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Rich Buckler’s first-ever Deathlok interview!

Six Million Dollar Man & Bionic Woman!

Interview with Warlord’s Mike Grell!

IRON MAN

IN THE ’80S! BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE

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LAYTON/MICHELINIE ERA

MACHINE MAN • BYRNE’S ROG 2000 • STEEL THE INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN TV’S LEGENDS OF THE SUPER-HEROES • AND MORE!

Volume 1, Number 25 December 2007 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, and Today!

The Ultimate Comics Experience!

EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks COVER ARTIST Bob Layton

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg

BEYOND CAPES: Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 The story behind Charlton Comics’ adventures of Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers INTERVIEW: Full Metal Junket: Deathlok the Demolisher’s Rich Buckler . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 The artist/creator of Marvel’s trailblazing cyber-crusader in his first-ever Deathlok discussion

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Bob Brodsky, CookieSoup Periodical Distribution, LLC

FLASHBACK: Deathlok: Beyond Buckler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 Joe Casey, J. M. DeMatteis, Dwayne McDuffie, and Daniel Way follow in Buckler’s footsteps

PROOFREADER Eric Nolen-Weathington

INTERVIEW: Blade of Steel: The Warlord’s Mike Grell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 Enter the lost world of Skartaris, courtesy of the popular writer/artist

SPECIAL THANKS

FLASHBACK: “Call Me Mister… Mister Machine!”: The Story of Machine Man . . . . . . .37 Barry Windsor-Smith, Herb Trimpe, Tom DeFalco, and Mike Royer on the Jack Kirby-created 2001: A Space Odyssey spin-off

Michael Ambrose Brad Sanders Terry Austin Philip Schweier John P. Barker Richard A. Scott Jerry Boyd Alex Segura Aleisha Brevard Rick Shurgin Mike Burkey Zack Smith John Byrne Anthony Snyder Joe Casey Joe Staton Dewey Cassell Tom Stewart Sean Clarke Herb Trimpe Mike Cross George Tuska Nick Cuti Keith Veronese Chris Darley Daniel Way Tom DeFalco Bob Wiacek Michael DeLeRee Barry Windsor-Smith J. M. DeMatteis Alfie Wise Mark Evanier Marv Wolfman Angela Fowlks Peter Gallay Grand Comic-Book Database Mike Grell Jack C. Harris Allan Harvey Heritage Comics Auctions Dan Johnson Arvell Jones Scott Kress Paul Levitz Andy Mangels Luther Manning Kelvin Mao Marvel Comics Yoram Matzkin Dwayne McDuffie Chris Murrin Warden Neil Herbie J Pilato Michael Rankins Mike Royer Rose Rummel-Eury

COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore

PRO2PRO: Marvel’s Metal Men: Iron Man’s Bob Layton and David Michelinie . . . . . . . .44 The duo who took Tony Stark to new highs and lows in an exclusive chat—with never-beforepublished Layton Iron Man art! BACKSTAGE PASS: Super Friends Live: The Strange Saga of Legends of the SuperHeroes . . . .59 Holy Reunion Movies, Batman! Go backstage with the steel-nerved actors who sported spandex in 1979 INTERVIEW: Brainiac vs. the Man of Steel: Paul Levitz Remembers The World’s Greatest Superheroes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67 DC Comics’ president and publisher looks back at his days as the writer of the Supermancentric comic strip FLASHBACK: Steeled for a Fight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 The story of DC’s retro-fitted star-spangled sentinel, Steel the Indestructible Man FLASHBACK: John Byrne’s Bucket of Bolts: ROG-2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 From mascot to star to mascot again, Byrne’s spunky robot keeps popping up where you least expect him WHAT THE--?!: H.E.R.B.I.E.! The World’s Most Hated Robot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 Why, oh, why doesn’t anyone like the Fantastic Four’s robo-pal? BACKSTAGE PASS: MoCCA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 Visit New York City’s Museum of Cartoon and Comic Art in this photo tour BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82 Reader feedback on issue #23, plus a special treat for Transformers fans! BACK ISSUE™ is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: euryman@msn.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $40 Standard US, $54 First Class US, $66 Canada, $90 Surface International, $108 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Bob Layton. Iron Man and Deathlok TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. The Six Million Dollar Man TM & © Universal TV. The Warlord TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2007 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING

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I am a man of steel. No, I wasn’t born on Krypton (despite my claim in my 2006 book, The Krypton Companion, that I am actually Myk-El of the Bottle City of Kandor). I do not wear a high-tech suit of battle armor or an exoskeleton. I am not an android or a robot (although I dance “the Robot” when given the chance). My bones are not made of an indestructible metal. The only blade I wield is my razor. But I am a cyborg. Not the Deathlok the Demolisher variety, but more along the lines of Steve Austin, aka the Six Million Dollar Man. Like Steve, I have “bionic” hearing. Due to a progressive hearing loss and auditory damage caused by my past as a musician and music lover, I’ve experienced, over the past 16 or so years, a gradual loss of hearing that is now categorized as “profound.” Each morning I’m greeted by relative silence until, one ear at a time, I “plug in” by inserting my hearing aids (which cost, for the pair, close to six thousand dollars, not six million), allowing me to navigate the hearing world with artificial hearing. Should my condition worsen, perhaps one day I’ll be a candidate for a cochlear implant, a device that is surgically attached to the base of the skull to simulate hearing for the deaf or the severely hard of hearing. Then I’ll really be a bionic man. Since I rely upon technology to hear, I feel extremely close to this issue’s subject matter, “Men of Steel.” The Man of Steel, Superman, gets a little coverage this issue (through our Paul Levitz interview exploring the World’s Greatest Superheroes newspaper strip and its Superman vs. Brainiac battle), while some of Superman’s super friends are on hand in Andy Mangels’ look at the Legends of the Superheroes TV specials of the late 1970s (starring Adam West as Batman, Burt Ward as Robin, and a group of steel-nerved actors brave enough to parade around in spandex as DC’s best and baddest). The steel-helmeted, sword-swinging Warlord, Travis Morgan, is in this issue, through an interview with his creator, writer/artist “Iron” Mike Grell. Our remaining features explore comic-book characters that represent a fusion of man and machine, or are machines themselves. Our cover star, Iron Man, was one of Marvel’s B-list heroes until co-plotter/inker/cover artist Bob Layton and co-plotter/scripter David Michelinie were assigned his series. Through their development of the man inside the armor, Tony Stark, Iron Man became one of Marvel’s heavy hitters and will soon be the subject of a major motion picture—and as you’ll read in this issue’s “Pro2Pro,” the duo of Layton and Michelinie are reuniting for not one but two new Iron Man projects for Marvel. Rich Buckler might be known among comics fans as the artist of just about every Marvel and DC character imaginable, but his creation (or co-creation, since he had a little developmental help from Doug Moench) of Deathlok the Demolisher is perhaps his greatest single contribution to comicdom. Long before RoboCop, Deathlok was a sympathetic, cybernetic crimecrusher, and as our own Michael Aushenker points out in his interview with Mr. Buckler— Rich’s first-ever Deathlok interview—the first RoboCop movie borrowed liberally from Buckler’s mid-1970s Deathlok stories. You’ll also find in these pages histories of Marvel’s post-Buckler Deathlok adventures, as well as Machine Man, Steel the Indestructible Man, John Byrne’s ROG-2000, and the Saturdaymorning-TV-spawned, crammed-into-comics Herbie (aka H.E.R.B.I.E.) the Robot. (If you were expecting the Vision, Red Tornado, Jocasta, Sarge Steel, the Metal Men, Astro Boy, and other men of steel

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from ’70s/’80s comics, sorry, space wouldn’t allow their inclusion … but we’ll eventually give them the BACK ISSUE treatment.) And, of course, there’s this issue’s lead-off feature by Dewey Cassell, a spotlight on my aforementioned bionic “brother” Steve Austin and his gal pal Jaime Sommers. NBC-TV’s Fall 2007 Bionic Woman television series may have reimagined Jaime for a contemporary audience, but Dewey’s dynamite retrospective whisks us back to the mid-1970s, when Charlton Comics’ Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman brought the Bionic Duo to spinracks and newsstands. Lastly, for those of you inclined to contact ye editor by postal mail, please note that the BI editorial office has changed locations. In mid-September, my wife Rose and I moved away from Oregon, our home of 14 years, and returned to our native state, North Carolina. As a result, I plan to attend more east coast comics conventions in the coming year, and hope to meet or be reunited with many of BACK ISSUE’s readers. The new BI editorial address appears in this issue’s “Back Talk” column!

Dewey Cassell

“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was … stronger, faster.” Before Deathlok and Darth Vader, and long before the Terminator and RoboCop, there was the Six Million Dollar Man. But before the Six Million Dollar Man, there was Cyborg. The novel Cyborg, written by Martin Caidin and published in 1972, introduced the character of Steve Austin. Lt. Colonel Steve Austin was an Air Force test pilot and former astronaut who crashed while flying an experimental NASA aircraft over the Mojave Desert. With the financial backing of the Office of Special Operations, represented by Oscar Goldman, Doctor Rudy Wells and a team of surgeons replaced the arm, legs, and eye that Austin lost in the accident with state-of-the-art bionics, giving him superhuman abilities. The gift, however, was not without a price. Austin became an agent for the OSO, undertaking missions that no normal human being could possibly accomplish. Herbie J Pilato, author of The Bionic Book, published by BearManor Media in September 2007, indicates that Martin Caidin knew the potential for Cyborg. “Caidin very much wanted to bring Cyborg to life in film, whether it was for the small or big screen. He had done so with one of his previous books (Marooned, which was released as a theatrical film in 1969). So he made the studio rounds, and met with Richard Irving, an executive with Universal. Universal then convinced ABC to produce what ultimately became the TV-movie pilot called The Six Million Dollar Man.” However, ABC did not then immediately launch into a weekly series. In fact, there were a total of three movies, as Pilato goes on to explain: “ABC was still trying to find its way in the early 1970s. It was the youngest of the only three major networks at the time, so they were very cautious with any property that [was] placed on the air. With The Six Million Dollar Man, they knew they had a great show, but they wanted to proceed gingerly. So they had a regular movie series

“This one’s for my buddy Chewie!” Steve Austin wallops Bigfoot in this dynamite Geoff Isherwood commission, from the collection of Mike Cross. [Isherwood fans, Geoff’s back next issue in our Suicide Squad spotlight!] Six Million Dollar Man © 2007 Universal.

