Back Issue #31 by TwoMorrows Publishing

STEVE GERBER TRIBUTE ISSUE

8 e r 2 00 Decemb

82658 27762

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AN ALL-STAR REMEMBRANCE OF THE CREATOR OF HOWARD THE DUCK, with BRUNNER • COLAN • SIMONSON • GOLDEN • MAYERIK

and many more superstars

Volume 1, Number 31 December 2008 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, '90s, and Today!

The Retro Comics Experience!

EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks COVER ARTIST Frank Brunner

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 FLASHBACK: Steve and Howard: A Boy and His Duck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Trapped in a world they never made, Howard the Duck and his creator

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Bob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Productions PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Eric Nolen-Weathington SPECIAL THANKS Brook Anthony Roger Ash Michael Aushenker Karen Berger Jonathan Bolerjack Jerry Boyd Frank Brunner Rich Buckler Timothy Callahan KC Carlson Joe Casey Gene Colan Comic Book Artist Comic Book Resources Gerry Conway Farel Dalyrmple Tom DeFalco J. M. DeMatteis Brian Denhem Tony DeZuniga Mark DiFruscio Mark Evanier Brent Frankenhoff Mike Gagnon Simon Garth Michael Golden Grand Comic-Book Database Steven Grant Larry Hama Matthew E. Hawkins Heritage Comics Auctions Howard the Duck Club Christopher Irving Tony Isabella The Jack Kirby Collector Dan Johnson Jim Kingman David Anthony Kraft Andy Kuhn Bill Kunkel Stan Lee Steve Leialoha Paul Levitz

Ryan Liebowitz Alan Light Margaret Liss Johnny Lowe Pablo Marcos ManwithoutFear.com Wayne Markley Marvel Comics Val Mayerik Jim McCann Allen Milgrom Modern Masters Stuart Moore Gabriel Morrisette New York Comic Con Martin Pasko Michael Ploog Alan J. Porter Eric Reynolds Murray Roach Bob Rozakis Joe Rubinstein Brian Sagar Peter Sanderson Alex Segura Jason Shayer Dave Simons Walter Simonson Mary Skrenes Roger Slifer J. David Spurlock SteveGerber.com Ty Templeton Roy Thomas Randy Tischler Nathan Turner Len Wein Brett Weiss John Wells Westfield Comics Ron Wilson Phil Winslade Marv Wolfman Tom Ziuko

OFF MY CHEST: Of Ducks and Men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Artist Frank Brunner reveals the story behind Howard the Duck #1 PRO2PRO: The Duck Requiem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Howard the Duck artists Gene Colan and Val Mayerik on working with Steve BEYOND CAPES: Gerber’s Gruesomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 Man-Thing, Tales of the Zombie, and other gory Gerber gems FLASHBACK: Steve Gerber in the Marvel Universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33 From Shanna to Foolkiller, Gerber’s Marvel output was always different

COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg

FLASHBACK: Omega the Unknown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 The writer’s waaaaaay-before-its-time unfinished symphony GERBER’S GREATEST HITS ART GALLERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 Eye-popping pinups by Ron Wilson, Frank Brunner, and Pablo Marcos WHAT THE--?!: Gerber Goes Crazy! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 Gerber’s gags elevated Marvel’s “MAD” to new heights FLASHBACK: The Metal Men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 Gerber’s one issue of this series, drawn by Walter Simonson, is still talked about today FLASHBACK: The Miracle Messiah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 Gerber’s short-lived take on Mister Miracle INTERVIEW: Steve Gerber Discusses The Phantom Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 A 2006 interview examining Gerber’s dark, disturbing Superman spin-off BACKSTAGE PASS: Thundarr the Barbarian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64 How Gerber got around TV watchdogs to bring to life this clever cartoon series FLASHBACK: Sludge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 Gerber’s muck-monster with a difference BEYOND CAPES: A Hard Time in Nevada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 Two of the writer’s later, more mature comics series BACKSTAGE PASS: The Gerber Memorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 Mark Evanier leads an all-star tribute panel at the April 2008 New York Comic Con OFF MY CHEST: “There was something about the guy…” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82 Friends of Ol’ Gerber speak out BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88 Reader feedback on “Mutants” issue #29 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. E-mail: euryman@gmail.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 Frank Brunner. Howard the Duck TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2008 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING. S t e v e

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Covers TM & © their respective copyright holders.

Writer Steve Gerber (1947–2008) captivated Marvel Comics readers in the early to mid-1970s with offbeat, thought-provoking, and often satirically laced series such as Man-Thing, Omega the Unknown, The Defenders, and his most famous creation, Howard the Duck. His later work was imaginative and diverse: Mister Miracle, KISS, Void Indigo, Exiles, Cybernarry, Hard Time, and Countdown to Mystery are among his credits. Gerber’s early-1980s collaboration with Jack Kirby, Destroyer Duck, was produced as a fundraiser to assist in his legal battles with Marvel over ownership of Howard the Duck and to increase awareness of creators’ rights. He also made his mark upon the world of animation, with the short-lived Thundarr the Barbarian being beloved among toon fans. On February 10, 2008, pulmonary fibrosis robbed Steve Gerber of his life, extinguishing one of comics’ freshest, most unpredictable voices. Some within the industry regarded Gerber as a troublemaker, or as a deadline liability, or as a nutcase, and from their perspectives those assessments may indeed be valid. But others regarded him as a treasure, as a trailblazer, and as a friend. Many of their names are inscribed onto page 1’s “Special Thanks” credits, surely the longest such list we’ve ever run in this magazine. As I’ve often stated in editorials, BACK ISSUE is about comic books—we leave the career-spanning creator retrospectives to other publications. And although this issue may appear to violate that dictum, that appearance is deceiving. This issue is, like the thirty preceding it, about comic books—the wild, groundbreaking, and forever entertaining ones produced by the unforgettable Steve Gerber.

Michael Eury

Roger Ash

In the mid-1970s, one of Marvel’s hottest titles didn’t star a musclebound hero or busty heroine dressed in bright spandex and saving the world from the latest galactic menace. Instead, it starred a cigar-chomping, suit-coat wearing duck named Howard. His adventures, as chronicled by creator Steve Gerber, brought some of the spirit of the Underground Comix to a mainstream audience. Howard’s stories revolved around mundane things like finding a job or bizarre things like crusaders for decency becoming suicide bombers and blowing up porno theaters and adult book stores. No topic was off limits. Even a relationship between a human woman and a duck somehow got past the Comics Code Authority. It was hip and relevant in the same way as the early Saturday Night Live. It wasn’t written by a fifty-year-old man trying to be cool. It was a young man writing to his peers, and the satire and social commentary hit home with the readers.

THE HATCHING OF HOWARD Let’s back up and set the stage. In the Man-Thing series running in Adventure into Fear, a being called the Overmaster was messing with the Cosmic Axis and causing parallel dimensions to come into contact with each other. Dakimh the Enchanter; his apprentice, Jennifer Kale; the macabre Man-Thing; and a displaced barbarian named Korrek were trying to set things right. In Adventure into Fear #19 (Dec. 1973), Howard makes his first appearance, and reluctantly joins this group of “hairless apes.” In Man-Thing #1 (Jan. 1974), on a journey through the various dimensions, Howard missteps and falls into space. The first artist to draw Howard was Val Mayerik. “Neither Steve or myself had a specifically detailed concept of the duck’s appearance,” Mayerik remembers. “Steve simply said that the character was to be

Waugh’s Happenin’? The penciled version of the cover art for Marvel’s Howard the Duck Omnibus by Frank Brunner, the artist who drew the Duck’s first solo issue. Courtesy of Mr. Brunner. © 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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proportioned like a cartooned, anthropomorphic duck, but in three dimensions, as if it existed in a three-dimensional world itself. The costume, cigar, and general demeanor of the duck may have all been Steve’s ideas or maybe they were features that I just came up with at the last minute, I can’t honestly recall. But the basic concept of a talking cartoon-type duck had its genesis with Steve. Once the character actually was on the page, it was then I think that Steve was inspired to really take off with it.” The idea of Howard’s sudden “death” in Man-Thing #1 came from Roy Thomas. “I had been the editor when I sort of had [Steve] kill off the character,” says Thomas. “He could always bring him back if it turned out that people wanted him. I wanted to get him out of there because I didn’t know how readers would take it. They had a tendency, in the past, to get almost hostile about humorous characters, like the Impossible Man a few years earlier. I was aware that there was some mail and that people liked Howard, so I told Steve, if he wanted to, he could run a Howard story in the comic Arrgh! that I was editing. It was my way of admitting that we should bring Howard back. He told me that he had already arranged—I don’t know exactly how it happened, though—for Howard to be in the Man-Thing book.” Giant-Size Man-Thing #4 (May 1975) featured the first Howard solo story, “Frog Death.” Howard, after falling through space for months, lands in Cleveland where he encounters Garko (which is misspelled as Gorko on the issue’s cover). Garko is a creepy tenant in the neighborhood who turns into a giant frog when he drinks a potion. The artist of “Frog Death” was originally planned to be Neal Adams, but it ended up being drawn by Frank Brunner. “The first time I saw Howard in Man-Thing, I knew I had to be part of this Duck’s career; he was unique compared to the rest of the Marvel Universe,” says Brunner. “When I contacted Gerber about Howard the Duck, he said he’d already written a short story as a backup in Giant-Size Man-Thing, and the script had been sitting on Neal’s drawing board for six months with no progress! I said, ‘Send it to me. I can start right away!’ And the rest, as they say, ‘is history.’” The next Howard story, in Giant-Size Man-Thing #5 (Aug. 1975), featured Howard fighting Bessie the Hellcow, a dairy cow that was bitten by a vampire and is now a vampire herself.

