#104: Two Years

Hello and welcome! As of this week, this Newsletter has been a thing for a solid two years. So thanks to everyone who’s been reading, for however long you have. We’ve well and truly shattered the number of subscribers that I was hoping to be able to build up, and just this past week, two more newcomers each pledged $80.00 a year to follow this feature. Which is gratifying to hear, though as the very first release stated, we’re Always Free around these parts (and Occasionally Interesting.) Still, those imaginary dollars make for a powerful motivational tool. So let’s see what we’ve got on tap this week.

And the answer to that question appears to be Reader Mail! We got more questions this past week than usual, so I’m just going to dive straight into them. Deep breath—here we go!

Dan

There has been a story circulating online regarding an artist potentially using A.I to create his art. As an editor, do you see an issue with this?

This is a complicated question, Dan, and not one that I expect I’m going to be able to address here completely, sorry. Lousy lead-off question, I know, but tempers are so heightened around this subject that I don’t think there’s any answer that I could give here that wouldn’t cause an uproar of some kind.

Braeden

In a recent newsletter I saw someone ask about Marvel’s process when it comes to hiring writers and artists, and I was wondering how marvel goes about hiring people in editorial. How do you find candidates and what do you look for when sifting through them?

Well, these days, Braeden, when we have an opening, we make a job posting through Disney’s website. As you’d expect, such a posting brings in potential resumes by the thousands, most of them from people who want to work for Marvel Studios in some capacity and don’t understand the difference in what we do. So most of those are weeded out straight away. Resumes may also have been referred by people already on staff or in other departments across the company. Thereafter, the balance are reviewed for relevant experience or qualifications, and a relatively small sampling is passed along to editorial. From there, several potential candidates will be given an editing test to review and comment on a script. The results of that will narrow down the field even further, and the candidates who remain will wind up doing interviews with the editors in question and usually at least one of the Executive Editors. From there, the potential picks usually get boiled down to two or three, and there’s a final set of interviews with the EIC, after which time somebody is made the offer and hopefully takes it to come on staff.

Julian Eme

X-Men will have the Uncanny X-Men Legacy numbering with its #700, the last of the Krakoa Age issue. But this is the X-Men without adjectives.

That's why I wonder what Legacy numbering the X-Men by Jed MacKay and Ryan Stegman will have and what Legacy numbering the Uncanny X-Men by Gail Simone and David Marquez will have. I also assume that there will be no Legacy numbering for Exceptional, but there will be for other series with previous incarnations, such as X-Force or X-Factor.

It’s really a bit early to be worrying about what the Legacy numbering is going to be on these books, isn’t it, Julian? But oh well, the heart wants what it wants. The Legacy number on UNCANNY X-MEN will obviously be #701, whereas the number on X-MEN will be #302. X-FORCE and X-FACTOR I don’t have to hand right this second, so they’ll be a surprise to both of us.

Callie

Looking at the new X-Office, I see a lot of white. Obviously, this isn't anything new to comics but it is something I was hoping a book like X-Men could start to move on from. Was there any thought when creating your lineups (especially for the books that haven't had their creative teams announced like X-Factor and Storm) about how you could include more diversity in a corner of 616 that really does deserve to be written and drawn by more diverse people? I mean, look at how much better Miles Morales comics got when actual POC and Puerto Ricans were writing for him, or how excellent Ms Marvel books have always been under the writing of G Willow Wilson, and more recently Iman Vellani.

I'm not saying that white people can't write good X-Books, the last 60 years of comic history prove that, but I do hope to see more diversity in the lineups for the other 6 books considering it's always been a problem how dominated by white men the comics industry has historically been

It’s a little bit difficult to work out whether you’re speaking about diversity among the characters in the books, Callie, or the talent involved with them. So I’m going to assume the latter. Here’s the thing: as I sometimes tell my staff at Marvel, while everybody wants to do good and be on the right side of history, you can’t be all things to all people all the time. Which is to say, you can’t check off every possible box under every possible circumstance. Now for me, in casting the three X-MEN books, I looked for people who I thought could execute the concepts of the titles in question and bring something special to them. All other concerns were largely secondary. But across those three books and six creators, we have three women for an even male-female ratio, which I think is relatively unprecedented. Among our three writers, it’s 2/3 women and 1/3 POC. (Also 1/3 Canadian, but nobody really cares about that.) So I feel like it’s a relatively good spread. Beyond that, we haven’t announced the remaining titles yet nor who is working on them, so there you’re just going to have to wait and see. But honestly, while you are right and it’s always good to have a range of backgrounds and experiences in the mix when you talk about a line of titles like this, the paramount element of importance to me is always whether I think that the person in question can do the job and carry out the mission successfully.

