s when she takes it.

The follow-up series was going to be Empire of the Barren Earth, and they were going to head off to conquer the galaxy, bringing peace to all the races of the galaxy.

One of the things I liked was that none of the alien races were actually aliens. They were all humans, hybrid humans, and the Earth had been the seed planet for both of the great galactic civilizations that were fighting each other. The Humans, the Harahashan, the Mulge, the races on the planet, they are humans too. The Mulge are just humans that have, over a long period of time, become symbiotic with mushrooms.

And there was some genetic tampering too, that the Old Ones did. They messed things up.

SCHWIRIAN: Sadly, Empire never got the green light, but just as The Barren Earth faded, your careers seemed to take off.

RANDALL: During The Barren Earth, Roy Thomas was doing Arak, Son of Thunder. They were starting to look for a new artist on that, and Roy was invested in getting somebody who could evoke that sense of other civilization as a culture, because Arak was a Native American wandering around Europe back in the Middle Ages—and I guess he’d seen some of the work that I had done on The Barren Earth where Jinal and her party would crest a ridge and see a city; I was just trying to channel Hal Foster—and that seemed to open Roy’s eyes. I wound up getting to work on Arak and that seemed to lead from one job to another.

COHN: Actually, I was approaching a precipice that I did not know was there. In 1983, my father died, and in 1984 my marriage ended. By the end of 1984, I kind of tanked the career—I blew some deadlines and became erratic. For the first five years that I had been part of comics, I’d had a point of honor that I was always going to be on time, better than expected. Get the job done before the client wanted it, give them exactly what they want, better than they expected, and delivered before deadline. Those were my three things, and I lost it all. When the dust had cleared, I was off Blue Devil, off Amethyst, and the word had spread, “This guy is not reliable.”

SCHWIRIAN: Which is not only tragic for you, Gary, but Blue Devil and Amethyst clearly suffered from your absence.

RANDALL: There’s a thing about when you create something as individual and special as the work that Gary did—so much of it comes from a deeply personal imagination—it’s not like inheriting or playing with the corporate’s toys. It’s your own creation, so the downside is that from the point of view of the readers is that you are sort of irreplaceable with those characters. Gary and Dan [Mishkin] were so integral to those series.

SCHWIRIAN: Perhaps that is why Empire of the Barren Earth never happened. Dick Giordano had the foresight to know that no one other than Gary could handle the series.

COHN: And getting back to The Barren Earth, I think we did good work. I’ve read a couple of retrospectives on it where people did understand what we were doing and said the right things about it. I think I see a lot of where The Barren Earth might have gone in Trekker.

The Barren Earth was like a warmup for Trekker.

RANDALL: In some ways I agree with that, except that it almost makes The Barren Earth feel slighter. Gary envisioned so much in The Barren Earth that I got to draw that when the time came to create my own series, a lot of those elements checked off my [inner] 12-yearold’s love boxes and so, lo and behold, there they are in Trekker as well. Those things run so deep in me that it wasn’t even conscious. When I was making Trekker, I didn’t say, “Oh, we did that in The Barren Earth—I’m going to do that in Trekker.” Trekker is quite different in setting in a lot of ways from The Barren Earth, but some of those key elements in science-fiction stories

range widely, a strong female lead character and stuff like that; and it’s just that I got to take my first shot at all that with Gary in The Barren Earth.

I think what made The Barren Earth work was that we were not trying to do something commercial, but Gary wrote what he was passionate about. Every great creator sooner or later comes to the realization that you have to work for yourself. It’s a very selfish job. We’re trying to make ourselves happy.

COHN: Rick Nelson sang, “You can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself.”

SCHWIRIAN: And out of that wisdom comes great comics.

The End? Note the creators’ earnest appeal to readers in the concluding caption on the final page of Conqueror of the Barren Earth #4.

TM & © DC Comics.

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.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 59

by J o n a t h a n

How far would you go for the people you love? How far would you go to settle a score? How far would you go to keep your sanity? These are the questions asked in the four-issue limited series Legionnaires 3, published by DC Comics. The story was plotted and laid out by Keith Giffen. Dialogue was provided by Mindy Newell.

The legendary Ernie Colón penciled the tale. Karl Kesel inked the work.

Carl Gafford gave the art color, and it was edited by Karen Berger.

The four comic books have the publication dates February through May 1986.

In this article, we will examine keith giffen the plot in light of the questions asked at the beginning of this piece. We will next move to examine DC Fandom. how the pictures related that story to the readers.

We will then close by asking how effective the whole story worked. Let us get into the world of Legionnaires 3.

Legionnaires 3 focuses on four primary players.

The first primary character we are introduced to is our villain, Time Trapper. At the edge of reality, this dark-hooded figure tortures allies and enemies as he is tortured by thoughts of past attempts to destroy the Legion of Super-Heroes. Every character that comes into his presence is subject to his whim.

If they please him, they are spared to live another day. If they bring him displeasure, he erases them from existence or unleashes some breaking of their reality. He constantly dwells on how to destroy the Legion. He decides he must attack their core, the foundational members of the team: Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, and Cosmic Boy. He believes that the key to laying the foundation for victory is to

Troubled Times The Time Trapper pushes the founding members of the Legion of Super-Heroes to their limits in the four-issue Legionnaires 3. Cover to #1 (Feb. 1986) by Ernie Colón and Karl Kesel.

TM & © DC Comics.

60 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

Brown

break Lightning Lad first. Time Trapper sets rules for himself, and begins to put his plan into play.

It is interesting to note that Time Trapper works within a code of morality. He must beat the Legion within set rules. He is fairly ambivalent about the lives of those who serve him, and will often flippantly kill them. He cares deeply for how the Legion is destroyed—it must happen according to his design. A major component of his plan centers around kidnapping Graym, the infant son of Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad. While he is certainly fine with ripping the child from his parents, he is then quite insistent that the child be given the utmost care. No harm is to befall the

child while he is in the clutches of the Time Trapper.

The tale’s villain will even kill his henchmen when they fail to adequately care for their prisoner. Time Trapper will go to great lengths to destroy the Legion, but he will follow the rules he sets at all cost. A gray sense of morality is the defining trait for our villain in this story, and will ultimately lead to his downfall.

We turn our attention to our heroes: Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, and Cosmic Boy. The three characters have retired from the Legion and are settling into civilian life. Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl are enjoying married life with a new infant son. Cosmic Boy

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 61

is a college coach of Moopball. The three friends are enjoying a normal afternoon when all heck breaks loose. They are attacked by Time Trapper’s minions in their home, and the villain is able to kidnap the baby. The instructions are clear: Come get Graym, and tell no one. This is when our protagonists’ morality is tested. They lie to loved ones. They steal a time-traveling device. Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl are willing to do whatever it takes to get their child back. Cosmic Boy’s love for the other two founders pushes him as well to pursue Time Trapper at the cost of his job and the end of friendships that come from the theft.

The story exists in the tension of the compromised morals of the heroes and the uncompromising gray morality of the villain. As the team travels to confront Time Trapper, they are often feeling pushed to the point of breaking. Each has to stop one of the others from killing the villainous henchman. As Time Trapper is often bending their reality as they pursue Graym, the reader is regularly encouraged to question how far is too far for these heroes.

The flip side of the coin is Time Trapper. The Legionnaires must be destroyed by him, and if any henchperson gets in the way of that, their life is forfeit. Time Trapper is playing a game with his prey. Unbeknown to our heroes, there is a time limit. In all of the issues, we see that Time Trapper is watching sand flow through an hourglass. At the start of the story, we believe that this is the time our heroes have until he destroys the child. However, we learn that this hourglass monitors the time limit he has set to capture and break Lightning Lad’s resolve. This is what ultimately saves our heroes. Time Trapper captures Lightning Lad and works hard to break his mind. However, he runs out of time. The book ends abruptly when Time Trapper returns our heroes and Graym home.

Our last image is Time Trapper looking into space, contemplating his next attempt to attack the Legion.

Our heroes come very close to violating their code and killing those that get in the way of their mission of rescuing their beloved child. What is morality if it stands in the way of protecting those we hold most dear? The villain’s question is, what is victory if it is achieved without honor? For Time Trapper, it is not worthy of pursuit. However, he is not a noble character, as everything outside the parameters of his goal is nearly meaningless and dealt with accordingly. The four issues do a great job of pushing the reader to question what makes a hero a hero, and vice versa for the villain. It is the opinion of this author that these questions and story could have supported another issue in the series, as the ending feels uncomfortably rushed. Yet Legionnaires 3 still packs an emotional punch.

TM & © DC Comics.

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Time Is Running Out Covers to issues #2–4, by Colón and Kesel.

TM & © DC Comics.

This complex plot needed stunning visuals to give the work the emotional drive to push the theme forward.

Luckily, the work of Ernie Colón does not disappoint, fully realizing Keith Giffen’s layouts. Faces are captivating and the expressions demonstrate the weight of the decisions that weigh on our heroes. This is very evident in the third issue, where we find Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl trying to save Lightning Lad and Graym. Saturn Girl is nearly dispirited by losing the ones she loves the most, and Cosmic Boy is doing everything to be a rock (or a Rokk) in trying times.

Lightning Lad’s face shows he is losing his grip on sanity as he is victim of the Time Tapper’s reality-altering abilities.

Karl Kesel testifies to the stunning art of Legionnaires 3, telling BACK ISSUE, “I simply came on to ink Ernie Colón, which was always a joy. Ernie was a great artist and generous man—on many different levels. He once talked to me on the phone about his inking techniques, and the tools he used since I was trying to emulate his look as much as possible. (If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?)” ernie colón While Colón’s art is the brightest shining star in this series, he made it clear that a part of that was working in collaboration.