Man/Drake (top) Steve Gerber, from the 1982 San Diego Comic-Con. Photo by Alan Light. (bottom) Courtesy of Frank Brunner, Frank’s 2002 pencil recreation of his Howard the Duck #1 splash page. Howard the Duck © 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

FLYING SOLO Howard’s popularity continued to grow and he was awarded his own title, cover-dated January 1976. The first issue immediately shows that Howard the Duck is not your average comic as it begins with the title character contemplating suicide. It’s hard to imagine a similar opening in Amazing Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four. Howard decides to kill himself by throwing himself from a tower on an island in the Cuyahoga River. This decision leads to the first appearance of Beverly Switzler; an encounter with Pro-Rata, an evil wizard who wants to become the Chief Accountant of the Universe; and a guest appearance by Spider-Man. This story established what were to become staples of the Howard series: parody and social commentary. This story lampooned barbarian comics, which were extremely popular at the time, while also making a statement about how people’s lives were being controlled by the bean counters. Howard was also becoming a

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well-rounded duck. He was crass, outspoken, and not always likable, but he seemed very real and was genuinely upset about the injustices in the universe. Beverly became the main supporting character in the series. In the letters page of Howard the Duck #19 (Dec. 1977), it’s written that “Beverly Switzler is Mary Skrenes.” (Skrenes was Gerber’s friend, his sometimes co-plotter, and co-created Omega the Unknown with him.) When asked if that’s true, she replies, “What do you think, Ducky? “I came up with her character and her name,” Skrenes reveals. “We were sitting in some place, like a Burger and Brew, with Frank Brunner and talking about the issue. Howard was climbing up a tower of credit cards planning to ‘off’ himself. When he reached an opening at the top and looked inside … I said, ‘And, of course, there must be a scantily clad damsel chained to the wall.’ The boys liked it. “I think there are a couple of reasons that Beverly became a continuing character,” Skrenes continues. “One, it really worked well for Howard to have a friend who accepted him exactly as he was, feathers and all, and could be a positive optimist to his cynical pessimism. I called him ‘Ducky.’ I called Steve ‘Gerbs.’ “The second reason is kind of eerie to me. Back on that fateful night when I interjected the girl into Steve’s plot, I said, ‘And her name is Beverly Switzler. No, wait, I meant to say Swizzle.’ He got excited and said, ‘No, it’s got to be Switzler!’ It was some kind of ‘sign’ to him. He never explained why. After Steve’s death, when I took his ashes to New York, somebody, probably his brother Michael, told me that, ‘Steve named a character after the Switzler Hall Building on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus.’ I had never heard that name before. It was like a little last laugh he had on me.” Also in issue #1, the final member of the art team, inker Steve Leialoha, joined the book. “In early ’75, Frank Brunner was interested in finding an inker that would be local to him (the San Francisco Bay area) and Jim Starlin recommended me as a possibility,” Leialoha says. “I would pick up the Howard pages from Frank and we would go through them so I would know what he had in mind.” In Howard the Duck #2 (Mar. 1976), Bev’s friend, writer Arthur Winslow, becomes possessed by a nasty space turnip who menaces Bev and Howard. This issue also introduces a recurring annoyance to Howard, the Kidney Lady. She is convinced that Howard is head of a group who wants to destroy her kidneys, as well as those of the unsuspecting populace. This issue also marked Frank Brunner’s last as artist. When asked why he left the book so soon, Brunner replies, “Two reasons. Howard The Duck #1 was a mega-hit and was the first Marvel Comic to go back to press while still on the stands! I thought I deserved a small raise in my page rate. I was turned down by then-editors [Len] Wein and [Marv] Wolfman! “The other reason was with Howard #2, Steve was feeding me six or seven fully written pages of script at a time, so I had no idea where the story was going or how to pace it. And, most importantly, I wanted to have input on the storylines as I did with Howard #1. I thought that if I quit for an issue or two these problems might be resolved, but by then I was doing a lot of freelance work for Star*Reach, Quack!, and the blackand-white Marvel magazines, which paid better. So, in a sense, I bumped up my page rate anyway. But not for Howard, sadly.”

Howard #3 (May 1976) was drawn by John Buscema and featured Howard becoming a master of Quack Fu, a fact which has been noted by other writers of Howard over the years, including in the Howard the Duck film of 1986. The story juxtaposed the sensational version of martial arts often seen in films with the actual intentions behind the arts. Unfortunately, when writers other than Gerber referenced this story, they used it to show what a badass Howard was, which goes against the spirit of Gerber’s original story. The following issue introduced a new continuing character to the series, artist Paul Same. Paul is Bev’s upstairs neighbor who becomes the nightgown-wearing Winky-Man to deal with his critics. This was the first issue of Howard the Duck drawn by Gene Colan, the artist most closely associated with Howard. When asked what he liked about the book, Colan replies, “It was very funny. Steve was a hilarious writer. I generally didn’t read much of other comic scripts, after a few pages I got the gist of where it was going in general, but with Howard it was a treat to read the entire thing. I loved Steve’s writing. He had a very unusual outlook about life himself and it all translated over to Howard. Then there was the mix of animation along with real life people, which I’ve always loved to do.” An important part of Howard’s future was revealed in the letters page that issue as his candidacy for President of the United States was announced. But more on that later… Howard also dealt with everyday issues, like finding a job. In Howard #6 (Nov. 1976), Bev gets a job as a governess for a young girl named Patsy. The problem is that the house in which Patsy lives is supposedly the property of Rev. Joon Moon Yuc and his followers, the Yucchies. The reverend was a parody of then-current

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Dan Johnson

con duc ted Apr il 17, 200

To anyone who loves the Bronze Age of Comics, the passing of writer Steve Gerber was a major blow. Gerber was one of the most creative and imaginative forces in the field. He was also one of the industry’s most vocal activists. His Howard the Duck helped break comic books out of formula superhero stories, and also became the catalyst that made Gerber push for creators’ rights. Recently BACK ISSUE sat down with two of the men who helped bring Gerber’s “fowl” little malcontent to life, artists Gene Colan and Val Mayerik, to talk about their time with Howard, and their all-too-fleeting time in Gerber’s world. – Dan Johnson DAN JOHNSON: What were your thoughts when you each first met Steve Gerber? GENE COLAN: He was a very funny guy. I would stop working in the middle of [a Howard the Duck] script and I would be laughing my head off. He was a good writer, an excellent writer. VAL MAYERIK: I don’t exactly remember the first time I met Steve, but we spoke for three or four years over the phone before I actually met him in person, when I was still living in Ohio, before I moved to New York. He always had an up personality, but we only spoke in regard to whatever issue of Man-Thing we were working on. That was the book we first worked on together, and of course that is the book where Howard appeared for the first time. When I was living in Manhattan, I met Steve and Roy Thomas, who was editing the book at the time, at a pub/restaurant and we sat around and talked. It struck me then that Steve was very ambitious, and not in the sense of wanting money or power, but he had a very clear vision of what he wanted to do with comics. He was very committed, and he didn’t want anything to stand in his way. He really wanted to write the stuff he wanted to write. And to echo what Gene said, he was a funny guy. He had a dry sense of humor and he was irreverent, but not nasty. He was not a bitter person by any

