#150: The Deep and Lovely Dark

We'd Never See The Stars Without It.

This is one of those weeks where I’m ill-motivated to write up one of these Newsletters. Not due to anything in particular, just a general ennui with the form and a feeling like this is all becoming work rather than something that I find entertaining. In all likelihood, the mood will pass. But it explains, I hope, why this introductory section is so sparse this week. And of course, as always, you get what you pay for.

So we’ll fall back on the usual thing to get the engine going: your assorted questions. Certainly we ought to be able to start some trouble here.

Dylan D

Your current writers don’t deserve to be given the chance to become “veteran” writers. That term is reserved for writers who got their start in the twentieth century.

Okay, well, it’s going to be like that, is it, Dylan? Anyway, Kurt Busiek already answered this in the comments, but I just have to say that if your perspective is that no writer who has done any work in literally the past twenty-five years in the field is any good, maybe the problem isn’t on their end but rather on yours. It’s never any problem to like what you like, but it’s foolish to expect any creative endeavor to remain frozen as it was when you first discovered it. As I’ve told many people over the years, I’m sorry that you aren’t young anymore. But all readers are the same in my eyes, and so hanging around the joint for decades (decades during which you apparently didn’t enjoy anything) doesn’t make your wishes any more or less important to me than anybody else’s.

Jeff Ryan

Some people curse like "XXXXX," some like "$#@%," some like "****". Is that writers' preferences? And do some writers just write R-rated scripts, and it's edit's job to cut the ^%#& cursing down to a family-friendly audience?

That would be the writer’s preference or possibly their editor’s preference, Jeff. And yes, every once in a while a writer will accidentally or intentionally use legitimate curse words in their scripts. At that point, it comes down to the editor to tell them to knock it off.

JV

I noticed the late great Dick Giordano was inking Thor at the time - as an old DC comic fan did you get a chance to chat/interact with this legend? He was editorial during a fertile period of creativity at DC - must have been interesting to pick his brain (any stories to share?)

Sadly, I really didn’t, JV. But there’s a good reason for that. Dick Giordano had hearing issues, so he often wasn’t the one answering the phone or conveying information. Typically, a good deal of that process was handled on his behalf by his longtime partner Pat Bastienne. And consequently, most such conversations were by necessity very business-centric.

Mike

There was a mention of Longshot, are we going to see him anytime soon?

I’m sure at some point, Mike. But I feel like a lot of Longshot’s potential has been squandered over the years, so I’m mainly inclined to hold him on the sidelines until we’ve got a project that can really do justice to him.

Michael Perlman

I like the new “On The Spinner Rack” section. Was it at all inspired by Chris Ryall’s “Spinner Rack” section in his Tales of Syzpense Substack newsletters?

Not intentionally, Michael, no. But I do read Chris’s Newsletter, so perhaps I was subconsciously influenced by it.

Chris Sutcliffe

is there any professional heads up that editors give each other if they're hiring a writer for a large project elsewhere, like if Nick Lowe hired Ryan North to write Amazing Spider-Man would he check in with you? Not for permission, exactly, but as a courtesy?

We have an entire Talent Management team at Marvel, Chris, whose job it is to help coordinate and manage the assignments of our assorted writers and artists. So typically, most such situations get coordinated across offices through them. But in certain instances, an editor in another area would let me know before reaching out to one of my big writers, and vice versa.

David Brazier

A question - what happened to Ladronn? I loved his Cable. Did you enjoy it?

Ladronn is still out there doing stuff, David, it’s just mostly been for the European market and other fields. And yes, I did enjoy his run on CABLE at the time.

Malachi Wells

Is there a reason this labeling hasn’t been as consistent across other titles? For example, the Avengers from X-Force #4-5 (2024) look very much like they came straight from the “Forever Yesterday” arc in New Warriors (1991), Horus and Captain Assyria in particular looking identical. However, Geoffrey Thorne clarified that they’re actually different versions – but only on his Patreon blog, and that is not made clear within X-Force #5 itself.

In that case, Malachi, I don’t think it matters all that much to the average reader. The number of readers of today who read those early NEW WARRIORS issues is relatively small, and the number of them who couldn’t make the leap to understanding that these weren’t exactly the same characters shown back then is smaller still. It’s a case where trying to explain a thing stops the story dead and is only of import to a couple of people—so it isn’t worth the time or space, it isn’t that important.