In The Legion Companion by Glen Cadigan (TwoMorrows, 2003), Mr. Colón, who died in 2019, talked about his love for Keith Giffen’s more traditional layouts. “The reason I did it is because he’s the kind of storyteller where he doesn’t like figures jumping out of panels and stuff like that. He really likes straight-ahead, panel-by-panel storytelling, and at that point I wanted to follow his stuff because I liked that. If you remember, Watchmen was like that—very straight-ahead storytelling—which I still think is the best way to tell stories. I am not that fond of imaginative panel layouts.”

In Scarce magazine #77, he echoed the sentiment, “I didn’t consider it restraint. My hero, [The Adventures of Tintin’s] Hergé, uses a grid-like page layout with occasional double-panel or full-page scenes. He was a master storyteller. Keith is probably one of the best plotter/writers in comics. Plots come spilling out of his ears. Legion was fun to do. I expect young cartoonists to advance storytelling. But it won’t be accomplished with merely clever or deliberately obscure tricks.”

Legionnaires 3 is a great examination in morality via admirable heroes and a terrible villain. As we watch the Legionnaires pushed to limits that force them to question their morality, we too ask, “How far would we go for those we love?” As we watch the Time Trapper push closer to his goal, we have to think about what are our own limits and where are our own boundaries. While Legionnaires 3 #4 ends abruptly, these questions linger long after our time with the work ends.

JONATHAN BROWN attended Young Harris College and Brevard College for his undergrad. He completed his B.A.in 2007.

He finished his Master of Arts in Religion with an emphasis on New Testament and a minor in Religion in Literature at the University of Georgia. He has published work in The Jack Kirby Collector and International Journal of Comic Art.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 63

Wonder Woman, the most popular and well-known superheroine in the world, was published regularly from her debut in All-Star Comics #8 (Dec. 1941–Jan. 1942), followed by Sensation Comics #1(Jan. 1942) and Wonder Woman #1 (Summer 1942) until Wonder Woman #329 (Feb. 1986). Her popularity was only part of what kept her a regular on the publishing racks for 45 years.

Another key ingredient to her never disappearing for long was a mysterious contract between DC Comics and the estate of her creator, William Moulton Marston…

So what happened when—in the wake of the continuityshattering Crisis on Infinite Earths maxiseries—DC decided to cancel Wonder Woman and relaunch it a full year later? The creative team wasn’t ready to debut any earlier, and the Marston contract meant that DC would lose the property if they didn’t publish something. Enter a unique group of mostly female creators, teamed with a yet-tobecome-a-star co-writer, for a four-issue miniseries to help fill in the publishing gap… the ode to the Golden Age of the Amazing Amazon, The Legend of Wonder Woman.

The following is an edited transcript of a Zoom reunion between Trina Robbins and Kurt Busiek, moderated by Andy Mangels. Letterer Lois Buhalis was unable to participate, editor Alan Gold declined participation, and colorist Nansi Hoolahan was unable to be found after extensive research into her current whereabouts. The reunion was filmed on January 6, 2022, and the pair revealed many answers to the questions longtime DC fans and historians have wondered about for decades since.

ANDY MANGELS: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Pro2Pro interview session for Wonder Woman for BACK ISSUE magazine, one of the industry’s leading and award-winning magazines about the history of comics, specifically the realm of the 1970s and 1980s.

The 1980s were a major time of change for DC Comics. They were not only introducing creators who had come from the independent comics world and the underground comix world, and British creators, but also introducing an entirely new continuity.

That’s what leads us to The Legend of Wonder Woman. Crisis on Infinite Earths had done away or was in the process of doing away with the entire history of Wonder Woman, and the stories that we had known and enjoyed for 40 years at that point were going away.

During this time, DC Comics brought together legendary comics creator Trina Robbins and relative

Seems Like Old Times The Golden Age–inspired The Legend of Wonder Woman #1 (May 1986). Cover art

by Trina Robbins. Trina may have found it “disappointing” to be required to draw Wonder Woman in her then-contemporary costume, but she did it with the grace and pizzazz that would have brought a smile to the face of legendary WW artist Harry G. Peter.

TM & © DC Comics.

64 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

by A

ndy Mangels

newcomer Kurt Busiek—who wasn’t as famous then as he is now—to tell a four-part story in The Legend of Wonder Woman (published May–August 1986).

But we’re going to ask them today as they are with us here at BACK ISSUE: Which one of you was approached first?

KURT BUSIEK: It had to have been Trina, because I was told, “We’re doing this thing with Trina; would you like to write it?”

TRINA ROBBINS: Okay, I didn’t know who was first.

MANGELS: Trina, my understanding from the introduction you wrote in issue #2 was, DC came to you asking for you to do something that was Golden Age–flavored?

ROBBINS: No, no. They simply asked me if I would like to draw a four-issue Wonder Woman, and I said the only way I would do it was if I could draw it like Howard G. Peter in a retro style, and they said okay.

MANGELS: There was a bit of caveat that you had to use the modern-day costume.

ROBBINS: Yes. That was disappointing, but I did what I could.

MANGELS: Did they explain how that was supposed to be done?

ROBBINS: [chuckles] Actually, no. I finally figured it out on my own, but it was not explained.

MANGELS: Was that just for copyright reasons?

ROBBINS: You mean why she had to wear the original costume, not the original costume, but the new version? No. I never figured that out. I just did it.

MANGELS: Kurt, you had written one issue of Wonder Woman prior to this, but you were still early on at what’s now been a very storied career. How did you get involved in the project?

BUSIEK: I had been writing a few things for Alan Gold and had written two issues of Wonder Woman, but one of them never got printed—it was Wonder Woman guest-starring Superman—and probably 20–30 trina robbins years later, it got turned into a Superman fill-in, guest-starring Wonder Woman. It was the same story and it happened in Metropolis, rather than Washington, D.C. It was a Wonder Woman story, and I got paid for it twice. I had kurt Busiek done some things for Alan, and he asked me if I would be interested in writing this series. It was an interesting series because it wasn’t supposed to sell well. The reason it wasn’t supposed to sell well was because— to get it out in time—they weren’t sure whether they would break the contract, so they needed a four-issue can I get into the whole Marston contract thing here? project, but they didn’t want one that would be a MANGELS: Yes, yes.

BUSIEK: Wonder Woman was about to die in Crisis stumbling block for the new series. They wanted the on Infinite Earths and they were already working on Pérez series to come out of the gate, “BAM! This is great!”

If they had a series right before it that actually sold the new Wonder Woman series, the one coming from George Pérez and then-writer Greg Potter, who wrote well, then people would say, “Why are we getting this the first couple of issues. But DC at the time, and when we got that thing we liked?” or “I want to see possibly now still, doesn’t actually own Wonder Woman. more of that.” It might just be, “Oh, you’re rebooting They license Wonder Woman from what is now the this again?” So, they specifically wanted a series that Marston estate. The setup was—and this is how it would be a Wonder Woman story without making was explained it to me—as long as they published waves, and that’s why it’s this retrospective story four issues a year that were Wonder Woman–featured looking back. That’s partly because what Trina wanted comics—not Justice League, but an issue of Wonder to do and because Trina delivered excellently and Woman worked, and an issue of Sensation Comics partly because they did not want to look forward in any where she was the headliner also worked—as long way. They wanted George to do that. That’s why the as they published four new issues of Wonder Woman a very last line of the Legend of Wonder Woman series is— the Amazons Hippolyta and Aphrodite are aware that year, the rights did not revert.

There was some delay while they were tinkering there’s going to be this new era, this new Amazon, this with the Potter/Pérez version, and they weren’t going new story—and the very last line is, “I wonder what it

All the World’s Waiting for Her …Trina Robbins, that is, and her retro take on the Amazing Amazon! DC house ad for The Legend of Wonder Woman.

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 65

will look like,” because I was doing my best to say, “Come back for George!”

MANGELS: In fact, the opening page in issue #1 is a statue of Wonder Woman. I understand, Trina and Kurt, that that was how they were going to end Crisis with her being turned into a statue. Is that correct?

KURT: That’s how it was explained to us. It might have been a game of telephone, you know? It might have been, “Wonder Woman is being turned back into clay.”

ROBBINS: That is what I heard.

KURT: So, someone interpreted it like that, she will be this clay statue of a woman, so that’s what we did. We started work on Legend of Wonder Woman before Crisis #12 was drawn. So, for all I know, Marv [Wolfman] plotted it as a statue, and George thought, “It’ll look better like this,” which is how you collaborate on comics. But the main point is, we used the information we had been given at the time, and that information retroactively became inaccurate, but we were moving on and nobody worried that much that our thing didn’t match up perfectly.

MANGELS: Of the entire Wonder Woman creative team, Trina, you were the most significant Wonder Woman fan in the group. Would that be fair to say?

ROBBINS: Yes, it would, definitely!

MANGELS: Can you tell us about your journey to Wonder Woman?

Statuesque Superheroine (top) The pre-Crisis Amazon Princess’ demise, in Crisis on Infinite Earths #12. (bottom left) Legend of Wonder Woman #1 opens with a statue of Diana, teased here in the fanzine Amazing Heroes #98 and (bottom right) shown here on the first page of issue #1 of the miniseries.

TM & © DC Comics. Amazing Heroes © Fantagraphics.

66 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

ROBBINS: I guess I started reading Wonder Woman when I was nine or ten. That was the age I was able to cross the street by myself and go to the comic-book store and make my own choices for comics I wanted to read, and I immediately picked out comics with women on the covers—women in control, not women being rescued. Obviously one of them was Wonder Woman. I loved Wonder Woman from the beginning. I had never known about Amazons, and here was this island full of beautiful women warriors! Whoa!

That’s for me. So, yeah, it was always Wonder Woman.

I was always a Wonder Woman fan, and of course I loved Harry G. Peter’s art. Really, he is a co-creator.

It seems like no one gives him the credit he deserves except for me, but he is the co-creator. Every Wonder Woman since then has been based on his original drawing.

Somewhere along the way—I didn’t know that William Marston had died—but the stories got really silly and the art wasn’t the same. Harry G. Peter wasn’t drawing it anymore, so I took a long vacation from Wonder Woman.

