#123: Drinking with Indy

I can’t think of anything more tedious than hearing about somebody else’s Comic Con adventures. So I’m going to try to keep this to a minimum. But for those who might be wondering, San Diego Comic Con went great, and my loused-up leg held up for the entire trip—including one early point where I wound up having to circumnavigate the whole of the Convention center in order to gain access to it. As usual, I met lots of enthusiastic fans, and our X-MEN signing and panel both went excellently—and we got not one question about QR codes or the art in PHOENIX the entire time.

It was a show where, for some reason, lots of different people said very nice things about me. A prominent DC editor told me that I was “the new Carlin”, an idea that I batted down, a noteworthy writer pronounced me “honorable and trustworthy”, and Kevin Feige gave me multiple shout-outs during his one-on-one panel with Marvel EIC C.B. Cebulski (though this may have been because he knew that I was in the audience.)

I didn’t manage to gain access to Hall H for either of the two Marvel Studios events, but I sort of figured that was going to be the case—honestly, I probably could have had I put in the effort, but by that time after a full day at the show, I was pretty blasted. I did find the wherewithal to attend the Marvel party on Saturday, which was a star-studded affair. Many of the actors who had appeared in Hall H came by if only for a couple of minutes to circulate and be seen. But in particular, Harrison Ford stayed for a good long while. No human being on Earth could get near to him due to security, apart from top Studios brass and fellow actors, but it was still surreal to look across the room and realize that Indiana Jones was sitting right over there, nursing a drink. These sorts of parties really aren’t my scene, but the comic book people tended to congregate in a single section of the room, and so I hung out there while engaging in conversation with all sorts of people that I hadn’t seen in a long while.

So that’s another San Diego in the history books, my first one in close to a decade. Next up will be the Baltimore Comic Con in September, which will have its own challenges. But if you’re going to attend, hope to see you there.

Going to begin my Q & A section this week with my absolute favorite letter concerning the bonus QR code pages that we’ve been running in the X-Line first issues:

Henry

F—- you and your QR codes. I just canceled my Marvel titles because of your stupid idea. I hope you get fired. Then I hope you lose all your money and are living on the streets. And when you're at the homeless shelter, I hope they make you scan a QR code to get soup but since you're broke and have no phone they won't let you have any. So it's dumpster food for you! Anyways..... again, F—- you.

I really need to give you proper points for cleverness, Henry—this is a funny little note. On the other hand, if you’re demanding that people be fired and left destitute and homeless because they gave you bonus material but you don’t like the way in which it was done, then I’m sorry, your priorities might be just a little bit askew. But you do you.

Levi

Between your philosophy on X-Force no longer being allowed to be a kill squad and the fact that you immediately retconned Xavier’s murders at the end of Krakoa, a pattern is starting to emerge.

Do you intend to make your tenure on the X-Men less morally gray than they’ve been written as for the last 45 years?

Do you intend to present them as more plainly heroic?

Do they X-heroes now have a no-kill code similar to the Avengers or Fantastic Four?

My philosophy boils down to this, Levi: I don’t think that the X-Men should be casual or gleeful killers. While they have certainly been in situations where lethal force was called for and appropriate over the years, I don’t think that this should be their default setting. And one of my big complaints about the end of the Orchis War was in how readily and even joyfully some of the X-Men murdered their foes. That’s fine for some characters—nobody is going to question Wolverine killing a bunch of people (though I feel that even he has certain rules of engagement which he will honorably try to follow). But seeing Nightcrawler teleport a couple of hapless Orchis goons into deep space and leave them to die just felt wildly out of character and wrong to me. If our heroes are going to be heroes, then they have to be held to a higher standard than that. We said it a lot back in DEATHLOK thirty-plus years ago: you’ve got to do what’s right, not what’s easiest. I’m sure that we’ll have plenty of moral grey area that we can explore, but I do think that the days when the X-Men would casually throw around lethal force and laugh about it thereafter are over now.

Nichelle

Did you have any say in the characters costumes or did you leave that to the artist and writers ?

Another thing is - if you're allowed to say , how many books were pitched by writers or artists themselves ?

I have total say in the costumes the characters are wearing, Nichelle. And I gave feedback as the various artists presented designs to me. But those designs are largely of their own manufacture. And all of the books were pitched by writers and artists, but if you’re talking about series which exist only because a creator pitched them to me, then the answer there is none. All of these initial X-Titles were worked out and set up by me and my editorial team. The closest to what you’re talking about is probably X-FORCE; Geoffrey Thorne pitched blindly on what was supposed to be a different thing entirely, but Mark Basso and I thought that his idea could be the basis for the new X-FORCE series, and so it came to pass.