John Morris

could Marvel PLEASE place the barcode on the back cover of their facsimile books, like DC does? And could they also use the correct size for the facsimiles? Silver age books are different dimensions, after all. Also there are some complaints as to where the indicia ( I'm sure I've misspelled this!) is, as in FF 1 it was moved from the inside front cover to the splash page. Or you could do what PS Artbooks does, and have a second cover. This way you could keep the 10 or 12 cent prices.

We could do all of that, John, but in almost each of those instances there’s some additional complication that gets added if you do it. What makes these books possible is the fact that they’re relatively simple to produce, but as soon as you start adding a lot of extra nonsense to the process, you begin to ship away at their easiness. And as with that NEW WARRIORS example above, you’re doing so in order to satisfy only the smallest percentage of the audience. So again, probably not worth the additional time and effort.

Brandon Giles

I’m loving the new Ultimate Universe and the big swings it’s been willing to take, but I want to ask about the original Ultimate Universe. When we saw it in SPIDER-MEN II, it seemed to be doing wonderfully, then we saw it again in LOCKJAW and it looked the same, and then when we glimpsed it in Donny Cates’ VENOM run it was devastated. Any chance we’ll check in on it again?

I’m sure that somebody will want to go back and see it again at some point, Brandon.

Seastar

in the world of manga, there are often creators who write and draw their own work, but also have a team of assistants to assist them in the art process. This helps them make their weekly deadlines, though as I understand it's quite a taxing lifestyle. Has there ever been discussion of doing that with Marvel Comics? As in, a team of writers, a team of artists and assistants, a team of colourists and so on to expediate the release of a book to something that's bi-weekly, with the idea of the extra help making sure everyone has a comfortable schedule?

do writers or artists on a book ever get to suggest cover artists?

We’ve done a couple of different weekly projects over the years, Seastar, so we’ve experimented with writing teams and groups of artists and so forth. But our production model and the manga production model are really two different things, so it isn’t really an equivalent situation. And in our market, in general it’s frowned upon when an entire mob of people work on drawing a given issue. Marvel fans want specific artists doing the work if at all possible. And yes, writers and artists can suggest cover artists on their books, but it isn’t always possible to accommodate those requests.

Neon Frost

I had a question about your early ideas when you had just gotten the role of Editor or conductor of X. You included your pitch for the slate of books (thank you by the way for doing so, it definitely very interesting) and it got me curious. I’ll focus on my favorite Emma Frost here. I think you mentioned how you had her set for Exceptional but did you have any other potential ideas for her? Things that were dropped once you locked her in for Exceptional.

I have a second question as well about variant covers. I noticed that the number of covers varies from issue to issue, how do you decide how many covers an issue gets?

I placed Emma into what became EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN fairly quickly, so I didn’t really have an alternative plans for her that I could share with you, Neon. And the number of variant covers on each book is determined by our Sales team, who right-size our number and types of variants across the entire line.

Ben

A few weeks ago you talked about how much effort it takes for a hero to transition into being a villain. I was wondering if same goes for villains to heroes. And does the villain's appearance in multimedia affect their potential transition/progression? I'm mainly thinking about Doctor Doom from a couple years ago, but I'm wondering about villains in general.

Historically at least, Ben, it’s been a lot easier to move a villain into an heroic role. Just look at how many characters have made that journey: Hawkeye, the Black Widow, the Punisher, Rogue, Venom, etc. It doesn’t always take, though, mainly because there’s always going to be a need for villains to fight, and occasionally creators like a character better as a villain (like the Sandman) than they do as yet another prospective good guy.

Ben Morse

in addition to being a huge fan of Karl the inker I am a massive fan of Karl the writer and do consider him somebody who has been A-list on both by virtue of his Superman work. As I know from speaking to you that Karl pitched in on story ideas for the Waid/Wieringo run and filled in capably as well, was there ever consideration to give him more writing opportunities on FF or elsewhere?

Karl’s done a wide assortment of work across the Marvel line over the years, Ben. Beyond that, it’s mostly a question of those in a position to hire somebody knowing and liking his work and what he does being successful on a particular series. I feel like Karl’s gotten a bunch of at-bats at different times.