Adam

Okay, I'll take a crack at the first X-book you ever edited. Was it: the Official Marvel Index to the X-Men (Vol. 2) #1? That's an X-book, right?

Also, congrats on unveiling the X-Men relaunch. A big part of these three books is that they each take place in a different city, that city being the home of one of the X-Men. Was this in you initial pitch for the relaunch? It does seem like an overarching theme for these books might be "homecoming."

I don’t think that those X-Men Indexes really count as comics, Adam. Reference material, sure, and I did work on them. But no, they don’t count towards this. In terms of the different X-Men teams being in different cities, that underlying idea came from me, but only two of the three environments originated with me—one changed as the writer developed their ideas for the series and their concept was better than mine.

Alex Dee

does Frank Tieri/Georges Jeanty's Weapon X #11 count as your first "proper" X-title as editor?

Yes, yes it does, Alex! You are the winner! For a brief window of time, I wound up editing WEAPON X for some reason, though not long enough to have any real impact on it as a series. I do think that I wound up editing the best issue in that run, though, #14’s “Sinister’s List.”

Greg

The 1975 letter shared this week from Stan Lee is signed "SL/dd". Just curious, does anyone know what the "/dd" stands for? Thanks!

DD would have been Stan’s secretary, Greg, the person who actually typed that memo up after Stan dictated it. I don’t know who that would have been in 1975, but their initials would have been DD.

Pierre Navarre

Back in the late 80’s/early 90’s (so around the time when you started working at Marvel), Marvel did a series of several six issues story arcs published during the summer (across many different titles), probably in order to attract some casual readers, in case they wanted to read something on the beach (the most beloved one of the bunch may well be Captain America: The Bloodstone Hunt). Any idea why it stopped (a few years before the burst of the 90's comic speculator bubble) ?

You’re correct in that the goal of that initiative was to sell more issues of popular series during the summer months when comic book sales tend to be stronger overall, Pierre. As for why it ended, my guess is that as the emphasis shifted from the mainstream Newsstand outlets to the Direct Sales market, that seasonal change in sales wasn’t so pronounced, and so it was seen as unnecessary. Also, it was a lot of work for those months.

JV

Any plans for a Deathlok series?

What about Machine Man (the one pager in Marvel 1000 by Roger Stern and Jerry Ordway made me want to see them follow up on that tease)?

There’ll be a DEATHLOK 50th Anniversary project later on in the year, JV. But no plans for Machine Man that I’m aware of, sorry.

Jeff Ryan

Stan Lee was the inspiration for DC’s Funky Flashman, among other send-ups. Tom DeFalco was likewise inspiration for (oof) "Clumsy Foulup” in the pages of Silver Surfer. Have there been any Marvel characters where you’ve wondered “hey, is that goofball/idiot/suave sophisticated superspy supposed to be ME?”

Not that I’m aware of, Jeff. Nobody in the field cares about me enough to go to the effort of creating such a send-up of me.

Dr. Doom

Any chance that you're going to revive the Dawn of X-style trade paperbacks so we can read all the main titles at once? Or was that just a unique experiment that didn't work in terms of sales or your construction of the X-office?

Those DAWN OF X collections were an interesting experiment, Doom, but over time they didn’t really sell well enough or consistently enough to make continuing with them worthwhile. Readers like this idea in the abstract, but when it comes time to actually put their money on the counter, buying books for which they might only be interested in 80% of the content proves to not be something that many carry through on.

Sam M.

Can you talk about the behind-the-scenes of the Jason Aaron Punisher series? Did he come to you with a pitch to overhaul (so to speak) the character, or was it an editorial decision to dramatically change the status quo that led you to create a miniseries to do that? And if the latter, what was driving that decision?

It was a bit of both, Sam. Jason had the crux of the story that became his PUNISHER series in mind for a while. But it was when we started talking about the difficulties we were facing with the character given the increasing number of public shootings and the co-opting of the skull insignia by some bad actors that he put forward his story as a way of addressing some of these concerns in an interesting way.+

Manqueman

So just one vague question that I hope can be answered: a number of the characters have gone through what can be described as more PTSD-causing than par. Will that stuff be undone — the traumas, I mean — ignored or at least left there as somethings that happened?

Everything that happened, happened, Manqueman. But how much we get into those situations will vary based on the title and on the writer. And also, as what we’re building is designed to be a new era, our stories really can’t and shouldn’t be all about the previous era, they need to move forward and do some new things. But definitely, where we pick up on any number of X-Characters, they’re dealing with the fallout of the war with Orchis and the end of Krakoa and the reality of needing to work out what to do next. So yes, this will still thematically be an element to what we’re doing.