Cian McDarby

The Distinguished Competition has recently announced their upcoming relaunch and the thing is, it’s not really a relaunch. It looks like all the books with new and old teams alike are keeping their numberings, except maybe JSA which is it’s own can of worms. Personally, I’m against over-relaunching books for many reasons that if I went in on, would make this comment longer than the newsletter. My question is, what do you think of this tactic of having a bold new initiative without relaunching books?

I’d have to say that DC’s “All In” initiative is a lot more complex than how you’re describing it, Cian. But to get down to your underlying question, I think that if DC is satisfied with this approach, then that’s all that matters. However, if they’re relaunching titles with new creative teams and new directions, then they’re probably leaving money on the table by not starting with a new #1. If it’s the same team, though, I can see why you would continue with the numbering.

Danielle Stacy

Here's one thing I wanted to ask , since you previously mentioned that from the ashes initiative ends on October - will there be a new name for the next phases ?

Another thing I wanted to ask , in Phoenix Jean and Scott have a convo - will we be excepting more characters to be showing up in other books? ( for example let's just say Betsy for a issue in Uncanny or Rogue in X-factor)

No particular name for the X-Books after October apart from X-Books, Danielle. And yes, you’ll be seeing a steady and growing number of interactions across the assorted titles. For example, there’s a phone call in X-MEN #3 that’s also in UNCANNY X-MEN #2.

STILES

Tom, who do you think are the best mutant fighters?

Tom, how do you deal with comic book leaks? Last week a very important page from NYX was all over Twitter/X and that took away some of the excitement we could have had reading the book. It's a bit sad because it's inevitable not to see this kind of thing when you're on the geeky side of that app.

I don’t know, Stiles, the Sentinels have seemed pretty good when it comes to fighting mutants. In terms of leaks, there really isn’t much that you can do, apart from things like our QR code pages that seem to wind up a whole bunch of people. But our books get shipped to stores on Monday, sometimes they even get them on Friday, and there are people who will grab them up and then photograph and spoil any cool thing that’s in them then. The only thing you can do as an individual reader is to not go to where you know spoilers live.

Stefan

You've been referring to problems with your leg, and how they have complicated your commute to work and other job-related functions. You've been with Marvel for 35 years now, and you're approaching your 60th birthday. Is retirement on your mind?

Not really, Stefan, mush to the disappointment of a whole section of fandom, I’m sure. I’m still at least a good decade away from retirement age, and even then, I wouldn’t rush to leave the building while I was still enjoying the process and the ride. That said, it may not be my choice when the time comes. I’ve been very fortunate so far.

Alison Cabot

Tom, who are the top 10 richest characters in all of Marvel?

Oh, I have no idea, Alison. And the time it would take me to work that out is more than the question is really worth, I’m afraid. I’m sure that somebody online has done a listicle about this somewhere on the internet, though—and while their answer may not be definitive, it would give you at least a sense of what one person thinks.

Alvaro

I gotta ask, how was it decided to set the books in those cities? Did writers such as Simone and Ewing want to use those cities or did you suggest it to them? How much of the setting will be used?

It varied from place to place, Alvaro, though it almost always centered around characters. I suggested putting the Uncanny X-Men in New Orleans because I knew that Rogue and gambit would be a driver of that series and so that location made sense to me. However, it was Jed MacKay who dropped the X-Men into Merle, Alaska—I was suggesting Magneto’s old volcano base from the John Byrne-era—and that made sense as well given that Cyclops had family in that area. The Exceptional team being in Chicago came from me as well, but it was all about that being Kate Pryde’s home town and where she’d naturally go back to after deciding to walk away from the X-Men.

Seastar

Since you mentioned before about being a Gundam fan (or at least a fan of Gundam SEED), can I ask what your favorite Gundam mobile suit is, whether from that series or overall? The ill-fated Savior was my favorite from SEED. And if it's overall, the F91 is a classy look.

If you’re talking about the actual Mobile Suit design, Seastar, then I have to say that I’ve always had a real soft spot in my heart for the Gundam Mk II. Also, the GP-01 from STARDUST MEMORY is a pretty great looking design as well. That said, the best overall design in the entire series is probably the basic Zaku. It’s completely functional-seeming and never gets old. A classic!