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called the ABC Suspense Movie, which was broadcast on Saturday nights. The first three Six Million Dollar Man films—which featured a very James Bond-like Steve Austin—would alternate Saturday nights with various other TV movies and early episodes of Kung Fu. Once The Six Million Dollar Man became a weekly staple on Friday nights in January 1974, its playing time was cut from 90 to a regular 60 minutes, and Steve Austin became less like James Bond and more like a regular man, which contributed to the show’s appeal.” Casting for The Six Million Dollar Man was not a trivial matter. The lead role demanded an actor who could be both strong and vulnerable, while at the same time believable in extraordinary situations. The studio turned to an up-and-coming actor familiar to TV viewers, Lee Majors. Pilato explains why: “Lee himself had been looking for a lead series. He was one of the many co-stars on The Big Valley, and he was second lead to Arthur Hill on Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law, but he wanted his own show. At the time, too, he was newly married to Farrah Fawcett. And though his being cast as Steve Austin pre-dated Farrah’s superstardom on ABC’s Charlie’s Angels, the network knew they had a power-couple on their hands. So they cast him as the Six Million Dollar Man. Lee left Owen Marshall and became TV’s first realistic superhero.” The show was a hit. Every week, Steve Austin was called upon to deal with a new threat, from the theft of the Liberty Bell to an encounter with Bigfoot. In 1975, a two-part episode introduced an old flame of Steve Austin named Jaime Sommers, a professional tennis player portrayed by actress Lindsay Wagner. Austin and Sommers rekindled their relationship, but when a skydiving accident left Sommers seriously injured, Austin persuaded Oscar Goldman and Dr. Rudy Wells to give Jaime bionic replacements for her damaged legs, arm, and ear, and she thereby became the Bionic Woman. Although Jaime Sommers “died” at the end of the episode, the character was very well received and ABC brought her back to life, ultimately launching a spin-off

He’s No Fall Guy Artist Bob Larkin provided a dead-on likeness of Lee Majors in this illo from Charlton’s Six Million Dollar Man black-andwhite magazine. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). © 2007 Universal.

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series the following year. There were periodic crossovers between the two series and supporting characters Oscar Goldman, played by Richard Anderson, and Dr. Rudy Wells, played by Martin E. Brooks, appeared in both. The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman ran until 1978, and were followed in later years by three made-for-TV reunion movies, featuring both Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner. Merchandising for The Six Million Dollar Man, and to a somewhat lesser extent The Bionic Woman, was broad and aggressive. Kenner produced a 12-inch Six Million Dollar Man doll that featured a “bionic” eye you could see through and “skin” on one arm that could be rolled back, revealing bionics underneath, as well as myriad variations and accessories. There was also an Oscar Goldman doll and several villains. A Bionic Woman doll was also produced, as well as designer fashions and a Bionic Beauty Salon playset. In addition, there were Six Million Dollar Man lunchboxes, posters, puzzles, board games, trading cards, and even a Bionic Action Club Kit.

CHARLTON COMICS And, of course, there were comics. In 1976, Charlton Comics launched The Six Million Dollar Man comic book. The title was initially published every other month, although after a few issues publication became more sporadic. The comic book typically included one or two feature comic stories, as well as a short text story that included a few illustrations (typically panels reprinted from a comic story.) The series was written by Charlton house

writer Joe Gill and assistant editor Nicola (Nick) Cuti, and the primary illustrator for the series was Joe Staton. Staton had started with Charlton in 1971, working on books like Ghost Manor, The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves, and Haunted Love. Working as an artist at Charlton was different from the “big guys,” as Staton explains: “At Charlton, they tried to keep everything as much as possible with each person doing all their own work. That way, it kept their editorial people from having to go to a lot of extra trouble bringing things in, sending them out. They would send you a story and you did the whole thing. You penciled, lettered, and inked it.” Staton enjoyed the creative freedom that Charlton afforded its artists. “They kept you busy with all kinds of different things and they didn’t mind if you suddenly changed styles from one story to another. You could try anything out.” Precisely how or why Charlton got the license for The Six Million Dollar Man is uncertain, but Staton mentioned one possibility: “They said at one point that they got a lot of licenses because they could keep a book going longer than other people because they worked so cheaply.” Nick Cuti had a similar impression. As part of his job as assistant editor, Cuti also did some of the production work, pasting, correcting artwork, proofing, etc. “I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that not only were we inexpensive, but we did our own printing and distribution,” Cuti says. Staton not only did much of the interior art for The Six Million Dollar Man comic book, but he painted one of the covers as well. “That’s when we were doing a lot of painted covers. I think it was Pat Boyette, but I won’t swear to it, that found a color separator down in Texas that could do color seps cheaper than Charlton could actually hand-separate the covers, so they encouraged us to do painted covers. It was fun. I think mostly I did them in acrylic. You could work with just about anything.” However, they were still subject to editorial approval. With issue #4 (Dec. 1976) of The Six Million Dollar Man comic book, for example, editor George Wildman opted for a Jack Sparling cover rather than the painting Joe Staton did for it, possibly because the Sparling version featured Steve Austin more prominently. Other artists who contributed to The Six Million Dollar Man comic book included Pat Boyette, Fred Himes, Hector Castellon, and Demetrio. Neal Adams did the cover for the second issue.

FACE TIME ABC expected the comic-book characters to look like their counterparts on the television series, but that was easier said than done, as Staton notes. “We had some stills, but they never sent us enough reference. We had very little reference when we started. My wife and I were living in the mountains at the time, and we weren’t actually getting the show. I’m not sure we were getting any TV. We were pretty far out. But we could come into Kingston, which was the closest town, and you could get it in town. So to get our reference, we came into the Ramada Inn in Kingston the night the show was on. My wife had a good camera, but she didn’t have a tripod, so we stacked up a bunch of books and she balanced her camera on top of the books and shot photos off of the TV screen while the show was on. That was most of the reference I had. It was very grainy.” Occasionally, though, the reference material for the comic book was outstanding. Staton recalls, “There was a Six Million Dollar Man story that started out at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. Of course,

I didn’t have any reference on that, so I called a publicrelations number at the Air Force and told them I was doing a comic and would they send me some photos. They did. They sent me a big packet of all the buildings and planes and landing strips and everything at Andrews Air Force Base. I always told everybody that in those days, if you wanted to be a good Soviet spy, you could pretend to be a comic-book artist and call up and get very useful shots for low-level bombing.” When it came to storylines for the comic book, beyond the initial “origin” story that appeared in the first issue, writers Joe Gill and Nick Cuti were given a lot of latitude. As Cuti notes, “I’m sure Universal and ABC were sent copies of the artwork and stories before they were published as a courtesy, but I can’t recall an instance where they ever requested a change or praised a particular story.” There was one notable exception. Joe Staton remembers the circumstances well: “I think the only one where we were specifically told the story we had to do was when they were selling a Six Million Dollar Man doll and

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Gator Gladiator Joe Staton’s splashy painted cover to The Six Million Dollar Man #4 (Dec. 1976) was rejected and replaced by a Jack Sparling cover. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions. © 2007 Universal.

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Full Metal Junket TM

WELL, ’PUTER. WHAT IS THE STORY BEHIND MY EXISTENCE?

DIRECTIVE RECEIVED, LUTHER MANNING. DECYPERHING PROCESS ACTIVATED. MONDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER, 2006, 10:00:00 HRS. CONVERSATION CONDUCTED WITH DEATHLOK THE DEMOLISHER CREATOR RICH BUCKLER. This was not by accident. What better interview subject, on the five-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, than the creator of a prescient futureshock series, published more than three decades ago, that was set in a near-future dystopia rife with crumbling Manhattan skyscrapers against doomsday horizons. Even in the funky 1970s—when Marvel Comics characters practiced voodoo, descended from Satan, brandished flaming skulls, drank blood, and suffered from lycanthropy—no American comic-book series was as cinematic, offbeat, and downright weird as “Deathlok the Demolisher.” As the character first appeared in Astonishing Tales #25–36 (Aug. 1974–July 1976), Deathlok was clearly the dark horse of the Marvel Universe. The titular cyborg, once a mere mortal US Army soldier named Luther Manning, struggled to reclaim his humanity while fighting a wily, power-hungry adversary in the midst of a cavernous, deserted New York City. Set in the far-flung future of 1990, Deathlok’s machine/man Manning grows increasingly disillusioned as he crosses a decaying Manhattan island and uncovers the truth— that he is a pawn in an evil plan hatched by his former superior, demagogue-run-amok Major Ryker, whose Savior-Machine scheme intends to consolidate all computer power for ultimate control. Deathlok was the creation of artist Rich Buckler, who was given rare carte blanche by Marvel to take an underselling title and present within it a deeply personal and brooding vision of societal decay; an epic battle of humanity versus a rapidly encroaching technology cinematically executed, in collaboration with writers Doug Moench and Bill Mantlo, and artists including Keith Pollard and a budding Klaus Janson. In just 12 issues, series architect Buckler delivered a short-lived yet quietly groundbreaking and influential story arc that, a decade later, became a font of inspiration for Hollywood. Readers at once embraced the series’ experimental storytelling style and flinched at its