They were so silly. I came back in the 1960s, when they did that series when they were drawing in the Harry G. Peter style. It still wasn’t Harry G. Peter, but I liked it.

BUSIEK: Yeah, I was going to say the reason Harry G. Peter isn’t credited as a creator must be contractual.

Marston made a deal where he owned the character, which was very unusual at the time. Peter worked for him, so the business side of it was, DC paid Marston, and Marston paid everybody who worked on the book other than him, so the contract must have purely been with Marston and Peter was a work-for-hire employee of Marston’s. And, like Bill Finger on Batman, he did not get the credit he deserves; although he did sign all the stories, so we knew who he was and knew he was drawing it. But it would be nice at some point if DC made the same deal like they did with the Kane estate so they could say “Wonder Woman created by William M. Marston with H. G. Peter.”

ROBBINS: That would be very nice.

MANGELS: Yeah, I’ve been seeing that pop up more in publications, and I have been seeing some credits for Peter showing up, but it is definitely one of those things that historically, just as we’re seeing credits coming out, and the acknowledgments of Stan Lee’s co-creators on their projects and so forth. We are starting to see that recognition, surprisingly overdue since comics is a medium of writing and art.

BUSIEK: It may be that the Marston estate would rather their father or grandfather retain the credit he negotiated in the first place and they’re not concerned with the actual history of it. And the history of it and historians who talk about it, talk about Peter. It’s purely in the credits of the comics and the movies that Peter is not getting a fair shake.

Hopefully that will eventually change.

MANGELS: Kurt, what was your experience with Wonder Woman as a reader coming up?

BUSIEK: I wasn’t a comics reader as a kid. I didn’t start reading comics until I was 14. I started reading Marvel Comics.

I was kind of snobbish about DC Comics. Occasionally, I read some DC Comics. I know I knew who Wonder Woman was, but I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know who Wonder Woman was, but I probably knew who Wonder Woman was through Justice League more than her own book. I do remember getting a couple of issues of a Wonder Woman comic, but it was during the time of the “12 Labors of Wonder Woman,” the one Julie Schwartz edited and every issue had another Justice League guest-star [see BI #41—ed.].

I must have read one of those, and I read one of the ones where they sent her back to Earth-Two for a while [BACK ISSUE #37—ed.]. The point at which I became a Wonder Woman fan was when Steve Englehart was writing Justice League, and in virtually one and a half issues, he’d given everyone personalities. In DC for most of the Silver Age, particularly in Justice League, most of the characters were plot robots.

The Atomia Age Legend of WW’s lesser-known villainess, Queen Atomia, was introduced in Wonder Woman vol. 1 #21 (Jan.–Feb. 1957). Cover and interior art by H. G. Peter, script by Joye Hummel.

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 67

I Love a Parade!

C’mon, Trevor, loosen your starched collar and let an Amazon kick up her heels! Issue #1, page 5. (inset) Trina Robbins’ all-woman underground book, 1970’s It Ain’t Me Babe.

Wonder Woman TM & © DC Comics. It Ain’t Me Babe © Trina Robbins.

You could change the names and the dialogue and everybody was logical and trying to figure out the story.

ROBBINS: …and Wonder Woman never did anything. [laughter] She was the secretary. They would go out to fight the bad guys, and she’d stay home and keep the records.

BUSIEK: Yeah, well, thankfully things changed. One of the ways Englehart gave people personalities was he figured, well the Flash is from the Midwest, and he’s from a small town in Iowa or something like that and Wonder Woman is an Amazon and a princess. She’s going to be regal and he’s going to be—well, not a hick, but he doesn’t spend much time around royalty!

He felt like, “Jeez, you know? She’s got everything together, and I’m just this guy from the Midwest.”

And it made a point that Wonder Woman actually is regal and has that royal bearing and all that. All of a sudden, I said, “Okay, I know who she is now rather than a set of powers.” I know her as a personality and that is very interesting. Superman is this affable guy from Kansas/Krypton, Batman is grim and dark, and Wonder Woman is commanding. She will walk

68 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

into any situation and she will be among the top people there because the lowest status Wonder Woman will ever have is first among equals. That’s who she is.

Eventually, after that, I know I saw the Wonder Woman TV show and started reading the comics shortly before Len Wein took over as editor, and I read them all the way through and wrote a couple of them and that’s how I got there. [Editor’s note: The Englehart era of Justice League of America was explored in BACK ISSUE #45.]

MANGELS: Trina, your actual first work on Wonder Woman was not for DC. ROBBINS: That’s right.

MANGELS: You want to talk about that a little bit?

ROBBINS: In 1970, I produced the first all-woman comic—it was an underground comic [It Ain’t Me Babe, July 1970]. It had all the familiar female [characters]— I don’t remember quite how many, but maybe six— including Elsie the Borden Cow because there were Elsie comics. They were angry and running and had their fists raised. Chief among them was Wonder Woman. I never asked for permission, and no one ever bothered me. In fact, Paul Levitz is such a dear man, when he published a collection of Wonder Woman covers, he actually asked my permission to include that, which is so sweet because he knew I had never asked permission to do it. Next time I did something… when was Comix Book, 1974?

MANGELS: Around that time, yes.

ROBBINS: I did something called “Wonder Person Gets Knocked Up,” which was very feminist Wonder Woman gets pregnant— of course, I called her Wonder Person—and eventually joins a group of women with superpowers that are all fighting crime and taking care of babies.

But that was not published in 1974 because Stan Lee took one look at it—because Comix Book was being published by Stan Lee. It was an underground comix anthology. He said, “Good grief. All of the women here, all of the characters here, are DC characters, and we’ll get sued!” Until many years later, I guess in this century, Denis Kitchen produced an anthology from Comix Book, and it was finally published. In the meantime, I had never asked for it back. Denis said he wouldn’t even mention it to Stan because it was a sore point, and I had gotten paid for it. So, I never mentioned it to Stan and never got it back, and it got stolen—the original pages got stolen! I had to get Jim Shooter to get them back for me, which he did. He was a sweetheart.

Now I own it, of course.

MANGELS: When DC decided on Legend of Wonder Woman... I’ve gone back to a lot of the press when they were initially talking about this. They sold most of it based on the fact that it was done by “Trina Robbins and others.”

BUSIEK: Yes. Even on the cover. At a time when they always listed the writer first, they listed Trina first.

I figured that made perfect sense. “Go with your biggest name.”

MANGELS: Trina, you were doing Meet Misty for Marvel and you had done by that point a lot of work for Marvel, but not a lot for DC. How did it go from “Trina hasn’t really worked for DC” to suddenly,

“Trina Robbins!” Do you think they were building on your work with Marvel? Do you think they were building on your work as a feminist creator? How did it become a “Trina Robbins series”?

ROBBINS: I have no idea. They asked me to do something, and I was thrilled because it was Wonder Woman, and I told them I’d like to do a retro Wonder Woman. They said okay and that’s what I did. I have no idea about anything else.

MANGELS: I was kind of wondering if it was a Paul Levitz–led decision?

ROBBINS: I didn’t really know Paul at that time, so I don’t know.

BUSIEK: The appeal of Wonder Woman was “Trina Robbins, underground and other-such artist, takes on Wonder Woman”—it’s a different style; it’s a different look. “Kurt Busiek takes on Wonder Woman”—it’s not anything anybody would be excited about. They might be now, but not back then. I had already written Wonder Woman fill-ins and there was nothing to that, but Trina doing Wonder Woman was change. If you knew who Trina was, you knew Trina was a powerful feminist voice and someone who loved Wonder Woman, so the idea that “We’re putting Wonder Woman in the hands of Trina Robbins” was the single, most distinctive statement they could make about that series. That’s what they would lead with.

ROBBINS: They advertised it by saying, “Wonder Woman as you’ve never seen her before.” But I’ve said it should have read, “Wonder Woman as you’ve seen her before.”

MANGELS: [chuckles] One of the things they did with the series, and unfortunately we don’t have the others here on the series, with the exception of Kurt and I guess Alan the editor, this was a very female-led series. Not only were 98% of the characters female, but the colorist was Nansi Hoolahan, who was working at DC in the office as a colorist, and the letterer was Lois Buhalis.

So, you had an artist, colorist, letterer, all coming from a female perspective, and as far as fans knew, that was completely unheard of in Wonder Woman history.

BUSIEK: I was never clear on why they hired me. Once you’ve lined up Trina, Lois, and Nansi, I thought first off they would have asked Trina to write it.

ROBBINS: …I told them, at the time, I thought I was not competent enough to write it. I did. I told them that.

BUSIEK: They did announce in the press that Trina would be writing it and drawing it and that might have MANGELS: Lois Buhalis sent us a message been what DC assumed at the for this and I want to read it: time, or whoever wrote that didn’t “Working on Wonder Woman understand what they were told. was a great thrill for me. I read DC did have a thing at the time Wonder Woman as a kid and was where you couldn’t write and draw delighted to work on this 1940s-style the same book unless you were book, which was her best era, and to a corporation. John Byrne had to work with top-drawer people. The issues incorporate to write and draw were great, full of heart, and a lot of Superman. Frank Miller had to fun to letter and to read. The writing lois buhalis become Frank Miller, Inc., to was great and the art style was do Dark Knight. I thought it was perfect for the character in the time. something like that, but Alan had At the time, Trina was my landlady, been working with Mindy Newell and I’m pretty so it was kind of an in-house project. I could letter the sure Barbara Kesel was either writing or editing or pages and just run them upstairs. This was one of the both for DC. I thought, “If Trina was not going to coolest jobs I’ve ever had.” write it, why not go to Mindy or Barbara?” But on I didn’t know you were her landlady! the other hand, I was 25 years old and needed to ROBBINS: We owned the building, and I lived on the pay the rent. If they were offering me a chance to top floor—the third floor; there were three flats, and do a series, I wasn’t going to say, “Why don’t you she and Tom Orzechowski lived on the bottom floor. get someone else?” I was going to say, “Thank you It was wonderful working on things lettered by them very much, when do you need the scripts in?” because we could send them up and down.