Cian McDarby

Seeing as how Longshot was mentioned, is he showing up again soon? I’m soon to whittle my X-Pulls down to only a couple of books but if Longshot were to join the main cast… well, it’d be borderline impossible to say no to that.

What’s your biggest “That will never catch on” misfire? Being as you’ve worked in Marvel since when my mother was a youth, you have to have at least one thing you saw being planned that you felt would fail massively end up being a huge hit.

I feel like I covered Longshot earlier, Cian, so hopefully that was well enough answered for you. And as for your second point, most recently I was skeptical about how good of an idea it was to kick off the new Ultimate Universe with a ton of backstory and continuity that was tied to the main MU. Were it up to me, I would have preferred to have started things off cleanly and not have so much backstory for readers to contend with. But ultimately, that doesn’t seem to have prevented any readers from jumping on board, and it may even have made the idea of a new Ultimate Universe more enticing to some.

Zack J

With her popularity in Marvel Rivals, are we finally going to get to see the return of Galacta daughter of Galactus in the 616? There are so many video gamers with so much upsetting fan art that I don't know how you can refuse the clarion call of more Galacta

Well, Zack, Jordan D. White has been waiting for his chance to do more Galacta ever since he helped to innovate that character years ago. But as the FANTASTIC FOUR editor, I have to say that I don’t like what the existence of that character does to Galactus, so I am very much in favor of refraining from more Galacta content, at least within the mainstream MU.

Neil Cohen

I was glad when he was brought back for New Warriors but wasn't a fan of Fabian portraying him as more of a meathead instead of the good guy he had been, though I grew to enjoy it. What is your feeling about that switch in character?

I tell you, Neil, I had been a regular reader of NOVA at least for its last couple of issues, and I really liked the character. But I also feel as though he was often written as just another generic young good guy without a lot of specific personality to him. So for me, Fabian’s approach , while he maybe steered into it a bit too sharply at first, worked all right in that it helped to make Rich more of an individual and less of a generic type.

Ben Goldberg

I’m curious how this series came about. Did you identify a need to for these stories or did Alex Paknadel pitch this?

We had been running a very successful X-MEN Infinity track in Marvel Unlimited throughout the last year or so of the Krakoa-era, Ben, so when the line moved over to me, there was no question that we were going to continue on with it. It would just need to tether to our new plans moving forward just as the previous team’s version had tethered to their plans. And Alex pitches the stories he’s interested in doing, and along with editor Darren Shan comes up with the direction for the series. And occasionally, there’ll be something happening in the main line that we’ll want to set up or address ahead of time, and the Infinity series is a good place to do that.

Kevin S

In the wake of Blood Hunt, what are your thoughts on straight Marvel horror in today's marketplace? There are obviously horror books from other publishers & we got Werewolf by Night recently, but if a writer pitched, say, a revival of Tomb of Dracula, Living Mummy, Frankenstein etc... Does your gut say those kinds of books have a place on the stands (specifically from Marvel)?

I think horror is a tough thing to do convincingly in comics in general, Kevin, and while there’s a certain amount of nostalgia for those old 1970s properties, their appeal is more as super hero monster books than genuine horror. So anything can potentially work if somebody has the right angle on it. But I think the days when we had a whole line-up of those sorts of monster titles is probably over for the most part.

David Lowe

Maybe the answer is different between the comics and the MCU, and I know Iman Vellani got into it a bit with Kevin Feige on a similar question, but are timelines the same as universes or not?

For example, in What If episodes and books, it often seems that we are looking at different universes in the multiverse, but other times it is described as if a decision had caused a branch, which is more similar to how the TVA (and Loki, etc.) describe timelines within a universe. In the comics, all the back and forth with Kang / Immortus, etc. never mentioned other universes, and storylines throughout X-Men history like DOFP, AOA, Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, Krakoan Era, etc., always seemed to be about alternate futures in the same universe.

Does The Watcher watch universes while the TVA watches timelines? Somebody somewhere in Marvel must have a definitive answer to this.