Don’t Mess with This Cyborg From the Heritage Comics Auctions archives, the demolishing Deathlok penciled by the character’s creator and our esteemed interview subject, Rich Buckler, and inked by Greg Adams. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Michael Aushenker

unvarnished honesty, which did not shy away from exploring brutal violence or complex themes (interracial relationships, suicide, biblical allegory). In this BACK ISSUE exclusive, Buckler, for the first time ever, discusses Deathlok the Demolisher in print. In this candid conversation, a revelation emerges that is nothing short of “astonishing”—despite an ostensible nihilism and cynicism toward a Vietnam/Watergate-era US Government—the Deathlok series was, in fact, an apolitical metaphor conceived with none of those objectives in mind. —Michael Aushenker [Editor’s note: Although this interview was conducted just over a year ago, due to its subject matter its publication was delayed until this “Men of Steel”themed issue.] MICHAEL AUSHENKER: Five years ago today, at almost this very hour, the ominous events of September 11th, 2001 took place. You reside in Manhattan. Where were you at the time? RICH BUCKLER: Where I was living you could literally see [the terrorist attacks by] looking out the window. When it happened, I was both horrified and not quite surprised. I just couldn’t believe what was going on. And when I understood that the buildings were in danger of collapsing … I just felt a jolt. I don’t give a damn for buildings … I know it’s a powerful symbol. I just felt the huge loss of life. It was a tremendous blow. AUSHENKER: As these terrible events unfolded, what goes through the mind of the creator of the quintessential futureshock comic? BUCKLER: Where was the security? Where are the planes that were supposed to intercept this? Where is the control, where is the technology … why did it even happen? My thinking hasn’t changed too much regarding the technology. It’s flawed, we rely too much on it, we’ve got way too much information, and everything is going way too fast. We live very artificially … I felt that back when I created Deathlok and what I wanted to bring out was what it means to be human and explore that. While he looked like a monster and was plugged into the technology, the computer, the programming, the modern world, or what I perceived as the future (only ten or 12 years from there), it was really something that was going on in me internally as I was seeing where we were going in a general with this, and I wanted the character to personify that and go through some of the changes that I was going through … I didn’t, by the way, have anything to do with computers. I had an aversion to them, not a hatred of them, but I thought, “Now this is not really the way to go.” Now I’m very well-versed on computers. AUSHENKER: I want to quickly read a passage from Astonishing Tales #35, where Deathlok is locked in battle with Ryker.

Beginnings: Penciler of “The Symbionts” (inks by Neal Adams) in House of Secrets #90 (Feb.–Mar. 1971)

Milestones: Creator of Deathlok the Demolisher for Marvel Comics (Doug Moench, co-creator) / creator of Demon Hunter (Atlas Comics), Devil Slayer (Marvel), and Darkling (member of the Mighty Crusaders, for Archie/Red Circle) / co-creator (with Roy Thomas) of All-Star Squadron, Invincilbles!, Forever Warriors, Saga of the Human Torch, and Saga of the Sub-Mariner / Fantastic Four / Black Panther in Jungle Action / Superman / All-New Collectors’ Edition #C-58 (Superman vs. Shazam!) / Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (“Death of Jean deWolf” storyline) / World’s Finest Comics / artist of Hulk, The Phantom, and Flash Gordon newspaper strips

Works in Progress: How to Draw Dynamic Comic Books (Vanguard Productions, released in Aug. 2007) / Secrets of Drawing Comics (Vanguard, forthcoming)

Cyberspace: www.richbuckler.com (for surrealism and comics) / www.myspace.com/art_of_rich_buckler www.surrealismnow (surrealist paintings only; go to gallery, alphabetical listing)

RICH BUCKLER, SR. Courtesy of richbuckler.com.

Man-Made Manning

[Ryker explains he has relocated all citizens to Long Island.]

The rebuilding of Luther Manning, as seen on page 10 of Deathlok’s premiere outing, Astonishing Tales #25 (Aug. 1974). Courtesy of Deathlok art collector supreme Kelvin Mao.

DEATHLOK: You moved everyone in Manhattan?

RYKER: “Look down again, Deathlok! Explosions … tearing Manhattan apart! But who…? We never learned who … a terrorist perhaps! Maybe just a madman … or maybe the enemy! Our system began to crumble, Deathlok! Because of them! DEATHLOK: Who’s they, Ryker? And why’d they scare you? RYKER: Because they represented disorder, Deathlok! And chaos.

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RYKER: It was essential! The enemy had disrupted day-to-day functioning! We had no choice! DEATHLOK: Bull! There was no enemy, Ryker! You just wanted control—total, complete order...! RYKER: It was for their own good! People need someone to watch over them! DEATHLOK: So you elected yourself! Dictator and God all rolled into one! You’re mad, Ryker!

In the Bombastic Buckler Manner

It’s eerie how scenes such as this one anticipates not only the destruction in Manhattan but the suspicion of government today in the wake of 9/11; the perception many have of our leaders exploiting the enemy as an excuse to trample over our civil liberties—the Patriot Act, phonetapping, Guantanamo, etc. My intent is not to get into a political discussion but just to show how prescient your book was. BUCKLER: Ryker’s ambition to connect up to all the computers in the world and become a god and run everything—that’s probably the ultimate goal of anyone who has a lot of power and is seeking more and has

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gone over into that area of insanity or megalomania. So he’s sort of the quintessential mad guy, who is just totally absorbed in himself and has decided that nothing else exists and he’ll have ultimate control. AUSHENKER: There are many elements in Deathlok—a distrust of government, military, authority—that are in the cultural atmosphere now. BUCKLER: Well, Deathlok was a soldier and that was his world. I was never in the military. But I have friends and family members who are and were … but I wasn’t taking a stand against the military. [Deathlok’s] world was the military. That provided order for his life. But as a character, for the reader to identify with him, it was necessary for him to go through problems that the reader could relate to in a personal way. Everyone has felt from time to time that their world, it doesn’t make sense—I don’t fit in, why am I not connecting, what’s going wrong here. And I’m not talking about government or military, I’m talking about [when] your sense of reality is shaken a bit. Of course, 9/11 shook up everyone’s sense of reality. AUSHENKER: Were you reacting to the fallout from Vietnam/Watergate, since Deathlok was first published in 1974? BUCKLER: Undoubtedly, since I was fully aware of things going around me and I had my view of things. Understand where I’m coming from—my view usually consists of a number of points of view, because I’m a very surrealist-type thinker … seeing things from multiple points of view. AUSHENKER: So you were not trying to be on-the-nose about anything going on back then or trying to predict anything… BUCKLER: I wasn’t trying to predict anything. Certainly I was making commentary with storytelling elements, but what I was doing was pointing out—What are we? Why are we here? Where are we going? At the same time, I was dealing with this myself, so of course if

you’re thoroughly immersed in your art, what you’re going through internally is going to come through. And this was an opportunity for me to do this … it was a very personal project. I was left on my own to do what I wanted to do. A very great opportunity. AUSHENKER: There were some controversial scenes that stirred up the letter columns—I’m thinking particularly Astonishing Tales #28 (Feb. 1975), where a frustrated, disillusioned Deathlok rips the American flag off his chest, throws it to the ground, and steps on it. BUCKLER: A very important scene, yeah. This is a person who realizes that his world—and his reality—was shattered. He had to then find something to replace it with, or at least had to try to make some sense [of] the stage he had come to. It was an awakening, and this is where the character development came in, and I wanted to explore this as much as I could. He would have to figure out how to integrate this into his view from before. But his immediate reaction was it was all unreal—none of it mattered—and when he tore up the flag for me it was symbolic of not rejecting anything that the symbols stood for specifically but in general he was rejecting his past. What he was before … more in the sense of being an everyman, a person who has no country, no identity. AUSHENKER: He was more disoriented and disenfranchised than anti-patriotic. BUCKLER: Oh, this is long before The Matrix, but suppose you find out that everything is God and we are all, the whole universe is, God and the only reality is God and you go there and you find this out to be absolutely true. What do you do with it afterward when you come back to you, and there’s not supposed to be any you, it’s just supposed to be we’re all one? You have to integrate that into your thinking. AUSHENKER: There’s a war between humanity and science raging in Deathlok. We see that on the page with the dueling narratives between Manning and the computer, the battle for control of his mind. BUCKLER: Technology as religion … at war with the new mentality of the scientific mind, but as it’s developed through humanity and ultimately into a religion. It’s a religion with no god, it still has doctrine … dogma. It has everything that a religion has—places of worship. AUSHENKER: And it influences millions and has a hold on society. BUCKLER: It’s tremendously influential. A surrealist will very often take opposites and try to make it reconcile. That makes for very dynamic storytelling and very dynamic character development. AUSHENKER: What struck me about “Deathlok”, as a series and in spirit, is, it wasn’t like any other comic book or Marvel comic at the time. I see it more like a Sam Peckinpah movie. BUCKLER: I’m a big Sam Peckinpah fan. I was very young and nobody could tell me what to do. Young enough to not know better and to go where nobody went before … but also in terms of the opportunity to use it in a meaningful way. See, I’m coming from comic-book fandom … I can pretend I’m Jim Steranko … I can pretend I’m these big guys that are the storytelling greats [and] build on what they did. And where normally you’re on Captain America or on Fantastic Four or whatever, you have to follow what went before … there were no giant leaps because it’s a commercial medium, so it’s very difficult to find opportunities to do something new. AUSHENKER: It’s also a hit book and you don’t want to rock the boat… BUCKLER: Right, right, but I remember that several people came up to me and they said, “Richard, you’re

on Fantastic Four. You’ve been at Marvel Comics for a couple of years … and you’re drawing their numberone best-selling title. You’re on top, it’s you, Kirby, and John Buscema!” Of course, if I was riding on ego, I would say, “That’s it, everybody else is dust.” But I remember saying,”Well, let’s see what happens in six months or a year … I’ll probably be drawing something else and I don’t know where this is going, but I’m going to ride this.” My goal was never to be famous or influential. Of course, those things come with the territory if you are successful, but always it was and is the art first and telling a good story. AUSHENKER: Deathlok was your baby. It’s obvious that you pushed the envelope and really experimented with the multiple-narrative device, with compositions, and layout. Some pages were literally sideways. I would assume you even had discussions with the colorist because there are flashbacks that are in different color schemes, passages that were monochromatic. BUCKLER: I colored a cover and a couple of pages and I consulted with [then-Marvel art director] Marie Severin about how to do it. She was an absolute sweetheart. I found out that the coloring was tremendously slow for me, so I gave it over back to the [colorists]. I worked closely with the colorist and the letterer. I met Annette Kawecki, a new person starting—she was the only one willing to hand-letter that computer font. AUSHENKER: Right, she got a special credit for the computer’s lettering. BUCKLER: She actually invented the typeface. She took time and worked it all out and showed it to me. We did it step by step and it was grueling for her to do it. It took two or three times longer … because we didn’t