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means, but he certainly liked to point out the ironies of life. JOHNSON: Considering that, how much of Steve was Howard? COLAN: [laughs] MAYERIK: Howard was definitely Steve’s Greek chorus. I was not an avid follower of Howard the Duck, so I didn’t read everything ever written, but anyone who knew Steve who read that book could see Steve’s attitude coming out and manifesting itself in that character. JOHNSON: I was curious about how personal the character was to Steve, especially considering how hard he fought to win him back later on. I always thought that if there was ever a character that had Steve’s heart, it was Howard. COLAN: Oh, yeah. MAYERIK: I would say so, but I think it was also a question of the times and what was going on [in the industry]. Had it not been Howard, it might have been another character Steve would have fought for. [In the late 1970s,] people were starting to call attention to how Jack Kirby never got his due for all the characters he came up with and how a lot of the older guys were never given the credit they deserved. They certainly weren’t being given any financial compensation for the characters they helped create. It was a time when people were starting to be vocal about that. Barry Smith was one of them, Neal Adams was another. Steve just happened to have a character that he really liked, who was successful, and it was a particular time in Steve’s life when he had the energy and resources to fight. Part of it was just Steve’s personality, but certainly he liked the character, and he felt a connection to Howard, and an affection for him. I can’t say I was Steve’s closest friend, but knowing him as I did, had it been another character, a superhero or something else he had come up with, I think he would have fought just as hard [to hold on to it]. The time had come for people to start setting precedents as to what was theirs and what was Marvel’s and DC’s. In my opinion, [the fight over Howard] was just a confluence of events and personalities. Steve was suddenly in a position where he had something worth fighting for, and that is why he fought so hard. JOHNSON: Val, what were your thoughts when you first heard of Howard the Duck? MAYERIK: I think the Duck was truly a fluke. I don’t think Steve expected that character to be so popular initially. [Howard was introduced] in a Man-Thing story where Man-Thing, because of some psychic aura or some aspect of his latent power, was able to create dimensional openings, and all these people came through. There was a barbarian who came through, a blond-haired Conan-type guy, along with Howard and two or three other characters. I had gotten into comics because I wanted to draw Conan, so I didn’t even pay that much attention to drawing this silly duck. I was hoping this barbarian guy would be popular and spin off into his own book. That barbarian character disappeared quick soon thereafter, and I don’t know what it was, but there was some kind of groundswell with that duck that took on a life of its own. I really had no clue, and quite honestly, I don’t know if Steve, at that moment, thought it was going to go anywhere either. COLAN: Howard was certainly different, but there was a big conflict between Howard the Duck and Donald Duck. I thought from the beginning that there might even be a lawsuit. But all I had to do was put pants on Howard, and that settled it.

Beginnings: Wings Comics for Fiction House in 1944

Milestones: Journey into Mystery / Kid Colt, Outlaw / Creepy / Eerie / The Avengers / Silver Surfer / Iron Man / Sub-Mariner / Captain Marvel / Captain America / Dr. Strange / Daredevil / Tomb of Dracula / Howard the Duck / Phantom Zone / Wonder Woman / Ragamuffins in Eclipse Monthly / Batman in Detective Comics / Night Force / Nathaniel Dusk, Private Investigator / Jemm: Son of Saturn / Silverblade / Rob Zombie's Spookshow Spectacular / Hellboy: Weird Tales

Work in Progress: Retired, but taking requests for commissions through his official website

Cyberspace: www.genecolan.com

GENE COLAN

Beginnings: Brax the Barbarian story, “Spell of the Dragon,” in Chamber of Chills #2 (Jan. 1973)

Milestones: Thongor in Creatures on the Loose / Man-Thing / Howard the Duck / Ka-Zar / The Living Mummy in Supernatural Thrillers / Monsters Unleashed / The Frankenstein Monster / Conan (various incarnations) / Creepy / Eerie / Vampirella / Heavy Metal / The Starling in Destroyer Duck / Void Indigo / The Punisher / Sensei The Young Master / Magic: The Gathering

Works in Progress: Advertising art / No current comics projects in the works, although there are some whispers in the wind

Cyberspace: www.valmayerik.com

VAL MAYERIK

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Michael Aushenker

Call him the “outsider writer.” Gravitating from gravitas to ha-ha’s (sometimes within the same book), Steve Gerber may have been the most offbeat writer ever to pass through 575 Madison. If guys such as Sal Buscema, Jim Mooney, George Tuska, and Don Perlin represent the “house art style” of 1970s Marvel Comics, Bill Mantlo, Gerry Conway and Doug Moench surely represent the “house writing style”––dependable and ubiquitous. Count Gerber among this genre of writer. And yet––he wasn’t. His name was everywhere. But he was also a little different, a little more … eccentric. His work took detours. Looking back, the characters Gerber spent the most time and energy writing seemed to come from left field or under the radar. The imaginative writer became the glue of quality and consistency at Marvel, whether scripting The Man-Thing or his quirky, quacky Howard the Duck. Like the way he narrated those Man-Thing comics. Or the oddball Howard, a true novelty and a truly radical departure from superhero stuff. As dorky as Howard may have been, that alien fowl shared a lot in common with the supernatural characters that Gerber often scripted. Meanderers, misfits, misanthropes—the ultimate outsiders. When Gerber introduced Howard the Duck in “Man-Thing” (in Adventure into Fear #19), I never questioned it. The Duck somehow fit seamlessly into the Marvel Universe. As a kid, I took it for granted when I saw those great Marvel ads––Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man, Howard the Duck … of course, a cigar-chomping bird would be in that milieu! As an adult, I realized how desperately Gerber seemed to shoehorn something personal, observed, and different into an art form that was calcifying into formula. “It was a really neat time in the comics industry,” writer/artist/editor Al Milgrom recalls of the halcyon days when Gerber let his hair down at Marvel. Milgrom, who inked a couple of issues of Howard the Duck and collaborated with Gerber on “Guardians of the Galaxy,” worked uncredited on Gerber’s Man-Thing, assisting, with Jim Starlin, on Rich Buckler’s art.

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THE GERBER’S GRUESOMES CHECKLIST • Adventure into Fear #11–19 (Dec. 1972–Dec. 1973), 21–25 (Apr. 1974–Dec. 1974) • Chamber of Chills #2 (Jan. 1973) • Creatures on the Loose #28–29 (Mar.–May 1974) • Dracula Lives #1–2 (June–Aug. 1973), 6 (May 1974), 10–11 (Jan.–Mar. 1975) • Haunt of Horror #1 (May 1974) • Man-Thing #1–22 (Jan. 1974–Oct. 1975) • Marvel Comics Super Special: KISS # 1 (1977) • Marvel Presents #3–7 (Feb. 1976–Nov. 1976), 9 (Feb. 1977) • Marvel Preview #12 (Fall 1977), 16 (Fall 1978) • Marvel Spotlight #14–23 (Mar. 1974–Aug. 1975) • Monsters Unleashed #4 (Feb. 1974), #8–9 (Oct. 1974–Dec. 1974) • Supernatural Thrillers #5 (Aug. 1973), #7 (June 1974) • Tales of the Zombie #1–8 (Aug. 1973–Nov. 1974), Annual #1 (1975) • Vampire Tales #1 (Aug. 1973), #6 (Aug. 1974)

“It was the first time, in the late ’60s and early ’70s, when comic-book fans who loved the medium got into comics with the idea of doing comics [as opposed to strips and other media]. This whole group of guys from all over the country at the same time––because of the Marvel revolution––it became much more of a fan club, that Stan Lee attitude. It was the next generation after Stan introduced the stuff. Roy Thomas, Denny O’Neil, then [Len] Wein, [Marv] Wolfman, Starlin writing his own stuff. A certain amount of it was trying to stay the course, continue Stan’s superheroes. “But there was a group that did more personal, introspective stories. Not quite the scale of saving the universe. A lot more personal, a lot less commercial. Steve was one of them. He was probably one of the least commercial of those guys.” Simon Garth, the Zombie … Michael Morbius … Dr. Ted Sallis (Man-Thing) … the Living Mummy … Lilith … Daimon Hellstrom (the Son of Satan). Here’s a look back at those seminal supernatural characters that we will shorthand as … “Gerber’s Gruesomes”!

TRAPPED IN A WORLD HE NEVER MADE… One of the most important people whom Steve Gerber met as a youth would become a big part of his professional life––Gerber’s future Marvel Spotlight and Tales of the Zombie editor, Marvel’s then-editor-in-chief, Roy Thomas. “Steve and I first met through the mail, after the first issue or so of Alter Ego came out, and he learned that we were both in Missouri,” Thomas tells BACK ISSUE. “He was in junior high, I was just finishing up college and then doing some teaching, so we communicated and he would send me these longish stories of a Legion of Super-Heroes-type group he drew on some kind of paper with roughly the consistency of today’s paper towels. This was in 1961–1962.