I think you’re conflating certain aspects of the Cinematic Universe and the print MU here, David. I can’t speak for them, but in the world of publishing, universes and timelines are essentially two different ways to talk about the same thing. These alternatives are made when some decision or circumstance changes at some point in the past or the future, creating a parallel reality. Sometimes those changes are major, other times minor. But that’s the mechanism by which it all works. Beyond that, it all comes down to what is best expressed for each individual story that is being told. In any case where you’re talking about the future, for example, it really isn’t conducive to the drama to have characters standing around going, “Hey, well, this future isn’t really statistically likely to be the genuine future of our particular timeline, so we don’t need to worry about any of this too much.” Every story needs to feel like the stakes are genuine for the characters involved in it.

Tom Seel

I was recently revisiting some of the great books from the Marvel Graphic Novel line of the 1980s/90s - do you think something like this could be viable again in today's market and readership? Would a shift in costs or economic circumstances make it attractive for the powers that be to revisit it?

Also, do you have any personal favourite from the line?

We’ve tried the occasional OGN program from time to time over the years, Tom, but the difficulty almost always comes down to underwriting the cost of the material. The last OGNs we did were $24.95 hardcovers, and they still couldn’t quite cover the nut for all of the work that went into each one. So I don’t see this being a viable format on the regular, though we may continue to experiment with it from time to time as circumstances dictate. In terms of those 1980s volumes, I think that arguably the two strongest ones were the Death of Captain Marvel and God Loves, Man Kills, though there were other good ones as well.

Mark

Please indulge me in a little thought experiment - pretend a new regime takes over Marvel and decides that going forward the company will only publish 10 monthly books, based on commercial viability and importance to the overall brand. What would your 10 titles be?

Over the past few weeks I've been building my Lego X-mansion (a delightful Christmas present!) It's occurred to me along the way that it represents the version of the X-Men that has the most mainstream recognition, from the cartoon, other licensed products etc. What was the thinking therefore behind not going with as close as possible an approximation to this version (i.e. team composition, costumes, mansion setting etc.)for the big relaunch last year?

You kind of screw the pooch when you bring this question down to my choices, Mark, because my choices wouldn’t involve stripping the line back to only ten titles. If this were going to happen, my guess is that you just need to look at the top-selling ten releases every month to know what would be staying, regardless of importance to the brand or whatnot. So there might be two Spider-Man books and two X-Men books and probably a Wolverine book but maybe no Daredevil book or Hulk book or whatever. What you’re imagining, though, I suspect is a list of the ten most storied properties from across Marvel history, but that isn’t likely what you’d get. And even if it was, ten slots isn’t enough space to cover every important property, even if you didn’t double up on stuff.

On your second question, that one’s a lot easier. X-MEN 97 and that Lego X-Mansion is based on the X-Men of a particular era—an era that fans were very vocally afraid things would be shifting back to when the progressive Krakoa era had run its course. But the purpose of Marvel Publishing is to be out in front, the tip of the spear, generating new ideas and new stories that can serve as creative fodder for eventual film and animation development. So trying to revert things to 1992 or whenever would seem to be defeating the purpose in a major way. Better, I think, to try to develop new status quos that future X-Men projects in film and television can draw from.

Tobia Brunello

Am I mistaken or did you confuse the terms ‘Taxidermist’ (a person who stuffs dead animals) with ‘Taxonomist’ (a person who deals with the classification of living and non-living things) on the pages of Psylocke?

Still talking about Psylocke and also Magik, I noticed that the two characters recently had (especially Magik) a peak of notoriety in conjunction with the release of the Marvel Rivals video game. Were you in your office aware of the prominence they would have in the game and did this influence the decision to dedicate two personal series to the two characters or was it a complete coincidence?

I didn’t confuse anything, Tobia, as I neither write nor directly edit PSYLOCKE. And neither, from what I can see, did Alyssa Moy or Darren Shan. The name of a new character can embody multiple things. And no, MARVEL RIVALS didn’t have any influence in our decision to do PSYLOCKE and MAGIK projects right at this time, though it’s a happy accident that the characters are so prominent in the game at a similar moment.

Emily

I remember you saying something about Stevie Hunter appearing in a comic around December. Is that something that’s actually happening, or did I make it up?

Not just actually happening, Emily, but did happen—in DAZZLER #4 a month or so ago!