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In 1975, DC Comics was expanding its comics line with several sword-and-sorcery titles such as Beowulf, Stalker, and Claw the Unconquered. The genre had often proved a hard nut to crack for comics publishers, and most of the titles launched at this time died quick and early deaths. Note that I said “most.” Enter The Warlord, which ran for 133 issues before ending its run in 1989. The Warlord told the adventures of Travis Morgan, a modern man who discovers a barbaric world inside the hollow crust of the Earth. Created by Mike Grell— who at the time was illustrating one of DC’s best-selling titles—Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes— Warlord was healthy mix of mythical creatures, evil sorcerers, and blade-wielding heroes inspired by the works of Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and J.R.R. Tolkein. But every legend has its roots, often shrouded in the mists of a forgotten age. Join creator “Iron” Mike Grell as we return to the lost world of the Warlord. – Philip Schweier PHILIP SCHWEIER: Let’s talk about The Warlord. MIKE GRELL: Do that. SCHWEIER: You had started kind of developing the creation when in college, is that right? In art school? GRELL: Ah, no. Well, I suppose you could say that; art school, post-college, post-Air Force. I was at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art when I started doing “The Warlord,” and I was also moonlighting in commercial art at the time, and “The Warlord” had his genesis as a comic strip called Savage Empire. SCHWEIER: Then you offered it to … was it Charlton? … no, it was Atlas— GRELL: Atlas [aka Seaboard, a mid-1970s publisher]. I was already working at DC Comics, and I found out that Atlas was offering a hundred bucks a page,

Iron Mike’s Lost World Hero Travis Morgan, aka the Warlord, in a commissioned painting by the swashbuckler’s creator, Mike Grell. Courtesy of Scott Kress of Catskill Comics (to inquire about commissions by Grell and other artists, visit www.catskillcomics.com). © 2007 DC Comics.

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Philip Schweier

conducted July 18, 2006 and transcribed by Brian K. Morris

which was about two and a half times what DC was offering at the time, and it sounded like a real good idea. But when I pitched the thing to [Atlas editor] Jeff Rovin, I explained to him that I already had a commitment to DC and I wanted to make sure that I demonstrated to them that I could meet all my commitments, and asked him to keep it under his hat until I had a couple of issues in the can. He said, “No problem,” and I walked from his office to DC, which was about 20 minutes across town. And by the time I got there, [then-DC publisher] Carmine Infantino was waiting for me in the hallway. He said Jeff Rovin had just called and told him that he had me tied up for two books a month. And Carmine, of course, wanted to know why I hadn’t brought the concept to DC instead, and I explained to him that I honestly didn’t think DC would be that interested because they hadn’t had any success, really, with fantasy and science fiction, non-action/adventure kind of stuff. And he said, “Well, why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” So we walked into his office and as we walked in, the telephone was ringing and he excused himself to take the call, which was just as well because as we were sort of going through his door, almost in that moment, it dawned on me that there was no way he was going to buy it, not in the form that it was. So while Carmine was on the phone for about two or three minutes, I completely revised the concept from The Savage Empire into The Warlord. Savage Empire was the story of an archeologist who stumbles through a time portal and winds up in Atlantis. It was sort a “Connecticut Yankee in Atlantis” instead of King Arthur’s court. And my story changed to become the story of a US spy pilot who stumbles on a portal into the world at the center of the Earth where creatures from mythology and Earth’s ancient past co-exist, leftovers of the civilization of Atlantis and other things as well. About the only thing that I kept in there was the name of the villain, Deimos. I was going to change that to “Phobos,” but it was just such a cool name that I decided to keep it. SCHWEIER: “Deimos” has a much more threatening sound and is worthy of being Travis Morgan’s archnemesis. GRELL: Well, it’s taken from the moons of Mars, Phobos. SCHWEIER: Exactly. Now, this was not your first writing gig for DC. You had done a Green Arrow story. GRELL: Yes. SCHWEIER: How did that Green Arrow story lead to writing The Warlord for you at DC? Did it kind of prove yourself in the eyes of the editorial department? GRELL: I think so, to a certain extent, maybe to a large extent. I had always thought that if you were capable of creating an interesting story in pictures, why shouldn’t you be able to put the words with it as long as you have the basic English Lit skills, which I never had a problem with. I sort of aced it in college so storytelling kind of came natural for me. I had an idea that I pitched to [editor] Julie Schwartz, and [one-time Green Arrow writer] Elliot Maggin was writing at the time, and I wanted to do this story with me doing Green Arrow’s basic plots and all the lines and then everything else, and Elliott doing the dialogue. And I kind of was all finished. The first one came out pretty good. The second time around, I thought that Julie’s ending was a little heavy-handed. It was changed from a story about a female counterpart to Green Arrow to a story of a

Beginnings: Dale Messick’s assistant on Brenda Starr / Aquaman backup feature in Adventure Comics #435 (1974)

Milestones: Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes / The Warlord Green Lantern/Green Arrow / Starslayer (Pacific Comics) / Jon Sable, Freelance / Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters / Green Arrow James Bond 007: License to Kill and Permission to Die graphic novels Shaman’s Tears (Image Comics) / Iron Man / Jon Sable, Freelance: Bloodtrail / The Complete Jon Sable trade paperbacks

Works in Progress: new Jon Sable, Freelance graphic novel (ComicMix) / The Pilgrim graphic novel

Cyberspace: www.mikegrell.com (official site) www.catskillcomics.com (commissions)

MIKE GRELL Photo from Amazing World of DC Comics #12 (1976).

young boy who is the reincarnation of King David. Instead of a bow and arrow, he’s using a sling to knock off bad guys. You know, I pretty much threw my hands up in the air and said, “Okay, I’ll let somebody else write it, but I’ll draw it.” I pretty much shelved the idea and pulled it out again—at least the basic concept of it—years later for Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters. But, yeah, in all of that, as I was getting going, I had already shown Joe Orlando my portfolio, which included The Savage Empire, and I had shown him the old Iron Mike stuff that I had done years before that, a private-eye comic strip. And that, I think, swayed him as much as anything else. Plus, I had a great line of B.S. and, well, I got the shot. You know, Carmine promised me a one-year run on the book, and I thought that was a lot better guarantee than a crapshoot with Atlas. And it turned out that Atlas wasn’t around for very long. You know, they only published a few issues of the books that they did bring out. Some of them were brilliant, but unfortunately, the company didn’t last and the titles went down with it. [Editor’s note: Join us next issue for a history of Altas Comics.] And Carmine, of course, wasn’t very good for his word because he canceled The Warlord after story number three, issue #2, I think it was. SCHWEIER: It debuted in First Issue Special #8 (Nov. 1975). GRELL: Correct. SCHWEIER: And then there was The Warlord issue #1 (Jan.–Feb. 1976) and 2 (Mar.–Apr. 1976), it was canceled.

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GRELL: Well, at the end of the third story [Warlord #2], imagine my surprise when I’m reading through and looking at the lettering and I read “The End” at the end of it. I was very surprised and DC said, “Well, Carmine canceled it,” and there was nothing I could do. But fortunately, Jenette Kahn replaced Carmine very shortly after that and it turns out that Jenette had been a big fan of The Warlord, thought it had some merit, and had it put back on the schedule. [Editor’s note: The Warlord #3 was cover-dated Oct.–Nov. 1976.] SCHWEIER: That … hiccup in the early issues—did that affect you at all in terms of production? Or was it just a quick jump-in-the-saddle again to launch that third issue and the ongoing series? GRELL: It was pretty easy. The story had already been planned out, there was no question about where it was going. I had the first year’s worth of stories already plotted out, so jumping in and continuing with the production was no big deal. This part of the big “DC Implosion” thing where everything that wasn’t canceled went from bimonthly to monthly, so there wasn’t that much of a gap, actually. SCHWEIER: A lot of different elements were borrowed to go into Warlord, such as Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth and some of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar material. But what else did you include in the mix? A little bit of everything, from what I understand. GRELL: A lot, a lot. Before the turn of the century, the 20th Century, there were something like 57 or 58 different titles written on the theory of Hollow Earth, and I drew on several of those that I had at my disposal, along with the inspirations of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar, and combined some of those aspects. For instance, the world of Skartaris is named for the mountain peak in Journey to the Center of the Earth that points the way down into the volcano that shows the party the proper tunnel to take that leads them to the center of the Earth, except it’s spelled “S-c-a-r” instead of “S-k-a-r.” “Shamballa,” of course, is from [the '70s rock band] Three Dog Night: “How does

Mr. and Mr. Warlord Travis Morgan and Tara, from page 1 of Warlord #17 (Jan. 1979). Art by Grell and Colletta. (next two pages) Warlord commissions by Grell, courtesy of Catskill Comics. © 2007 DC Comics.