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“Before long,” continues Thomas, “we met in person, and I spent some time at his parents’ home in University City, a suburb of St. Louis; they were nice people. I also met several of Steve’s friends, some of whom did fanzine work together. In fact, I suggested they do one called Crudzine, using a term of the day for a badly done fanzine. I still have that. I was originally going to contribute, but never got around to it … but they did a very good parody of a bad fanzine, much of which will be printed in an upcoming series in Alter Ego (AE), in Bill Schelly’s “Comic Fandom Archive,” utilizing an article written by John G. Pierce several years ago and slated for early publication not long before Steve died.” Thomas and Gerber’s destinies took a detour and headed down a different path ... paths that would eventually cross on the road to Marvel. “At one time in early ’65,” Thomas remembers, “after I was publishing AE, I was contacted by someone who wanted me to put together a MAD-type magazine, and I turned to Steve and his talented friends. We were going to do it together, though I’d have been editor. But the guy who made the offer was a flake, and things quickly fell apart. I don’t even recall the details, although we’d already begun to do some stuff. After I moved to New York City in the summer of 1965, we kept in touch. “When Steve graduated from high school in 1965, he took a trip to NYC and stayed for a few days at Dave Kaler’s apartment on E. 2nd Street, off Avenue A, in the Lower East Side, which I was sharing with Dave at the time. At his request, I introduced him to Stan, but had warned him in advance that Stan could just spare a couple of minutes. Stan found him bright and interesting, though, and they talked for quite a while. I don’t recall about precisely what … I was busy doing my job elsewhere, and I don’t remember what Steve told me about the conversation. That was more than half a decade before he worked for Marvel, of course. “In 1967–1968,” Thomas recalls, “when I flew down to St. Louis once or twice to see Jean Maxey, my future wife, who was in college there, I’d see Steve as well. And at one time in ’68, since her parents wouldn’t let her go out with me, Steve was happy to act as the ‘beard’ in the situation. He picked up Jeanie, delivered her to me, and went his way. When the two of us eloped shortly afterward, however, it was an old boyfriend of Jeanie’s that acted as the beard. “Then, in the early ’70s,” he continues, “I got a letter from Steve that basically amounted to, ‘Help, I’m going crazy working for this advertising agency in St. Louis.’ As Jeanie put it later, ‘What we didn’t know at the time was that it wasn’t a work-caused illness.’ We both considered Steve a little nutty, though in a good way––he was just very excitable, given to occasional bouts of near hysteria, or so it seemed to us at the time. I gave him a job at Marvel first chance I got, which was very soon afterward, but Steve wasn’t a good staffer at the time. Once, I found him asleep at his desk when he was supposed to be proofreading. He always claimed it wasn’t narcolepsy, but I think it was some sort of ailment, perhaps psychological. He wandered off staff ere long, but was kept reasonably busy as a freelance writer, especially once we started all those black-andwhite horror mags.”

DON’T SNICKER, HERE COMES THE MAN-THING! With Gerber helming the series, Marvel’s Man-Thing transcended on several levels a deadbeat destiny as a secondhand swamp creature to DC’s Swamp Thing (by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson). For one, the book became the unlikely launchpad for Gerber’s most heralded creation, Howard the Duck. Man-Thing also operated from a unique narrative device: All those pronouns as the narrator talks to the erstwhile Ted Sallis on an emotional level, describing how he feels. If writer Roy Thomas [with Gerry Conway] and artist Gray Morrow stylishly created the Man-Thing formula in a Savage Tales #1 story awash with Morrow’s grays, Gerber cemented it, pounding even harder on the secondperson narrative device, and introducing the line that would forever become the character’s tagline: “Whoever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing’s touch.” In the initial Gerber stories, Man-Thing’s world intersects with Andy and Jennifer Kane, a pair of kids who live with their grandfather, Joshua. Gerber’s first issue, Adventure into Fear with Man-Thing #11 (Dec. 1972, art by Rich Buckler and Jim Mooney, with a Neal Adams cover), sets the pre-teens up as Man-Thing’s allies. At times, the visuals, with their sickly horror element combined with the kids’ plotline, resembles something out there, such as Charles Burns’ Black Hole. In Fear #12, with art by Jim Starlin and inks by fellow Detroit delineator Buckler, Man-Thing tracks a spooked cop. By Fear #16 (Sept. 1973), “Cry of the Native,” drawn by Val Mayerik with inks by Sal Trapani, Gerber introduced thorny socio-political plotlines into the series, with a storyline that pitted Joshua Kane and his grandchildren against Jake Simpson and his construction worker crew tearing up the swamp. The story includes a big protest mash-up between the indigenous Native American Indian protestors waving “Save Our Swamp” signs and the construction crew, as Simpson tries to destroy the muck monster. When Gerber writes in a narration caption, “This Man-Thing which finds in Jake Simpson an offense against nature greater even than itself!,” one feels that Gerber sides and identifies with this severe, tragic product of damnation––the ultimate outsider. By the story’s end, when Man-Thing scares off the workers by reducing Simpson to a “bloody mass,” there is no question on which side of the equation Gerber’s loyalties lie. In the next issue, Adventure into Fear # 17 (Oct. 1973), the controversial construction company (Schist) returned for a cameo in the oddball “It Came Out of the Sky” (which, among other quirks, contains a map of Man-Thing’s swamp). Once again realized by Mayerik/Trapani, the tale in Fear #17 features a strange retelling of a certain Kryptonian’s origin with Wundarr (rhymes with Thundarr!), an extraterrestrial humanoid sole survivor of a far away planet. This parody, which Gerber dedicated to John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival for inspiration, nearly cost the writer his job. “The worst incident was when he introduced Wundarr into a Man-Thing story and made him far too close to Superman,” Thomas says. “I asked him to change it so it wouldn’t upset DC and trusted him to do so … but I carelessly didn’t check him, being so busy … and Steve did rather little to the story as it stood. This resulted in an angry letter or phone call to Stan Lee from DC, and Stan getting upset with Steve and me, and Steve nearly losing his [freelance] writing job over it.” So was Thomas at all surprised when Gerber introduced such an unlikely character as Howard the Duck in a book as macabre, weird, and decidely EC-ish as Man-Thing?

Marvel’s Muck Monster (above) A 1976 sketch of Man-Thing by Alfredo Alcala. (left) Original Gil Kane/Dan Adkins art for the cover to the snicker-worthy title Giant-Size Man-Thing #5. Both images courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). © 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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place of a comic book to dispense advice and judgment on an ancient religion, so I wanted the line changed, and Steve was very upset.” “I used to hang out with Steve, Weiss, Starlin,” Milgrom recalls. “Once I asked him, ‘So, Steve! Where’s this plotline going?’ And he looked at me and said, ‘I have no idea, Al. I always hope that an idea will come before the deadline on the next issue.’ Steve was all about the journey, not so much the destination. It tickled him [to work that way].”

OH, GERBER THE UNKNOWN…

a couple of months before his death. From what I heard from third parties, I felt things were going as well as they could. I was stunned by news of his death. It still seems a bit unreal.” So, what is it about Gerber that made his writing unique or different from the other writers of his generation? Why was he best suited for Marvel horror? “It’s never been about the money,” Buckler says. “Of course, you have to have money to live, but it was never a motivation. To be famous, to be a celebrity, that was never a consideration. When we socialized, we socialized. We didn’t talk about comics. We talked about life, the world.” Thomas has an idea as to why: “Partly, and early on, at least, I felt he was suited for the horror books partly because I had reservations about his writing of straight superheroes. But I thought his style might loan itself to more offbeat stories—‘offbeat’ meaning, in this case, stories with horrific rather than superheroic. And it did, for the most part.” At times, Gerber could be a handful, and it seems that if there was ever any tension between Gerber and Thomas, it was over a certain derby-wearin’ white water fowl. “Usually it was fine, and we got along well ... but we had a few run-ins. With Howard, I simply insisted that he ‘kill off’ Howard. And, probably after complaining and trying to argue me out of it, he did so. “Another time, I’d guess when I was no longer editor-in-chief, he complained to me about having to change a line—I suspect, in an early Howard story—about ‘the place where I was first laid.’ He didn’t think it should have to be changed, but Marvel didn’t feel like risking trouble over what could be conceived as a smutty line. He asked me what I’d have done if he’d threatened to walk if the line was changed. I told him, I’d say, ‘Goodbye.’” There was also that Haunt of Horror story… “He wanted to end a story with a Jewish theme,” Thomas says, “with a line about how ‘the old ways must change.’ I didn’t feel it was the

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So, was Steve Gerber in life as much of an alienated, lonely “outsider” as the characters he often breathed life into? “I don’t know if he was that much of a loner,” speculates Thomas. “To some extent, no doubt ... but he had plenty of friends, both when I knew him first in St. Louis, and later in N.Y.C. and then L.A.” It was while living in the latter that Thomas caught a glimpse of emotional turmoil in Gerber’s world. “I introduced him to Clara (later Clair) Noto, the screenwriter who was a good friend of mine from when we met in New York in 1975, and they went together off and on for several years. The two of them and Dann and I had a number of dinners together, but those weren’t always as pleasant as they could have been, as the two of them would often be in a foul mood about each other. Example: Steve had a thing about birthday presents. He didn’t like to get them or give them. Clair, I felt reasonably, wanted him to acknowledge her birthday with a present of some modest sort, but Steve felt somehow that it was a matter of principle, so he showed up for a foursome Clair birthday dinner one night, minus a present. There was a scene. “They must’ve been good for each other, though, because they stayed basically friends ... I presume up to the end of Steve’s life.” Thomas may not be the most reliable authority on Gerber the Man: “He and I were never close, but we got along fairly well most of the time. Still, Steve was very intense. In his inner life, I’m sure he was a loner, as many of us are.” “I learned of his death through the Internet,” Marcos says. “I called him once to Las Vegas to talk about an idea I have about a new Zombie book. He suggested to wait until the crisis with the comic-book industry changed. It wasn’t a good moment, although he did like the approach.” By the time Gerber became a professional comic-book writer, it appears that he delighted in pushing the outlaw aspect further than his predecessors. How else might one account for the ungainly, unpretty creatures he tackled with relish—marginal characters that stood on the frayed fringes of the Marvel Universe, outside of those pretty boy superhero circles. These were not your Starks, your Blakes, or Rogerses. Gerber characters embodied the tragic, the cursed, the damned—the characters that, as a kid, probably spooked you too much to take your money, but, years later, you’d seek out and devour. Perhaps Gerber, as the ultimate outsider, found a way to tap into his deep reservoir of loneliness and rejection, his frustration and disconnect with society, and funnel that disenfranchisement, that alienation, that isolation, and misanthropy into his comics. And as comic-book readers, we’re all the better … and all the more honest … for it. MICHAEL AUSHENKER is a Los Angeles-based writer and cartoonist. His comic books include the El Gato, Crime Mangler series, and Those Unstoppable Rogues. He is currently writing the Gumby’s Gang miniseries for Wildcard Ink, and Liberty Girl for Liberty Comics (Heroic Publishing). His latest comicbook, Cartoon Flophouse featuring Greenblatt the Great!, is out now. Visit cartoonflophouse.com.