Adam Reck

I recently watched Larry Cohen's The Ambulance (1990) for the first time. Knowing you're a Marvel history expert, I was curious if you had any insight into the following: 1. While I recognized Stan Lee and Larry Hama, I was curious if you knew who the rest of the bullpen artists were or were supposed to be. 2. The bullpen was a single room of drawing desks. How close to the actual artist's room of the 90s bullpen was this? 3. Eric Robert's character claims he has health insurance. Has Marvel ever offered health insurance to its artists?

1. I haven’t looked at THE AMBULANCE in decades, but just pulling up the footage on YouTube I can see Spidey editor Jim Salicrup and Bullpenner John Bligh and a couple of others from that era in the scene as extras—it’s tough to tell with the footage so blurry, but I think I spot Lisa Trusciani and Kenny Lopez and Chris Eliopoulos and Kevin Tinsley and a few others, most of whom I wouldn’t expect anybody outside of the offices to know. 2) That’s the fakest-looking Marvel Bullpen that I’ve ever seen. At the time this was filmed, while there were desks set up for in-house production artists, all of the actually series artists worked at home. And that’s way more sparse and clean than the actual Bullpen ever was. 3) Marvel has offered health insurance for artists who are under contract with the company for years, including when this film was made.

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Off The Wall

I mentioned this piece last time, so I thought I might as well show it now. What you see above are Mike Wieringo’s pencils for a three-panel gag strip written by Mark Waid that we included in the expanded Director’s Cut of FANTASTIC FOUR #500 that starred me. For the eventual strip, we used the first panel as Panel 3 as well, thus making this bit of fluff a little bit easier for Ringo to execute. And I bought the original right as the issue went on sale. It wasn’t listed anywhere by Mike’s art rep, so I wound up having to reach out to him directly and ask about it—and since I was buying the other FF #500 page anyway, Mike told the guy to throw this piece in gratis, which was nice of him. And now it hangs framed in the upstairs hallway, which is adorned with assorted original art pieces in my home.

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On The Spinner Rack

All right, the Rack was turned and reordered this past Friday. Let’s see what we can see there this time.

Starting from the top, we have an early issue of MARVEL SPOTLIGHT featuring the Son of Satan, a character name that it’s still hard to believe Marvel got away with. Below that is a bicentennial0themd issue of ACTION COMICS in which Clark Kent gets punched into the past and reports on the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Next is a cool vintage issue of DOOM PATROL in which Madame Rouge gains the power to alter her body and she infiltrates the team, causing suspicion and mistrust. Below that is a late issue of Jack Kirby’s KAMANDI, though this one looks like it has a Joe Kubert cover. Next is SLEEPWALKER #2, the issue that introduces Jed MacKay’s favorite, 8-Ball. Then there’s an IRON MAN ANNUAL that I wrote a back-up story in, an issue of Ann Nocenti and John Romita Jr’s DAREDEVIL in which Matt Murdock unbelievably beats up Ultron, a random issue of BARBIE FASHION, a SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL in which I wrote a 3-page feature, and the first issue of Milestone Media’s flagship character HARDWARE #1, still in its original polybag.

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I Buy Crap

I only became aware of this book thanks to the recent passing of the great cartoonist Jules Feiffer, as some of his work was featured within it. MAKE YOUR OWN COMICS FOR FUN AND PROFIT was released in 1976 and was an encouraging manual on just how a young would-be artist might express themselves through the medium. I would have loved the hell out of this book had I been aware of it at the time of publication. Most of the illustrations in it are done by kids, but each chapter also includes examples from a professional artist of the time both of their current work and work they had done when they were of a similar age to the kids. So this includes material by Feiffer, Richard Corben, John Romita and a number of others. This copy, which I sourced on eBay, is a former library copy, so it comes with a sign-out card mounted in it containing the names of those who read it over the years, which is pretty fun. No dust jacket, though, but I wanted to see what the guts looked like, so I’m perfectly happy with my purchase.

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Behind the Curtain

What we have here is a memo generated in 1985 for Marvel’s publisher Mike Hobson detailing the number of active paid subscriptions that were being fulfilled across the publishing line of the time. As you can see, G.I.JOE was the most circulated subscription title by a huge margin over the next contender, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. I’m sure the animation and the ads promoting the comic book from that time helped to sell it as such. There aren’t a lot of surprises here, apart from just how few subscription customers a bunch of these titles had. Once you get out of the Top-10, you’re pretty much into the world of fewer than 10,000 readers who were consuming the books in this manner. These numbers all continued to drop progressively over the years, to the point where subscription copies are today a relatively infinitesimal part of a title’s circulation.