Paul Buignet

I believe you've said in the past that you prefer fresh writers on your books instead of old writers going back to the old well, so does this mean X-Men #35/Uncanny X-Men #700 will be Chris Claremont's last X-tale?

I wouldn’t think so, Paul, no. But I also wouldn’t expect Chris to suddenly be writing one of the core series regularly either. That’s the sort of return that I’m talking about, when you try to recapture a bygone era by bringing back the creators who worked on a series back in the day. There are very few times when this has ever worked in the history of comics, so I think it’s better to keep moving forward with new people and new ideas. But the X-line is wide, and so there’s always going to be a place for creators such as Chris who’ve dedicated so much of themselves to these characters over the years, if you see the difference.

Nacho Teso

In regards to this week, I wanna ask about logos. One of the main strengths of the Krakoan Era were the logos designed by Tom Muller. They were certainly unique, cohesive and instantly synonymous with the books. Now, however, we are reverting back to some old/classic logos in the X-Men franchise. What thoughts went into this? Was there ever a chance to keep the krakoan ones or maybe even designing new ones? What makes it proper to go back to those logos? I understand a new era comes with a new dress, so I'm interested in the whys of this choice.

The choice of logos in every case was mine, Nacho, and so, no, there was no chance that we’d be keeping the Muller ones. Part of the exercise here is to transition into a new era, and so keeping the titles looking visually the same fights that idea. You need to be able to look at our books on the stands the month they come out and immediately realize that something has changed, even if you haven’t been following the titles regularly at that point. And frankly, I believe in the power of a good, classic logo. I ran the same classic AVENGERS logo on that series for 25 years with only rare deviations from it, the current run being one of the few. To me, and to a whole generation of fans, that telescoping X-MEN logo says X-MEN like nothing else, on an almost DNA level. And it hasn’t really been seen on the books in twenty years or more. But as I mentioned a week or two back, the minute we put it on our covers, they became X-MEN comics. Plus, I don’t think it’s a bad thing for retailers to be thinking about how well those titles sold back in the day when they first carried the logos in question in terms of how it might subliminally impact on how they order in our new books. I am very happy with the fact that, while all of the X-MEN books carry the same style of telescoping logo, they each use their own distinctive version: X-MEN from the Jim Lee launch, UNCANNY X-MEN from the 1980s, and EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN going back to the Neal Adams-era one.

Matthew

Could you explain the point of wingdings censorship in the modern age?

Most of the time, it's blatantly obvious what's being hidden, and if everyone involved on the publisher's side knows the character is really saying "shit" and everyone in the audience knows the character is really saying "shit", then who's being protected from what? Alternatively, and surprisingly often, I'm jolted out of the moment, because I can't come up with a swear word that would fit in a way that matches normal human speech patterns (possibly because I instinctively expect a 4-wingding long word to be replacing a 4-letter long swear, and I dunno if it's actually more random that that).

Most books are targeted at teens and upwards, who already know all about swearing and are highly likely use it themselves. I feel like it would make more sense to either commit to allowing uncensored swearing in those books (with appropriate restrictions on frequency of use) or just tell your writers not to use words that would require such censorship in the first place.

Well, Matthew, this is just a place where we’ll need to agree to disagree. We see plenty of feedback from readers across the country who are sometimes concerned or upset with the language used in comics, and so I think there’s still a need for a certain level of decorum. And if your argument is that you can easily determine what is being said even with the wingdings in place, then I fail to see what the problem is. You understand what is being said, but somebody that doesn’t, doesn’t.

CG

I know you all have recently shown the main 3 titles so far but has your X-editorial team decided how you are going to move forward with the Unlimited X-Men stories? Is there an assigned editor under you for the Unlimited X-Men stories? It would be awesome to get your thoughts on that format and how it can supplement your main titles. Especially with the concern every X-office gets of fans wanting to see certain character for even brief moments. Is the digital format a priority for the X-Office?

Got a couple of questions about this beyond yours, CG, so I’m going to try to answer them all here. And the short answer is yes, we’ll be taking over what is now X-MEN UNLIMITED as well. Darren Shan will be editing it, and it’ll be getting a brand new name as well as switching its emphasis to the post-Krakoa era in June. But otherwise, it’ll be much the same kind of approach, with stories featuring a wide range of X-characters (as there are far too many to cover in the print titles alone) and stories that will be material to the ongoing tapestry of the X-Universe. Not ready to announce creative teams or anything yet, but they’ll be plugged into what we’re doing on the regular, and most of the stories we’re planning will initially fill in some of the gaps between where we last see assorted X-Characters in the Krakoa era and where they get picked up in print. But really, essentially the selfsame approach just applied to the new era.

