Back Issue #152 by TwoMorrows Publishing

MARVELS’ 30TH ANNIVERSARY with KURT BUSIEK & ALEX ROSS July

2024

2 5 1 . o N 10.95 $

MARVELMANIA ISSUE

™

featuring

THE AVENGERS by SAL BUSCEMA

Marvelmania International • Marvel Novel Series • Marvel Value Stamps • Marvel Classics Marvel Age Magazine • FABIAN NICIEZA Captain America interview & more

Satiate Your Sinister Side!

“Greetings, creep culturists! For my debut

All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.

issue, I, the CRYPTOLOGIST (with the help of FROM THE TOMB editor PETER NORMANTON), have exhumed the worst Horror Comics excesses of the 1950s, Killer “B” movies to die for, and the creepiest, kookiest toys that crossed your boney little fingers as a child! But wait... do you dare enter the House of Usher, or choose sides in the skirmish between the Addams Family and The Munsters?! Can you stand to gaze at Warren magazine frontispieces by this issue’s cover artist BERNIE WRIGHTSON, or spend some Hammer Time with that studio’s most frightening films? And if Atlas pre-Code covers or terrifying science-fiction are more than you can take, stay away! All this, and more, is lurching toward you in TwoMorrows Publishing’s latest, and most decrepit, magazine—just for retro horror fans, and featuring my henchmen WILL MURRAY, MARK VOGER, BARRY FORSHAW, TIM LEESE, PETE VON SHOLLY, and STEVE and MICHAEL KRONENBERG!” (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

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CRYPTOLOGY #2

CRYPTOLOGY #3

CRYPTOLOGY #4

The Cryptologist and his ghastly little band have cooked up more grisly morsels, including: ROGER HILL’s conversation with our diabolical cover artist DON HECK, severed hand films, pre-Code comic book terrors, the otherworldly horrors of Hammer’s Quatermass, another Killer “B” movie classic, plus spooky old radio shows, and the horror-inspired covers of the Shadow’s own comic book. Start the ghoul-year with retro-horror done right by FORSHAW, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, RICHARD HAND, VON SHOLLY, and editor PETER NORMANTON.

This third wretched issue inflicts the dread of MARS ATTACKS upon you—the banned cards, the model kits, the despicable comics, and a few words from the film’s deranged storyboard artist PETE VON SHOLLY! The chilling poster art of REYNOLD BROWN gets brought up from the Cryptologist’s vault, along with a host of terrifying puppets from film, and more comic books they’d prefer you forget! Plus, more Hammer Time, JUSTIN MARRIOT on obscure ’70s fear-filled paperbacks, another Killer “B” film, and more to satiate your sinister side!

Our fourth putrid tome treats you to ALEX ROSS’ gory lowdown on his Universal Monsters paintings! Hammer Time brings you face-to-face with the “Brides of Dracula”, and the Cryptologist resurrects 3-D horror movies and comics of the 1950s! Learn the origins of slasher films, and chill to the pre-Code artwork of Atlas’ BILL EVERETT and ACG’s 3-D maestro HARRY LAZARUS. Plus, another Killer “B” movie and more awaits retro horror fans, by NORMANTON, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, VOGER, and VON SHOLLY!

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78 International 19 Digital Only

Volume 1, Number 152 July 2024 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Sal Buscema (Art originally appeared as the cover for Marvemania Catalog #2, 1970. Scan courtesy of Heritage Auctions.)

TM & © Marvel.

COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Kevin Sharp SPECIAL THANKS Jim Amash Ed Lute Tom Brevoort Ralph Macchio Sal Buscema Kevin Maguire Kurt Busiek Andy Mangels Shaun Clancy Marvel Comics Edinburgh Robert Menzies Comic Con Ian Millsted Chris Eliopoulous Doug Moench Mark Evanier Fabian Nicieza Irving Forbush Eric NolenKarl Heitmueller, Jr. Weathington Fred Hembeck Jim Salicrup Heritage Auctions Tom Speelman Dan Johnson Roy Thomas Douglas R. Kelly Gerry Turnbull Richard Kelsey Marv Wolfman Scott Kress, Dwight Jon Catskill Comics Zimmerman Paul Kupperberg James Lundy

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BACKSEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Notes on this issue, plus the infamous Marvelmania International fan club BACKSTAGE PASS: Sal Buscema and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 A “nightmare” assignment for the superstar artist proved a blessing for fans OFF MY CHEST: Marvel Novel Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Paul Kupperberg recalls the challenges of adapting superheroes to prose FLASHBACK: Marvel Value Stamps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 The popular mid-1970s initiative that drove readers to cut up their comic books PRINCE STREET NEWS: Lost Marvel Merchandise of the Bronze Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Go on a supermarket sweep with cartoonist Karl Heitmueller, Jr. BEYOND CAPES: Marvel Classics Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Step aside, CliffsNotes, as Mighty Marvel adapts literature’s best FLASHBACK: Marvel Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Jim Salicrup and pals revisit the House of Ideas’ ’80s Marvel zine INTERVIEW: Fabian Nicieza and The Adventures of Captain America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 An in-depth chat with the writer of the inspirational retelling of Cap’s early years GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: Tales from Earth-U(slan) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Batman movie producer Michael Uslan had big plans for the Marvel Universe PRO2PRO: Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 The superstar duo revisits Marvels on its 30th anniversary BACK TALK: Reader Reactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 BACK ISSUE™ issue 152, July 2024 (ISSN 1932-6904) is published monthly (except Jan., March, May, and Nov.) by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 4490344. 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: $97 Economy US, $147 International, $39 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover artwork by Sal Buscema. The Avengers TM & © Marvel. All Rights Reserved. All editorial matter © 2024 TwoMorrows and Michael Eury, except Prince Street News © 2024 Karl Heitmueller, Jr. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 1

by M i c h a e l

Eury

Marvelmania membership materials from the fan club’s first two years. TM & © Marvel.

You don’t have to be a Marvel Zombie to catch Marvelmania. Sure, the M.M.M.S. membership card–carrying True Believer is most susceptible to this highly contagious condition. But Marvelmania does not discriminate. You might be devoutly devouring your favorite title from the Distinguished Competition or a cutting-edge creator-owned series when something special from the House of Ideas crosses your path. Too late! You’ve been infected with Marvelmania! There’s no vaccine to protect you against it and no cure for the condition outside of a Marvel comic fix. Or an edition of BACK ISSUE devoted to Marvel material from the Bronze Age and Copper Age. You can thank occasional BI contributor Robert Menzies for this issue’s theme, although Robert himself may be surprised to read this. Some five years ago, Robert offered to BACK ISSUE his 2018 interview with Fabian Nicieza about the 1991 Adventures of Captain America limited series Fabian wrote and Kevin Maguire drew (well, Kevin drew most of it… and knocked each and every panel right outta the park!). Initially I had intended to schedule it in the first appropriately themed issue and placed it aside… but issues zipped past, as did years, with the interview collecting cyber-dust on my hard drive. Last year, after scheduling back-to-back DC Comics covers for BI #150 (Batman) and #151 (Sandman and Death), it was time to balance our coverage between publishers by running a Marvel Comics cover for issue #152. At last—a home for the Fabian Nicieza Captain America interview! Then I received an email from Marvel artist Don Hudson reminding me that 2024 marks the 30th Anniversary of Marvels, so a Pro2Pro interview reuniting that series’ writer Kurt Busiek and artist Alex Ross was added to the issue. And coincidentally, at that time my former DC Comics colleague Paul Kupperberg shared with me his article about his Marvel Novel Series offerings. In addition to the Marvel material that literally fell into my editorial lap, this Marvel-themed issue allows BI the chance to finally spotlight Marvel Value Stamps, Marvel Classics Series, and the ’80s fanzine Marvel Age. There’s also 2 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