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Pimp My Wednesday

It’s a pretty important week! So let’s all Hail Doom and see what’s coming!

We’ve been working on this one for what seems like forever, ever since the climax to BLOOD HUNT last summer. And now, finally, Doctor Doom is ready to make his move and take over, well, everything. ONE WORLD UNDER DOOM will play out across the Marvel Universe, but the spine series is being written by Ryan North and illustrated by RB Silva. It’s very smart and very fun, as you’d expect from a Ryan project, and it’ll be working in lockstep with Ryan’s FANTASTIC FOUR title as well, of course.

Over in the mutant corner of the world, we’ve got X-MEN #11 for you, the first of a two-part story that brings in some unexpected guest-stars (as well as some expected ones, given that we promoted them.) It’s another Jed MacKay/Netho Diaz jam with another bonkers cover by Ryan Stegman.

And hundreds of years in the future, we’ve got the second issue of CABLE: LOVE AND CHROME by David Pepose and Mike Henderson. This one begins to lay out the table a little bit more for the story that we’re actually telling (as opposed to what we’ve been advertising, which is a little bit different) and it’s full of the sort of over-the-top action that any proper Cable story needs to trade in. I remain a little bit too pleased with that TIME’S FOOTSOLDIER topstrap line.

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A Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date

THE UNCANNY X-MEN MASTERWORKS was released on February 9, 1993, and was one of the very first X-Men projects that I worked on, at least where comics are concerned (I had already done a huge number of the early X-MEN action figures and the early Trading Card sets.) This was the second in what wound up being four paperback MASTERWORKS releases collecting the earliest stories of the character in question, each one comprising the first half of the hardcover MARVEL MASTERWORKS edition that had previously reprinted these stories and made using the same reproduction film. I dug these volumes, as I was a big fan of that early Marvel material and loved any opportunity to mess around with it. This volume was designed, I believe, by Joe Kaufman, with whom I worked on a bunch of different projects over the years. Joe was one of my favorite designers to work with, he always really got what I was going for and contributed a lot of good visual ideas—more than I did, to be honest. Anyway, I still have a copy or two of this volume on the shelves of my current Marvel office.

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Another Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date

I talked about this book recently, but I couldn’t pass it up this week given that it’s the actual anniversary. YOUNG AVENGERS #1 was released on February 9, 2005 and was a surprise hit, surprising even to me. When the original idea came up to do a YOUNG AVENGERS project, I was as skeptical as anybody, thinking that it was a terrible idea. And it might have been, if not for the talent that was involved. Writer Allan Heinberg, then fresh from working on The OC and other television dramas, quickly became one of my favorite people, and it was the seriousness with which he took the assignment and the love and dedication he lavished on making these new characters greater than the sum of their parts that was a big part of what made this book work. The other part was the superlative artwork of Jim Cheung, who had come out of the recently-defunct CrossGen studio a lot better than when he’d gone in, and who imbued these characters with life and personality and energy. So this first issue presented Iron Lad (a name that I can’t believe we got away with in 2005), Hulkling, Patriot and Asgardian (who would shortly transition into Wiccan) as well as Kate Bishop and made them into characters that the audience grew deeply invested in. In all the years since, there have only been two notable runs of YOUNG AVENGERS, each of which is something of a shining jewel for the period in which it was released. But this first one from twenty years ago was what gave the characters such longevity.

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The New Warriors Chronicles

This time, we start things off with a few comments from NEW WARRIORS writer Evan Skolnick:

Evan Skolnick

Great hearing the behind-the-scenes stuff on NEW WARRIORS and related titles! Even though I was in the middle of it all, there are elements that I didn't know at the time.

I do have one quick but important correction to your recollection of the origin of Turbo. I was not the sole creator; Turbo was a co-creation between Dwight Coye, James Brock and myself. I'm sure this just slipped your mind, since the characters' backstage origin was revealed in agonizing detail in the NEW WARRIORS #73 letters page. As I said therein, "It's all Dwight Coye's fault."