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the light shine in the halls of Shamballa?” which is actually, again, spelled differently, spelled with a “C.” But it’s the fabled golden city that’s supposed to be in a hollow mountain in Tibet someplace. There’s supposed to be a tunnel or a cave, a cavern, that leads to this golden city somewhere buried in the Earth. SCHWEIER: Kind of a Shangri-La. GRELL: And that had a bit to do, with Shamballa, with the world at the center of the Earth as well. SCHWEIER: Let’s talk about supporting characters. There was Tara, Morgan’s wife, and they had something of a rather dysfunctional relationship. GRELL: Morgan himself was pretty dysfunctional. Here’s a guy who starts out with all these noble intentions. And among them is to put an end to things like slavery, the abuse of power, and all of that has to do with the fact that he’s a victim of those things. And as soon as he’s no longer a victim, he sort of forgets about it, kind of like the people during the '60s who were protesting the war in Vietnam and wanting to make the world a better planet. Well, the planet we have right now is a byproduct of that generation. That generation is now the people who are running things and is it better? You could say maybe so, but maybe not. Not a lot has changed, really. And the fact is that after the Draft was abolished, it was no longer any concern to them. They were less concerned with making things right in the world, with taking care of the planet, with taking care of their fellow man, because it wasn’t of immediate importance to them, and Morgan is very much like that. Plus, you have a strong, independent woman who is, just coincidently, the queen of her own nation. Now she has responsibilities and understands the responsibility that she has. And so to her, her duties to her people come first. And Morgan, of course, is always just running around, swinging his sword, he’s having a great old time: “Bye, honey. See you later. I’m off to the wars. I’m off to have some adventures,” and he leaves her, ditches her to go off and have fun. And every single time he comes back, she breaks his nose. Every single time, she punches him in the nose, knocks him on his ass, and for the life of him, he can’t figure out why. He doesn’t have a clue. SCHWEIER: Sadly, most men are like that these days. GRELL: Oh, yeah! SCHWEIER: I mean, he’s hardly acting out of type, whether he’s in Skartaris or 20th Century America. GRELL: Exactly, exactly. He’s sort of the quintessential caveman. He’s a modern man in a primitive society, but the primitive is just barely below the surface in him, which is one of the things that makes the character interesting. He makes all of the mistakes that we make, that ordinary people make—but in the end, he has a tendency to at least want to try to do something good. He just stumbles and fumbles and bumbles and along the way, he’s lost track of what it was that he set out to do. Ultimately, that’s going to be his downfall. SCHWEIER: Getting back to Deimos, he was Morgan’s arch-nemesis … and a rather powerful one at that. GRELL: Right. He combined at least the rudimentary knowledge of Atlantean science that he acquired by experimenting with machinery that had been left over from this lost race with mystical, magical abilities that made him a pretty formidable enemy, and tough to kill. SCHWEIER: Yes, he came back a number of times.

GRELL: [chuckles] Yes, yes, that was the fun part about Deimos. [laughter] One of my favorite Deimos resurrections was when he was killed by a dog who knocked him off the edge of a canyon and he’s crushed and mangled down below. And when he’s resurrected, bits and pieces of the dog go along with him. So now he’s got patches of fur that sticks out a bit all over the place, he’s got fangs like the dog. No nobility, though. SCHWEIER: And then there’s—help me with the pronunciation here—is it Machiste [pronouncing it “MahKEE-stay”]? GRELL: Actually, it’s “MAH-kiss-tee,” but close enough. I had never heard that name spoken and I assigned pronunciation to it, based on what I thought it might be. And then I’ve heard it pronounced “Mah-CHEE-stay.” As far as I’m concerned, it’s to-may-to/to-mah-to, po-tay-to/ po-tah-to. SCHWEIER: A lot of Morgan’s supporting cast seems to be people who were from the surface world, like Mariah, the Russian archeologist. GRELL: Yeah, Mariah, as in “they call the wind…” SCHWEIER: [chuckles] And Jennifer, his daughter. GRELL: Right. SCHWEIER: Jennifer seemed to go from a woman in search of her father to the high priestess/sorceress of Skartaris in a pretty short time. Was that an effort to just kind of round out the cast and this is the role she’d fill? How did that development come about? GRELL: Well, part of the reason for bringing Jennifer in to it was to remind the readers that Morgan had another life before he became the Warlord of Skartaris. And having her become the sorceress supreme was almost for the fun of it as anything else. I wanted to give her a meaningful role in the storylines to make her a valuable ally and an asset to Morgan, particularly in his battles against Deimos, but I also wanted to explore some other things with her. And Mongo Ironhand—Mongo was the little wizard from a sort of a land inside a mirror. When Morgan travels back and forth in time, he encounters a land inside of this mirror. He doesn’t just backpack it, but he travels back and forth through time, by passing through this magical mirror. He travels to a land where things are as they were in Skartaris before the Atlanteans arrived, a land of mystical magic and no science involved, just an incredible, fanciful place. And Mongo Ironhand was this little dwarfish wizard who, in my vision, I saw him as sort of a sawed-off George Burns, if that’s possible, [Philip laughs] with magical powers. Instead of the perennial cigar, he had a giant martini, and I thought the two of them playing together were a great combination of humor and lechery that seemed to go well with the George Burns-type of a character. And I thought it was awfully interesting that, as a juxtaposition of powers and abilities, I show how this woman who comes from a land of modern technology and science jettisons all of that, but finds a way to become really a supreme force in the world that she lives in. SCHWEIER: I see. That’s a lot more than I ever expected of the character. I thought, “Oh, we just gained another character. Let’s make it a magical

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Look closely at panel 5 on this page from the 1984 Machine Man miniseries for finisher (over Herb Trimpe’s pulsepounding layouts) Barry Windsor-Smith’s signature (initials, actually). Original art scan courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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thing that matched his, you’d have a problem. So a marriage made in Heaven is not the way I would describe that project, and neither would he—granted, for different reasons.” For his part, Windsor-Smith feels differently: “I had wanted to return to comics art for awhile, but found that I had lost touch with comics’ necessary dynamics after a ten-year absence from the medium. Around that time, my friend Herb Trimpe was beginning the MM series. Inking his pencil work seemed like a good way to jump-start my dormant stylistic brain patterns. It helped me enormously. By the fourth book I was writing, penciling, inking, and coloring again. “I did enjoy it. It was an important re-learning exercise for me. Herb was gracious to let me take it over the way I did. It was a necessary thing to do, though, to find my feet again.” DeFalco: “I loved working on [Machine Man 2020]. It gave me a chance to stretch myself creatively and to work with Herb. Herb and I had a blast. We collaborated very closely, discussing how each scene would play out and the themes we wanted to hit. “Herb and I were the storytellers for the first three issues. Barry worked closely with Herb on the artwork. For reasons that I no longer remember, Herb couldn’t do the last issue of the series, so Barry graciously did the pencils as well as the inks. Needless to say, Barry did a terrific job, but I still wish Herb could have been there!” The resulting series, with its blend of sci-fi, super-heroics, and the best efforts of three unique creative talents was, to this author, one of the finest things Marvel published during that period. “Really?” ponders Windsor-Smith. “I’m certainly not questioning your taste or choice in the matter, but this must mean that most of the other stuff from that period was pretty low grade. “I don’t usually praise myself—quite the opposite, in fact— but I thought the last issue was really very good. The old guy shooting himself; the love-lost dynamic between MM and [Jocasta]; and the fight between Iron Man and MM, where MM gets pretty much smashed to pieces. I thought that was cool.” With the limited series proving successful enough to be reprinted several times, it is perhaps a little strange that there was no sequel. DeFalco again: “When we were working on the series, Herb and I were just focused on doing the best four issues we could. We had no plans beyond the one story. After the series came out, enough people seemed to like it to justify a sequel. Herb and I kept trying to get together to work one, but something else always got in the way. We were both very busy in those days and never got beyond the ‘Hey, we should do another one of those’ stage. It never occurred to us to pitch a series about Machine Man 2020. We both knew that no one would buy a series based on a possible alternate future … at least until Spider-Girl came around.” Following the limited series, and a stint as an Avenger, MM headed temporarily for comics limbo. He would be revived again several times in the 1990s and beyond—and even get his own series again under the X-51 title, which ran 12 issues (Sept. 1999–July 2000). All of which goes to prove that you just can’t keep a good machine down—especially a human one. “I loved the fact that Machine Man was always struggling with his humanity and trying to improve himself,” concludes DeFalco. “He wanted to be best the ‘man’ he could be—a worthy goal for all of us!” ALLAN HARVEY is a London-based writer and artist. He maintains Gorilla Daze, a blog that appreciates wacky comics. It can be found at www.thefifthbranch.com/gorilladaze. M e n

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Dan Johnson

cond ucte d July 12, 2007

If you want to succeed in business, you have to tap into your full potential. While on the comics page Tony Stark may have learned that lesson a long time ago, some of the writers and artists who were crafting tales of his alter ego, Iron Man, had not. All that changed though when inker Bob Layton and writer David Michelinie were given the nod to helm the adventures of Ol’ Shellhead from Iron Man #116 (Nov. 1978) to #153 (Dec. 1981). During their run on the book, Iron Man became a major power player in the Marvel Universe and a huge hit with fans of Marvel Comics. More importantly, the man in the Golden Armor, Tony Stark, took center stage in the series and was finally fleshed out as a character. The world that the man behind Stark Industries inhabited, and comics in general, became richer for this new emphasis. Indeed, Layton and Michelinie’s initial run was so successful and fondly remembered that they were asked to return to the book for a second time during Iron Man #215–232 (Feb. 1988–July 1989). Recently BACK ISSUE caught up with Layton and Michelinie and got the story about their two times with the Golden Avenger, and we also got the inside scoop about how they are returning to the character once more in an effort to yet again build a better Iron Man. – Dan Johnson DAN JOHNSON: Thank you both for sitting down and doing this “Pro2Pro” interview with BACK ISSUE. The theme of this particular issue is “Men of Steel,” and you certainly can’t do an issue like this without talking about Iron Man. Tell our readers how you two came to work on this character. DAVID MICHELINIE: We had worked together at DC on Claw the Unconquered and we had become friends over that [series]. We had both recently left DC to work for Marvel and we were offered Iron Man by Jim Shooter. I had never read Iron Man before, and it was one of Bob’s