a Greatest Stories Never Told about Michael Uslan’s unrealized Marvel series—from what we affectionately call Earth-U(slan)— that had been under discussion since we ran a similar DC-themed Earth-U piece a while back, and a Prince Street News cartoon prepared by Karl Heitmueller, Jr., specifically for this issue. Of course, either a Maguire Captain America or Ross Marvels cover for BACK ISSUE #152 would’ve been dynamite (although I’d hate to have had to choose between the two). Heck, a Bob Larkin Spider-Man vs. Hulk Marvel Novel painted cover would’ve been a blast, too! With the deepest respect to those superb talents (each of whom has graced BI’s cover spot at least once), there is one Mighty Marvel artist whose work we have yet to cover-feature… until now. He has frequently been cited in our interior pages (not surprising for one of the Bronze Age’s most prolific illustrators) and has often chimed in with answers to interviewers’ questions, but in the 20-plus years we’ve been publishing this magazine, this is the first opportunity we’ve had to showcase on our cover the artwork of the amazing Sal Buscema! Once ye ed stumbled across Mr. Buscema’s iconic Avengers cover for Marvelmania Catalog #2 (1970), I knew I’d found the perfect piece for this edition’s BACK ISSUE cover. We’d hoped to interview Sal Buscema for this issue, but sadly he was unavailable. So the intrepid Robert Menzies (this issue’s undisputed Fearless Front Facer) rallied to the rescue by presenting an incisive study of exploring Sal’s contributions to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The Buscema Avengers cover art this issue is no doubt familiar to many of you, and you may have seen characters excerpted from it for different Marvel merchandise. Prior to rendering this cover—perhaps the most perfect “money shot” Avengers depiction anyone could imagine—Sal penciled a similarly staged group portrait of the team (inked by Sam Grainger) at the end of The Avengers #71 (Dec. 1969). While we prepare to delve into the Marvelmania that awaits in the pages that follow, let’s not forget that “Marvelmania

International” is also the name of a brief and rather infamous initiative in Marvel Comics’ history. And who better to explain this to BI than one of Marvel Comics’ top editors, Tom Brevoort? On The Tom Brevoort Experience (www.tombrevoort.com), Tom blogged, “Marvelmania was a short-lived operation set up in 1969 to sell licensed merchandise of Marvel characters. It was positioned in the books as a spiritual successor to the Merry Marvel Marching Society, Marvel’s in-house fan club, but in fact it was a separate fly-by-night organization entirely, one set up and licensed by Don Wallace. According to [comics and television writer] Mark Evanier, who worked for Marvelmania for a time, Wallace didn’t really know what he was buying here—he thought Marvel was the publisher of Captain Marvel [Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Adventures, DC’s Shazam!] of the 1940s, and he made several erroneous business calculations based on an imprecise understanding of the business and his audience. Eventually, Marvelmania folded around 1971, with Wallace running off with any remaining cash before his creditors could catch up to him. It wasn’t always guaranteed that you would receive the merchandise you ordered through Marvelmania, but they did produce a very nice fanzine and product catalog.” The Merry Marvel Marching Society (M.M.M.S.) was Marvel’s in-house fan club from 1964 through 1969, offering a handful of items include a membership kit and several Marvel products such as T-shirts and inflatable pillows bearing Marvel characters’ likenesses. As the House of Ideas was expanding its publish-

ing line in the late 1960s, placing more responsibilities upon the editorial offices, it no doubt made sense to broker Marvel merchandise sales and fan club activities through an outside third party. And thus came the Marvelmania announcement in 1969. “I first found out about Marvelmania in The Amazing SpiderMan #78 (Nov. 1969),” comics historian Richard Kelsey tells BACK ISSUE. “Spider-Man was my favorite comic at that time, and there was a half-page ad for Marvelmania in it and in every Marvel comic for that month. Those Marvelmania half-page ads regularly appeared in every Marvel comic every month from then on and until the club ended. The ad was usually on the same page as the Mighty Marvel Checklist. So, the ads were predominantly featured and always got my attention.” According to Wikipedia, the original Marvelmania International membership kit cost $1.75 plus 25¢ postage and handling. Offered were a membership card, a Captain America poster, Marvel character decals, a 16-page catalog of Marvel products, a test edition of Marvelmania Magazine #1 (Oct. 1969), a Dr. Doom Mad Money coupon, and a Marvelmania flyer newsletter. After the initial text edition of Marvelmania Magazine, the publication continued with a new issue #1 (cover-dated Apr. 1970) and ran for six issues. More products were commissioned, primarily pinback buttons, posters, a stationery kit, and art portfolios. Jack Kirby and other Marvel artists were promised generous rates to produce original artwork for posters and products.

(left) Early Marvelmania merchandise included these colorful decal sheets. The stickers shown here were originally from the collection of Steve Sherman. (top right) Jack “King” Kirby was hired by Marvelmania International to produce new art for merchandising, which included these character pinback buttons. (bottom right) Kirby’s Black Bolt flies high on the cover of the first issue of Marvelmania Magazine (Apr. 1970). TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3

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and and

Earth’s Mightiest Heroes by R

obert Menzies

Meet the New Avengers Artist Sal Buscema’s stunning Avengers debut: issue #67 (Aug. 1969), featuring Ultron. Inks by Sam Grainger. Courtesy of Heritage. (inset above) The artist, as seen in the Bullpen photo gallery from Fantastic Four Annual #7 (Nov. 1969). Unless otherwise noted, images accompanying this article are courtesy of Robert Menzies. TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 7

[Author’s note: At the time of writing, Sal Buscema was unavailable for an interview for BACK ISSUE, and so I have relied on past interviewers, to whom I am enormously grateful. I hope, when he sees this, that Sal enjoys our collective stroll down memory lane (Memory Lane, in this instance, being located to the rear of Avengers Mansion, 809 5th Avenue, New York City, NY 10065).]

SAL BUSCEMA ‘AVENGERS’ CHECKLIST Cover Art

Pencils: #67–72; Inks: #84, 191; Full art: #88–91 and Annual #4

Interior Art

Pencils/breakdowns: #68–72, 78, 86, 88–89, 92, 127–134, 156, 158–159, 169, 172–173, 193, 227; Inks: #87, 98; Full art: #90–91

TM & © Marvel.

Sal also drew new covers for 1972’s Marvel Triple Action #5, 6, and 8, which reprinted Avengers #10, 12, and 14, respectively.

The interview to be artist on The Avengers was the best interview of Sal Buscema’s life—one to tell the kids, grandkids, and future, as-yet-unforeseen, interviewers about. Stan Lee, Marvel’s editor, head writer, and inexhaustible driving force, had been bowled over by Sal’s pencil samples and invited him to come up to Marvel’s Madison Avenue offices for a one-on-one meeting. Big brother John Buscema had known Stan since the late ’40s and filled in Sal, but he hadn’t been expecting to see Stan leap onto furniture like a five-year-old propelled by a sugar rush. After this frantic crash course in how to tell a story the Marvel Way, a dazzled Sal walked out with an assignment: he was now the pencil artist for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

British Variant 1 (left) The cover of The Avengers and the Savage Sword of Conan weekly #104 (Sept. 13, 1975), with character omissions, reproduces (right) Sal Buscema and Sam Grainger’s cover for The Avengers #70 (Nov. 1969). TM & © Marvel.