Inconsequential Sea Creature Lois Buhalis’ lettering is on display—as well as Queen Atomia’s evil—on page 28 of Legend of WW #1.

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 69

TM & © DC Comics.

MANGELS: [chuckles] That’s an unusual thing. I can’t recall anyone who shared a house that weren’t in relationships and that worked on the same comic.

BUSIEK: With most comics, you pencil the page, send it into the office, the office sends it to the letterer, the letterer sends it to the inker.

In this case, the penciler, letterer, and inker were upstairs/downstairs!

ROBBINS: We had a great relationship. I loved working with Lois and Tom. MANGELS: Trina, you and I have gone over this in the past because we’ve been on a lot of Wonder Woman–related panels. There’s a lot of confusion about how many women worked on Wonder Woman, who was first, things like that. One of the things that has been revealed of late is that many of Wonder Woman’s stories were not, in fact, by William Marston, but by other, female writers. Do you want to discuss that briefly?

ROBBINS: That’s Joye Hummel. I met her for the first time at that [2018] San Diego Comic-Con. I was wearing a Wonder Woman bracelet and was on a panel with her and Mark Evanier, and at a certain point, I felt so moved that I gave her my Wonder Woman bracelet, and it’s okay. I don’t miss it, but it was a nice bracelet.

I discovered anyway that I have those huge collections that DC put out—the Golden Age ones?

MANGELS: The Omnibus.

ROBBINS: Yes, the Omnibus. I discovered actually that my favorite Wonder Women were all drawn or written by her and they were the fantasy ones. Those were my favorite ones. The beautiful maidens from the planet Venus… the mermaids, those were all my favorites.

She had written my favorites.

BUSIEK: Including, when we were working on the story, Trina said, “Here are some villains you might want to bring back”— ROBBINS: Yes, Atomia…

MANGELS: That was Wonder Woman #21, back in January 1947, where Atomia first appeared, and that was indeed a Joye Hummel story.

ROBBINS: She’s still my favorite villainess.

BUSIEK: To be fair, William Moulton Marston wasn’t signing his name either. They were claiming it was by— ROBBINS: —Charles Moulton.

BUSIEK: Charles Moulton was a pseudonym for Marston and a pseudonym for Hummel and for anybody else who worked on it.

But I played a small role in getting her to that San Diego Con. ROBBINS: You did?! Thank you!

BUSIEK: I’m on the judging panel for the Bill Finger Awards, and her name first came up as a Wonder Woman writer in a local article in a

Florida paper and it was little story about her. I found it online and mentioned to Mark Evanier, “This is someone we should consider.”

The next year, someone else mentioned her, and Mark said, “This guy has suggested we talk to Joye Hummel.” I said, “I said that months ago.” He said, “You did?” So, I don’t know who was the first to bring it up. I was one of the voices saying, “We got to give her a Finger Award.” The Finger Awards were recognizing writers who didn’t get the recognition in their time… who better? I didn’t go to that con, so I didn’t get to meet her, but I was very glad I played a small role in getting her there.

MANGELS: I was doing a panel at the same time as her panel, so I didn’t get to go to those panels myself. Thankfully, they were transcribed and I think were in Alter Ego magazine [Alter Ego #157, available on the TwoMorrows website!]. Now, we’ve also discovered in recent years that Harry G. Peter had a factory of people working for him, and that specifically inkers and letterers were women, but since we don’t have credits for those, it may have been that there were issues of Wonder Woman that were created largely by women, like Legend was. Unfortunately, we’ll never know the exact history. I want to specify that as far as people knew at that time, Dann Thomas was the first female writer of Wonder Woman. Then, of course, we now know there have been female writers and some issues drawn by women that we knew about, but Trina, you were the first female to headline the book, to write and draw the book as a credited creator, and I think that’s important to note.

ROBBINS: I always point out, that in 1970, Ramona Fradon drew Wonder Woman for Super Friends, so she was literally the first woman to draw Wonder Woman.

BUSIEK: She was the first woman to draw Wonder Woman that was credited.

ROBBINS: People who don’t know get confused. Two days ago, Steve [Leialoha] and I were having breakfast at a restaurant where we know the waiter, and there was a new woman waiter there, and she came running over to us and said, “Kevin just told me you were the first person to draw Wonder Woman!” I said, “Nooo,” and explained it, but people do come running over, saying, “I heard you created Wonder Woman.” “Oh, no, no, no.”

MANGELS: That happens in comics as a whole and I’m sure it’s happened with you, Kurt. People say, “Oh, so how do you draw your comics?” They don’t understand the creative process in general.

BUSIEK: There are also places online that list creators of comics and there’s one place that lists me as a co-creator of a book that first appeared when I was four! [laughter] So, people don’t always track this information carefully, but certainly the milestone that Trina is the

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first woman credited to have drawn Wonder Woman in a solo feature is… that’s a pretty big milestone!

MANGELS: Right, right. That’s one thing I was getting at. While there are precedents, your contribution to the Wonder Woman ethos is undeniable. There’s something there where you did something that changed Wonder Woman’s history. Even when I pitched the Wonder Woman [’77] Meets the Bionic Woman miniseries for Dynamite a few years ago, I did so based on this miniseries saying, “I want to be the only male on this project.

I want as many creators to be women as possible.” We found a female artist named Judit Tondora, and used Lois Athena Buhalis, as she’s now known, as a letterer on some of the issues and then Kathryn Renta as a letterer, Cat Staggs was our main cover artist. I was able to use this miniseries in my pitch for Wonder Woman Meets Bionic Woman, in terms of saying, “This was historically important,” so I think the work you both have done has ripple effects through history.

BUSIEK: It’s funny, because the way I think about it— Alan Gold said he didn’t want it to be a big project— but the way Alan approached it was he wanted to make it a cool project, aimed at fans of Wonder Woman who knew this history and would be excited that Trina was drawing Wonder Woman, so this series that was specifically not meant to be a sales success has lasted over the years. We won an award for being one of the “Ten Best Comics of the Year” from Amazing Heroes that year. People reference it over and over.

When I talk about my career, I get asked about it a lot. They recently reprinted it, which was nice, in a collection, and the fill-in I wrote got stuck in it, “Maybe we can fill this out a bit,” and this story Trina did, separately, as well. That’s a nice package, but it all came about because they needed to do something that was not going to make them a lot of money, so they decided to do something that a certain kind of people would like and those people are people who became writers and artists and so forth as time rolled on.

MANGELS: Let’s talk real briefly about characters you brought back in this because there were characters readers hadn’t seen in a long time—Atomia, who came from Wonder Woman #21 in 1947; the Mirror Twins, Leila and Solala, were also from a previous Wonder Woman [Sensation Comics #79, July 1948, written

by Robert Kanigher]; you brought back Etta Candy. Was it important for you to integrate them? The story was a flashback, but it was kind of difficult to figure when it was, continuity-wise. How important was continuity in understanding when those characters were from?

ROBBINS: I don’t think continuity was important at all.

I was simply doing a Golden Age story.

BUSIEK: In my case, I was interested in continuity, but just yesterday saw a cataloguing site that specified what issues it takes place in-between. I said, “Ah, I don’t know why they picked that, but as long as they’re happy, that’s nice.” I was trying to tie it to Crisis to say, “The reason we’re looking back is because she went away during Crisis. There’s new stuff coming.” But I didn’t make any attempt to try and stitch it in-between previous Wonder Woman history.

Twice As Not-Nice Robbins culled Legend of WW’s Mirror Twins from the pages of Sensation Comics #79 (July 1948). (opposite page) From page 6 of the miniseries’ debut issue.

TM & © DC Comics.

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If You Knew Susie… (top left) Superman meets Lois Lane’s impish niece in Action Comics #68 (Jan. 1944). Cover

by Wayne Boring and George Roussos, with Ira Yarbrough. (bottom left) Young Trina Robbins.

Courtesy of Ms. Robbins. (right) Susie’s return, in the “Mr. and Mrs. Superman” of Earth-Two tale in Superman Family #212 (Nov. 1981) by E. Nelson Bridwell, Kurt Schaffenberger, and Jim Janes.

TM & © DC Comics.

You know, I’ll freely admit when we started working on this story, I didn’t know what to do with it. For me, the essence of Wonder Woman is, “Every woman can be a wonder woman.”

ROBBINS: Yes! BUSIEK: That was a theme that in the Golden Age they hit over and over again. I wanted the story to have that, so when we first started talking, I wanted there to be a little girl named Suzie that was a little bit of a brat. She would learn over the course of the series that she, too, could be a wonder woman. She could stand up and do the right thing.

It was Trina who said, “Here are some villains I like. Maybe we can do something with these villains,” and she sent me Xeroxes of those stories. That was a gift. My big contribution about how we were going to use the villains was, “How about we use all of them?” [laughter] Just building a story where Atomia was the main villain but the action went to the Land of Mirrors, so we could have this fantasy/superhero action going on as Atomia was trying to take over the Land of Mirrors.

It made for an immediately more exciting plot and plus, Trina got to draw all of the characters she suggested we use!

MANGELS: Right.

BUSIEK: Etta Candy, I didn’t think of that as a return because Etta had been in the series…

ROBBINS: Right.

BUSIEK: It was Gerry Conway or Roy Thomas, I forget which, but in the late 1970s or early 1980s, Etta was brought back to the Wonder Woman series, and she had been part of it right up to Crisis…

MANGELS: As a reader I looked at her as a very different Etta! [chuckles] It wasn’t a Holliday Girl Etta!

BUSIEK: I loved the Holliday Girls!

ROBBINS: Me too! [laughter] BUSIEK: I just did a Wonder Woman story for Wonder Woman: Black, White & Gold set at Holliday College, and the whole story is narrated

by one of the Amazons. It’s a bedtime story for Queen Hippolyta.