Mortimer Q. Forbush

Believe it or not, it was actually me that made you that "I'm sorry you didn't care for it" seal, back when I had a Tumblr of my own called Comic Artist Evolution. 😀 And it was certainly because that was such a recurring phrase of yours, it reminded me of a rubber-stamp type usage. And thought that a digital version might add some flavor. I added the Latin maxims that roughly translate to "there's no accounting for taste" and "to each their own" because I felt they kind of remind us that we can like what we like or not, but to not confuse our subjective preferences with objective quality. I was certainly thrilled that you used it a little bit and that it made enough of an impression that you came back to it.

Well, look at that! Sorry to have forgotten your contribution, Mortimer!

Oscar Andreasson

Hey Tom. As a longtime fan of Wendell Vaughn, aka Quasar, I have been wondering why he seemingly faded away after his solo ended.

My guess, Oscar, is that nobody was all that invested in him as a character since his series ended. Even the bunch of times that Quasar has resurfaced since then, it’s more often been somebody else, some new person wielding the Quantum Bands rather than Wendell Vaughn. And I suspect that’s because Wendell, as characterized by Mark Gruenwald, was a quiet, reasonable, level-headed guy, and many people simply don’t find that all that interesting.

Evan “Cool Guy”

In your Deathlok Chronicles you note times that you should have put your foot down, which I'm sure you've done plenty since then. Any memorable times you've had to do that, maybe from your early career? Or any time really!

I’m trying to think, and there are likely better examples of this, Evan. But the first thing that comes to mind is when I was working on SPIDER-MAN: THE FINAL ADVENTURE, a limited series that was meant to be the last gasp for Peter Parker as Spider-Man. It was intended to end with the birth of Pete and MJ’s child, but halfway through, a decision was made to radically change direction and to get Pete back into the Spidey costume on a regular basis as soon as was possible. So I was told to end the series with MJ having a miscarriage—and I refused to do that. I told my boss Bob Budiansky quite bluntly that I wasn’t going to go down in history as the person who aborted the Spider-Baby. Consequently, that entire decision was kicked further down the line—MJ wound up being pregnant for something like two years before it was all settled—and the ending to our series was a bit of a damp squib. But it wasn’t a horror show, so there’s that.

Ben Morse

Just read the final issue of Avengers Inc and thoroughly enjoyed it. While I’d love to have gotten more, it was a very elegant dismount. Did you all have enough time to plan a fitting finale or are Al Ewing and company just that good? Or a little of both?

Al Ewing is just that good, Ben. We found out that the end was coming just as we were beginning to work on #4, and we had covers for #4, #5 and #6 in hand already. So Al had to work extra-hard to accelerate the storyline and get the key beats into the two remaining issues that we had. I don’t really think it works all that great, but I’m happy that it worked for you.

Christian Frost

Now that Invincible Iron Man #20 is out, I think it's OK to talk about the end of Emma's and Tony Stark's relationship. Was the outcome 100% planned by the previous editorial, leaving the characters back on their default status for the new editorial to use, or did your team get any say on the couple's status? I think they grew on a lot of fans, to the surprise of many (myself included), in what ended up as the most healthy relationship both of them have ever been.

You forget, Christian, INVINCIBLE IRON MAN was under my umbrella as an AVENGERS title, so myself and editor Darren Shan were completely involved in every decision concerning the relationship between Emma and Tony, including its eventual wrap-up. Could we have kept it going if we wanted to? Probably. But I don’t know how fair that would have been to the incoming IRON MAN creative and editorial team. Plus, we had our own plans for Emma in EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN.

Callie

Tom, I keep hearing about how the point of this new line of X-Books is meant to have 'something for everyone,' as you felt like Krakoa didn't have wide enough appeal. I'm just wondering if you have any context of the early krakoa era, as it's been said pretty explicitly by JDW/Hickman that the point of the initial krakoa launch was to have at least one book that would appeal to everyone.

That may have been the point, Callie, and even what was laid out in those early books. And I don’t really want to disparage any of it. But what I can tell you is that I’m far from the only person who felt that all of the X-Titles during the end portion of that era tended to slosh together a little bit, and all of them seemed to revolve around Krakoa business—as they sort of had to, given the set-up. So we’re working to try to remedy that.