8 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

One wonders when the shock wore off and the reality hit. On the train ride home? When he finally sat down at his artist’s table with a blank piece of artboard? Remember, this was not the experienced Sal Buscema who was artist-in-residence on legendary runs on The Incredible Hulk or The Spectaular Spider-Man. This was 1969 and Sal, for all his innate talent and a year of at-home practice, had never penciled a story and could count on his fingers the issues he had inked. Now here he was taking on pencil duties on the company’s premiere team book. Yes, it was a flattering declaration of faith in Sal’s ability, but it was also a case of being thrown in the proverbial deep end. As an introduction to regular pencil duties, Sal penciled (and Sam Grainger inked) the cover to Avengers #67 (Aug. 1969), another vote of confidence in an era when covers were considered crucial to a comic book’s success. The arresting image, which in its anatomical details clearly demonstrates the influence of big brother John, shows a gloating Ultron, one of the great Avengers villains, electrocuting Thor, Iron Man, Vision, Goliath (Clint Barton), Yellowjacket, and the Wasp. Considering that it didn’t look out of place alongside other titles that month—Amazing Spider-Man #75, Incredible Hulk #118, Silver Surfer #7, and Thor #167 all sport memorable covers by legends John Romita, Sr., Herb Trimpe, and John Buscema, respectively—it’s a stunning, if not precocious, debut.

This cover was no fluke, and the coming months saw more home runs. The following month’s Avengers #68, with the Avengers standing over the limp and lifeless form of the Vision, was another. Internally, Sal was also impressive in his first full issue as penciler as Ultron rampaged through the United Nations building as part of his latest attempt to subjugate humankind. The varied page layouts, smooth panel transitions, and spot-on characterizations prove that Sal took to comic book storytelling like a duck to water. That was true, although Sal has asserted there had been a lot of paddling under the waterline. “The Avengers […] was a nightmare because it was a group book, and those are the most difficult to do.” Difficult though it may have been, and allowing for some alterations to Ultron, it’s a stellar debut, with Sal and long-time Avengers writer Roy Thomas combining to make the change in artist seamless. With hindsight, it seems obvious to us that Sal had the talent to pull this off, but readers of the time had no such knowledge and to them this issue must have been a pleasant surprise, even if no one could have foreseen after a single issue that Sal would become one of the Marvel greats. Stan Lee, the best talent spotter in the business, had made another wise hiring decision, one that would continue to benefit Marvel long after Stan had relocated to the sunny climes of California.

Avengers Assembled (left) The Earth’s Mightiest Heroes rally together on the final page of Avengers #71 (Dec. 1969), with Sam Grainger inking Sal Buscema’s pencils. (right) Some of the staging is similar in Sal’s Avengers cover for Marvelmania Catalog #2 (1970), the source of cover art for this edition of BACK ISSUE. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 9

Before the 1978 publication of the Marvel Novel Series, one could literally count the number of superhero comic book novels on the fingers of one hand: The Adventures of Superman by George Lowther (Random House, 1942); Batman vs. the Three Villains of Doom and Batman vs. the Fearsome Foursome (New American Library, 1966), both by Winston Lyon, the pseudonym of William Woolfolk; The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker by Otto Binder (Bantam, 1967); and Captain America: The Great Gold Steal by Ted White (Bantam, 1968). For most of the 1940s and through the 1960s, comic books were considered kids’ stuff. The eightto 13-year-old readership wasn’t any traditional book publisher’s idea of a profitable demographic, unlike the popular movie and television adaptations of the 1950s and 1960s. The novel The Adventures of Superman in 1942 was an anomaly, taking advantage of the Man of Steel’s popularity at the nexus of comic books, animated cartoons/radio program/ newspaper strip, and licensing that no comic book character would match until Batman exploded onto television in 1966. And though Batman may have instigated the 1960s comic book paperback book publishing miniboom (NAL also released three paperback black-andwhite cut-and-paste reprints of Golden Age Batman comic book stories under its Signet Books imprint: Batman, Batman vs. the Joker, and Batman vs. the Penguin, as well as one volume of Superman stories... and Bill Adler’s Funniest Fan Letters to Batman), it was Marvel that had the decade’s last word with Bantam Books’ Avengers and Captain America novels in 1968 (along with six back-and-white comic book reprint paperbacks, one each of Spider-Man, the Hulk, Daredevil, and Thor, and two of the Fantastic Four). It was a short, intense burst of welcome activity for comics fans on the paperback spinner racks, almost two dozen titles (including Belmont’s reprint of MLJ’s High Camp Super-Heroes and Tower’s four T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents reprints in 1966) over the course of a few years. But the fad was short-lived. The last episode of television’s Batman ran in March of 1968 and the entertainment tide turned away from the four-color world to other genres. It would be another decade before superhero stories were again told in words, without pictures.

Web-Slinging Novel Citizen Your friendly neighborhood you-know-who versus the Kingpin on Bob Larkin’s painted cover for Paul Kupperberg’s Marvel Novel Series #8: The Amazing Spider-Man: Crime Campaign. All images accompanying this article are courtesy of Paul Kupperberg. TM & © Marvel.

18 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

by P a u l

Kupperberg

‘PAUL LEVITZ SAID WE SHOULD PACKAGE THE NOVELS!’

“Pocket Books asked us to write the first Spider-Man novel in something like 30 days,” The Amazing Spider-Man: Mayhem in Manhattan co-author Marv Wolfman recalled in a 2009 email exchange. “I wrote the first draft and Len [Wein] the second, which was the only way it was possible to do it. After we finished, we were asked if we’d like to write all 12 books. We wanted to, but the money was awful, so we turned it down.” “I don’t remember how we were chosen,” he confessed 40 years later, but Marv and co-writer and co-editor Len Wein (June 12, 1948–September 10, 2017) were probably among the best choices publishers Simon and Schuster could have made to package the (originally planned) 12 paperback prose novels that would appear under the Pocket Books colophon. With roots in fandom, they were friends who broke into the business together in the late 1960s and quickly established themselves individually as top tier writers in their own rights. They had both written most if not all of DC’s and, more importantly, Marvel’s flagship characters, and had each served stints as Marvel’s editor-in-chief. The decision to commit to a line of novels based on the Marvel characters was likely reached due to a flurry of superhero activity on television and film. DC’s Superman: The Movie was in production and generating a lot of publicity, while on the small screen Marvel was making some moves on CBS with a slate of live-action shows: The Amazing Spider-Man, which ran for two seasons and 13 episodes between September 1977 and

July 1979; The Incredible Hulk, with five seasons, 80 episodes, and five TV movies (guest-starring Daredevil and Thor) between November 1977 and May 1982; and the Dr. Strange (September 1978) and Captain America (January 1979) made-for-TV movies. That probably explains why six of the first eight books in the series featured one of those four heroes. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #5 for our look at Marvel’s live-action TV programs. Also, TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno was interviewed in our sister mag, RetroFan #1, while TV Cap Reb Brown was interviewed in RetroFan #9.] When Wolfman and Wein declined their offer, Pocket Books hired another writer for the second

‘Wanna write a novel?’ ‘Who, me?’ (top) Paul Kupperberg, in the late 1970s. (bottom) From the amazing archives of the man who threw nothing away, Kupperberg’s 1978 signed contract for the Spider-Man novel Crime Campaign, countersigned by Len Wein and Marv Wolfman.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 19

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

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

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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!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

BACK ISSUE #145

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SUPER ISSUE! Superboy’s Bronze Age adventures, and interviews with GERARD CHRISTOPHER and STACY HAIDUK of the Superboy live-action TV series. Plus: Super Goof, Super Richie (Rich), Super-Dagwood, Super Mario Bros., Frank Thorne’s Far Out Green Super Cool, NICK MEGLIN and JACK DAVIS’ Superfan, and more! Featuring a Superboy and Krypto cover by DAVE COCKRUM! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

BRONZE AGE SAVAGE LANDS, starring Ka-Zar in the 1970s! Plus: Turok—Dinosaur Hunter, DON GLUT’s Dagar and Tragg, Annihilus and the Negative Zone, Planet of Vampires, Pat Mills’s Flesh (from 2000AD), and WALTER SIMONSON and MIKE MIGNOLA’s Wolverine: The Jungle Adventure. With CONWAY, GULACY, HAMA, NICIEZA, SEARS, THOMAS, and more! JOHN BUSCEMA cover!