Ben Morse

Tom, what was the impetus for “graduating” two New Warriors characters, Justice and Firestar, into the Avengers? Was it you, Kurt Busiek, or a joint decision? And were any other members of the team considered?

That was done by Kurt and I, Ben, though it was more Kurt’s idea than mine. And we did it because we were looking for some new young inductees into the ranks of the Avengers who could focus as a pair of fresh eyes into that world. Having just come off of editing NEW WARRIORS, I had an affinity for those characters, and Vance at least had a stated goal of becoming an Avenger going back to his earliest appearances. And he and Firestar felt as though they fit into that world pretty smoothly.

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Behind the Curtain

.This one’s going to be a bit long, and I’m not sure how much it’ll be of interest to everyone. What you’re about to read is a summary of an AVENGERS editorial retreat held in February of 2009. In it, the plans for our DARK AVENGERS/UNCANNY X-MEN crossover were outlined as well was what became the DARK REIGN: THE LIST titles as well as the road towards SIEGE. Some of what’s listed below didn’t happen, some of it happened somewhat differently, and some went off exactly as these notes indicate. As before, I had to rescue this from a document in an outdated format, so rather than show the actual thing, what you’re getting here is the text. But it’s all accurate to the original (including the typos):

Avengers Retreat Notes  2/4/09

              I.      June / July/August

  Dark Avengers vs. X-Men cross over

  2-3 months

• Uncanny- Some mutants getting in trouble and a cop kills him. Mutants go crazy/riot and Scott lets it happen- doesn’t say don’t riot. Norman is put in charge of law and order. Emma in black and leading people from X-Men taking orders from Norman. Beast leaves the team- captured by Hammer and taken to a camp – things are looking worse and worse for mutants. Emma and Namor say Norman has gone too far. Namor raises abandoned city out of the water right on the San Francisco coast for the Mutants to go to (Uncanny #515). Norman has the island surrounded- it’s actually a prison. Norman starts to lose control of Cabal. Norman calls on Emma- she has to do it or it’s all over for her. When she realizes it’s a death camp she and Namor conspire to      

The X-Men fight them off and they think they won, but then Scott realized Emma has gone too far. Namor- trying to do the right thing by the X-men was betrayed.

<Brian suggested to take Magneto off this story- have him come back into Siege>

Scott and Emma tell each other secrets. <Dan and Axel suggested Scott be more proactive>

• During this storyline, do variant Dark X-Men covers on UNCANNY issues: Image of Dark X-men cover variant logo- good guy / bad guy covers.

• Brian and Matt co-plotting. Matt will script the whole thing.

• So Now- 2 months Sept/Oct: Norman X-men thing becomes popular, Cabal falls apart and X-men are trapped on the island.

  • Goal is to escape <Axel thinks they should be fighting for the land- thinks we should keep it Mutant Israel. Joe said we’ve done that already with Genosha. Also said whenever a race of people inhabit an island it never works. Tom said Genosha was different- was more about Mutant underclass. Joe thinks if your going to have the X-Men there they have to live there.>

  • Joe see’s this going into the 2010 Dark event- see’s this breaking into families which may lead into good story telling problems.

  • A lot of our superheroes can get sequestered  onto the island.

• Emma wants the island and gets screwed over. Norman pushes Doom on Fantastic Four. Thor gets the Avengers back together. Norman pushes Thor too far. There can be bridges on the island connecting to San Fran with check points. In every shot there would be the Golden Gate Bridge shown in different angles. <Dan suggested maybe its not an island- there could be a terrain you have to go through to get there>. 

           II.      “Project Muscle”- 2 months – September/October

Technically ties in’s

Writers up and coming w/ strong artists

• Need to look at how to title and market it.

• Norman current at his worst moment across 8/10 books.

• Project Muscle is amping up current existing titles with Norman / Cabal.

• Put up and coming writers on these. To use top guys it’s a matter of when they free up.

• Getting 2 issues - #1 top level talent like a Kubert #2 an up and coming guy.

• Look at it as an 8 issue event book with different talent on each issue (1 of 8 one-shot in numbering system).

• They can be 32 page books that have a level of cohesiveness (look at $3.99 22 page stories.

• This is not an event where we want other books hanging off it.