Iron Men Tony Stark and his temporary replacement as Iron Man, James “Rhodey” Rhodes, in a 2001 Bob Layton commissioned illustration. From the collection of Chris Murrin. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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favorite books, so we made a good team. Bob knew all the stuff that had happened in the past, and I knew absolutely nothing, so I was coming to it with fresh eyes. BOB LAYTON: If I remember correctly, there were three books offered to us and Iron Man was one of them. They were three books that were at the bottom [in sales rankings]. Do you recall that? MICHELINIE: It may well have happened, but I have no memory of that. LAYTON: I think I was just so excited to find out Iron Man was one of the books they had available. MICHELINIE: If so, then that’s probably the reason I picked it. The advantage of having you know the character was probably a factor. LAYTON: It’s safe to say that Dave kind of rolled with this. I was always such a huge fan of armored characters anyway, from my King Arthur obsession on, that Dave just listened to all my ranting about this character from my childhood and he formed his take on Iron Man from my opinions. Is that fair, Dave? MICHELINIE: [slight pause] Okay. LAYTON: [laughs] MICHELINIE: I don’t know if I formed my opinions, but I certainly got a great deal of background, and your enthusiasm bled off into my viewpoint, I’m sure. LAYTON: I was a lot more excitable in those days. MICHELINIE: I don’t know if that has diminished. LAYTON: [laughter] Thanks! JOHNSON: You said Iron Man was selling poorly when you took over. When you sat down together to discuss what needed to be done to improve the sales, what conclusions did you draw? What changes did you think had to be made? LAYTON: Get rid of the Ani-Men! [laughter] Wasn’t that our first agenda, Dave? MICHELINIE: I think our first agenda was to push the character into a more realistic direction, looking at Tony Stark as a real guy and determining what would a real guy in his position do. That’s why one of the first storylines we wanted to do was “Demon in a Bottle,” an alcoholism storyline. S.H.I.E.L.D. had been trying to take over his company and [Stark] had all kinds of women problems. As some would say, you wouldn’t give his problems to a monkey on a rock. [Faced with these problems,] what would a real person do? A real person would look for some kind of safety valve and at the time, with Tony being a millionaire playboy in the 1980s before crack cocaine became such a popular item, drinking seemed to be the logical way to push him. That was our main thrust, to try and take this character and change him as a real person and see where that led us.

Corner symbol art by Bob Layton used during the Iron Man run penciled by John Romita, Jr.

Beginnings: Inker on Charlie Nichols’ pencils for “By the Dawn’s Early Light,” published in Charlton Comics’ Beyond the Grave #5 (Apr. 1976)

Milestones: Co-creator of the Huntress / plotter and inker on Iron Man / writer and artist on Hercules limited series / writer on X-Factor / co-founder of Valiant Comics / co-creator of X-O Manowar / co-founder of Future Comics

Works in Progress: Iron Man: The End one-shot / a new miniseries featuring the third installment of the Iron Man/Dr. Doom/Camelot trilogy for Marvel Comics / writer and inker of the online monthly web-comic, Colony, at www.boblayton.com

Cyberspace: www.boblayton.com

BOB LAYTON Photo courtesy of Bob Layton.

Beginnings: “Puglyon’s Crypt,” published in DC’s House of Secrets #116 (Feb. 1974)

Milestones: Co-plotter and scripter of Iron Man / The Avengers / Star Wars / The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones / The Unknown Soldier / The Bozz Chronicles / The Amazing Spider-Man / creator of Venom / Action Comics / co-founder of Future Comics

Works in Progress: Co-plotter and scripter of Iron Man: The End one-shot and Iron Man/Dr. Doom/Camelot trilogy miniseries for Marvel Comics / short stories for Moonstone prose anthologies including The Phantom Chronicles and Moonstone Monsters: Werewolves

DAVID MICHELINIE Photo courtesy of Bob Layton.

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MICHELINIE: The thing was Iron Man had friends, like Captain America and so forth, but we never wrote Iron Man. We always plotted and wrote Tony Stark. Whether he was in a business suit or a suit of armor, he was the same character, and we felt that was a very important focus of what we did. As far as creating a supporting cast, we looked at it from a logical viewpoint and said, “What do we need?” As Tony Stark he’s not going to fly around. He needs someone to fly him, he needs a pilot. That was the genesis initially of Jim Rhodes, and as we developed Jim, he became Tony’s friend. It was the same with Mrs. Arbogast. Tony needed an executive secretary. LAYTON: [He also] needed a woman who was immune to his persuasive powers. MICHELINIE: Well, I think most people would have been immune to her feminine wiles as well. Arbogast was someone who stood up to Tony, too. JOHNSON: How about Justin Hammer? MICHELINIE: Hammer also came from need. There were all of these secondary bad guys who always seemed to be caught. They could never successfully rob a bank, but you wondered where the hell they were getting all their costumes and weapons. Some of them were really dumb and couldn’t have invented this stuff, so where was it coming from? Justin Hammer [was] the solution to that question. He’s a villain, but he sits back and doesn’t take chances. He finances other villains for a percentage of the take. That seemed to make sense and it filled a gap that we perceived in the Marvel Universe.

(right) “I did two drawings with the concept of creating a streamlined nanite version of both Doctor Doom (April 2006) and Iron Man (not shown),” explains Bob Layton of this illo. (below) A commission based on a variety of images from the “Armor Wars” storyline. Courtesy of Bob Layton. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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JOHNSON: So he was sort of the Anti-Stark, an evil businessman Tony could go up against in and out of the boardroom? LAYTON: We were focusing on Tony Stark being a businessman, so one of the questions that came up was that there had to be a counterpart to him in the business world, how do we portray him? Unlike Tony, Hammer was a recluse, he was somebody who wasn’t in the public eye, and he did everything clandestinely. He was a fun character to create parallels to Tony Stark. Tony needed a counterpart—and an incredible counterpart at that, to his world. JOHNSON: You two introduced new Iron Man armor designs, which gave Tony Stark the ultimate power suit no matter what the situation. It was a logical idea, as I couldn’t see Stark solely relying on just one armor all the time. MICHELINIE: Again, I think that’s an example of us looking at the character and the situation and wondering what would really happen. You hit on the point there that one suit of armor wouldn’t do it all. Bob was the

one who designed all the armors, so I’m going to turn it over to Bob now. LAYTON: Technology is different today than it was when we were doing this book back in the '80s. Part of my whole Iron Man obsession came from when I was a kid and drawing cars and stuff like that. I was always perturbed that Iron Man never looked like metal ’cause all the cars I always drew were shiny. I realized then, to some degree, that if you’re in a stock-car race, you don’t run an Indy car. If you’re in a drag race, you don’t run a stock car. Machines are designed for a specific task and I remembered this old Batman story that Bob Kane did, “The Different Suits of Batman,” and he had like a green suit for hiding in trees and a white suit for hiding in the snow. I think he even had a suit

(above) Layton’s original design for Iron Man baddie the Ghost. “As you can see,” remarks Bob, “nothing varied from the original concept to the finished page.” (left) Re this unpublished version of the cover to Iron Man #219 (June 1987), Layton confesses, “It was a real shame that no one ever saw this cover. You see—I never turned it in to Marvel. Just as I was completing this version, I got an inspiration to do the same scene in a more simplistic fashion. The printed version of this cover [see inset] had only the two figures (medium shot) against a totally white field.” © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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LEGENDS OF THE SUPERHEROES: The Challenge January 18, 1979, NBC-TV, 8:00–9:00 PM The episode begins with a heroic roll call, wherein each hero poses and/or demonstrates their power. Then, we cut to a secret hideout located in a hidden swamp on a remote island, where the arch-enemies of the SuperHeroes have gathered to hatch a diabolical plot. After a roll call of the villains—who sit semi-circle in a hall with curving architecture that brings to mind the headquarters of the Legion of Doom on Hanna-Barbera’s Challenge of the Super Friends (coincidentally on ABC Saturday mornings at that time)—Dr. Sivana introduces his Doomsday Device which will destroy the world by the end of the show (i.e., 60 minutes). The SuperHeroes, meanwhile, are deep in their own secret cave fortress, honoring the aging super-hero Scarlet Cyclone, now known as “Retired Man.” But when the Riddler sends them clues, the heroes break into action to find the Doomsday Device and deactivate it before it explodes. Batman and Robin soon encounter Solomon Grundy at a gas station, where he further sabotages the already-sabotaged (by Sinestro) Batmobile, forcing the heroes to race off without their famous car. Then, Green Lantern discovers that a strange gypsy fortuneteller is really Sinestro; after a short battle, he presses on. Meanwhile, Batman and Robin buy a motorcycle and sidecar from “Honest Hal” (really Weather Wizard), which splits up the Dynamic Duo when it splits in two. But horrors, Hawkman and Black Canary are captured by Grundy at the gas station, and are rescued later by Captain Marvel, who’s narrowly escaped a Freudian psychologist who is really the Riddler. Later, Sivana slips a potion into lemonade, which strips several heroes of their powers, but soon, Batman is chasing Mordru on a jet-ski at Hidden Island Lake! Toasting their impending victory, the villains accidentally drink the anti-power formula. The heroes—who have mysteriously and without explanation gotten their powers back between commercials—eventually converge on the villains’ hideout with only minutes left. After a brief slapstick battle, the heroes are triumphant and stop the doomsday machine with only a second to spare! COMMENTS: With a very heavy emphasis on Batman, Robin, and the Riddler, this was obviously supposed to play on the popularity of the original Batman show. Slapstick is prevalent, logic is non-existent, and Flash, Huntress, and Giganta act largely as set decoration. Robin’s moronic “Holy expletive” dialogue lends the funniest moments, although the Solomon Grundy scenes (with Greek chorus-like Marsha Warfield of Night Court providing a running phone commentary) were relatively funny. And just in case viewers didn’t catch the jokes, a “helpful” laugh track was there to aid them. Still, how cool was it to see Black Canary and Hawkman versus Solomon Grundy?