SPIDER-ROGUES ISSUE! Villain histories of Dr. Octopus, Lizard, Kingpin, Spidey’s mob foes, the Jackal and Carrion, Tarantula, Puma, plus the rehabilitation of Sandman! Featuring the work of ANDRU, SAL BUSCEMA, CONWAY, DeFALCO, GIL KANE, McFARLANE, MILLER, POLLARD, JOHN ROMITA JR. & SR., STERN, THOMAS, WEIN, WOLFMAN, and more! DUSTY ABELL cover!

MEN WITHOUT FEAR, featuring Daredevil’s swinging ’70s adventures! Plus: Challengers of the Unknown in the Bronze Age, JEPH LOEB interview about his Challs and DD projects with TIM SALE, Sinestro and Mr. Fear histories, superheroes with disabilities, and... Who Is Hal Jordan? Featuring CONWAY, ENGLEHART, McKENZIE, ROZAKIS, STATON, THOMAS, WOLFMAN, & more! GENE COLAN cover!

Great Hera, it’s the 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF BACK ISSUE, featuring a tribute to the late, great GEORGE PÉREZ! Wonder Woman: The George Pérez Years, Pérez’s 20 Greatest Hits of the Bronze Age, Pérez’s fanzine days, a Pérez remembrance by MARV WOLFMAN, a Wonder Woman interview with MINDY NEWELL, and more! With a stunning Wonder Woman cover by Pérez!

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DC SUPER-STARS OF SPACE! Adam Strange in the Bronze Age (with RICHARD BRUNING & ANDY KUBERT), From Beyond the Unknown, the Fabulous World of Krypton, Vartox, a Mongul history, the Omega Men, and more! Featuring CARY BATES, DAVE GIBBONS, DAN JURGENS, CURT SWAN, PETER J. TOMASI, MARV WOLFMAN, and more! Cover by CARMINE INFANTINO & MURPHY ANDERSON!

’80s INDIE HEROES: The American, Aztec Ace, Dynamo Joe, Evangeline, Journey, Megaton Man, Trekker, Whisper, and Zot! Featuring CHUCK DIXON, PHIL FOGLIO, STEVEN GRANT, RICH LARSON, SCOTT McCLOUD, WILLIAM MESSNER-LOEBS, DOUG MOENCH, RON RANDALL, DON SIMPSON, MARK VERHEIDEN, CHRIS WARNER & more superstar creators. Cover by NORM BREYFOGLE!

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Our oversized 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR sesquicentennial edition, featuring BATMEN OF THE 1970s! Exploring the work of Bronze Age Batman artists BOB BROWN, DICK GIORDANO, IRV NOVICK, FRANK ROBBINS, WALTER SIMONSON, ALEX TOTH, and BERNIE WRIGHTSON. Plus: revisit FRANK MILLER’s first Batman story! (100-pg. FULL-COLOR magazine) $12.95 (Digital Edition) $5.99

BACK ISSUE #151

DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES! A who’s who of artists of NEIL GAIMAN’s The Sandman plus a GAIMAN interview, Sandman Mystery Theatre’s MATT WAGNER and STEVEN T. SEAGLE, Dr. Strange’s nemesis Nightmare, Marvel’s Sleepwalker, Casper’s horse Nightmare, with SHELLY BOND, BOB BUDIANSKY, STEVE ENGLEHART, ALISA KWITNEY, and others! KELLEY JONES cover. (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

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by D

ouglas R. Kelly

A little more than a year ago, one of my closest friends died suddenly. While I tried to get my head around Andy not being here anymore, his sister asked me to speak at his memorial service. She also lined up two more members of our posse, one of whom asked me what I thought I would say. I told him that I didn’t know, that I couldn’t imagine what I could say that would sum up Andy’s life and our 45 years of being the best of pals. My friend said to me, “You can’t sum up Andy’s life in eight minutes, nobody could do that for another person. What each of us can do is try to share who we think he was… sort of like, who was the essential Andy?” This rattled around in my head for a while, and finally I just thought, “All I can do is share what Andy meant to me, and if the other guys do that too, maybe we’ll get to, more or less, the essence of our great friend.” To my surprise, that was pretty much what happened—the three of us came at the subject from different places, and I think we managed to convey what we thought made Andy, Andy. Adapting the work of a great artist into another medium, it seems to me, likely follows a similar path. Imagine trying to sift through a 400- or 500page literary epic, looking for what makes that story unique, looking for the essence of that great novel. Then imagine that you have to squeeze it all into a 48-page comic book. It had been done before, of course. The Gilberton Company introduced its Classic Comics series in 1941, offering readers of the time access to classic works of literature. The name eventually was changed to Classics Illustrated, and over the

Bottoms Up! Gil Kane and Dan Adkins delivered this shocking cover for the first issue of Marvel Classics Comics (1976), adapting Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Unless otherwise noted, scans illustrating this article are courtesy of Douglas R. Kelly. TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 31

‘Now Age’ Adaptation The black-and-white Now Age books by Pendulum Press, at 5.25” by 8”, were smaller than a standard comic book. The brilliant Alex Niño was the artist of Pendulum’s adaption of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine #64-1045 (Mar. 1973).

following 30 years, books such as Wuthering Heights and Two Years Before the Mast were adapted to the comic book format. When Gilberton ceased publishing the line in 1971, some 169 titles had been covered, with each being reprinted numerous times. Apparently, the end of Gilberton’s series didn’t scare off Pendulum Press, Inc. In 1973, the Connecticut-based company started publishing its “Now Age” series of “illustrated paperbacks”— black-and-white comics, really, in 5.25-inch by 8-inch perfect-bound book form, each of which cost 75 cents. Vince Fago, a comic book industry veteran who had worked first as a freelance artist for Timely Comics, then served as the company’s editorial and art director while Stan Lee served in the military during World War II, headed up Pendulum’s Now Age series, performing both editorial and production duties on the books. As far as I’ve been able to determine, Pendulum sold the books to schools, which then either

gave them or sold them to students. The company published more than 70 of the black-and-white books during the 1970s, and they didn’t skimp when it came to the creators they worked with on the series: writers like Otto Binder and Naunerle Farr, and artists such as Rudy Nebres and Alex Niño, brought the stories to life. In fact, it was the outstanding artwork on the books by Niño and his fellow Filipino artists that got the attention of a young writer working at Marvel Comics.