Mike Anderson

Hey Tom, love your work! I've noticed a lot of solo comics coming out regarding the X-Men, and I want to ask: why has Emma Frost never gotten a solo like Storm? She's prominent and has grown so much as a character while remaining true to herself.

Emma’s had a solo series in the past, Mike, but not for many years now. And I can’t really say why that might have been the case in the past, apart from the fact that she was usually in a key position in the main books and so it might have been difficult to navigate a solo series at the same time. As for he present era, we had other characters that we wanted to focus on in solo books at the time of launch—Emma seems integral to EXCEPTIONAL, so that’s where we placed her at the outset. But who knows what the future may hold?

Kells

I've been enjoying the Infinity comic a lot, and wanted to ask if there might be more than just From the Ashes in the future? Like a return of "Love Unlimited"? Sure that focused on more than just X-Men, but the X-Men in particular have a lot of great relationships! (Like a certain baby Phoenix and her butterfly ;)) so more content on Marvel Unlimited would be most welcome.

We have a different track running each and every day on MARVEL UNLIMITED, Kells, though most of them aren’t really all that X-Men-centric. It’s always possible that we’ll do more—there’s a short X-Related series that’s coming up on that platform that’s a lot of fun, for example.

PedroN

Fantastic Four vs. U-Foes : Why didn't it ever happen (too on the nose ?) ?

Nobody ever pitched that as a story, Pedro. And I suspect that’s because, once you get the two groups together, it isn’t all that interesting—they’re all analogues of one another, but that’s really about it.

X of Alex

Since Doc Doom is having a moment--both in comics and in the wider conversation surrounding a recent casting announcement--I want to ask who at Marvel Comics gives the go-ahead on all things Doom? Would that be you, given your position as FF editor?

For the most part, yes, Alex. As FANTASTIC FOUR editor, I have the strongest say over uses of Doctor Doom. But we function as a team at Marvel, so unless there’s a good reason to reject some story out of hand, I’m likely to give a green light to what my fellow editors want to do.

Sam C

What's the story behind the "Disassembled" part of that Avengers #500 cover? Is it a scan of an embossed label or is it an artist's recreation of one? Did you ever consider doing a special edition cover with an actual embossed label?

It was just a design, Sam. done digitally I believe. And no, we never considered doing it as an embossed piece, though that might have been kind of cool.

Callie

Can you say anything about the BTS of G.O.D.S.? Specifically, I'm curious about the decision to not reveal the acronym in this initial run. Was this run originally supposed to go longer, and it would've revealed it? There are interviews with Hickman from just before it released where he seemed to think we'd know what it stood for before long, and as we get to the final issue with a note in the letter column that 'no, we're not gonna reveal it,' it just makes me wonder if either Hickman's plans underwent some critical change, or if something changed on your editorial end?

The acronym is the least-important part of G.O.D.S., Callie, so I wouldn’t worry too much about never having learned what it stands for. I’m put in the mind of Jim Valentino’s NORMALMAN, which had a Nick Fury analogue, Sgt. Fluffy. And every time Fluffy mentioned that he worked for the secret organization S.H.E.E.S.H., an editorial note would tell you that it “stands for nothing in particular”. Nevertheless, every time that asterisk showed up, I wound up reading that same editorial note.

Dan Stringer

Wondering if there will be a chance to see Alpha Fight return? The Krakoa-era mini-series was a welcome return by Ed Brisson (who stuck a personal autograph and note in a back order for my son of issue #1). I know there is a lot of Canadian writers out there too.

Well, we’ve got a Canadian writer working on X-MEN right now, Dan, and Jed and I have talked about the current state of Alpha Flight and what to do with them. So i wouldn’t be surprised to see them before too long—especially since Alaska is to close to Canada.

Nick Ernst-Maynard

You mentioned before that characters are “owned” by specific editors (beast cant be used in avengers without x-editor approval). I wondered if this “ownership” extends out to non-characters as well like, can the x-office use vibranium in a story without avengers-editor approval?

In the broadest sense it does, Nick, but not to the point where it becomes a straitjacket. Which does sometimes present its own problems—for example, I would have liked to have known about the scene in VENOM in which the Avengers offer Eddie Brock membership (he turns them down) before it happened. But given all that we’re doing, all of the stories that we’re telling every month, some of that confusion is unavoidable.