(top) Villains unite to challenge the SuperHeroes. Left to right: Solomon Grundy, Sinestro, Dr. Sivana, Mordru, Giganta, Riddler, and Weather Wizard. (center) Gotham’s grooviest: (left) Ward and West back in tights, and (right) Barbara Joyce as the Huntress. (bottom) Sinestro’s up to no good under the Batmobile’s hood. Legends of the SuperHeroes © 1979 DC Comics Inc. and Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc.

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LEGENDS OF THE SUPERHEROES: The Roast January 25, 1979, NBC-TV, 8:00–9:00 PM Ed McMahon hosts this special, which is intended to be a roast of the SuperHeroes. While modern roasts are more clearly raunch-fests, 1970s television roasts of celebrities required the comedians of the day to be cleverer with their zingers, while still being raunchy. The writers of this second Legends special had to neuter the jokes even further, to keep it mostly clean enough for younger viewers to enjoy. The heroes assemble for their special tribute, each dutifully sitting behind a silver podium with their symbol emblazoned on its slanted top. Ed McMahon then begins introducing those who have come to roast the heroes, beginning with Flash villain Weather Wizard, who rains on the heroes and their hideout. Next, Hawkman’s aged mother Esther Hawkman (from Thanagar) grouses about raising a son with wings. We soon meet Ghetto Man, a jive-talkin’ street hero who gains superpowers when he shouts “Kareem!” Ghetto Man even riffs on the need for “colored” heroes, disqualifying Green Lantern as he’s not colored (is it a stretch to think this could reference the infamous story by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams?). Dr. Sivana shows up to give everyone physicals and try to woo the heroines, before Retired Man stumbles in again to join the fun. Superhero gossip columnist Rhoda Rooter fills us in on the latest, including an interview with the Atom and Giganta, who have recently married. Later, Ed McMahon is battered senseless by Solomon Grundy, before Sinestro shows up to zap Green

Lantern. Crack-shot villainess Aunt Minerva shows up (carried by two Speedo-wearing bodybuilders) to get a sixth husband, eventually deciding on Captain Marvel. When he cries at the shotgun wedding, she dumps him, wanting a real man. It is only then that the heroes discover her superpower is the ability to turn into a ravishing blond. But by now, it’s too late. The evening ends when Mordru makes a nasty entrance, does a song-and-dance number, and blows up part of the heroes’ headquarters. He is rewarded by a pie-in-the-face from Batman. Bringing the roast to a close, Ed McMahon yells “Kareem!” and flies off the stage.

(left) Grundy gets ugly to Roast host Ed McMahon. (top right) Lucky for Black Canary and the Huntress that dirty ol’ Retired Man’s advances took place in pre-Viagra 1979. (bottom center) With one magic word: “Kareem!” It’s Ghetto Man! (bottom right) Hawkman, Ghetto Man, and Captain Marvel.

COMMENTS: This hour was mostly tiresome (especially the Mordru and Sinestro’s scenes) and inert (due to a one-stage set), yet it had a few funny moments. Hawkman’s mother was humorous, as was Rhoda Rooter with her tactless questions about the sex life of the Atom and Giganta (jokes which producer Deke Heyward apparently fought with writer Marmer about including). One favorite moment was when Ed McMahon was repeatedly beaten up by Solomon Grundy. Talk about wish-fulfillment! Perhaps the best sequence is when Robin has totaled the Batmobile and tries to disguise this from Batman. When an emergency arises and Batman wants to race to the Batmobile, Robin plays a game of charades with him to drag out the fatal news. At the end, Batman is so excited that he’s figured out the phrase “The Batmobile is totaled!” that he’s almost too excited to get angry. This sequence rivaled some of the best of the 1960s moments from West and Ward. Unfortunately for Bat-fans, though, Frank Gorshin’s Riddler is M.I.A.

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One scene was written to include Sivana’s lemonade stand near the waters where a jet-ski battle occurs between Mordru, Batman, and the others, but problems cropped up. “They had done all this location scouting, and built the whole lemonade stand set in a completely different area, nowhere near the water,” notes Gallay. “I showed them that the stand had to be near the water to witness the jet-ski battle, so they tore the whole thing down and rebuilt it after heading back to the lake.” It was The Challenge, actually the second show shot, that took the most time to film: approximately ten days because of locations, according to Carruthers. The Roast, for which Gorshin had not been available, was shot in two days, after an in-studio practice of less than a week. Carruthers feels that The Roast is the stronger of the two, while Heyward noted that it was originally the only special slated; The Challenge was added soon after as a follow-up.

(top) One-time sitcom dad (from The Patty Duke Show) William Schallert as the Scarlet Cyclone, aka Retired Man. (bottom) The entire cast of The Challenge. Legends of the SuperHeroes © 1979 DC Comics Inc. and Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc.

After the shows were shot, edited, and ready-to-air, NBC censors got nervous. Over Black Canary and Huntress’ excessive cleavage? No. Over Robin’s more prominent basket? Nuh-uh. Over the offensive Ghetto Man? Nope. It was over Retired Man’s scenes. NBC had been getting flak over their making fun of old people in sitcoms, and it was decided that Legends of the SuperHeroes crossed the line too far. Thus, Gallay, who had dropped into the offices to pick something up, had to immediately come up with a voice-over for Schallert to loop in which he explained why he was so infirm. NBC censors were pleased, and the shows aired.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LEGENDS Ratings were okay for the two Legends specials, but no series was even contemplated. Heyward laid the series rejection at NBC’s feet, citing the restructuring in the network which messed up a lot of shows that year. Marmer, meanwhile, felt that the shows were not promoted well at all, thus not earning better ratings. “The world didn’t know what to do with the show,” said Marmer, “but the people in the business loved it. People who were alive and intelligent at that time seem to remember it well,” he laughed. The two specials were lost to the archives, forgotten by almost all TV reference books ever written. Years later, Peter Gallay was working on the Mary Tyler Moore Hour, when a fellow writer who was talking on the phone handed the phone to him. “Harlan Ellison wants to talk to you,” the writer said. Harlan came on the phone, complimenting Gallay on Legends of the SuperHeroes. According to Gallay, Harlan reportedly said something along the lines of, “Those are the greatest things I ever saw! I’ve got them on tape,” before discussing his favorite moments. Today, with the advent of unusual shows and specials being released to DVD, it seems that a release of Legends of the SuperHeroes should be a slam-dunk for Warner (which owns the Hanna-Barbera library). After all, with the Batman TV series tied up in legal wranglings and unlikely for release anytime soon, this could allow the company to capitalize on the appearances of Adam West, Burt Ward, and Frank Gorshin. Perhaps executives are embarrassed by the campy shows. But need I remind Warner that they produced and released Catwoman? And that mocking ironic selfawareness of camp value is in? More likely, they probably aren’t even fully aware the two specials exist. Perhaps now, the light will dawn on them, like a Batsignal to the skies, and the “group of extraordinary men and women”— and their laugh track—can fight crime yet again….

ANDY MANGELS is a best-selling author, award-winning DVD Special Features producer, and past comic-book writer. He is working on two books for TwoMorrows: an autobiography of Lou Scheimer called Creating The Filmation Generation, and The Wonder Woman Companion, both due in mid-2008. Like Harlan Ellison, he loved Legends of the SuperHeroes, even with its campy sensibilities. Visit him at www.andymangels.com and www.wonderwomanmuseum.com.

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Photo by Darryl Ballini.

An earlier, smaller version of this article appeared in Amazing Heroes #187 (Jan. 1991). Special thanks to all interviewees, plus Delmo Walters for the tip on how to contact Aleshia Brevard, Brian MacDonald for his scans of an older article, and Steven J. Wachtel of Brady Investigations for his help in finding some of the other interviewees!

The World’s Greatest Superheroes A newspaper syndicate ad, illustrated by George Tuska, for the strip starring DC’s Justice League heroes. Unless otherwise noted, all art in this article is courtesy of its author, Dewey Cassell. © 2007 DC Comics.

Dewey Cassell

“Look, down in the newspaper! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Superman!” For DC Comics, 1978 was a year of branching out for its flagship character. Production was underway on a major motion picture adaptation of Superman, starring Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel, which would be released in December. Witnessing the success of the Spider-Man newspaper strip, launched in 1977, the Chicago Tribune/New York News Syndicate approached DC Comics editor Julie Schwartz about developing a strip based on Superman and the Justice League of America, and replete with all the action typically found in the comic books. The World’s Greatest Superheroes newspaper strip was launched in May 1978 with Golden and Silver Age artist George Tuska tapped to pencil the strip, fresh off a successful run illustrating Iron Man for Marvel Comics. Vince Colletta, then art director at DC Comics, supplied the inks. Marty Pasko wrote the early story arcs, which featured various members of the Justice League, including Aquaman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Black Canary, Batman, Robin, and Black Lightning. However, the focus of the strip ultimately shifted to just Superman and his supporting cast of characters, including Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Perry White, with only occasional guest appearances by other heroes. The villains of the strip were a rogues’ gallery of DC Comics’ best of the worst, including Vandal Savage, Lex Luthor, Doctor Destiny, the Prankster, the Weaponer of Qward, the Joker, and Brainiac. Some of the newspaper storylines actually mirrored the comic books, although not necessarily in the same timeframe. (There were no “synchronized” storylines between the newspaper and comic books, like Marvel Comics did with the wedding of Peter Parker and Mary Jane.) One great example of The World’s Greatest Superheroes (TWGS) strip is the Brainiac storyline, which was written by Paul Levitz, who assumed the writing chores from Marty Pasko in the fall of 1979. Brainiac was first seen in comic books in issue #242 of Action Comics (July 1958), in a tale written by Otto Binder and illustrated by Curt Swan and Stan Kaye. In the TWGS newspaper tale, which began in January 1980, Brainiac kidnaps Lois to lure Superman into a confrontation. Brainiac then sends a robot to attack M e n