Kane and Company Serious Gil Kane goodness: (above) Marvel Classics Comics #2, The Time Machine. Inks by Dan Adkins. (opposite page, top left) The cover for Marvel Classics Comics #3, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, has to be a contender for best cover of the series. Inks by Klaus Janson. (top right) Gil and Tom Palmer provided a menacing Dracula cover for #9. (bottom left) From the Hunchback adaptation: Esmeralda gives water to Quasimodo as he’s flogged and humiliated. Art by Jon Lo Famia. (bottom right) From the Dracula adaptation: Nestor Redondo didn’t need to show lots of blood to get the point across in his artwork. TM & © Marvel.

32 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 33

ECHOES OF DITKO

Cancelled?? Humbug! Original Bob Hall cover art for the final issue of Marvel Classics Comics, issue #36 (1978), adapting Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Courtesy of Heritage. TM & © Marvel.

Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum made the cover for issue #28, and it was joined inside by The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado. Don McGregor adapted the stories, and the art team was made up of Rudy Mesina, Yong Montaño, Rod Santiago, and Michael Golden. The art for The Tell-Tale Heart had an intense quality of madness and panic to it, reminding me in places of Steve Ditko’s horror work at Charlton and even of the work of EC greats like Graham Ingels. Doug Moench wrote the next two entries, Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda for issue #29, and Arabian Nights for #30. Rico Rival and Pablo Marcos did the art for #29 and Yong Montaño did #30. Then came the kind of error that keeps editors up at night. Issue #31 was H. G. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon, written by Don McGregor with art by Rudy Mesina. As Ralph Macchio tells it, “Somehow—I don’t know if I was asleep at the switch that day or what—I put the wrong author on the cover of issue #31! It was The First Men in the

Moon, and I attributed it to Jules Verne. I think it was Roger Stern who brought it to me, when it came out, and he said, ‘What is this? Don’t you have a background in English literature?’ [laughter] It was one of my many early gaffes. That was a real goof and I’m completely responsible for it, nobody else!” Issue #32, Jack London’s White Fang, was another Moench effort, with art by the “Philippine Tribe”—meaning, everyone who was around that afternoon pitched in to get it done. The Prince and the Pauper, by Mark Twain, was featured in issue #33, written by Don McGregor with art by “The New Tribe.” Your guess is as good as mine. In terms of interior art, the Marvel crew saved the best for last, or nearly so. Issue #34 featured the story of Robin Hood, scripted by Moench, with art by Rudy Mesina and Alfredo Alcala. That combination resulted in visual magic, with Robin and his Merry Men never having looked better. Even Friar Tuck had it going on. Well, if you squinted. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland featured in issue #35, written by Doug Moench with art by Frank Bolle. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens’ beloved tale, was issue #36, written by—guess who, initials are D. M.—with art by, evidently, nearly the entire Marvel bullpen. And that, as they say, was that. The Marvel Classics Comics series ceased publication in 1978 with issue #36. I don’t have sales figures for the series, but the fact the books contained no advertising couldn’t have helped the bottom line. In my view, the Marvel Classics Comics series undoubtedly served as a gateway drug—in a good way—for some readers to then check out the original classic works by the original authors, and many of the Marvel writers and artists turned in excellent work on those classics. “Among the stories that I did for this series, I think my favorite was Alice in Wonderland, probably followed by Robin Hood,” says Moench. “Partly because of the artwork on both of those… I asked for an artist for Alice who could draw] similarly to the classic John Tenniel illustrations of the original, and they got someone who could do it [Frank Bolle]. I thought it looked great.” Ralph Macchio was partial to certain stories, as well. “The Pit and the Pendulum was a favorite of mine. I also enjoyed Kidnapped and Treasure Island because I thought they were suited to the sort of visual thing that we were doing. You know, we had some top-notch people working on that series, and I was proud of having worked on them. I just wish we could have run the books longer, to have gotten a lot more of each story in there. 100-page issues could have been great. But at the 48-page size, we had to rely on the storytelling ability of both the artist and the writer.” DOUGLAS R. KELLY is editor of Marine Technology magazine. In addition to BACK ISSUE, his byline has appeared in Antiques Roadshow Insider, Model Collector, The Journal of Antiques and Collectibles, Diecast Collector, and Buildings magazines. He no longer is in near mint condition but maybe that’s overrated anyway.

42 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

An exploration of by I a n

Millsted

The mid-1980s was a time of evolution and development in the comics industry, seeing the rise of the direct market, popular miniseries and maxiseries, company-wide crossovers, imprints for creator-owned titles, collected editions and graphic albums (for the bookstores), and much more. One magazine that was perfectly positioned to chronicle Marvel Comics’ contribution to all of the above was Marvel Age, which launched a first issue cover-dated April 1983. The first thing most potential readers would have seen was the cover by Walter Simonson (promoting his new Crystar series), which is a pretty nifty place to launch from. Although the magazine was listed as just Marvel Age in the indicia, it was usually referred to as Marvel Age Magazine by those who worked on it. The addition of the “zine” word is significant. This was a place where there would be information for the fans and retailers. Marvel Age was initially a 20-page magazine, in comic book size and format, with early issues edited by Carol Kalish and others (including Peter David). It was mainly a listings and promotion magazine, retailing at 25 cents, at a time when a standard Marvel comic cost 60 cents. Jim Salicrup shares his insights with BACK ISSUE: “Marvel Age was originated by Marvel’s Sales Department, but since it was also printed comic book size, Jim Shooter had to approve it. I proposed to Jim that I go over it and make notes for him, since he was a super-busy guy, and much to my surprise he made me the editor of Marvel Age.” The page count was soon increased to 36 pages, which allowed Salicrup and his team to further develop the title.

FOOM Has Left the Room The debut edition of Mighty Marvel’s Big ’80s self-promotional series, Marvel Age. Issue #1’s (Apr. 1983) cover by Walter Simonson heralded Marvel’s new Crystar series (which we’ve yet to explore here in BI—anyone want a Crystar article in a future ish? - ed.). TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 43

One feature of the magazine that was in place from the very start was the Coming Attractions listings of the next month’s Marvel titles, giving creator credits and brief descriptions of the contents. Beyond that, the rest of the pages were used in a flexible way. Articles ranged from a couple of pages to much longer pieces in the ten- to 20-pages range. There was a New Talent Department that combined work from prospective newcomers with editorial advice. Most of the covers were specially commissioned and represent, as shown in the following pages, a fine body of work by some of the biggest names in the field at the time. It looked like a winner for all parties. Marvel Comics was able to promote its entire range of titles. Readers and fans had a useful guide to what to look forward to, with release dates so they could jim salicrup get to a comic shop in time to Gage Skidmore. get the titles they wanted. Comic retailers presumably benefitted from the promotion as well; indeed, some direct market vendors gave Marvel Age as a complementary title to customers who regularly bought from them. Jim Salicrup, with assistant editor Mark Lerer and a wider team of contributors working on a freelance basis, started to innovate and introduce new features and departments. Salicrup had his own “Salicrup’s Section” regular column on the inside front cover. “I had to answer to two bosses,” Salicrup recalls, “Jim Shooter and Carol Kalish, then-head of Direct Sales, two very strong-willed people. Fortunately, I liked both of them a lot and it worked out well… although it was tricky in the beginning. What I hoped to achieve was that sense of we’re all part of a big fun club enjoying Marvel Comics. Plus, I enjoyed editing a magazine, which is very different from editing a comic book and far more labor intensive.” Among the notable features in the earlier issues are an 11-page two-way interview with Stan Lee and Jim Shooter in #8 (Nov. 1983), a first look at the Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars series in #12 (Mar. 1984), and Jim Starlin on his Dreadstar series in #13 (Apr. 1984). That issue also marked the start of a chronological overview of Marvel’s comic books from 1961. Initially this was a year to an issue but soon expanded, taking several issues to cover each year. A couple of features that exemplified Salicrup’s “fun club” philosophy were the cover corner boxes featuring mascot Forbush-Man, which were unique to each issue, and the two-page Hembeck comic pages introduced in 1984. Cartoonist Fred Hembeck kindly shares his recollections of how he came to be part of Marvel ‘Salicrup’s Section’ Age. “I believe it was editor Jim Salicrup who (top) This header topped many of the columns penned by Marvel enlisted me. My strips in DC Comics’ Daily Planet pages had come to an end, and Jim felt Marvel Age’s longtime editor, Jim Salicrup. (bottom) Face it, tiger: THIS is should grab me up. I honestly don’t recall if my the first page you turned to in each issue of Marvel Age! In the Marvel Age strip started before or after the FF Roast.” Hembeck’s contribution was a two-page pre-Internet ’80s, “Marvel Coming Attractions” plugged readers comic strip, across the center pages, in which he into the House of Ideas’ latest offerings. From issue #12. portrayed himself as a chat show host interviewing the great and the good (and Brother Voodoo) TM & © Marvel. 44 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