• The 8 stories should answer the following questions:

  1. Why would Norman allow “The Hulks” to run around?

  2. Why would Norman allow the Fantastic Four to run it’s shop?

  3. Why would Norman allow Mighty and new Avengers?

  4. Why would Norman let Wolverine run around?

  5. Why would Norman let The X-Men run around?

  6. Why wouldn’t Norman finally deal with Spider-Man?

  7. Why Asgard?

  8. Why wouldn’t Norman allow Nick fury to run around with those kids?

o   What if the premises of these are mission statements Norman sent out?

o   Let the writers know this is how Siege starts and ends- this is how they have to write to get them there.

o   Writers suggested:

1.      Jonathan Hickman

2.      Brian Bendis

3.      Jason Aaron

4.      Rick Remender

5.      Andy Diggle

6.      Matt Fraction

7.      Jeph Loeb

8.      Dan Slott

o   Artists suggested:

1.      David Finch

2.      Adam Kubert

3.      Frank Cho

4.      Esad

5.      Ed McGuinness (something other than Hulk- maybe Spider-Man)

6.      J. Scott Campbell

7.      Steve McNiven

8.      Cassaday

9.      Leneil

10.  Brandon Peterson

11.  Adi Granov

12.  Simone Bianchi

13.  Alan Davis

14.  Billy Tan

15.  John Romita Jr. (maybe)

16.  Mark Silvestri            

o   The math has to determine what issues go when

o   “Books to elevate to generate “buzz” for (figure out how to get one-shot out of these).

1.      ASM

2.      Uncanny X-Men

3.      Wolverine

4.      Fantastic Four

5.      Hulk

6.      Thor

7.      Avengers- New & Mighty

8.      Captain America

9.      Iron Man

        III.      Siege / Dark Siege – November/December/January

• Brian thinks the title should be Dark Siege.

• Relies on a lot of double shipping

• Loki used all of this to take over Asgard. Loki pushes Norman and Norman see’s ½ of Asgard is gone.<Brian said the Siege story should have mythology behind it- the stories you hear inspire your actions.> Thor is ready to go take over Asgard on his own to get it back and he looks behind him and see’s all his old buddies backing him up. Lesson from Thor- humility. <Dan likes the concept of June/July concerned about Normans twisting- how do you deliver that he’s nuts, what he’s doing, how he’s doing it. Brian said he is mentally ill. There would be a manifesto to the writers telling them Norman doesn’t realize he is mentally ill.>We can have a backup story that goes into it. Gives a place to tell Normans story. (#3 Norman got Sentry under control is revealed) Norman eventual ends up in jail.

·         For Dec. or Jan. get to Doom. Doom is going to experiment on the Gods to find immortality.  The castle is coming back from magic in DARK AVENGERS #4- Latveria is strong needs a castle to have the Gods there.

·         Brian would like coordination between JMS smooth- wants to know from JMS exactly what he wants out of Asgard.

o   Thor back in Marvel U- Instead of showing JMS what he’s losing show him what he’s getting.

o   The earlier we tell JMS the better.

o   Find out what Thor Asgardian will be at the end of Siege.

o   More concerned about where we have to be when we start- Thor is too important JMS needs to know exactly what he needs to hit.

·         End of Siege- Spirit of Asgard- key thing at the end for the W.

o   God War- what is going to make the Gods fight?

o   Maybe if Asgard gets re-charged and Humans cant stay- Their mind can’t handle it.

o   Olympians built Tenth World. Use Secret Warriors to incrobate idea then tie it into Hydra Shield mythology.

• Coming out of Dark Siege- AVENGERS #1- trinity mixed with Avengers; and UNCANNY X-MEN #1.

• Long term- go bi-weekly on X-Men and Avengers. To ship more often we have to manage our writers better- they need to deliver in a different way.

·         SWORD- call the book SHIELD. Takes place in Marvel U all historical stuff twisted.   A lot of guest characters can appear. Zodiac ties into the Shield stuff.

·         Follow-ups:

o   Come up with a plan to communicate to people / how are we communicating with writers and artists?

o   Document everything- build an outline- what it is and what needs to be accomplished.

o   Figure out books and talent to target- find out if there are stories there.

o   Logistics

o   Brian wants to know from JMS what he wants

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Pimp My Wednesday

This section gets shorter and shorter every week as we head through the Indian Summer in-between the end of our assorted AVENGERS duties and the incoming new X-MEN titles.