Jason Shayer

It Takes Two, Baby Steve Gerber paired the Thing and Dr. Strange in Marvel Two-in-One #6 (Nov. 1974), and that issue’s penciler, George Tuska, revisited the team-up in this commissioned illustration, inked by Bob McLeod. From the collection of Brian Sagar. © 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Growing up with the comics of the 1980s, I missed out on most of Steve Gerber’s work. The first I had heard of him was from his dispute with Marvel Comics over the character rights of Howard the Duck. Gerber was one of those creators I figured I would get around to reading sooner or later, and maybe even meet at a comic-book convention. When I heard that he had died, I decided to learn more about him through his Marvel Comics work. While Steve Gerber might be better known for Howard the Duck and Man-Thing, he also penned memorable runs on Daredevil, The Defenders, and Foolkiller, and did stints on a variety of other titles. “I admired Steve’s writing, which was always unique and spoke in its own voice,” says Marv Wolfman. “Steve was one of the few writers at the time who actually had their own voice early on. Most of us took a long time to find ours, but Steve came with it.” Gerber used that unique voice to tell eccentric stories that focused on character. He had the ability to mix the standard superhero fare with an eclectic sense of humor and keen social satire. He also captured precious human moments amid the wackiest of circumstances. By the early 1970s, the creative energy and the explosion of talent that Marvel Comics enjoyed in the 1960s were fading. A diverse collection of nonsuperheroes, like Conan, Dracula, and the Master of Kung Fu, were introduced in an effort to rekindle that 1960s magic. And a roster of new writers, like Len Wein, Steve Englehart, and Marv Wolfman, was emerging. It was in this fertile and experimental environment that Steve Gerber joined Marvel Comics.

As one of his first assignments, Steve Gerber co-created Shanna the She-Devil with Carole Seuling. Shanna was obviously Marvel Comics’ version of the jungle girl archetype with the prerequisite leopard-skin bikini. Her early stories were derivative of Tarzan and featured clashes with ivory poachers and the discovery of ancient lost cities. What set her apart, though, was her characterization. She was the relentless protector of the jungle and its animals, an environmentalist, and had an underlying hatred of men and firearms. Unfortunately, the set of girl-oriented early-1970s titles that Shanna the She-Devil belonged to, which included The Cat and Night Nurse, didn’t last long and the title ended abruptly after only five issues. However, Gerber took more of an ownership of the character over the next few years as Shanna made appearances in the titles he wrote. The Rampaging Hulk #9 (June 1978) had a Shanna backup story that Gerber used to take her in a bold new direction. He had written three issues to follow up on that story, but they were abandoned. However, they were published 13 years later in the pages of Marvel Comics’ anthology series, Marvel Fanfare. In the introduction to Marvel Fanfare #59 (Oct. 1991), editor Al Milgrom stated: “When I contacted him to write the final chapter he had no idea where his original plot was heading. Steve rose to the challenge and resolved things in his usual spectacularly offbeat fashion!” With this four-issue series, Gerber focused on Shanna’s internal struggles rather than external ones. While Shanna took on a malevolent organization called the Pride, it was a means to bring about a climax in the She-Devil’s psychological conflict, forcing her to deal with her primal side. Gerber presented Shanna’s broken psyche in a straightforward and effective manner by having her consult with a psychologist (a rather tired cliché in today’s TV and movie world, but inventive in its day). Shanna discussed the level of violence that plagued her life and how, over the years, death had claimed her close friends, her family, and her beloved animal pets. Shanna’s unhealthy attraction to death and violence was exemplified by the leopard skin she wore, which was actually the skin of her pet leopard Julani. The leopard skin, in her mind, operated like a form of spiritual possession, allowing her to let go of her humanity and be taken over by her baser instincts. Her animal relationships helped keep her connected to her more primal self, especially when she found herself trapped within civilization. To relax, she would playfight with her eight-foot-long python Ananta, which bordered on bondage and was strangely sensual. What was clear throughout was Steve Gerber’s love for Shanna and his interest in continuing to develop her character.

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Emerging Voice While he was merely scripting over Bill Everett’s plot here in Sub-Mariner #61 (May 1973), Steve Gerber’s politics and sense of humor were clearly present. Art by Win Mortimer and Jim Mooney. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions. © 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Steve Gerber’s work on Sub-Mariner was a fill-in role as Bill Everett, the original creator of Prince Namor, had taken ill and would succumb to that illness. Gerber came on board in the middle of a storyline and scripted the book based on Everett’s plots. When Don Heck joined as the new artist in Sub-Mariner #64 (Aug. 1973), Gerber finally started to put his own mark on the book and take it into a new direction. Unfortunately, his run only lasted another five issues, six counting Namor’s appearance in Marvel Two-in-One #2 (Mar. 1974). From a 2006 posting on the Yahoo! Howard the Duck Club (http://groups. yahoo.com/group/howard_the_duck/message/181), Steve Gerber admitted: “It’s not that my heart wasn’t in it, more that I was simply never able to get a handle on either the series or Namor himself. Sub-Mariner and I were a godawful mismatch. The problem, I think, is that I can’t write an imperial hero convincingly. My core nature is too democratic and egalitarian.”

THE MARVEL UNIVERSE WORK OF STEVE GERBER ®

Daredevil was a turning point in Gerber’s writing career. After an assortment of work (a handful of Iron Man issues, a brief run on Sub-Mariner, and the odd fill-in issue), Gerber assumed the role of the new full-time writer with Daredevil #97 (Mar. 1973). Steve Gerber’s run on Daredevil continued the chronicling of DD’s adventures in San Francisco. This Daredevil hadn’t yet become the shadowy, grim figure he’s now identified as. Gerber’s initial storyline ran until Daredevil #107 (Jan. 1974), and while it featured a gauntlet of supervillains, a terribly predictable mastermind, and the out-of-place involvement of cosmic figures like Moondragon and Captain Marvel, the story’s themes and characters stood out. This opening storyline was really about Daredevil trying to find his place in the world, just as Gerber was trying to figure himself out as a comic-book writer. In Daredevil #100 (June 1973), Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone magazine, interviewed Daredevil and learned that:

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(Random Gerber issues are not cited.)

• Daredevil #97–101 (Mar.–July 1973), 103–117 (Sept. 1973–Jan. 1975) (script only #97–98; plot only #117) • The Defenders #20–29 (Feb.–Nov. 1975), 31–41 (Jan.–Nov. 1976) • Defenders Annual #1 (1976) • Foolkiller #1–10 (Oct. 1990–Oct 1991) • Giant-Size Defenders #3–5 (Jan.–July 1975) • Marvel Fanfare (Shanna the She-Devil) #56–59 (Apr.–Oct. 1991) • Marvel Presents: Guardians of the Galaxy #3–7 (Feb.–Nov. 1976), 9 (Feb. 1977) • Marvel Two-In-One #1–9 (Jan. 1974–May 1975) (plot only #9) • Rampaging Hulk (Shanna the She-Devil) #9 (June 1978) • Sensational She-Hulk #10–11(Dec. 1989–Jan 1990), 13–23 (Mar. 1990–Jan. 1991) (#21–23 co-written by Buzz Dixon) • Shanna the She-Devil #1 (Dec. 1972), 4–5 (June–Aug. 1973) • Sub-Mariner #58–69 (Feb. 1973–Mar. 1974) (script only #58-63)

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Foolkiller, the ten-issue miniseries, was published in late 1990 and focused on the third incarnation of the anti-hero, Kurt Gerhardt. In Foolkiller #1 (Oct. 1990), Gerhardt, an average hardworking man, was pushed into a corner and instead of pretending not to see the violence around him, he chose to do something about it: “We’re all hostages, you know that? Hostages of random, senseless brutality. Makes you wonder, though—what if the tables got turned? What if somebody made them hostages? The parasites—the animals! What if there were random executions instead of random crimes, Linda? How many of them do you think would have to die before they figured out they weren’t wanted?” Gerhardt was inspired by the second Foolkiller, Greg Salinger, who, during an interview within the confines of a mental institute by a popular talk-show host, voiced his sweeping judgments on humanity. Salinger’s condemnation of humanity for its greed, short-sightedness, and wanton destruction of the environment echoed Gerhardt’s own personal philosophy.