of the Marvel Universe. It was a format he had previously used in The Buyer’s Guide fanzine. “I think Jim just said, ‘Keep doing what you’ve been doing in The Buyer’s Guide—just keep things strictly Marvel. The interview format came so naturally to me, I just went with it. I did tweak it in the sense that I was often portrayed as a faux TV host, desk, curtains and all, while my Dateline:@$! strips had Cartoon Fred simply holding a microphone in front of my subject du jour.” One of the running gags that Fred Hembeck introduced was Marvel horror character, Brother Voodoo, as a frustrated A-list wannabee. “When Marvel published Fred Hembeck $ell$ the Marvel Universe—a collection of Marvel Age strips I seem to recall I chose myself—one of the new pages of material was a long, detailed explanation as to why I goofed on Brother Voodoo. Check that out for a longer response, but the short of it is, I was at a con shortly after the first Superman/ Spider-Man book had been announced, and an audience member asked Marv Wolfman and Len Wein, why those two? I don’t recall which one answered, ‘It was either that or Brother Power the Geek meets Brother Voodoo,’ and from that moment on, I associated BroV with that infamous DC comics flop. BroV was actually a pretty cool character, but he came along at the tail end of the ’70s horror-hero boom, and was soon cancelled. So I took his status of ‘I coulda been a contender’ and used that as a go-to for laughs. I guess you could say it was planned as a possible running gag, but it evolved much further than expected. People still associate me with Brother Voodoo to this day, and I suppose it went over okay.” More respectful was the special issue dedicated to the memory of Sol Brodsky in #22 (Jan. 1985). Brodsky is a name that might be familiar to regular readers of BACK ISSUE as a behind-the-scenes guy who contributed in all sorts of ways to Marvel Comics over the years (and, but was less well

known to most Marvel readers at that time, compared to the likes of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko). The cover portrait by John Romita, Sr. is a fine piece of work, and the recognition of Brodsky’s place in Marvel history a notable indication that Marvel Age was not just a promotional magazine but had a wider remit as well. One aspect of Marvel Age that is clear in hindsight is the opportunities it gave for a good number of would-be comics professionals to get early work in the industry, including BACK ISSUE’s own Michael Eury. “For issue #28 (July 1985) I wrote ‘Not the Marvel Coming Attractions,’ a parody of Marvel Age’s monthly Marvel Coming Attractions column, filled with joke entries of existing and fantasy Marvel titles. I took jabs at current trends (in comics and pop culture) and the growing X-Men expansion (The Muppet Mutants, anyone?). My favorite line was in my writeup ‘for’ Conan the Barbarian #174: Conan faces the unspeakable menace of ‘…’. “‘Not the Marvel Coming Attractions’ (whose title was clearly based upon the ’80s HBO comedy show Not Necessarily the News) was an unsolicited proposal to Jim Salicrup and Marvel Age,” Eury continues. “Jim liked my sense of humor and offered me the chance to write Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham backup stories for Marvel Tales, which had become Spider-Ham’s home since the cancellation of his own book. I loved writing Spider-Ham! For Jim I also wrote a Master of Kung Fu one-page parody for What The--?! #4 (Nov. 1988) where ‘Shang-Chew’ becomes a short-order cook, the Master of Tofu. Jim was a great mentor, and I’ll forever appreciate his faith in me and his editorial guidance.” Kurt Busiek was another emerging pro to find work at Marvel Age. Kurt kindly shares the story of his involvement as someone who was already selling scripts. “I’d done a very dumb thing. I was the regular writer on Power Man and Iron Fist,

Meet the Marvelites Marvel Age often introduced Marvel’s staff and creative artists to readers. (left) Ron Zalme’s cover for issue #8 (Nov. 1983) feautred BMOCs Stan Lee and Jim Shooter, while editor-in-chief Shooter, also the scribe of the white-hot Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars limited series, got another spotlight (center) on Mike Zeck and John Beatty’s cover for issue #20 (Nov. 1984). (right) The late Sol Brodsky was honored in issue #22, including this cover portrait by John Romita, Sr. TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 45

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obert Menzies

There’s something almost mythical about the great superhero origin stories. Created in 1940 by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Captain America was probably inspired as much by revulsion for Nazism as he was by potential sales figures. While the familiar core elements never alter—during World War II, sickly volunteer Steven Rogers is declared medically unfit to serve in the armed forces, but is later transformed by a secret government experiment into the world’s first Super-Soldier—in all other ways the origin story is not nearly as consistent as readers believe or remember. With almost each retelling, Cap’s origin has been tweaked and expanded, sometimes contradicting previous accounts in significant ways. Most versions of the origin run to only three or four pages, with none longer than a standard-length comic. However, by far the most forensic examination of the process through which Steve Rogers became Captain America is the early 1990s limited series Adventures of Captain America (AOCA). Written by Fabian Nicieza, with pencil art by Kevin Maguire, Kevin West, and Steve Carr, and inks by Joe Rubinstein and Terry Austin, this was an ambitious project of four 48-page issues. Rogers’ training process had received scant attention in previous stories. The selection process, even less. This series was going to address those “gaps,” as well as contend with inconsistencies and the character’s long history. As the back-cover blurb to AOCA #1 announces: For the first time, complete and unexpurgated, with many never-before-revealed details, it’s the origin of the greatest hero of World War II -- Captain America!” Surprisingly little analysis of this groundbreaking series has been done. In a riveting face-to-face interview with me at Edinburgh Comic Con on April 15, 2018, Fabian Nicieza revealed the behind-the-scenes events that led to the series, why he thought for so long his series was a failed experiment, and why he now sees it differently. He also explained why he and Maguire felt a sense of injustice after Captain America: The First Avenger was released in 2011. – Robert Menzies ROBERT MENZIES: Thanks for agreeing to speak to BACK ISSUE about your series, Adventures of Captain America, Fabian. I first wanted to ask if you remember your first Captain America story and what your early impressions of the character were. FABIAN NICIEZA: I have to be honest, I don’t remember the first Cap issue I read because we first started to get comic books in late ’66, early ’67. We had just come to the United States from Argentina and I was just learning how to read and speak English. My brother, who was three years older, was the one who was really driving the buying and I just ended up looking at whatever

Thrills, Spills, and Chills! Cover to The Adventures of Captain America #1 (Sept. 1991). Art by Kevin Maguire and Joe Rubinstein. TM & © Marvel.