So there you have it, let the record be so adjusted!

it was clear from the start that I was going to need to do some triage on all three of the NEW WARRIORS titles that I had inherited, as they were all incredibly late on the schedule when I got them. NIGHT THRASHER was no exception. But as the book was in the middle of a heavily-promoted four-part story when I took it on, I couldn’t really place a fill-in until after “Money Don’t Buy” had run its course.

In terms of executing the fill-in, I went with the path of least resistance. Steve Mattsson, who was primarily known as a colorist at the time, had been helping to co-write the later issues of “Money Don’t Buy” with regular writer Kurt Busiek, and he was interested in picking up additional writing work. since he was already up to speed and in the mix, I let him pitch on this issue. He wound up producing a very solid little story about Tantrum, an earlier Night Thrasher foe who used strength-enhancing drugs, and whom Thrash had given an opportunity to straighten himself out. That set-up gets picked up on here as the now-clean Tantrum reaches out to Thrash because other neighborhood gang-bangers have stolen his gear and were themselves juicing on his super-steroid and terrorizing the area.

On the art front, I’m not sure where we found artist Tom Derenick, but he’d end up doing a couple of different small assignments for me over the years before later going on to being something of a regular presence at DC during Dan Didio’s time in the main office. I’m guessing that his work also came out of the slush pile, but that’s only a guess on my part after all these years. I do remember having an itch in the back of my head that said that a swing towards a more Neal Adams-influenced style of photo-realistic artwork might be coming and so building up artists like Tom was an attempt on my part to have a farm team in place that could be put into play should such a thing prove itself out.

To double-down and give the young and relatively-inexperienced Tom some decent back-up, we called upon a pair of veteran inkers to handle this job. I think we were hoping that the great Tom Palmer would be able to handle the whole thing, and he’d definitely steer the pages in the direction of that Neal Adams look. But eh schedule was simply too daunting even for the confident Palmer, and so we prevailed upon Mike Manley to similarly handle a bunch of the pages.

This was another cover that Jung Choi colored on the computer, and he did a decent job of it, though it could use just a little bit more contrast to really pop well. You sort of lose the dark parts of Night Thrasher’s figure there in front of the main Tantrum face. I can remember needing to have production stat and place all of those smaller floating Tantrum heads before we could get the cover off to be colored, a relatively large paste-up job that today would be easily handled on the computer. The artwork was done by Lee Sullivan, who had worked with Evan on a ROBOCOP story and who may have been suggested for this piece by Evan. Lee wasn’t somebody that I turned to regularly.

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Monofocus

Inspired by its mention in Brian Michael Bendis’ FORTUNE AND GLORY: THE MUSICAL, I wound up buying a Kindle edition of SONG OF SPIDER-MAN, written by Glen Berger, who wound up co-writing the book for the ill-fated Broadway production of SPIDER-MAN: TURN OFF THE DARK. Bendis found trying to read it too flashback-inducing, but I didn’t have that problem. And it’s a wild tale, as you would expect, and not one with a very happy ending for anybody. But it kept me interested the whole way through, and made for a sort of semi-sequel to FORTUNE.

Otherwise, I’ve mostly been getting caught up on shows that are already in progress, so not much new to report on that front. I did do a several-day deep dive into the YouTube channel of THE CHARISMATIC VOICE, which analyzes the vocal performances of assorted rock greats of the past, most of whom were active in the 1980s, at a time when my exposure to mainstream music was at its height. It all started with me watching this video analysis of the iconic A-Ha music video for their hit Take On Me, but I enjoyed the experience enough to see what else the channel had to offer. I think what I like about it the most is the unbridled joy that commentator Elizabeth Zharoff takes in the subject matter. She’s a lot of fun to watch react to the assorted performances.

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Posted at TomBrevoort.com

Yesterday, I posted more about the MOVIEMAKING ILLUSTRATED COMICBOOK FILMBOOK

Five years ago, I reposted this piece about a comic book I screwed up.

And ten years ago, I wrote about this great cover.

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And end scene! Hopefully, things will be looking and feeling a bit more cheerful in seven days. Though with the state of play, I don’t think I’m going to put any hard money down on that. See you then!

Hat’s All, Folks!

Tom B