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Behind the Curtain

.What you see above is John Romita’s cover sketch for AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #80, which he seems to have done on tracing paper with markers. John would do a number of sketches in this manner when I worked with him in the early 1990s, though this one predates those by decades,

And here is the final, finished cover. As you can see, there were only minor changes from the sketch—Spidey is now throwing a punch rather than gesturing open-handed. But even John’s basic color scheme with the green background made it through the process intact.

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Pimp My Wednesday

It’s another key week for the new X-Office, so get thee to thy comic book retailer this Wednesday lest ye miss out on the excitement to come!

At last, it’s time for UNCANNY X-MEN #1, the second of our three cornerstone X-Men series. This one features a roster that’ll be familiar to anybody who enjoyed X-MEN ‘97, and is written by Gail Simone and illustrated by David Marquez. Gail and David bonded on this series incredibly quickly—they were on the same page almost instantly. And of course, this issue also includes another of those QR codes that everybody loves so intently!

Elsewhere, DEADPOOL/WOLVERINE: WEAPON X-TRACTION continues in two titles this week, one of which I’ll get to in a moment. But the other one is SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MEN #6, seen here. As before, Ryan North and Javier Garron continue the multiverse-hopping exploits of Wade and Logan in another chapter that is absolutely free to you! Hey, we could have put it behind a QR-code, so be happy that we didn’t!

And Assistant Editor Martin Biro has started releasing BLOOD HUNTERS, a spin-out of the recent BLOOD HUNT event, starting with this issue, #1. Erica Schultz and Robert Gill bring in the vampirized Miles Morales as an additional player alongside dagger, White Widow, Elsa Bloodstone and Hallows’ Eve. And don’t be surprised to see some other vamps from BLOOD HUNT show up to give this crew trouble!

And as a final parting gift to the AVENGERS, I suggested that we induct Storm into the team, and fortunately new editor Wil Moss and writer Jed MacKay agreed. So here she is! And so is the great Valerio Schiti, who is going to tear it up as the title’s new regular artist! Plus, you also get one of those cool WEAPON X-TRACTION chapters that everybody’s been raving about at no extra cost to you! Now, who else loves you like we do?

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A Comic Book On Sale 25 Years Ago Today, August 4, 1999

The second volume of NEW WARRIORS was a bit of a misfire, one that scuttled my own plans to bring back that classic team. You see, I had been the final editor on the original NEW WARRIORS series back in the day—it was one of my earliest assignments. So I had a great deal of affection for the book and its characters. So much so that it had to have been a factor in Kurt Busiek and George Perez deciding to bring Justice and Firestar onto the Avengers during their run, to be the fresh set of eyes that could show us the group anew. By about a year in, I knew that we were planning to rotate Justice and Firestar out of the books, though, and I saw this as an opportunity to relaunch NEW WARRIORS, setting it up as a satellite book to AVENGERS in the same manner that THUNDERBOLTS was at that point. Unfortunately, I never got the chance. You see, newly-hired editor Frank Pittarese was a fan of the earlier series as well, and lobbied EIC Bob Harras to bring it back. Bob had cancelled the book a few years prior, being no particular fan of it, but Marvel had to publish something, and so he gave the go-ahead to this revival. As a line editor, I didn’t hear about it until it was a going concern, so it was too late at that point to object. Sadly, Frank himself would be among those laid off from Marvel before the series was published, so it shifted to the office of Bobbie Chase. Jay Faerber was the writer—he was a fan of the series and had a letter printed in one of my earliest issues as editor. And it was illustrated by Steve Scott, a promising newcomer who was a fireman by day, and who was never quite fast enough to stay ahead of deadlines as a result. It was a decent creative team, but the series was hampered by a couple of things. First off, and most vocally reviled by fans, was that Nova costume. For no apparent reason, it was decided that Nova needed a new look for this title—even though he was simultaneously appearing in his classic suit in his revived solo series at the same time. And secondly, it was launched out cold, with no connection to anything prior, making it a bit of a lame duck to start with in the tough marketplace of 1999. The book lasted for ten issues before calling it quits, which is a shame—I’m confident that if we’d been able to spin it out of AVENGERS and maintain a connection to that world, it could have gone on much longer. But that’s how it is sometimes when you’re working in a shared universe. Other people are going to be interested in the same toys that you are.