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he got. The first time I really started to understand what I was reading was late ’67, I was in first grade and my memories really kick in around that time. We were only allowed to get one or two books a month because they were expensive, 12 cents a book! [laughs] I think the first time I saw Captain America was in a Tales of Suspense issue. I remember mid- to late 1968, Captain America was an Avenger, so I was reading Captain America in The Avengers. I decided I was going to get Avengers every month because for 12 cents I could get lots of heroes instead of just one or two. That was when I started to get The Avengers, in the issue #80s. I continued buying The Avengers every month, all through to my job at Marvel in ’85, and then I got them for free. So, I became most familiar with Cap through the Avengers, but then I went back and anywhere that a Cap reprint appeared I would end up buying it.

Make Mine Maguire! (top) Fabian Nicieza, the author of The Adventures of Captain America, proudly displays a copy of issue #1. Photo by Robert Menzies, taken on Sunday, April 15, 2018 at the Edinburgh Comic Con. (bottom left) The Adventures of Captain America largely came about because Marvel editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco wanted one-time Bullpen artist Kevin Maguire back after Kevin helped make a hit of competitor DC’s Justice League #1 (May 1987). (bottom right) Prior to the Nicieza/Maguire miniseries, Captain America #255’s (Mar. 1981) retelling of Cap’s origin lingered in many fans’ minds. Cover by John Byrne and Joe Rubinstein, signed by Rubinstein. From the collection of Robert Menzies. TM & © Marvel.

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MENZIES: Was he a hero you always liked? NICIEZA: Yeah, yeah. He was always considered straight-laced and boring, but what I would do is that I would pick up short bursts if something sounded interesting that was going on. I know I got a huge chunk of the Englehart/Buscema run, all the “Secret Empire” stuff, Falcon getting his new wings, I remember distinctly buying that because of the cover. [Interviewer’s note: The Black Panther gifted Falcon his new wings in Captain America #170 (Feb. 1974); the artwork that Nicieza is remembering is John Romita’s classic cover to #171.] I still think it’s one of the best covers ever. I bought the whole “Secret Empire” run [#169–176, Jan.–Aug. 1974] because it was a really interesting story and Englehart was putting Cap through his paces, so I got the whole Nomad arc afterwards. I bought Cap for about a year and a half, up to the point where Frank Robbins took over as artist and that didn’t interest me [#182, Feb. 1975]. I started picking up Cap again when Kirby came back [#193, Jan. 1976]. So, I bought the whole Kirby run while it was coming out. And then I didn’t pay attention to Cap as a monthly book until John Byrne and Roger Stern got on the book [#247, July 1980], and I started buying Cap again. A little later I saw the Deathlok cover that Zeck did [probably issue #286, Oct. 1983], and the Deathlok story, and I liked a lot of what DeMatteis was doing so I would check that out. So I would always jump back in in bursts, it was never a monthly purchase, but if you look at my original collection from the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, or whatever, I’ve got a lot of Cap in there. But it wasn’t necessarily my love of Cap that had me working on the project. MENZIES: So, what brought you to writing Adventures of Captain America? NICIEZA: The genesis of me working on the project was pretty simple. [Marvel’s then-editor-in-chief] Tom DeFalco wanted Kevin Maguire back. Kevin was ours, and we lost him. [laughs] Kevin was a Romita Raider—he worked on staff for just a short amount of time as one of the Romita Raiders, an art-correction guy. His talent was obvious to everyone—his ability to maintain a monthly schedule was questionable to everyone, including Kevin. [laughs]

Star-Spangled and Steroid Free (top left) Captain America #376 (early Sept. 1990) cover by Ron Lim and Danny Bulanadi. The “Streets of Poison” six-parter was inspired by a fan letter asking regular Cap writer Mark Gruenwald if the serumenhanced Captain America promoted steroid or drug use. A major element of the story was Fabian Stankowicz, the techie hired by Cap, who became hooked on drugs. (top right) Captain America Goes to War Against Drugs #1 (1990). Is it coincidence that this came out in 1990, as the steroid chatter about Steve Rogers was coming to the fore? (bottom) Marvel 1990 – The Year in Review cover by Maguire and Rubinstein. Page 11 has a feature entitled “Cap says no to drugs? An Avenger confronts the nation’s scourge.” TM & © Marvel.

He was offered Silver Surfer, the Englehart relaunch of Silver Surfer, or Justice League by [DC Comics editor] Andy Helfer at the same time. Kurt Busiek had gotten Andy Helfer to agree to get Kevin to draw a miniseries Kurt was trying to sell to DC called Wildcard. Kevin, I think, might have drawn the entire first issue before Andy said, “I don’t want to use him on Wildcard. Wildcard isn’t as important to me as this Justice League relaunch and I think this is the artist that can really service this better.” So, he offered Kevin Justice League. Kevin was familiar with Andy having already done some work for him. Marvel was offering Silver Surfer. Kevin was living with me at the time—Kevin and I and an inker named Mark McKenna were all living together—and Kevin was saying, “What should I take?” Silver Surfer was a character he had loved since a kid, he’s easier to draw and it’s easier to draw space scenes. And I said, “Justice League is going to be a bigger thing. It’s bigger, it’s more important to DC, which means they’ll make you more important as a result.” And it was a more challenging, more difficult book for him to draw but he decided to do Justice League at that time. [Editor’s note: Marshall Rogers was then headhunted for the new Surfer series; see BI #135 for our look at the Silver Surfer in the Bronze Age.] So Kevin had been drawing Justice League for two years, I think it was, and Tom wanted him back. [Editor’s note: DC’s Justice League was retitled Justice League International with issue #7 and Justice League America with issue #26. Maguire pencilled issues #1–23 (May 1987–Jan. 1989), plus a cover for #24 and a brief return in issue #60.] Tom was frustrated that we had lost him, so Tom said, “What do we do to get him back?” I said, “I dunno, let me ask him.” And Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 53

Heroes Forevermore The final page (page 48) of the last issue (#4). Art by Steve Carr, Kevin West, and Terry Austin. TM & © Marvel.

The biggest negative, in hindsight, after Kevin drew Captain America, every other artist had to draw every scale of chain mail in Cap’s uniform, so all it has done is slow down every single artist who’s drawn Cap because Kevin decided he was going to draw every link of chain mail. John Cassaday’s and Bryan Hitch’s Cap are completely patterned after Kevin’s. I honestly think Kevin set the tone for how the character was going to look for the next 25 years. It has just started to deviate from that in the last five or so years. For all of the late ’90s through to the ’00s, everyone was drawing Kevin’s Cap. And Kevin drew his own Cap: Kevin’s Cap wasn’t Kirby. And it wasn’t Sal Buscema’s, and it wasn’t John Romita’s. Kevin’s Cap was his own Captain America because he tailored his drawing style and his realism, combined with a little bit of his cartoonishness and a ridiculous obsession with detail, and he merged all of these into a very visual and definitive Cap.