The focus is on Aiko Maki in G.O.D.S. #6 by Jonathan Hickman and Valerio Schiti. She did a bad thing, a thing that she now regrets, and so she embarks upon a quest to find a way to reverse her actions, regardless of the cost. And there’s always a cost. Even if you haven’t been reading this book up until now, this issue is, I think, easy enough for a novice to jump on board with and be able to enjoy the journey.

And AVENGERS UNLIMITED finally wraps up the 25-chapter mega-epic that’s been running since October with this final episode by Derek Landy and Marcio Fiorito. Next week, a new adventure begins—and it will be headed up by a new editorial team as well, so nothing to do with me any longer!

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A Comic Book On Sale 70 Years Ago Today, March 24, 1954

The notion that the centennial issues of comic book titles had any special meaning is a relatively recent development in the field. In the 1940s and 1950s, and into the 1960s, often little or no attention was paid when a given book hit a centennial issue. Today, of course, there’s a need for celebration, for a keystone story that makes a huge impact and alters the landscape of the characters in some way. But ADVENTURE COMICS #200 doesn’t lay by those rules. It’s a perfectly fine issue, but one that’s materially no different from #199 the month before or #201 the month after. But let’s take a look at it. By 1954, shrinking page counts were beginning to crowd out certain features in teh anthology titles, so while you once might be getting as many as 8 stories in an issue of ADVENTURE COMICS, here you only get four. In the lead story, Superboy foils an animal smuggling ring by becoming a bit of a Tarzan figure to a tribe of apes in Africa. John Sikela provides the artwork. Next, Aquaman gets shrunk down to microscopic size so that he can journey into the body of a stricken atomic scientist and destroy the virus that is threatening his life. It’s an odd outing for the King of the Seven Seas, but it’s drawn attractively by the late Ramona Fradon. Then, Johnny Quick tracks down a flying Johnny Quick impostor in the presciently-named town of Twin Peaks, as illustrated by Ralph Mayo. And finally, Green Arrow suffers an injury that robs him of the fine muscle control that allows for his perfect marksmanship. But he needs to find clever ways to pull off impossible shots while he heals up in order to protect his dual identity. It was illustrated by Raymond Perry, and for some strange reason, Green Arrow’s hat is consistently colored red throughout this story. The issue also carried the requisite number of single-page filler strips and public service features as well as a text feature that nobody on Earth ever read. The stories are all entertaining but they’re also instantly forgettable, and none of them have ever been reprinted as far as I can tell. This was the sort of disposable entertainment product that most comic books were in this period, and the people who worked on this issue would be astonished to discover that somebody was writing about it in 2024.

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A Comic Book On Sale 65 Years Ago Today, March 24, 1959

Hey, it’s the 65th anniversary of the character find of 1959, Bat-Mite! That year wasn’t really a great one for Batman, who had traded the noirlike shadows and underworld figures of Gotham City for a brightly-colored reality of aliens and strange transformations and colorful villains—the antithesis of what had initially made the series popular. But the character maintained his popularity, appearing regularly in three separate titles, so I suppose it worked for the era. As was so much of the concepts introduced into the Masked Manhunter’s world during this era, Bat-Mite was an attempt to create a Batman equivalent for a popular concept in the Superman series, in this case the troublesome and mischievous 5th-Dimensional Imp Mr. Mxyzptlk who would bedevil the Man of Steel with his magic. Bat-Mite, however, was the opposite of Mxy. He was a Batman fan, who dressed in his own makeshift Batman costume (one ear drooped) and who wanted nothing more than to see Batman perform extraordinary feats of daring and courage. Accordingly, he’d occasionally take it upon himself to make the challenges the Dynamic Duo were facing even more difficult to overcome, so that he’d have the pleasure of seeing them find a way to come through in teh clutch. So Bat-Mite was a pest of a different sort. He caught on, too, and became a regularly appearing part of the Bat-mythos until Julie Schwartz took over the series and banished the little bugger back to his own dimension. But even then, there was no stopping Bat-Mite, and he wound up a regular co-star in the 1977 NEW ADVENTURES OF BATMAN cartoon series and began to make recurring appearances in the comics, too. Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff produced this first Bat-Mite adventure, operating pseudonymously under the Bob Kane byline. But there was more going on in DETECTIVE COMICS #267 than just the main Batman story. Roy Raymond, TV Detective and front man for the Impossible But True television program caught out some scam artists who were using an old legend to frighten people away from a lagoon containing sunken treasure in a precursor to every Scooby Doo story produced in the 1960s. And John Jones, the Manhunter from Mars, aided some aliens from Jupiter with a problem in exchange for a ride back to his home planet. This strip wasn’t really a super hero series at this point yet so much as a gimmick detective series similar in its way to Roy Raymond—in this case, the detective was simply a Martian with extra-normal powers. It was only when the Justice League of America was about to become a going concern that the strip steered more directly into becoming a super hero series.