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A Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date

My first really extensive run working on anything called X-Men released its first issue on August 4, 2004. X-MEN: THE END was the latest in the string of THE END projects, the concept for which I’d pitched a short time earlier. In essence, each such project would tell the final days of the character or characters in question, bringing their story to some manner of a conclusion. It was an idea that spawned a whole bunch of projects, but none of them ran for as long as X-MEN: THE END. You see, at this time, Chris Claremont had a contract with Marvel that guaranteed him a certain amount of work. But Bill Jemas had no use for Chris, and really wanted him off of X-TREME X-MEN, as he felt that Chris’s throwback style poisoned the line. so at some point, I think I brought up the idea of doing an X-MEN: THE END—it’s also possible that this concept was tossed back at me, since I wouldn’t have ben likely to pitch an X-Men series on my own. Either way, I was asked by Bill and Joe Quesada if we could run this series for 18 issues, three cycles of 6. The thought was that this would keep Chris busy and out of the way in a parallel future that nobody cared about for at least two years while fulfilling the company’s contractual obligations. I thought this was a terrible length for a THE END project (and a terrible way to treat Claremont) but in the end this was what we wound up doing. I paired Chris with Sean Chen, who had been doing a bunch of work in and around my office, and he was able to get through the entire 18 issues without fail. Greg Land provided all of our 18 covers. But the series is kind of a sloppy mess. While Chris started out with a clear idea as to where he wanted the story to go, he kept bringing in additional characters and sidelining on tangents along the way, enough so that by issue #4 or so, the plot had been entirely lost despite my efforts to keep it on track. But nobody at Marvel gave this a second thought—this was a sacrificial lamb and was doing its job, nobody was all that worried about how good it turned out, except for me and my team. Eventually, after two years, we were approaching the finish line, and Chris asked me whether it might be possible to have the book continue on indefinitely. And I told him, “Chris, X-MEN: THE END only has to have one thing in it: an end.” And so it did—though not one that was all that satisfying nor was truly built up to by the preceding 17 releases.

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The Deathlok Chronicles

We’ve got two weeks to catch up on, so let’s go first to DEATHLOK co-writer Gregory Wright:

Gregory Wright:

I'm pretty sure you are correct about Bob deciding that we had to have the body still be a possibility. I seem to recall that Walter had been mentored by Denys at some point. I remember finding this odd, as he was Denys' replacement. Not sure if that is correct or not. This was the first issue that I had nothing to do with at all other than being sent the plots and final art to review. I knew Kevin from his intern days as well as his being an assistant to Don Daley. I had even colored some work he did for one of the swimsuit issues or Year and Review issues. The first thing I noticed was the sharp cover. Then the interiors had some nice storytelling and some really nice design. I'm not sure if I suggested maybe he should be the new regular artist at that point or not. I just recall being really impressed with his work on the issue. Except for that introductory page of Deathlok and his family. Seeing Deathlok trying to light charcoal with his blaster and wearing that jersey...I just couldn't understand what was going on. Another thing I loved about Kevin's work here was that he was the first one to draw CYBERSPACE close to how I envisioned it. And his work got better and better as the issue progressed. It really was a shame that this final story Dwayne did had four different artists. I think if it had been a possibility at the time Kevin would have done a really nice job with the entire story arc.

And next, some more from Greg:

Gregory Wright

Bob had it in his head that Deathlok was not just a reluctant hero, but one that pretty much had to be dragged kicking and screaming into any adventure that didn't include looking for his body or stopping technology that he had inadvertently helped create. Dwayne and I had purposely created this version of Deathlok to GROW and change. We had eliminated the part of him that didn't want to do anything other than search for his body at the end of the mini-series. He had chosen to do what he could to help people with his cyborg body as long as he was stuck in it. But Bob somehow didn't see it that way. I found it funny in this issue that Deathlok is actively looking to find some missing people, and then when he gets attacked by Sleepwalker immediately goes into fight mode...something he would tell us not to have the character do...lol. It's still a fun issue and very cool to see Bret Blevins' take on the character!

Tom DeFalco and I had the same problem with Bob on the GREEN GOBLIN series that we did. Bob got it in his head that Phil Urich should be a slacker, and that meant that he would never have any reason to get involved with any adventure. It was a real problem, one that cropped up issue after issue, story after story. There was something about that reluctant hero trope that Bob really clicked to, or thought was contemporary and commercial.