MENZIES: I thought the character he redefined more than any other was Bucky, actually. NICIEZA: I like our Bucky better than “machinegun Bucky” of the last 20 years. MENZIES: Bucky wasn’t a three-dimensional character for a long time. NICIEZA: I like Bucky the con man, I like Bucky as Matthew Broderick in Ladyhawke (1985). I like him being smart and sly and conniving because that’s different from what Steve is and that brings something to the table that’s different to what Steve brings to the table. You don’t need Bucky to be an expert marksman-sharpshooter who kills people from hundreds of yards away like they did in the comics the last 15–20 years. MENZIES: And the films. NICIEZA: The Bucky in the film I don’t even qualify because the Bucky in the film is his contemporary, his friend, a person the same age as him. The avoided the kid sidekick trope completely by not making him a kid. MENZIES: He’s still the sharpshooter, I was meaning. NICIEZA: But he’s a soldier now. He was a soldier before Steve was a soldier. I don’t qualify the movie Bucky as the comic Bucky because it’s not. It’s its own entity and it works very, very well for the cinematic universe, but in comics he’s always been a teenager, he’s always been a sidekick. We’ve always tried to justify in our present-day terms why he would be part of that mix, why the Army would let him be part of that mix. I think Kevin came up with the solution to it. I like our solution, quite frankly, much more than the more recent Brubaker stuff, with him being a killing machine. Even if he were in the military, the Army wouldn’t allow a 15-year-old to go out on the field of battle. Sixteen- and 17-year-olds slid in by lying to get drafted but it was the exception, not the rule. Certainly not someone as visual as Bucky would have been. I’m happy with our Bucky, I liked him a lot. He was a clever, fun character to write. MENZIES: He stole nearly every scene he was in. NICIEZA: Yeah. MENZIES: You look at the Bucky standing with Cap on the cover of #255, and then Kevin’s Bucky on the cover of Adventures of Captain America #1, it’s totally different. NICIEZA: It’s all attitude, it’s all “Look at me!” He’s actually front and center, and Steve’s behind. MENZIES: Thanks for making time to sit down with me, Fabian. NICIEZA: I enjoyed chatting about this. Huge thanks to Fabian Nicieza, who was enormously generous with his time, recollections, and insights. Also thanks to James Lundy, Managing Director of Edinburgh Comic Con, and all the ECC and EICC staff. Hands down, ROBERT MENZIES’ favourite superhero is Captain America, and The Adventures of Captain America is one of his favorite miniseries.

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by D a n

Ta n d a r i c h

Movie producer Michael Uslan may be known as The Boy Who Loved Batman, but he also loves superheroes, including Marvel’s vast gallery of crimefighters and world-savers, as well as history, movies, and New Jersey. Uslan pitched three Marvel potential storylines in the 2000s. He thought big… and what could be bigger than Marvel’s own version of DC’s epic Crisis on Infinite Earths, starring the Cosmic Cube? The Cube played into Uslan’s envisioned action epic featuring a WWII adventure melding history and superheroes. And, coming full circle in this Marvel triple feature, we end with an idea introducing a Marvel version of DC Comics’ Earth-Two with Golden Age incarnations of Marvel’s Silver Age heroes. So, what if Michael Uslan had paused his movie producer occupation and authored stories for Marvel? Well, wonder no more, as “The Greatest Stories Never Told” reveals more of Michael Uslan’s takes on the Marvel Universe! But fair warning, when one reads a Michael Uslan story, they better be prepared to research history, watch a few michael uslan movies for references, and a trip to New Jersey wouldn’t hurt either. In his 2022 book Batman’s Batman, Uslan shared, “Long before anyone thought to make an Avengers movie, I wanted to write a miniseries called The Cosmic Cube… I was told that it tied into too many characters whose storylines were already set for the next year or two.” But had this story been published, it would have had major ramifications. Uslan reveals to BACK ISSUE, “This was to be the Marvel Comics version of DC’s Crisis [on Infinite Earths]. And I already knew there were A-list artists who wanted to bring these tales to life.” The Cosmic Cube can do virtually anything. It is the ultimate power! And everything you think you know about it is untrue! Uslan’s plot reads, “But it has its own supreme intelligent design that… never would have allowed any of its real secrets and

‘He Who Holds the Cosmic Cube’… …wields unfathomable power, as shown by Jack Kirby (inked by Don Heck) on this augmented detail from the cover art from Tales of Suspense #80 (Aug. 1966). Decades after the King of Comics drew this dynamite cover, Michael Uslan imagined a new opus involving the Cube whose effects would ripple throughout the Marvel Universe. TM & © Marvel.

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‘A Time of Marvels’ Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch, whips up quite a stir among the folks on the street on Alex Ross’ cover artwork for Marvels #1 (Jan. 1991). All art scans accompanying this interview are courtesy of Alex Ross. TM & © Marvel.

KURT BUSIEK

by B r y a n

ALEX ROSS Facebook.

In 1994, a new four-issue miniseries debuted. It was titled Marvels, and it burst upon the scene with the force of Mjollnir. That massive impact has been felt ever since, and on this, the 30-year milestone since its release,

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D. Stroud

writer Kurt Busiek and artist Alex Ross answer a few questions for BACK ISSUE about this truly groundbreaking blockbuster that continues to make waves in the industry. – Bryan D. Stroud

BRYAN D. STROUD: Can you describe the research process for Marvels? KURT BUSIEK: We had pitched several different iterations before [then-Marvel editorin-chief] Tom DeFalco said that if you’re going to be exploring Marvel history, use the real Marvel history. We had to research it in a different way. The first issue was all Golden Age material and I’d read very little of that. I bought a microfiche reader and I bought or borrowed certain Golden Age issues on microfiche and researched that way. That was a lot of work, but at least I was only covering from 1939 through 1941. Then from Marvels #2 (Feb. 1994) and on, I had to know what was happening all over the various Marvel comics. We wanted to be able to say, “And this is where the Avengers are and this is what Spider-Man is doing.” So I had to have this collated by date rather than by series. We also needed to know what stuff was publicly visible. I would go through all the Marvel comics and read them. I had printed out data sheets with the issue number and the title and date and “Here’s roughly what happens,” “Here is what would be seen in public,” and “Here are any media references.” I had a big, looseleaf notebook of Marvel continuity I could refer to. That was time consuming, and it got more so because when I was researching for Marvels #2 (Feb. 1994), it was a period where Marvel could only publish limited monthly books, so some are bimonthly. By the time we get to #4 (Apr. 1994), which is taking place around 1972, Marvel’s line is much, much bigger. Alex also had to do research, because every time I would specify something, he had to look that up. And there was stuff that he was interested in that he wanted me to put into the stories and I did that as best I could. STROUD: The interconnectedness of the Marvel Universe had to be critical. BUSIEK: If they hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have had any story to tell. The fact that there is a Marvel Universe is why it was worth looking at from the point of view of the man on the street. There are different levels to this. Going back to the Golden Age, there were a couple of crossovers between the Human Torch and Namor, and later Captain America showed up in other series, and eventually, they teamed them up as the All-Winners Squad. In the early ’60s Marvel Universe, you’d have things like the Hulk meeting the Fantastic Four. But things don’t start to get seriously tied together until Roy Thomas wrote the Kree-Skrull War with Neal Adams and the Buscema brothers, because that’s the story where not only does it take place in Avengers, but there’s a crossover with an Inhumans story using Fantastic Four villains. Today it’s all on one stage. ALEX ROSS: I would argue that the big battle that built up between the Hulk and the Thing in 1964 was the real beginning of that sense of everything overlapping in a shared mythology. STROUD: Were you working full script or spending a lot of time on the phone or both? BUSIEK: Both, very much. Marvels was created out of different threads of inspiration, but it started with Alex. Before Alex broke in as a comics artist, he had this idea to do a series

Man on the Street Marvels’ street-level POV shared with readers the spectacle of the burgeoning Marvel Universe, with character Phil Sheldon being our guide. TM & © Marvel.

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