Gerhardt made contact with Salinger and began a correspondence. Salinger was impressed by his newfound protégé and granted Gerhardt access to the Foolkiller costume and his “purification” gun. In a 2006 blog entry (www.stevegerber.com/sgblog/?p=239), Steve Gerber recalled that: “One scene that never got into the limited series had to do with the ‘ray gun,’ which had been passed down from one Foolkiller to the next. At some point, I wanted to have the gun’s casing break open, revealing that it was an empty shell, with no mechanism of any kind inside. In other words, the gun was a conduit for some other kind of energy, presumably originating in the shooter. I don’t know. Maybe readers would have found that idea too weird. As it turned out, there was just no room for the scene.” With some initial success, Gerhardt became overconfident and ran into more than he could handle and it nearly cost him his life. However, Gerhardt rose from his failure and trained himself to be stronger and reinvented himself as the new Foolkiller. He confirmed his new direction by updating the Foolkiller’s calling-card slogan to “Actions have consequences” from Salinger’s “Live a poem, or die a fool” which, in turn, was his take on the original Foolkiller’s “You have 24 hours to live. Use them to repent or be forever damned to the pits of Hell where goeth all fools. Today is the last day of the rest of your life. Use it wisely or die a fool.” Gerhardt’s depression made him more susceptible to the cruelty in everyday life, and he started to take it personally. As he slipped deeper into madness, he was overcome by his obsession. This concept tapped into the vigilante fantasy we’ve all imagined when hearing of some horrible crime and wanting to take justice into our own hands. You ultimately cheer Gerhardt on in his morally ambiguous crusade, but you can’t help fearing him and disliking him at the same time. The key to the story’s success was allowing readers to draw their own conclusions. Gerber didn’t judge the Foolkiller’s actions. The Foolkiller’s actions were presented in an unbiased, factual context letting the reader apply their own morals and principles and forcing them to question and challenge those morals and principles. Gerber’s slow and careful construction of a vigilante allowed the reader to empathize with Gerhardt and even echo his beliefs and concerns.

WRAPPING IT ALL UP Steve Gerber’s strengths as a writer were clearly seen in his human development of superheroes, his eager confrontation of social issues, and his unwavering faith in humanity. Although I never met him, I feel that I have through his work and that his work stands as a testament to who he was. Marvel’s Essential black-and-white trade paperback series provides you with a great way to immerse yourself in Gerber’s groundbreaking and thought-provoking work. Not only have Howard the Duck and The Man-Thing been collected, but you can also pick up his runs on The Defenders, Marvel Two-in-One, and Daredevil. As for the Foolkiller miniseries, I’ll not only recommend it, but happily join the small, but growing chorus of fans demanding that Marvel Comics reprint these issues in trade paperback form. JASON SHAYER’s addiction to comic books and his 12-year-old mindframe have caused more than a few people to raise an eyebrow. When he’s not writing or reading, he’s teaching his three-year-old daughter the finer points of comic-book collecting.

Our Favorite Things From the Brian Sagar collection, a Tom Grindberg/ Joe Rubinstein commission featuring a rematch of the Thing and Man-Thing from the Gerber-penned Marvel-Two-in-One #1. © 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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® by

Timothy Callahan

In March 1976, as Luke Cage joined forces with the Fantastic Four to defeat the Wrecker and Spider-Man battled—yet again—with the Sandman, a strange character popped up on the Marvel landscape. It was the being soon to be known as “Omega” and while the cover of Omega the Unknown #1 may have looked like any other superhero comic, the story inside was anything but typical. Omega the Unknown didn’t even seem to be part of the Marvel Universe in that first issue, with its strange, passive narration and its elliptical storytelling. Nary a superhero was to be found, except for the silent, enigmatic being from beyond the stars—a being who seemed to share a psychic link with an Earth boy named James-Michael Starling. What was the deal with this James-Michael kid, anyway? And who was this costumed alien who didn’t speak? What was the connection between them? These mysteries were all established in that first issue of Omega the Unknown, written by Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes, with illustrations by veteran artist Jim Mooney. And although these questions would be answered over the years, none of them were ever answered by the series’ creators, who would move on to other things— other companies, other careers—without ever getting a chance to tell the whole story of the strange relationship between the boy and his counterpart from outer space. At its launch, Omega the Unknown was certainly a very different kind of superhero comic book, although such was to be expected from Gerber, who, by 1976, had produced the bulk of his acclaimed (and decidedly off-kilter) Defenders run and had created the inimitable Howard the Duck in an Adventure into Fear Man-Thing story. The multiple exclamation points and dynamic action pose on the cover of Omega the Unknown #1 might have fooled some readers into thinking that they were getting something in the mighty Marvel tradition, but even on the first page, Gerber and Skrenes signaled that the story would be a bit different from the norm:

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“I should have known that nothing in comics is ever allowed to stay dead,” he added. “Gerber characters who get their brains blown out are routinely resurrected. No series is ever really canceled anymore; it just lies dormant until some writer or artist successfully pitches a new ‘take’ to the publisher. Above all, no trademark is ever permitted to slide into oblivion.” Gerber was referring to the 2005 announcement that award-winning novelist Jonathan Lethem (writer of Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude, among other acclaimed works) would bring back the Omega character in a ten-issue series for Marvel. Gerber complained publicly about Lethem’s involvement with the series, going so far as to register the domain name “omegatheunknown.com,” a website which still features only a single, animated line of text: “Omega the Unknown was created in 1975 by Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes.” Although Gerber never endorsed the series, Lethem’s version finally hit the shelves in the fall of 2007, featuring idiosyncratic art by Farel Dalrymple. Although the first issue featured almost a word-forword remake of the opening issue of the Gerber/ Skrenes/Mooney version, Lethem and Dalrymple’s Omega the Unknown would ultimately head in a different direction while still exploring some of the same themes and ideas. Lethem explained, in a July 18, 2008 interview with Comic Book Resources, his take on the Omega concept: “A superhero who really doesn’t know the first thing about our planet is nevertheless forced to perform an important intervention on behalf of a human boy, whose fate is tied up with the fate of the universe. Neither of them is particularly ready for life in New York City, which is too bad for them.” In a Newsarama interview with Zack Smith, Lethem discussed the impact of the original Omega the Unknown: “I thought it was fantastic. Those first issues, when Gerber

Omega, Robot Fighter

and Skrenes were really allowed to do what they wanted to do and were building this incredible story full of all sorts of weird implications and possibilities … I simply thought it was the best comic book I’d ever read.” But Lethem mourned the fact that the series wasn’t appreciated at the time—by Marvel or by readers: “There wasn’t enough of a precedent for what the creators were doing, and no one trusted it, so they never really had a chance to realize the story they’d initiated. But that whisper of it—the first two issues above all, with all the possibilities inherent in what they’d begun, made it hugely meaningful to me. “And though I’m not telling their story, not trying to continue or conclude their Omega in the least,” said Lethem, “part of my impulse was to bring a version of Omega to something like fruition.” “I’m treating it as a legendary text is so often treated in the comic-book world, which is to say those tales are told and re-told in new and strange ways precisely because they were so good,” said Lethem. “In other words, I assume—perhaps absurdly—but I assume for my purposes that Omega is a canonical text, and therefore that anyone would be excited to see it retold in a strange and different way.” Gerber passed away before seeing Lethem’s series conclude—not that he would have read it anyway, after all of his complaints about Omega’s resurrection. But as Steven Grant points out, Gerber was never one to hold a grudge: “Steve was easily among the most generous people I’ve known in comics, and where he had plenty of good reason to despise me for my connections to his Marvel creations, when we did meet in Los Angeles in the mid-’80s he instead embraced and welcomed me and we subsequently worked together many times in the years since, and ended up being pretty good friends. Since we both lived in Las Vegas, we got together fairly regularly, and I last saw him just before Christmas last year. He was worn out—due to his lung problem he had to carry a portable oxygen tank with him—but very upbeat and optimistic, and had finally been fasttracked for a lung transplant, as soon as lungs became available. He was looking forward to it, talking new projects. It was pretty inspiring. The next thing I heard, a couple weeks later, he had contracted pneumonia—we had a very bad winter here for that sort of thing and everyone was coming down with bad respiratory infections—and in his badly weakened condition he just couldn’t withstand it. It was very sad, coming off the most upbeat I’d ever seen him. “It’s a shame he didn’t have more opportunity to give his ideas to the business,” Grant adds, “and a shame the business didn’t give him more opportunities.” TIMOTHY CALLAHAN is an educator, husband, and father of two budding comic-book fans. His first book, Grant Morrison: The Early Years, premiered in 2007, and he is the editor of a collection of essays about the Legion of Super-Heroes entitled Teenagers from the Future. He blogs about comics at geniusboyfiremelon.blogspot.com and works as a staff writer for Comic Book Resources.