Holliday College is described as “the half school where they teach girls to think, but not to fight.”

I didn’t specifically call out the Holliday Girls as a concept, a group, but the story—in eight pages, I had Wonder Woman inspire the other girls in this girls’ college to take part in the finale because she had many women there acting in concert, and she was able to win the fight. Because, to me, you know, Superman is like the world’s big brother, Batman is this creature of vengeance, and Wonder Woman is the person who says, “You can all do it. You can all stand up and be a hero.” Wonder Woman is an inspirer.

MANGELS: Trina, Suzie was an interesting character for you to work on. Kurt, you said you were the one who suggested her?

BUSIEK: Yes, very much in a smaller way, everybody assumes that Jack Kirby did the big stuff and Stan Lee did the character in Fantastic Four.

Jack did a lot of the character stuff; a lot came from Jack.

In this, you’d look at it and say, “Kurt is a superhero guy, so he did the superhero stuff and Trina is a character writer,” but it was the other way around. Trina brought in the superhero stuff, and I brought in the character stuff, and it worked together really well that way.

MANGELS: Trina, once you started working on Suzie, she became— ROBBINS: —became me, yes. Because, you know, I also had blonde hair and braids, and I was about that age, roughly the same age, and I put myself in there. It was fun.

MANGELS: I understand there is a photo of you looking a lot like what you drew Suzie to be.

ROBBINS: There is a photo of me with the blonde hair and braids— the whole thing (above).

BUSIEK: Suzie was also inspired by a character from I think Golden Age Superman comics [first appearing in Action Comics #68, Jan. 1944]. I had seen in the “Mr. and Mrs. Superman” comics

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by E. Nelson Bridwell [see BI #62–ed.] I think he brought her back [in Superman Family #212, Nov. 1981]. I think she was also named Susie, but we spelled it differently. She was Lois Lane’s niece, but she had an honesty problem—lied and made things up. When she showed up, she had learned her lesson. I thought, “All right,” and wrote in our version of that Suzie who was Etta’s niece, who was very selfish and had to learn to not be selfish over the course of the story. But those are the roots of the story. I wanted to have a character who would learn from Wonder Woman and wanted it to be a young character and there was this Nelson Bridwell character and I said, “I want to do something like that,” and if I had had longer to think about the story, I might have come up with something more nuanced, but—we were in a hurry!

ROBBINS: It all worked out very well.

MANGELS: You said you were in a hurry, but you were the only Wonder Woman book out that year. Did they really put pressure on you guys to produce this in a specific timeframe?

ROBBINS: I don’t remember being rushed.

BUSIEK: They needed the scripts fast, and they had a specific window they had to get it into, again, for those contract reasons. At the time, I was told literally by DC that four-issuesa-year thing. I have been told since that DC now fully owns Wonder Woman, but I’ve also been told since that that’s not true. I was told at the time, “Don’t be stupid, of course DC owns Wonder Woman.”

Now I’m told, “Don’t be stupid, of course DC doesn’t own Wonder Woman.” All I can tell you is what I was told at the time, but they specifically needed this out when it came out because they were fulfilling that part of the contract.

I was told the book had been cancelled and George’s book wasn’t ready to go. If Trina didn’t feel rushed, it’s because Trina’s schedule fit with what was needed, but what I was told was, “Get this first script in as quickly as you can” because they needed it by this particular date to meet that schedule.

MANGELS: That’s interesting you bring up the contract and where they’re at now, because, as a Wonder Woman historian, I’ve heard six different stories. I tried to get clarification today from some DC employees, and literally nobody will clarify anything! [chuckles] I think it will go down as one of those comic-book mysteries that will never quite get solved because the Marston family isn’t quite saying what’s going on. That could be because of all this legal

wrangling going on these days about the ownership and royalties and things like that.

BUSIEK: Although if what I was told back in 1985–1986 was true, then the Marston estate cannot use that copyright clause to file for reversion of ownership.

Because they never sold the rights in the first place—they only licensed it. So, they are in the situation that Watchmen is in: The contract doesn’t expire until certain conditions are met. It is very much in DC’s interests for those conditions not to be met.

Which is why, for instance, the [Mike] Sekowsky Wonder Woman happened [see BI #17—ed.], because Wonder Woman wasn’t selling well at the time and they actually considered cancelling it.

But somebody pointed out that if they cancelled it, they’d lose the rights. Sekowsky had pitched it as a female adventure series, probably as a tryout in Showcase. It was not going to be Diana Prince; it was going to be somebody else, you know?— Emma Peel. [laughter] Somebody said, “Why don’t we do this as Wonder Woman?”

That would maintain their control of the character at that period.

So, DC seems to be aware, at least at those times, that they had to do something. But to get back to my first point: Where somebody like Larry Lieber is filing for reversion of rights on Iron Man and Thor, he can do that because he actually sold the rights and can now reclaim them, but Marston only licensed the rights. That has an entirely different legal structure.

MANGELS: Let’s talk a little about how you structured and wrote the story. Did you write full scripts? Did Trina do plotting, and then you wrote the script?

How did the book get produced?

BUSIEK: My memory of it: I called Trina on the phone, and that was when Trina said there are these villains I’d like to bring back; I think you said, “One of these.”

You sent me the Xeroxes and I said, “Why don’t we put them both in the same story?” We talked back and forth. I had a

Atomia Triumphs!

Things look bleak for our heroine on page 21 of The Legend of Wonder Woman #2 (June 1986).

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 73

Mini-Me Of course, any homage to the Golden Age Wonder Woman would not be complete without a bondage cover!

Cover art to issue #3

by Trina Robbins.

TM & © DC Comics.

structure in mind and there were things Trina wanted to do, so we batted them back and forth so that was the co-plotting process. So, when I sat down to write them, I would have written up two or three pages of, “This is what we agreed on.” That would’ve gone to Alan and to Trina, and from that point on, I would have sat there and written them; sent them to Trina; Trina and Lois did their page-shifting stuff. We didn’t come back and rejigger the plot, we just did what we had come up with over the phone.

MANGELS: Back then, “over the phone” literally meant “over the phone”! There was no email, no Zoom, no faxing. You had to send everything through the mail.

ROBBINS: No. BUSIEK: FedEx was making a lot of money from comicbook companies in those days.

MANGELS: I remember! I had Fantagraphics’ FedEx number, DC’s number, and I was thinking, “How much money are they spending just so we can communicate?” [chuckles]

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Trina, a lot has been said about how your work on this series harkened back to H. G. Peter because, looking at the pages, you had an interesting struggle to deal with modern-panel pages—you had larger panels, smaller panels, broken panel borders, and so forth, but you also had to deal with doing it in your style and Harry G. Peter’s style. Can you talk about that process?

ROBBINS: Well, of course, you won’t be surprised to know I have this huge collection of Golden Age Wonder Woman stories. I have this huge pile by my side when I drew and was constantly going through it, “How did he do this?” “How did he do that?” I was consciously trying to draw like Harry G. Peter, which wasn’t hard because he was one of my influences—Wonder Woman was one of my artistic influences as a kid.

BUSIEK: I remember when we first started working on this, you told me specifically that you didn’t want to harken back to the look of the 1940s, but the look of the early 1950s, which was when this stuff was coming out that you were first imprinted on. When I first met you, I thought there is nobody in the comics world today that would know the difference, so let’s do that.

I re-read the series yesterday, and I was the young writer that wrote fight scenes like 1980s fight scenes.

ROBBINS: I hated those fight scenes. [laughter] BUSIEK: I really should have had the advanced thought to go back to those H. G. Peter issues and see how the action was based in those and write the action for Trina in that way so that she could build on the kind of thing that she’d imprinted on when she was a kid.

ROBBINS: You had her wise-cracking like a classic cliche superhero. That was really the only thing I hated was the fight scenes.

BUSIEK: Well, I apologize for not making them more like that! [laughter] By the early 1950s, I think Peter was still drawing it, but Kanigher was writing it.

ROBBINS: Yes. BUSIEK: You know, if I had tried to pastiche those a little harder, that might’ve been more fun, but that’s what I was capable of at the time.

MANGELS: It’s a charming series to look back from the perspective of vintage comic fandom. But then you have this layer on the top, as you said, the fight scenes were written very modern and they didn’t seem specifically as vintage, and then you had the costuming element, which that was the thing that kept pulling me out of the story was because the costume was wrong. And now I’m wearing this shirt today with all the versions!

ROBBINS: I’ve been looking at it. That was the one thing that they asked of me—they kind of insisted that she had to have the new costume.

BUSIEK: That was one of two things I argued with them about. I argued with Alan the most about, I never liked that logo. I always liked the eagle.

ROBBINS: Of course.

BUSIEK: I said, “If we’re looking back…” He said, “This is the deal we’ve got; this is the trademark we’ve got and we have to use it. It doesn’t make any historical sense, but it doesn’t matter, we have to use it.”

ROBBINS: And of course, through the years, she’s wearing the eagle again.

BUSIEK: Yes, yes. That W stretched and they put a bird head on it.

ROBBINS: And it’s an eagle!

BUSIEK: The other thing I argued with them about—the title. I didn’t like the title. We couldn’t call it “Wonder Woman” because of the George Pérez book. I suggested, “Let’s call it ‘Sensation Comics.’”

They said, “No.”

ROBBINS: Sorry again!

BUSIEK: I suggested “The Sensational Wonder Woman,” or “Wonder Woman, the Amazon Sensation.” I was told we couldn’t have a title that started with “Wonder Woman.” It had to be “something-something Wonder Woman.” So somebody came up with “The Legend of Wonder Woman,” and I didn’t like it because it wasn’t the legend of Wonder Woman, which should involve her origin or her greatest moments.

ROBBINS: They could have called it “A Legend…”

BUSIEK: So I said, “Let’s call it ‘Legendary,’” and they wouldn’t do that either. I suspect that at one point, Alan had a title and the higher-ups said, “Okay,” so he wasn’t going to go back to them and say, “Well, this nobody fill-in writer we have working on this wants this title.” He was going to say, “My bosses say this; this is what we’re going to have.”