DEATHLOK #23 was the second part of Dwayne’s four-parter set in Wakanda, and it was the final issue of the series penciled by Walter McDaniel. Going into this issue, I already knew that I was going to have to take Walter off of the book—he had simply not been able to keep up with the demands of the schedule, and while he’d continued to grow as an artist, he still wasn’t where we needed him to be. This time, though, I was slightly smarter about things—I waited until Walter brought in his final pages to break the news to him face-to-face. My memory is that it hit him like a ton of bricks, and he asked me for one more chance, a thing that I couldn’t grant him at that point. Our schedule was in dire shape, so dire that I somehow needed to get the next two issues done in jig time—and that included the double-sized #25. It was a shame that it didn’t work out, but in the end, it was ultimately my fault. I shouldn’t have put an untested newbie on a regular assignment like this without testing him under battlefield conditions on something smaller first. Lesson learned.

Unfortunately, making our schedule even worse were events transpiring in Dwayne’s personal life. I don’t think it’s my place to get into them, but suffice it to say that we were up against when the book needed to go to print and the final couple of pages hadn’t been scripted yet—and Dwayne was incommunicado. I held the line for as long as I could, then begged Greg Wright to step in and script the remainder of the issue. Dwayne really wasn’t happy when he poked his head back up, but there was only so much that he could complain about it. But he and Denys and company were already working on their Milestone Media launch, and it was around this point that he told us that #25 would be his last issue, so it didn’t ultimately bother him too much.

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Monofocus

Somebody in the comments recommended it to me a few weeks ago, and I’ve finally gotten a chance to begin watching HAJIME NO IPPO on Netflix. It’s a boxing anime in which a good-natured high school student strives to realize his dream of becoming an accomplished professional boxer. The show isn’t that old, but it uses a design aesthetic that dates back a few decades—which is to say that most of the characters are stylized in the manner of older anime such as previous boxing mainstay ASHITA NO JOE. But so far, ten episodes into its 74 episode run, it’s a nice low-key sports anime that isn’t quite as shrill as BLUE LOCK nor quite as engaging as HAIKYUU! Like its protagonist, it’s nice.

The assorted modern day updated remakes of SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO have been a bit hit-or-miss for me. For all that they have a much better gender-balance and are somewhat more scientifically plausible, I also find them to be just a tiny bit bloodless. They also often get caught up in a fannish desire to answer questions that nobody was asking as they try to make sense of the entire original YAMATO canon. But that all said, I watched the first two episodes of the latest series, YAMATO, BE FOREVER: REBEL 3199, now available on Crunchyroll, and I enjoyed the hell out of them. They have something of an advantage here in that they’re adapting what was originally a two-and-a-half-hour movie into 26 serialized episodes, much as YAMATO 2 did with SARABA, YAMATO. This gives the production a lot more room to flesh the story out. And so far, in these initial two releases, they’ve done so credibly and thoughtfully. Plus, those classic music cues still strike me dead in the heart. We’ll see whether the show can keep it up for the long haul—2202 only lost its way a couple of episodes in. For now, it’ll be a lengthy wait until November, which is when the next four episodes will be released. And of course I have a trailer for that next installment that I can share with you.

I also purchased a copy of NEW WARRIORS OMNIBUS VOLUME 3, which collects the majority of my time editing the series and its spin-offs. There are only a couple of issues each of NOVA and NIGHT THRASHER missing. This was the first ongoing series that I headed after DEATHLOK was cancelled, and I was a lot more adept at it by this point, for all that I was still a relative novice. I didn’t sit down and read through the book again, but I flipped through it enough to bring back memories. The bulk of the run was written by my pal Evan Skolnick and illustrated by Patrick Zircher, whom I hired out of the submissions pile (though this time I only hired him for a single issue until he had proven himself.) It’s very much a product of its era, and so the artwork and page compositions tend towards the loud and unrelenting. And there are a couple of villains and situations along the way that feel ill-considered or tone-deaf to me in the present. But still, I feel that we hit the neighborhood of the bullseye that we were aiming for, which was to do a book that had the same sort of flavor as the Marv Wolfman & George Perez NEW TEEN TITANS. (This was made a hair more challenging by the fact that Evan had never read TITANS, and so I had to feed him some copies along the way so he could understand what I was getting at.) Anyway, it’s available at a Retailer near you, and it completes the 75-issue run of the initial NEW WARRIORS series.

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Posted at TomBrevoort.com

Yesterday, I wrote about the Five Best Comic Books of 1991

And five years ago, I wrote about this issue of UNCANNY X-MEN introducing Weapon Alpha.

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And we are outta here! Thanks for stopping by—hey, let’s make this a regular thing every week, what do you say?

Hat’s All, Folks!

Tom B