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THING AND GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY by RON WILSON Ben Grimm and the Guardians were first teamed by Steve Gerber in Marvel Two-in-One #5 (inset above), but here’s a rematch by the artist who drew their second team-up (in MTIO #69). From the collection of Brian Sagar. © 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Think of Steve Gerber’s output in the 1970s and one could scarcely be blamed for thinking Marvel Comics. For a DC Comics fan, though, the answer might be something different. It’s all a matter of perspective— and perspective was what Metal Men #45 was all about. “Evil,” its title declared, “Was in the Eye of the Beholder.” The Metal Men had been one of DC’s most novel creations of the 1960s, a sextet of robots endowed with personalities and idiosyncrasies keyed to their respective metals. Written by the equally idiosyncratic Robert Kanigher and illustrated by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, the series was a blend of cartoony charm and melodrama that saw the heroes repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt by their creator William “Doc” Magnus. “I had the first Metal Men Showcase issue back before my mom threw out some of my comics,” Walter Simonson recalls. “It is possible that I might actually have read that particular comic to shreds. I thought the flying manta ray was pretty cool.” The tone of the series took a dramatic shift in 1968, transforming the sextet into fugitives that ultimately had to hide their true nature under “human” secret identities. And Doc was no help at all, having first been rendered comatose and then kidnapped and brainwashed by the dictator of a

Junkheaped Cover Dick Giordano’s published cover (inset) for Metal Men #45 (Apr.–May 1976) is a winner, but it’s too bad Walt Simonson’s original cover for that issue, seen here (scanned from its publication in The Art of Walter Simonson trade paperback), wasn’t used. TM & © DC Comics.

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nation called Karnia. By the end of 1969, Doc Magnus was the enemy, employing a robot army and a hydrogen bomb as his conflicted creations were dispatched to kill him. Metal Men ended with #41, its principals left in a stalemate with their creator. Cutting its losses, DC returned to square one in 1972, reprinting Showcase #37’s first Metal Men story in The Flash #214 and reviving the group in its original form—minus Doc—in a Batman team-up (The Brave and Bold #103). While sales on a 1973 reprint series (Metal Men #42–44) weren’t up to snuff, the heroes were popular enough to get two more shots with Batman in 1974 and 1975 (Brave and Bold #113, 121). It stood to reason, then, that a new Metal Men comic might sell. Gerry Conway, newly returned to DC as an editor, quickly put it on his to-do list, scheduling a one-shot story for an early issue of First Issue Special or Super-Team Family. His choice of scripter was at once surprising—given the man’s exclusive presence at Marvel—and inspired. “I asked [Steve Gerber] to write it,” Conway confirms. “I’d always been a fan of both Steve’s writing and the Metal Men, and I imagined it would be interesting and fun to get his take on them.” Once written, though, Gerber’s story wound up in limbo. As Walter Simonson recalled in The Art of Walter Simonson (1989), the script wound up “in a drawer somewhere.” Simonson explains that “Carmine Infantino, the publisher at DC at that time, was the gentleman who actually wanted me to draw the story. He liked my work and really supported my early work at DC.” The result was electrifying, so much so that Infantino bypassed plans to run the story as a one-shot and instead declared it to be the first issue of a revived Metal Men comic (starting with #45, where the reprint series had left off). The strapped-for-cash Metal Men opened the story by cracking a safe, a deceptive sequence that pulled back to reveal that the team was on a cross-country lecture tour. A question about Doc Magnus’ status— prompting a polite “Next question”—segued to the genius’ current home in a Washington, D.C. sanitarium, where he’d been forcibly admitted “at the ‘suggestion’ of the C.I.A.” It wasn’t working out too well. Bad enough that innocuous pictures inspired declarations like “Trample! Raze! Annihilate!” [see bottom right]. The images of the Metal Men sent Doc into a homicidal rage. An enormous amount of information—the identification and background on the six Metal Men and their creator—was conveyed in those opening pages. What made it impressive—and a testament to Gerber’s skill—is that the reader wasn’t even conscious of it. It’s only in comparison to a modern comic’s lack of basic stage-setting that one notices at all. Indeed, the economy of the entire story—setting aside the fact that Steve had no choice in the matter—gave the issue an intensity that’s helped it live on in the memories of everyone who read it. However old-school the technical details, Gerber’s dialogue was very much contemporary. Discrimination (against robots). A robber unmasked as an unemployed bellhop trying to feed his baby. And the crux of the story: A government bureaucrat who declared that, homicidal rages to the contrary, Doc was “cured”— because the military had spent all the money they’d allotted for him. “Budgets are budgets,” the man named Whittier declared. “Unless Magnus can produce, we’ll have to consider his therapy a failure and scrap the project.”

Gerry’s Friend

So a compromise was reached (over his physician’s objections) and Doc presented his patrons with a towering robot he called the Plutonium Man. The government’s General Casper (a holdover from the 1960s strip) was horrified at the prospect of such a lethally radioactive being but Whittier was delighted. Pulling a gun, he demanded to see more—and got it in spades when Magnus released the Plutonium Man into the environment. Whittier, it seems, was an agent of Karnia, one who’d worked his way up in the ranks of the US military complex with the idea of using Doc Magnus’ genius against the US—whom his nation blamed for giving them no reparations after the destruction the Metal Men had unleashed there. “No military aid … no economic aid … no offers of nuclear reactors … but then, Karnia has no oil resources, does it?” The Plutonium Man was Doc Magnus’ rage personified and it went berserk when it came faceto-face with the Metal Men—even as they recognized Doc at its core. In the span of a few pages, Tin, Lead, Iron, Mercury, and Gold fell one by one, futilely trying in vain to stop the radioactive terror. And Whittier finally grasped the enormity of what he’d done. Rather than have Karnia’s name besmirched further, he made a suicide run for the super-robot, firing bullets into its fail-safe systems before he was reduced to cinders. Seizing the opportunity, the last Metal “Man”—the curvaceous Platinum, a.k.a. Tina—enveloped the Plutonium Man, containing its power long enough to trigger the “China Syndrome” (doubtless the first time most readers had heard the phrase).

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(above) From the pages of Marvel’s housezine FOOM #7, 1970s-vintage photos of Metal Men editor Gerry Conway (left) and writer Steve Gerber. (below) Walter Simonson’s typography enlivens his energetic art on the rampunctuous three-panel sequence from Metal Men #45. Photos © 2008 Marvel. Metal Men TM & © DC Comics.

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In the early 1980s, Steve Gerber wasn’t known as a DC Comics writer, with only one issue of Metal Men and three of Mister Miracle to his credit. Yet DC’s Dick Giordano tapped him to pen a four-issue Superman spin-off miniseries, The Phantom Zone (Jan.–Apr. 1982), teaming Gerber with his frequent Howard the Duck partner, penciler Gene Colan. The pairing was, as expected, magical and macabre. Gerber’s harsh interpretation of the merciless Phantom Zone villains took readers into a dangerous terrain that longtime Superman editors Mort Weisinger and Julie Schwartz had never dared visit. Schwartz did eventually “go there,” bringing Gerber back to wrap up his Phantom Zone story in the last issue of the Superman team-up series DC Comics Presents. As hinted at in this interview, conducted in early 2006 for my TwoMorrows book The Krypton Companion, Steve Gerber had planned a return to Krypton when, in the mid-1980s, he and Frank Miller proposed a reboot of Superman during DC’s campaign to revitalize the Man of Steel. I had hoped to one day revisit this topic with Mr. Gerber and explore it in depth, but, alas, his vision of a new Superman continuity joins his unfinished Omega the Unknown series as one of the great mysteries of his writing career. Gerber did twice return to the Superman mythos, however, with the 1999 miniseries A. Bizarro and the 2000 miniseries Superman: Last Son of Earth. – Michael Eury

MICHAEL EURY: Most readers assumed that the Phantom Zone miniseries was DC’s response to the Phantom Zone villains appearing in the movie Superman II, but given the peculiarities of scheduling, that might not be the case. Was the Phantom Zone comic indeed inspired by the movie’s success? STEVE GERBER: The short answer is “yes.” I’m glad we stuck with the comics version of the villains,

Villains Unleashed Superman, trapped in the Zone with reformed Kryptonian bad guy Quex-Ul, can’t help his cousin Supergirl as the Zone escapees pillage Earth. Scan of the original Gene Colan/Dick Giordano cover art to The Phantom Zone #2, courtesy of Tom Ziuko. TM & © DC Comics.