I was never satisfied with the title, but I’m sort of happy that since they did another Legend of Wonder Woman years later that really was about the legend of Wonder Woman. When they collected our story in a book, they called it Wonder Woman: Forgotten Legends.

I don’t think it’s the most wonderful title in the world, but there are legends in it; there are little-known little scenes that they are calling forgotten, our story involves the present-day Amazon starting to forget the past—it’s a better title.

MANGELS: One of the aspects of the story was that there were elements of Suzie’s reading books on mythology…

ROBBINS: I liked that.

MANGELS: …There were aspects of myth and legend to the story itself. Was that a conscious effort to reflect the title, or did it just happen?

BUSIEK: It’s what I think Wonder Woman is about.

Superman is a science-fiction character. He does space stuff; he does science stuff. When Superman fights Hercules, it’s a step aside from what he normally does.

Batman is a crime character. Wonder Woman is built around myth and legend.

ROBBINS: Yes. BUSIEK: Personality-wise, the inspiration that every woman can be a wonder woman is right at the heart of it, but in terms of the trappings of the book, Wonder Woman goes and meets space princesses who fly on butterflies. She hangs out with mermaids and winged people; when she was a kid, she had a friend who was a genie. Wonder Woman’s terrain—the stage she plays out of is a world of myth and legend.

ROBBINS: Yes. BUSIEK: One thing that has gotten smaller about Wonder Woman since those days is, over the years, it got boiled down to, Wonder Woman interacts with Greek myth and legend.

Of course she does, because that’s where she gets her powers from and that’s where the Amazons stem from; but the fact that she went to fantasy kingdoms and fought ice people and that she dealt with again, butterfly-riding princesses from space!

ROBBINS: Yes! BUSIEK: And characters like Leila and Solala—I think that Wonder Woman should encompass the world of fantasy from myth to legend to fairy tale to heroic fantasy, to all of it.

ROBBINS: And she did; she did.

BUSIEK: That got boiled down to just the GrecoRoman, Greek stuff and I think that is an unnecessary limitation. I think this is the reason they stripped away all that other stuff—Wonder Woman was a book that was aimed at girls.

ROBBINS: Yes. BUSIEK: It was a book that was about a superhero having adventures and if boys wanted to read it, that was fine, but the fantasy elements of it, you know, Superman wouldn’t go around fighting princesses that rode around on butterflies. Wonder Woman could because it was thought that that was material that girls would strongly react to.

ROBBINS: And it was!

MANGELS: Trina, any thoughts about that?

ROBBINS: Well, I’m in complete agreement. That was why I loved Wonder Woman… the fantasy elements, of course! In fact, later when I stopped reading it, it had become cops and robbers—just Wonder Woman fighting bad guys, and that didn’t interest me.

I have to point out, that as a girl, I had no interest in superheroes at all. The only one was Wonder Woman, and she wasn’t a superhero, she was the Amazon.

BUSIEK: I think that this is an odd place to go, but a lot of the Marvel superheroes that Jack Kirby created aren’t exactly superheroes. Tony Stark is this sciencefiction guy who is protecting his own business and

Empress Fullof-Herself Wonder Woman teaches Suzie a valuable lesson on page 16 of issue #3.

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 75

Hop to It! Trina and Kurt brought back Kangas! Cover and title splash to issue #4.

TM & © DC Comics.

that leads him into stories; the Fantastic Four are explorers; Thor is a god that gets involved with mythological stuff. Never do these guys, or rarely, do they go, “I’m going to go out and look for crime today.” Spider-Man does that.

ROBBINS: Right.

BUSIEK: Spider-Man, largely a Ditko creation, is a superhero, but most of the Kirby stuff has something else going on. Wonder Woman has a specific sort of philosophical reason to come to man’s world and say, “This is the way Amazons do it. It’s a better way and you should be more like us.” So, she’s not coming here to punch out Royal Flush Gang, she’s coming here to set an example of why we should follow these principles from her mythic kingdom—or queendom.

If the stories don’t build on that, they’re not really building on the heart of Wonder Woman. But you can always go to that heart and find something new, something that makes Wonder Woman new, not like she’s the Flash with different powers.

MANGELS: I want to bring up the end of the series— and if you are reading this interview and haven’t read the series, this is a spoiler alert! At the end of it, not only has Wonder Woman faded away and disappeared during the Crisis, but Hippolyta and the Amazons make a choice to allow themselves to be erased from history because the table has to be set.

The table for George Pérez’s Wonder Woman. How did you arrive at that ending, and the lovely idea that they became constellations?

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ROBBINS: Yes. I liked that.

BUSIEK: I had been told some of what was coming up in the Greg Potter version, and in that version, and I don’t know how much of this made it into the comics because after a couple of issues of setting this up, they let Greg go, and Len came in as the scripter, but George was the plotter and then George eventually took over the scripting. The original plan was the Amazons were the reincarnated, reanimated spirits of women throughout history that had been murdered by men.

I thought, “That is not who these Amazons are. Pre-Crisis, these Amazons are the immortal Amazons of Greek myth.” I thought it didn’t seem to work for our story.

We did this four-part story of looking back to Wonder Woman and being inspired by her even though she’s gone. They too are inspired by her heroism and her principles and now, whoops, they forgot her and now they’re going to replaced by somebody else. It felt like a more mythic ending—that given a choice between being remembered and taken out of history.

ROBBINS: I loved them becoming constellations.

I loved that.

BUSIEK: That’s the sort of thing Greek gods did.

ROBBINS: Yes, exactly.

BUSIEK: That’s pretty much the origination of constellations… “Yeah, there was this big myth thing, and this guy who got turned into a constellation as a reward.”

I thought, “What better way to take them offstage, if they have to go offstage, than giving them this big, fitting ending of putting them in the heavens where

we get to see them every day.” I’m lucky that we got to vamp out of the series before I said which constellations they were!

MANGELS: That’s true. It was kind of vague.

BUSIEK: I guess in the different DC Universe, there are different constellations. [laughter] MANGELS: As we wrap up, you both mentioned earlier that Legend of Wonder Woman had a history. So, I’d like to end with what the series meant to you then, and what it means to you now.

BUSIEK: What it meant to me then was primarily, first things first—it was a paycheck. I needed to pay the rent. I needed work, and here was work, and it was also a chance to have fun. Being told this is not supposed to be a sales success, is being told, “You’re free.

Make it fun. Have a good time.” It was a chance to pull in all these influences from both the Golden Age Wonder Woman and my ideas about how Wonder Woman should be. It was a chance to do it without worrying about whether Kangas are commercial.

MANGELS: Yes, they are! I reintroduced them into Wonder Woman ’77 Meets the Bionic Woman!

BUSIEK: We can put them on in there and nobody is going to stop us. The only thing they are going to stop us on is using the right chest logo and calling the series something that makes sense. In the stories, if Trina wanted to do it, and I wanted to do it, we just did it. That was a level of creative freedom that was very enjoyable.

Over the years, I was enormously gratified that it got such good response in terms of people reading it and liking it and saying, “This was a story I really enjoyed.”

Like I said, we got named one of the ten best series in the year. Over the years, none of pre-Crisis Wonder Woman happened, and they brought back older villains—the Cheetah, Silver Swan. They didn’t bring back Atomia, Leila, or Solala, but people who were Wonder Woman fans took that spirit in exactly

the spirit we meant it. It was a treat. “You guys have been Wonder Woman fans through thick and thin, so here is your parting gift. You might like what’s coming and you might not like what’s coming, but here is the cherry on top of the sundae of what’s coming.” The fact that people reacted to it that way and accepted it as that, was a terrific treat.

MANGELS: Trina, how about you, then and now?

ROBBINS: For me, it was a chance to do the Golden Age Wonder Woman, which I still feel is the true Wonder Woman, so I got to do the true Wonder Woman. Now? I’m a little annoyed. I’ve done so much since then, but people get so excited that I was the first woman to do a Wonder Woman series, but I’ve been the first woman to do a lot of things. I have done a lot of things I’m really proud of, so I’m a little annoyed that that’s what people talk about all the time.

MANGELS: I would like to say that anybody who isn’t familiar with your work should absolutely look you up on Wikipedia and understand that as far as female comics creators go, you’re one of the most influential and most important creators. Perhaps

Legends Remembered The Legend of Wonder Woman miniseries, plus the Kurt Busiek– written Wonder Woman #318’s (Aug. 1984) story “Paradise Burning!,” are among the contents of the 2018 collected edition Wonder Woman: Forgotten Legends.

TM & © DC Comics.

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 77

She’s a Star From The History of the DC Universe, the Trina Robbins’ rendition of the Golden Age WW makes way for George Pérez’s new version.

TM & © DC Comics.

one of the reasons people look at your work on Wonder Woman and say that is because Wonder Woman is probably the most influential female fictional character that exists, and to have a creator as strong and as storied as you are working on the most famous fictional character, that’s what taps into people. When you have the best working on the best, what’s better? [chuckles] ROBBINS: Thank you, Andy.

BUSIEK: Thank you for having us.

MANGELS: I want to thank you both, Kurt Busiek and Trina Robbins, for being here today for the Pro2Pro interview for BACK ISSUE. I wish you both the best for the future. It’s lovely to see you, and we’ll talk again soon.

As mentioned, The Legend of Wonder Woman has been reprinted in its entirety (although Kurt’s text piece from issue #1 is missing) in the 2018 trade paperback from DC Comics, Wonder Woman: Forgotten Legends.

Trina Robbins has remained a remarkable force in the industry, writing dozens of historical books about female creators, and occasionally returning to write comics. Her most recent books, all from Fantagraphics, are The Flapper Queens: Women Cartoonists of the Jazz Age (2020), her astonishing memoir Last Girl Standing (2017), Pretty In Ink: North American Women Cartoonists 1896—2013 (2013), and Babes in Arms: Women In Comics During the Second World War (Hermes Press, 2017).