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A Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date

And speaking of X-Books that I edited in the past, March 24, 2004 marked the release of the first issue of CABLE & DEADPOOL, a corrective joint series that ran for 50 issues before all was said and done (though Deadpool himself didn’t appear in the final half-dozen or so, having been relaunched into his own solo series by that point.) In the year or two prior to this, in a misguided and unsuccessful attempt to avoid paying creator incentives to Rob Liefeld, with whom he’d had some bitter encounter, Bill Jemas had decided to relaunch and rebrand the three ongoing series that Rob had creator participation in: CABLE, X-FORCE and DEADPOOL. So CABLE became SOLDIER X, X-FORCE became X-STATIX and DEADPOOL become AGENT X. And all three of them suffered failing sales and were ultimately discontinued. The fans who had dutifully followed the books for years at that point saw an opportunity to jump off with these title and concept changes, and were quick to do so. But clearly, there was still juice to be had in those characters. And so at some point, the idea was floated to do a joint CABLE & DEADPOOL series with Fabian Nicieza writing. None of this was my idea, and I don’t know entirely why it came to me rather than X-Editor Mike Marts, but that was the way of it. Possibly, it was because people knew that I had worked with Fabian for a long while on THUNDERBOLTS and so we’d be simpatico. It was a bit of an odd couple series, with the continued presence of both characters coming down to them becoming quantum entangled during one of Cable’s bodyslides, so that whenever he would undertake one, Deadpool would be teleported along with him. Somebody, possibly Joe Quesada, had contacted Rob Liefeld about doing covers for the series, and he agreed to do the first six. Ultimately, though, he dropped out after four. And I didn’t go much longer than he did. I wound up passing the series on to one of my junior editors, Nicole Boose, who ran it for a good long while. And I find that I remember relatively little about working on it, apart from teh fact that Mark Brooks’ artwork was very nice, and that it became a solid, reliable seller as CABLE and DEADPOOL had been once again.

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The Deathlok Chronicles

Once again this week, we start off with the recollections of DEATHLOK co-writer Gregory Wright:

Gregory Wright

There was a bit...MORE to the plot issue. You and I and Sarra had worked out the kinks the ORIGINAL version...then it went to Bob and Punisher editor Don Daley. At that point many of the changes we had made were contradicted. Don decided that there were a bunch of things that the Punisher was doing that he didn't do...which was FALSE. I pointed out every issue where he had done these things and that even recently he had done these very things in the books that I was COLORING in his office. I was pretty pissed. Bob said that he agreed with everything Don said. As I was losing my mind and about to lose my temper...Sarra came up with the solution that you write about along with some other idea that turned a lightbulb in my head. I pretty much changed everything and was much happier with the outcome. Shockingly the Spider-Man office had no problem with the way I wanted to use Silvermane. But I will NEVER understand why Don and Bob thought that the Punisher didn't do the things I originally wrote when I had the proof right there in print. GRRRRR. This was the beginning of Denys trying out his new STYLE as well and doing breakdowns. I thought it worked very nicely for this story. I always hated that placement of the GUEST STARRING THE PUNISHER copy. The covers are really cool. I even have mint condition T-Shirts of them. I was really shocked you got them past everybody. I really do wish I had done the CYBERWAR storyline HERE instead of my next arc though. Dwayne's first arc had so many guest stars and here we went with ANOTHER one...sigh. But I'll always be grateful to Sarra for helping to make this story into a better one and for keeping me from totally losing my mind.

One other thing, lol. I never, ever went through John Romita with cover sketches unless they were problematic. I don't know how I managed this. I even DID some of my sketches. But usually the first time John saw the cover was when it was finished and went around for approval and I never had him complain. Now I had SHOOTER complain about stuff and I had to argue for a cover design, and I had Tom DeFalco come and ask for cover copy or MORE cover copy on covers I didn't want any. I tried to sneak one past him once...I SAID I'd do the copy, had it done and took it off before it went around again, he caught it! Made me put it back on and took it from me. LOL. I never tried that again and was grateful he had a sense of humor!

What you’re talking about at the end here, Greg, is a maneuver that Mark Gruenwald had performed in days past, so I’m not all that surprised to hear that DeFalco caught you out on it. And yeah, you were certainly lucky that he took the deception with good humor.