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GERBER’S SUPERMAN STORIES • The Phantom Zone #1–4 (Jan.–Apr. 1982) • DC Comics Presents #97: Superman and the Phantom Zone Villains (Sept. 1986) • A. Bizarro #1–4 (Aug.–Nov. 1999) • Superman: Last Son of Earth #1–2 (2000)

though, even if Zod’s Italian fascist-inspired uniform looked a little goofy. EURY: You’d done very little work for DC prior to this. How were you chosen to write Phantom Zone? GERBER: As best I recall, Dick Giordano approached me about it. It’s not something I would’ve come up with myself, because I was never a big fan of the PZ villains. EURY: Phantom Zone was edited by Dick Giordano. Why didn’t Superman line editor Julie Schwartz oversee it? GERBER: Again, this is a guess: Dick may have thought I would have had difficulty working with Julie, whose approach to story and character was very different from my own. I would probably have agreed with that judgment, and so, probably, would Julie. Much as I liked and admired Julie, I don’t think we would have been a good fit as editor and writer over the long term. EURY: Did you bring your former Howard the Duck collaborator Gene Colan on board, or was he Dick’s pick? GERBER: As I recall, I asked for Gene, and Dick immediately agreed. I knew exactly what Gene’s Superman would look like before he even set pencil to paper, and he didn’t disappoint me. What really blew me away was Gene’s Clark Kent! He looked real and human, maybe for the first time in the character’s history. Gene was suffering a little from typecasting at both Marvel and DC. At Marvel, he’d become the Dracula guy; as a result, at DC, he became the Batman guy for a while. They thought of him as an artist who could create a certain kind of eeriness and mood.

Which was true, of course, but it hardly defined Gene’s limits. He was capable of doing really wonderful sci-fiflavored action stuff, too. EURY: You had written a Superman pastiche almost ten years earlier when you introduced Wundarr into the Man-Thing series in Adventure into Fear #17 (Oct. 1973). What’s the story behind Wundarr’s creation? GERBER: Nothing except my love of the Superman character and my desire to do a little parody/homage. EURY: According to Roy Thomas, Stan Lee was miffed over Wundarr. Did you catch any heat from Stan or Roy? GERBER: Actually, it was DC who was miffed. Marvel was the miffee. What I had intended as parody, DC saw as plagiarism. From what I was told, there were angry words exchanged, but it never got anywhere near a courtroom. Marvel agreed to do another Wundarr story that would set him drastically apart from Superman—which is what I had always intended— and that was that. (Wundarr’s home planet never exploded. His father was the alarmist the Krypton elders supposed Jor-El to be.) I’m sure Roy must have conveyed to me Stan’s displeasure with the incident. Under the circumstances, of course, Stan had every right to be displeased. I’m still amazed, though, that DC took it so seriously. EURY: The Phantom Zone reintroduced Daily Planet employee Charlie Kweskill, formerly the Zone villain Quex-Ul, whose powers and memories were erased by gold kryptonite in his sole prior appearance in Superman #157 (Nov. 1962). Were you aware of this character prior to your developing Phantom Zone, or was Kweskill a discovery during your research? S t e v e

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San Diego Comic-Con 1982 Steve Gerber gets devil horns from Althaea Yronwode, daughter of editor cat yronwode, at a Comic-Con function the year Phantom Zone was published. Photo courtesy of Alan Light.

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“Lords of Light!” “Demon Dogs!” “Riiiiiide!” Thundarr the Barbarian faithfuls will instantly recognize the aforementioned battle cries as frequently uttered by the titular cartoon savage, a blond, muscle-bound, Conan-like adventurer who traveled a post-apocalyptic Earth (circa 3994 A.D.), conquering tyrants everywhere. Unlike Robert E. Howard’s famous dark-maned savage, however, Thundarr (voice by Bob Ridgely) has never been a thief or a pirate. Rather, he’s a true hero through and through (which makes sense, since Thundarr was essentially a children’s television program), willing to risk life and limb time and again to right wrongs, promote freedom, and exact justice, most notably against evil wizards hellbent on enslaving and lording over humankind.

THUNDARR STRIKES Produced by Joseph Ruby and Ken Spears (of RubySpears Productions), with story-editing by Steve Gerber (who co-created the show with Ruby), Thundarr the Barbarian debuted on Oct. 4, 1980, at 10:30 AM (Eastern Standard Time) on the ABC Television Network (at the same time as Popeye on CBS and Batman and the Super 7 on NBC). Markedly different than other Saturday morning fare of the era, Thundarr was an animated series with real bite, an honest-to-goodness action/adventure show, despite heavy-handed restrictions employed by network censors of the time. In The Comic Times #4 (Jan. 1980), Gerber remarked that “the difficulty with the Saturday morning show was to make the Broadcast Standards and Practices division of the network accept any conflict at all, much less physical conflict.” In Fantastic Films #20 (Dec. 1980), Gerber stated that “we have a number of severe limitations. With all of the mayhem that goes on in our show, the Program Practices will still not allow our main character to throw a punch or to hit anybody. He can do all kinds of acrobatic things, but he can’t even trip anyone.”

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Even with censors breathing down their necks, Gerber and company managed to pull off an exciting half-hour of television each week. As long as the violence portrayed was not easily emulated by children, Thundarr could battle bad guys in a relatively convincing manner. For example, though left jabs to the face, uppercuts to the jaw, and kicks to the crotch would never have passed muster with the censors, hurling giant boulders at villains and jump-kicking nasties in the chest were considered acceptable. In addition, the show had plenty of explosions, vehicle crashes, ray blasts, and other forms of light fantasy violence. Predictably, Gerber did get frustrated at times during the creation of the show, as evidenced by his remarks in Fantastic Films #20: “What I would have liked to have seen … is a character barbaric enough to be able to defend himself and perhaps even kill when necessary in order to stay alive or to protect his friends from a menace that couldn’t be dealt with in any other way. The big thing that we’ve had to overcome is that the censors tend to treat children as if they’re not just morons, but lunatics, potentially dangerous creatures.” In Comics Feature #10 (July 1981), Gerber sounded a bit more positive regarding what he envisioned with Thundarr and the resultant outcome: “We wanted to make the show as nearly pure adventure as we could, without the kind of cloying, preachy, mealy-mouthed social-consciousness crap that hobbled shows like Shazam, Isis, and, for a time, Super Friends. We wanted to do adventure, suspense, and, insofar as it was allowed, horror—in other words, to remain true to the spirit of the sword-and-sorcery genre. We’ve done more, actually, than I expected we’d be able to.” In The Comic Times #4, Gerber called the show “considerably better than what you usually find on Saturday morning.” Ironically, one network restriction—the fact that knives and other sharp objects were taboo on Saturday morning TV—led to the creation of a beloved

Thundarr trademark, the powerful Sunsword, which is nothing less than one of the coolest weapons ever seen in a cartoon series. The Sunsword attached magnetlike to Thundarr’s wrist guards and was activated and deactivated similar to a lightsaber. It could absorb magic, slice through concrete and steel (and, one must presume, lop off a wizard’s head like a knife through butter), and much more. When swung, the weapon made a deep, satisfying, electronic sound like something coming out of an Atari 2600 video game. Despite the coolness of Thundarr’s Sunsword, the iconic (at least in this writer’s mind) implement failed to make ToyFare magazine’s list of “The 50 Greatest Fictional Weapons of All Time,” a feature that appeared in issue #125 (Jan. 2008). What did make the list, though, was He-Man’s Power Sword (weighing in at number two, just behind Green Lantern’s power ring), which pales in comparison. Sure, the Power Sword could transform the meek Prince Adam into the musclebound He-Man and the cowardly Cringer into the armored Battle Cat, but the Sunsword got much more use in terms of actual combat. He-Man was more on par with the Super Friends in its reluctance to show heroes kicking bad-guy butt.

Must-See TV ABC’s and NBC’s comic-book ads for their Saturday morning lineups, each including Thundarr. Thundarr © Ruby-Spears Productions. ABC © ABC-TV. NBC © NBC-TV. Other characters © their respective copyright holders.

THUNDARR AGENTS Although he relied heavily on the mighty Sunsword, Thundarr valued his friends even more. Unlike Conan, who usually traveled solo, Thundarr rode (via horseback) side by side with two constant companions: the beautiful, busty Princess Ariel (voiced by Nellie Bellflower) and the big, brutish Ookla the Mok (voiced by Henry Corden). In every episode, the trio would work as a team to vanquish their foes, despite dealing with the occasional personality clash and some degree of internal conflict (at least compared to the Super Friends, who never had a cross word with one another). Classy, articulate, and well read, Ariel was in stark contrast to the noble, but savage and oftentimes angry, Thundarr. When Ariel would comment on their surroundings, Thundarr would likely brush her off. For example, in the episode “Master of the Stolen Sunsword,” Ariel tells Thundarr that they are in Beverly Hills and that it used to be one of the wealthiest cities in the world, to which Thundarr replies: “What of it. It’s the wizard and my Sunsword that matter now.”

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