Kurt Busiek continues to write comics, including a recent stint on Batman: Creature of the Night for DC, and the return of his popular Astro City, Arrowsmith, and Autumnlands at Image Comics. Catch up with Kurt at www.busiek.com In a special first for a TwoMorrows interview, this Pro2Pro interview has also been recorded on Zoom video, and is now appearing at www.youtube.com/user/SciFiBear. Artwork and photos are courtesy the collection of Andy Mangels. Transcription

by Rose Rummel-Eury.

ANDY MANGELS is the USA Today bestselling author and co-author of 20 books, including the TwoMorrows book Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation, as well as Star Trek and Star Wars tomes, Iron Man: Beneath the Armor, and a lot of comic books. He wrote the bestselling Wonder Woman ’77 Meets the Bionic Woman series for Dynamite and DC Comics, and has written six Fractured Fairy Tales graphic novels for Junior High audiences, released by Abdo Books in 2021.

He is currently writing a book about the stage productions of Stephen King, editing a prose LGBTQ+ horror anthology, co-editing The Complete Gay Comix/Comics for Fantagraphics (Christmas 2022), and working on other projects. Additionally, he has scripted, directed, and produced Special Features and documentaries for over 40 DVD releases. His column “Retro Saturday Morning” is featured regularly in RetroFan magazine! His moustache is infamous. www.

AndyMangels.com and www.

WonderWomanMuseum.com

78 • BACK ISSUE • 1980s DC Miniseries Issue

TM & © Marvel.

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

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

It was great reading issue #132, and I was lucky enough to contribute a paragraph in the Wolfpack segment, as well. I must point out a mistake you’ve made on page 74 of that issue, although you could not have known you were making it.

It states: inks by Al Williamson and Al Milgrom, but Williamson had nothing to do with the X-Terminators limited series. Milgrom inked the book with me as his background inker.

I remember that specific page because of some inking instructions Jon Bogdanove wrote in pencil next to the Godzilla poster in the fifth panel: “Do not change anything and ink it very closely!”

I worked with Al on the X-Terminators series and fell in love with Bogdanove’s art.

As I was in the Marvel Bullpen at the time and friendly with as many editors as I could be, I made a lot of photocopies of the artists I liked. As many as I could!

I enjoy your magazine and I look forward to the next issue of BACK ISSUE! – Don Hudson Thanks for letting us know, Don. You’re not alone in your love of Jon Bogdanove’s art—and as such, thank you for sending the page above, story page 9 of X-Terminators #2, shown in its penciled and penciled-and-lettered forms.

Flash Gordon TM & © King Features Syndicate, Inc. BACK ISSUE TM & © TwoMorrows Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE

The pandemic has adversely affected all of us during the past couple of years, and related shipping and distribution interruptions have delayed several of our recent issues from reaching stores and subscribers when originally scheduled. Ye ed and Team BI continues to toil to produce and deliver each issue on time, so we’re doubly frustrated when the fruits of our labors don’t reach you on their designated ship dates. So here’s a BIG editorial THANK-YOU for your patience and loyalty in waiting for BACK ISSUE to arrive.

Hopefully by the time you read this, this matter will be behind us. In the meantime… stay healthy.

Next issue: Classic Heroes in the Bronze Age! The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Flash Gordon, Popeye, Zorro and Lady Rawhide, Son of Tomahawk, Jungle Twins, and more! Featuring the work of CARY BATES, GAYLORD DuBOIS, RUSS HEATH, DAN JURGENS, GIL KANE, JOE KUBERT, JOE R. LANSDALE, DON McGREGOR, RUBEN PROCOPIO, FRANK THORNE, TIM TRUMAN, GEORGE WILDMAN, THOMAS YEATES, and other star creators. With a classic Gold Key Flash Gordon painted cover from 1979. Don’t ask—just BI it! See you in thirty!

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

1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 79

TwoMorrows 2022 www.twomorrows.com • store@twomorrows.com

THE

CHARLTON COMPANION

by JON B. COOKE

An ALL-NEW definitive history of Connecticut’s notorious all-in-one comic book company! Often disparaged as a second-rate funny-book outfit, Charlton produced a vast array of titles that span from the 1940s Golden Age to the Bronze Age of the ’70s in many genres, from Hot Rods to Haunted Love. The imprint experienced explosive bursts of creativity, most memorably the “Action Hero Line” edited by DICK GIORDANO in the 1960s, which featured the renowned talents of STEVE DITKO and a stellar team of creators, as well as the unforgettable ’70s “Bullseye” era that spawned E-Man and Doomsday +1, all helmed by veteran masters and talented newcomers—and serving as a training ground for an entire generation of comics creators thriving in an environment of complete creative freedom. From its beginnings with a handshake deal consummated in county jail, to the company’s accomplishments beyond comics, woven into this prose narrative are interviews with dozens of talented participants, including GIORDANO, DENNIS O’NEIL, ALEX TOTH, SANHO KIM, TOM SUTTON, PAT BOYETTE, NICK CUTI, JOHN BYRNE, MIKE ZECK, JOE STATON, SAM GLANZMAN, NEAL ADAMS, JOE GILL, and even some Derby residents who recall working in the sprawling company plant. Though it gave up the ghost over three decades ago, Charlton’s influence continues today with its Action Heroes serving as inspiration for ALAN MOORE’s cross-media graphic novel hit, WATCHMEN. By JON B. COOKE with MICHAEL AMBROSE & FRANK MOTLER. SHIPS OCTOBER 2022!

(256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-111-0

THE

TEAM-UP COMPANION

by MICHAEL EURY

THE TEAM-UP COMPANION examines team-up comic books of the Silver and Bronze Ages of Comics—DC’s THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD and DC COMICS PRESENTS, Marvel’s MARVEL TEAM-UP and MARVEL TWO-INONE, plus other team-up titles, treasuries, and treats—in a lushly illustrated selection of informative essays, special features, and trivia-loaded issue-by-issue indexes. Go behind the scenes of your favorite team-up comic books with specially curated and all-new creator recollections from NEAL ADAMS, JIM APARO, MIKE W. BARR, ELIOT R. BROWN, NICK CARDY, CHRIS CLAREMONT, GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, STEVE GERBER, STEVEN GRANT, BOB HANEY, TONY ISABELLA, PAUL KUPPERBERG, PAUL LEVITZ, RALPH MACCHIO, DENNIS O’NEIL, MARTIN PASKO, JOE RUBINSTEIN, ROY THOMAS, LEN WEIN, MARV WOLFMAN, and other all-star writers and artists who produced the team-up tales that so captivated readers during the 1960s, ’70s, and early ’80s. By BACK ISSUE and RETROFAN editor MICHAEL EURY. (272-page SOFTCOVER) $36.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-112-7 • SHIPS AUGUST 2022!

THE LIFE & ART OF

DAVE COCKRUM

by GLEN CADIGAN

From the letters pages of Silver Age comics to his 2021 induction into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame, the career of DAVE COCKRUM started at the bottom and then rose to the top of the comic book industry. Beginning with his childhood obsession with comics and continuing through his years in the Navy, THE LIFE AND ART OF DAVE COCKRUM follows the rising star from fandom (where he was one of the “Big Three” fanzine artists) to pro-dom, where he helped revive two struggling comic book franchises: the LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES and the X-MEN. A prolific costume designer and character creator, his redesigns of the Legion and his introduction of X-Men characters Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Thunderbird (plus his design of Wolverine’s alter ego, Logan) laid the foundation for both titles to become best-sellers. His later work on his own property, THE FUTURIANS, as well as childhood favorite BLACKHAWK and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS, plus his five years on SOULSEARCHERS AND COMPANY, cemented his position as an industry giant. Featuring artwork from fanzines, unused character designs, and other rare material, this is THE comprehensive biography of the legendary comic book artist, whose influence is still felt on the industry today! Written by GLEN CADIGAN (THE LEGION COMPANION, THE TITANS COMPANION Volumes 1 and 2, BEST OF THE LEGION OUTPOST) with an introduction by ALEX ROSS. (160-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $27.95 • (LIMITED EDITION HARDCOVER) $36.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-113-4 • NOW SHIPPING!

RETROFAN #21

BACK ISSUE #138

BACK ISSUE #139

BACK ISSUE #140

BACK ISSUE #141

Meet JULIE NEWMAR, the purr-fect Catwoman! Plus: ASTRO BOY, TARZAN Saturday morning cartoons, the true history of PEBBLES CEREAL, TV’s THE UNTOUCHABLES and SEARCH, the MONKEEMOBILE, SOVIET EXPO ’77, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns

by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

CLASSIC HEROES IN THE BRONZE AGE! The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Flash Gordon, Popeye, Zorro and Lady Rawhide, Son of Tomahawk, Jungle Twins, and more!

Featuring the work of DAN JURGENS, JOE R. LANSDALE, DON McGREGOR, FRANK THORNE, TIM TRUMAN, GEORGE WILDMAN, THOMAS YEATES, and other creators. With a classic 1979 fully painted Gold Key cover of Flash Gordon.

NOT-READY-FOR-PRIMETIME MARVEL HEROES! Mighty Marvel’s Bronze Age second bananas: Doc Samson, Jack of Hearts, Thundra, Nighthawk, Starfox, Modred the Mystic, Woodgod, the Shroud, Thunderbird and Warpath, Stingray, Wundaar, and others! Featuring the work of BUSIEK, DAVID, ENGLEHART, GERBER, GIFFEN, GRANT, MANTLO, MICHELINIE, STERN, THOMAS, and other A-list talent!