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Tuska’s Other Man of Steel (below) Let’s not forget that George Tuska also served a stint as the artist of this issue’s cover star, Iron Man. This neverbefore-published Tuska illo of Iron Man and the Black Widow (next issue’s cover star, by the way) is from the collection of frequent BACK ISSUE contributor Jerry Boyd. Also, (right) Brainiac gets small in the conclusion of the story arc (strips courtesy of Anthony Snyder). Iron Man and Black Widow © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. World’s Greatest Superheroes © 2007 DC Comics.

and says, “Hey, will you do an episode of ____?” Something like Legion, where I was on it for a long time, I had pages and pages of notes I never got to, but that’s not my usual approach. CASSELL: Was there ever any thought of trying to tie in the strip with the movies? LEVITZ: I think the primary issues there were economic and would have brought a whole bunch of other financial participants into the mix. Of course, in those days, the syndicate was in the Daily News building, which was the building we used at that point for the Daily Planet for the first three movies. That was kind of fun, too. You would go up there to deliver your work. CASSELL: Eventually, as the strip went on, you left and other writers followed. Later George Tuska left and Jose Delbo took over as penciler. LEVITZ: I think George left around the time that the number of papers had declined, so it wasn’t paying any better than comic-book work. CASSELL: So the pay was based upon the circulation? LEVITZ: Yeah, we were following a version of the newspaper strip methodology, where DC took a cut and the writer and artists benefited by the total sales of the strip. That was a tradition that went back, I think, to the old Superman strip with Siegel and Shuster. CASSELL: Then, at some point, the decision was made to start running puzzle pages on Sundays. LEVITZ: Yeah, the Sundays definitely separated out into games pages at some point, I think when Bob Rozakis was writing it. He was/is particularly skilled at doing puzzles and games. I think they decided to take advantage of that, possibly hoping to make the Sunday circulation better, since that’s where the money was. CASSELL: Is there any hope of DC reintroducing a Superman newspaper strip? LEVITZ: Not in the culture we’re living in. Spider-Man, I think, continues to be done, but that is one of the last of the adventure strips around. Newspapers have so little space available for it and such a limited readership for anything like an adventure strip. There might be a daily comic on the Web. It wouldn’t surprise me to see an adventure strip emerge there—Superman or superheroes or otherwise— but I don’t think we’ll see it in the newspaper. Paul is modest about his contributions to The World’s Greatest Superheroes strip, but his tenure marked a high point in the series. He provided a great balance of dramatic tension, action, irony, and humor. Ultimately, though, nothing could save the Man of Steel and the strip was canceled in February 1985. Superman finally succumbed to an ailment common to earthly mortals as well—poor circulation. Sincere thanks to Paul Levitz for his insight and Alex Segura for arranging the interview.

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Stewart by Tom “The Comics Savant”

Throughout the 1930s, America was dealing with the worst depression of the new century. People were out of work in record numbers, jobs being scarce; in big cities the problem was worsened by the crush of people coming from the countryside looking for work that wasn’t there. Drought and delinquent loans were closing farms. The last thing a struggling America needed was to get embroiled in Europe’s war. It was far away and not the USA’s problem. Hitler made a lot of noise, but he was just a little man who liked to yell, nothing to be really worried about. America was consumed with its own problem, not those of the Germans and the Japanese. It was the era of hope for “Peace in Our Time.” In DC Comics continuity, in the late summer of 1939 biology student Hank Heywood was returning from Munich, Germany, with his mentor Doctor [aka Professor] Gilbert Giles. They’d literally been run out of the country after presenting their findings on “biological retardents,” a process that would allow surgical replacements of damaged limbs and organs … not sure why that would be called a “retardent” [Editor’s note: Or why it wasn’t spelled “retardant”]. On their way out of the hall, Hank tried to put a stop to a couple of Nazi Brownshirts beating a defenseless old man.

Steel the Imploded Man Original cover art to the unpublished Steel the Indestructible Man #6, penciled by Don Heck and inked by Al Milgrom, from the collection of Rick Shurgin. Steel was axed with issue #5, a casualty of the DC Implosion, but issue #6’s material received a second lease on life on two occasions: first in the black-and-white, low-print-run grab bag of remaindered comics stories, Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #2 (1978), then serialized (with Jerry Ordway re-inking the Heck pages) in the two-part All-Star Squadron #8–9 (Apr.–May 1982). © 2007 DC Comics.

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patriot, one who sees the coming war as, well, coming and vows to be a part of helping America see the fight it was in for. Steel’s fight starts in 1939, two years before America is forced into the war, and just before the Nazi invasion of Poland. Heywood joins the Marines, and Steel fights homegrown and imported Nazis and strange villains like the Gadgeteer, Sledgehammer, and the Mineral Master, the whole time trying to convince his friend Doctor Giles and Giles’ daughter (and Hank’s girlfriend) Gloria that his joining the Marines and advocating the entry of America into the war is not crazy. He never would. Steel lasted only five issues, as the “DC Explosion” advertised in its pages became the infamous Implosion, and the title was canceled. The concept of the pre-war war hero never really gelled, regulated to a few scene-setting speeches in-between the overly familiar hero action. It didn’t help the series that Don Heck didn’t ink his own pencils. Under his own ink (or that of a sympathetic inker), Heck’s

Inspector Gadget (above) Steel vs. the gimmick-packed Gadgeteer, on Heck’s cover to issue #4 (Aug.–Sept. 1978). (above right) Steel’s final adventure was mopped up in this photocopied collection of axed DC series. © 2007 DC Comics.

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pencils could be quite smooth and dynamic, something like the then-current commercial-ad art, but under mismatched inkers Heck’s art could just lay on the page. It wasn’t a great series, and wasn’t a bad one, either—it was okay, and an okay series couldn’t survive the massive cuts forced on DC by parent company Warner Bros. Steel the Indestructible Man faded away without much notice. Steel the character was brought back in the early 1980s by Roy Thomas in All-Star Squadron, who gave Heywood a promotion to Commander Steel. Steel retired after the war, later turning his grandson into a new Steel, who joined the Justice League of America (during a period when Gerry Conway, not surprisingly, was writing Justice League; this version of Steel continues to appear in the DC Universe upon occasion, a © 2007 DC Comics. recent, as of this writing, example being 2007’s Justice Society of America #7, featuring the Alex Ross-painted cover shown in the inset). The original Steel came out of retirement, once again answering his country’s call and becoming a part of that old character butcher shop Suicide Squad. He died like the old soldier he was, fighting Eclipso. Maybe it was just as well. “The Comics Savant” TOM STEWART, star of stage and reader of moldy old comics, is a regular contributor to BACK ISSUE, as well as other TwoMorrows publications. He has a top-secret project in the works that we’ll gladly tell you about whenever we’re allowed.

Al N ickerson

THE BIRTH OF A ROBOT John Byrne’s spunky robot, ROG-2000, first appeared as a mascot in Bob Layton and Roger Stern’s comic-book fanzine Contemporary Pictorial Fanzine (also referred to as CPL) #6 (1973). ROG (or Rog) is short for “Roger” and rhymes with “lodge.” Where did ROG-2000’s name come from? Legend has it that Bob Layton named him. Byrne confirms that “there were several Rogers working on CPL, Layton’s Indiana-based fanzine, and when I sent in a spot illustration of a robot, Bob declared him to be the new editor and dubbed him ROG-2000.” Byrne recalls that “Rogie began as a spot illustration of a rather different-looking robot. Layton put ‘ROG-2000’ on its chest and asked for more. I didn’t keep copies of the stuff I sent in to ’zines, so I designed a whole new robot along basically the same configuration. I added the cigar, and his ‘personality’ was set almost immediately.” A ROG-2000 story, “The Coming of the Gang,” was the first published ROG-2000 story. It appeared in Contemporary Pictorial Fanzine #11 (1974). “The Coming of the Gang” featured ROG-2000 with the CPL Gang as they try to find a way to get to Duffy’s Tavern in Brooklyn, New York. “The Coming of the Gang” was written by Roger Stern with artwork by John Byrne and Bob Layton. Thus began the heroic adventures of ROG-2000.

ROG-2000 AND E-MAN

Charlton Comics’ Nick Cuti (also the co-creator and writer of E-Man) played a very important role in getting ROG-2000 to appear in backup stories for Charlton’s E-Man. John Byrne remembers that “Nick had seen the CPL stuff, and was looking for a backup for E-Man, since Steve Ditko’s Killjoy had run its course. Nick asked me if I would be interested in doing ROG, with Nick writing.” Cuti confirms “that was in the early 1970s during my tenure at Charlton as assistant editor to George Wildman. We received a small publication from a group of guys from Indianapolis, Indiana, who called themselves the CPL Gang. The ringleaders of the group were Bob Layton and Roger Stern. They were interested in doing a Charlton fanzine called The Charlton Bullseye and wanted to pay us a visit. Even though their fanzine was half-size and printed in black-and-white, the artwork in it was very professional in quality, especially John’s art where he drew this little robot which he called ROG-2000. They did come to visit us and they did publish The Charlton Bullseye just as they said they would.” So, whose idea was it to have ROG-2000 appear in E-Man? As Cuti continues, “Actually, the CPL Gang suggested it. When we started E-Man, we decided to devote a few pages in the rear of the book to try out other superheroes. We ran a few, which just didn’t take off. Then, at a convention, the CPL Gang approached me about the possibility of running ROG-2000 as the E-Man backup. Well, the fans loved ROG.” M e n

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