I don’t really have all that much to say about DEATHLOK #7, the second half of the initial two-parter written by Gregory Wright. Its cover, like that of #6, was laid upon me fait accompli by artist Denys Cowan following a visit to the studio of his friend Kent Williams where the two of them jammed on it. It’s a pretty cool piece, though I think that the foreshortening on Deathlok’s outstretched arm gets lost a little bit. As with the prior issue’s cover, I needed to get this one approved without having gotten approval on a sketch first. Looking at it today, I don’t know that it really needed that LET THE PUNISHMENT FIT THE CRIME cover copy, not with the other copy at the top. But this was a time at which all Marvel covers were required to have cover copy on them, so I may have been gilding the lily after my run-in with DeFalco the month before. As Greg indicates above, Tom definitely liked cover copy. The other thing that I recall about these two issues were that they were going to be included as part of a pilot program with the Spanish language newspaper El Diario. The idea was for them to circulate a small selection of Marvel comics in Spanish through them in an attempt to pull in some non-English speaking readers. But the deal never went through, and so the initial prep work went unused.

The one other thing that I can do this time out is introduce Sarra’s replacement. Mindy Newell wasn’t hired by me, she was presented to me as my new assistant editor by Tom DeFalco, who had run into her at a recent convention appearance and learned that she was looking for a staff job. Mindy was a good writer and a dedicated single mother, but being completely honest, she really wasn’t cut out to be an assistant editor. She didn’t have the sort of detail-minded organizational skills that the role required. She was always game, but her skills in that area just weren’t up to par. What this meant in practice is that, for the next couple of years I wound up shouldering a lot of that portion of the operation myself, especially when it came time to send a book off to print. To be honest, I didn’t even realize just how much of the load I had been carrying until a few years later when Mindy was rotated out to another position and I got a new assistant, and suddenly they could take on many of the responsibilities that I had been taking care of myself. That all said, I don’t want to make it seem as though Mindy was without value in the office. She was good with the talent, having been a writer herself for several years before coming on staff. And any assignment that involved the writing of copy she would throw herself into. It was the more administrative tasks of being an assistant editor that she wasn’t so in tune with.

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Monofocus

I watched them a couple of weeks ago but had to remain silent about what I had seen, but now that the first two episodes have dropped, I can finally wax enthusiastic about X-MEN 97, the “next day continuation” of the X-MEN animated series of the 1990s. Put simply, it’s great and I love it, a perfect recreation on the original and an improvement in many respects. For one thing, the original show had terrible animation. I didn’t recall quite how terrible until I rewatched the final episode as a sort of set-up for beginning this series and saw just how far the budgets had fallen and how lousy the series looked at the end. The characters all seemed like ill-proportioned water balloons. Not so in 97, which has a slick style and which moves well while maintaining the feel of its predecessor. The updated re-creation of the title sequence is an absolute marvel. Which is especially telling from me as I have an almost Pavlovian reaction to hearing that 92 X-MEN theme song, having spent one long San Diego Comic Con with it playing on repeat all day in the Marvel booth and steadily driving me mad. The show does a great job of introducing an enormous cast as well as all of the concepts of the series and its world and it excels in its characterization. Even a bunch of dumb and bad and ill-considered material from X-Men stories past is made to work here (Magneto’s ridiculous “big M” costume from circe UNCANNY #200 being a prime example.) It’s just a hair unseemly for me to be this overtly enthusiastic about a Marvel production, but the show is just that good. And it’s raised the bar a bit for myself and my team on the upcoming X-Men launches, as we need to go farther and hit harder than they did. It’s a challenge that we’re up for.

And sticking with the world of Disney+, the first trailer for the new season of DOCTOR WHO dropped on Friday, and looked pretty epic. Maybe even too epic, as I somehow feel just a little bit like some essential DOCTOR WHO-Ness is lacking in it. It’s almost too polished, too lavish somehow. But it promises a season of wild adventures and epic encounters and laughter and heartbreak, so I’m well-primed for next May. And of course I’m going to share a link with you to it, though I’ve chosen to present the BBC cut of the trailer here as I’m still a bit of a purist somehow.

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Posted at TomBrevoort.com

Yesterday, I reprinted this 1978 article about How To Start A Comic Book Empire.

And five years ago, I wrote about how Jack Kirby gave the Incredible Hulk the power to fly despite Stan Lee attempting to make it not that.

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And that’s us sorted for another week! On to year three, where maybe we’ll lose a cast member or two and gain another one and get a new ship and perhaps a popular crewman from another show. Or maybe none of those things. You really never can tell until we get there. In the meantime, stay warm, stay safe, and I’ll see you next Sunday.

Hat’s All, Folks!

Tom B