DINOSAUR COMICS! Interviews with Xenozoic®’s MARK SCHULTZ and dinoartist extraordinaire WILLIAM STOUT! Plus: Godzilla at Dark Horse, Sauron villain history, Dinosaurs Attack!, Dinosaurs for Hire, Dinosaur Rex, Dino Riders, Lord Dinosaur, and Jurassic Park! Featuring ARTHUR ADAMS, BISSETTE, CLAREMONT, COCKRUM, GERANI, STRADLEY, ROY THOMAS, and more. SCHULTZ cover.

SPIES AND P.I.s! Nick Fury from Howling Commando to Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Ms. Tree’s MAX ALLAN COLLINS and TERRY BEATTY in a Pro2Pro interview, MARK EVANIER on his Crossfire series, a Hydra villain history, WILL EISNER’s John Law, Checkmate, and Tim Trench and Mike Mauser. With ENGLEHART, ERWIN, HALL, ISABELLA, KUPPERBERG, STATON, THOMAS, and cover by DAVE JOHNSON!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #81

KIRBY COLLECTOR #82

KIRBY COLLECTOR #83

KIRBY COLLECTOR #84

KIRBY COLLECTOR #85

“KIRBY: BETA!” Jack’s experimental ideas, characters, and series (Fighting American, Jimmy Olsen, Kamandi, and others), Kirby interview, inspirations for his many “secret societies” (The Project, Habitat, Wakanda), non-superhero genres he explored, 2019 Heroes Con panel (with MARK EVANIER, MIKE ROYER, JIM AMASH, and RAND HOPPE), a pencil art gallery, UNUSED JIMMY OLSEN #141 COVER, and more!

“THE MANY WORLDS OF JACK KIRBY!” From Sub-Atomica to outer space, visit Kirby’s work from World War II, the Fourth World, and hidden worlds of Subterranea, Wakanda, Olympia, Lemuria, Atlantis, the Microverse, and others! Plus, a 2021 Kirby panel, featuring JONATHAN ROSS, NEIL GAIMAN, & MARK EVANIER, a Kirby pencil art gallery from MACHINE MAN, 2001, DEVIL DINOSAUR, & more!

FAMOUS FIRSTS! How JACK KIRBY was a pioneer in all areas of comics: Romance Comics genre, Kid Gangs, double-page spreads, Black heroes, new formats, super-hero satire, and others! With MARK EVANIER and our regular columnists, plus a gallery of Jack’s pencil art from CAPTAIN AMERICA, JIMMY OLSEN, CAPTAIN VICTORY, DESTROYER DUCK, BLACK PANTHER, and more!

STEVE SHERMAN TRIBUTE! Kirby family members, friends, comics creators, and the entertainment industry salute Jack’s assistant (and puppeteer on Men in Black, Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and others). MARK EVANIER and Steve recall assisting Kirby, Steve discusses Jack’s Speak-Out Series, Kirby memorabilia from his collection, an interview with wife DIANA MERCER, and Steve’s unseen 1974 KIRBY/ROYER cover!

KIRBY: ANIMATED! How JACK KIRBY and his concepts leaped from celluloid, to paper, and back again! From his 1930s start on Popeye and Betty Boop and his work being used on the 1960s Marvel Super-Heroes show, to Fantastic Four (1967 and 1978), Super Friends/Super Powers, Scooby-Doo, Thundarr the Barbarian, and Ruby-Spears.

Plus EVAN DORKIN on his abandoned Kamandi cartoon series, and more!

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CBA BULLPEN

JOHN SEVERIN

Collects all seven issues of JON B. COOKE’s TWO-FISTED COMIC ARTIST little-seen fanzine, published just after the A spirited biography of EC Comics mainstay original COMIC BOOK ARTIST ended its (with HARVEY KURTZMAN on Mad and TwoMorrows run in 2003. Interviews with Two-Fisted Tales) and co-creator of Western GEORGE TUSKA, FRED HEMBECK, TERRY strip American Eagle. Covers his 40+ year BEATTY, and FRANK BOLLE, an all-star association with Cracked magazine, his tribute to JACK ABEL, a new feature on pivotal Marvel Comics work inking HERB JACK KIRBY’s unknown 1960 baseball card TRIMPE on The Hulk & teaming with sister art, and a 16-page full-color section!

MARIE SEVERIN on King Kull, and more!

By GREG BIGA and JON B. COOKE. (176-page TRADE PAPERBACK with COLOR) $24.95 • (Digital Edition) $8.99 (160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-105-9 (Digital Edition) $14.99 • Now shipping!

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OUR ARTISTS AT WAR AMERICAN TV COMICS Examines US War comics: EC COMICS (Two-Fisted Tales, Frontline Combat), DC COMICS (Enemy Ace, G.I. Combat, Our Fighting Forces, Our Army at War), WARREN PUBLISHING (Blazing Combat), CHARLTON (Willy Schultz and the Iron Corporal) and more! Featuring KURTZMAN, SEVERIN, DAVIS, WOOD, KUBERT, GLANZMAN, KIRBY, and others!

By RICHARD ARNDT and STEVEN FEARS, with an introduction by ROY THOMAS. (160-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $27.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 • Now shipping!

BRICKJOURNAL #74

Amazing LEGO® STAR WARS builds, including Lando Calrissian’s Treadable PETER BOSCH’s history of over 300 TV shows and 2000+ comic book adaptations by JÜRGEN WITTNER, Starkiller Base by JHAELON EDWARDS, and more from across five decades, from well-known STEVEN SMYTH and Bantha Bricks! Plus: series (STAR TREK, THE MUNSTERS) to lesser-known shows (CAPTAIN GALLANT, Minifigure Customization by JARED K. BURKS, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, stepPINKY LEE). With profiles of artists who by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by drew TV comics: GENE COLAN, ALEX CHRISTOPHER DECK (including a LEGO TOTH, DAN SPIEGLE, RUSS MANNING, JOHN BUSCEMA, RUSS HEATH, and more! BB-8), and more! Edited by JOE MENO. (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (192-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

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New Magazines!

ALTER EGO #176

ALTER EGO #177

ALTER EGO #178

The Golden Age comics of major pulp magazine publisher STREET & SMITH (THE SHADOW, DOC SAVAGE, RED DRAGON, SUPERSNIPE) examined in loving detail by MARK CARLSON-GHOST! Art by BOB POWELL, HOWARD NOSTRAND, and others, ANTHONY TOLLIN on “The Shadow/Batman Connection”, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, JOHN BROOME, PETER NORMANTON, and more!

Celebration of veteran artist DON PERLIN—artist of WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, THE DEFENDERS, GHOST RIDER, MOON KNIGHT, 1950s horror, and just about every other adventure genre under the fourcolor sun! Plus Golden Age artist MARCIA SNYDER—Marvel’s early variant covers— Marvelmania club and fanzine—FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), MICHAEL T. GILBERT on Cracked Mazagine, & more!

Golden Age great EMIL GERSHWIN, artist of Starman, Spy Smasher, and ACG horror—in a super-length special MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT by MICHAEL T. GILBERT—plus a Gershwin showcase in PETER NORMANTON’s From The Tomb— even a few tidbits about relatives GEORGE and IRA GERSHWIN to top it off! Also FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), and other surprise features!

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ALTER EGO #179

ALTER EGO #180

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #27 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #28 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #29

Celebrating the 61st Anniversary of FANTASTIC FOUR #1—’cause we kinda blew right past its 60th—plus a sagacious salute to STAN LEE’s 100th birthday, with never-before-seen highlights—and to FF #1 and #2 inker GEORGE KLEIN! Spotlight on Sub-Mariner in the Bowery in FF #4—plus sensational secrets behind FF #1 and #3!

Also: FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, a JACK KIRBY cover, and more!

THE YOUNG ALL-STARS—the late-1980s successor to ALL-STAR SQUADRON! Interviews with first artist BRIAN MURRAY and last artist LOU MANNA—surprising insights by writer/co-creator ROY THOMAS—plus a panorama of never-seen Young All-Stars artwork! All-new cover

by BRIAN MURRAY! Plus FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and beyond!

Extensive PAUL GULACY retrospective

by GREG BIGA that includes Paul himself, VAL MAYERIK, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, TIM TRUMAN, ROY THOMAS, and others.

Plus a JOE SINNOTT MEMORIAL; BUD PLANT interview Part One, as the retail and mail-order pioneer discusses his early years and first forays as San Jose comic shop proprietor—at 16!; our regular columnists, and the latest from HEMBECK!

STEVE BISSETTE career-spanning interview, from his Joe Kubert School days, Swamp Thing stint, publisher of Taboo and Tyrant, creator rights crusader, and more. Also, Part One of our MIKE GOLD interview on his Chicago youth, start in underground comix, and arrival at DC Comics, right in time for the implosion! Plus BUD PLANT on his publishing days, comic shop owner, and start in mail order—and all the usual fun stuff!

DON McGREGOR retrospective, from early ’70s Warren Publications scripter to his breakout work at Marvel Comics on BLACK PANTHER, KILLRAVEN, SABRE, DETECTIVES INC., RAGAMUFFINS, and others. Plus ROBERT MENZIES looks at HERB TRIMPE’s mid-’70s UK visit to work on Marvel’s British comics weeklies, MIKE GOLD Part Two, and CARtoons cartoonist SHAWN KERRIE! SANDY PLUNKETT cover!

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ALTER EGO #175

Spotlighting the artists of ROY THOMAS’ 1980s DC series ALL-STAR SQUADRON! Interviews with artists ARVELL JONES, RICHARD HOWELL, and JERRY ORDWAY, conducted by RICHARD ARNDT! Plus, the Squadron’s FINAL SECRETS, including previously unpublished art, & covers for issues that never existed! With FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and a wraparound cover by ARVELL JONES!

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ALTER EGO #174

FCA (Fawcett Collectors Of America) issue—spearheaded by feisty and informative articles by Captain Marvel co-creator C.C. BECK—plus a fabulous feature on vintage cards created in Spain and starring The Marvel Family! In addition: DR. WILLIAM FOSTER III interview (conclusion)—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on early rivals of MAD magazine—the haunting of JOHN BROOME—and more! BECK cover!