#157: Right At The End, Embarks A New Story

I missed it last week, but we just passed the three year anniversary of this feature, and so far, I haven’t missed a week. So as always, I’d like to thank everybody who’s been following along and paying attention all during that time. We’re up to over 7300 subscribers at this point, which is multiples of the number I thought we were going to be able to attract when I started out, so that’s pretty cool. It’s amazing how many people will hop on board when something is both reliable and free, isn’t it? Any way, my intention is to just keep on keepin’ on around these parts, so let’s see what we can scrape together for this week.

Seems as though this section gets longer and longer, which I suppose is a good thing—it means that readers are feeling more comfortable speaking their minds and asking their questions. So here’s what was put in front of me this past week by you all:

Betsy

What's the process a comic has to go through before it hits the stands? Do all books on your line need your approval, or just from it's assigned editor?

And how far ahead are the writers writing?

That first question is a long and complicated one, Betsy. But to try to get it all across in a short amount of time, an idea for a comic has to sound good to me (or to some editor) and to the editor in chief. And then it has to go through a P & L process that estimates its sales potential weighed against how much it will cost to produce. If the result of that process is positive, then the project in question can proceed forward. And yes, in the X-Line, all books need my approval to move forward and I read out every issue of every title and most of the scripts along the way, giving comments and feedback as necessary. In terms of how far ahead the writers are, that varies from person to person. At the extreme, FANTASTIC FOUR #30 came out just this past Wednesday, and I have scripts for the next nine issues in my hands from Ryan North already. On the other hand, other writers are only just barely ahead of what’s coming out. But the idea is always to be comfortably ahead of the curve on this stuff.

Zack J

David Lynch famously said "As soon as you finish a film, people want you to talk about it. The film IS the talking, the film is the thing. So you go see the film, it's the whole thing and it's there and it's it." It's a philosophy on art I think about a lot, and one that I think runs opposite to how Marvel (and frankly comics as a whole) have operated since Stan's Soap Box.

Especially as you have been doing this for 35 years through the rise of internet culture, and this newsletter for 3 years, what's your take on this?

Is the level of meta-commentary from the creators/publishers beneficial for the art? Is it valuable when the news cycle or fan conversation centers on a creator tweeting this or an editor saying that as opposed to a focus on the work?

I don’t know, Zach, clearly I see some benefit in interacting with members of the audience, as I’ve done it for so long. On the other hand, that may be simple narcissism at work. but I don’t think the conversation necessarily has a huge impact on the work itself. While it’s always good to know everybody’s opinion, I don’t really make my choices based around that information or trying to predict what a few people online are going to think about what I’m doing. But I do think that there’s value in giving the audience a voice and in establishing a connection with them. As much as anything, this is why I brought back letters pages to the X-titles after an absence of something like 20 years. I like giving people a place where they can say their piece and be heard, and to answer as need be. On the other hand, I tell creators all the time to stop looking at social media, especially if it’s upsetting them, because it isn’t an accurate reflection of the audience as a whole, and if you stop looking at it, it ceases to exist.

Callie

How much more work does adding an extra book to your oversight add for you/an editor? Like, is there a baseline amount of work that being an editor for any number of books has, and then each book only adds a bit of extra work, or is it more like if you're an editor of 3 books, that's half as much work as editing 6 books?

Bouncing off of that, what do you think the maximum number of books you could serve as editor on is, and what's the fewest number of books you've had going on in the last, say, 20 years? Feel free to include/exclude the work of editors who are in subcategories of your office (wolverine office and things of that sort) in your answer.

Well, realize, Callie, I’m not a typical editor, so I’m apt to add on any project whose concept catches my fancy. But every book does require a commitment of time, and books such as the main X-MEN titles that ship more often than monthly are in aggregate tougher, because the system is really geared towards monthly release. It isn’t really true any longer, but back in the day, when I started, the ideal workload for an editor and an assistant editor was thought to be five monthly titles plus a special project or two—a graphic novel or limited series, something that wasn’t under a tight deadline yet. But I don’t know that I’ve had a month in which I’ve put out that few books in a long, long time, apart from during the hand-off of AVENGERS for X-MEN maybe. In terms of maximums, myself and my assistant editor at the time Gregg Schigiel once sent 15 books to press on the same week, so that’s maybe the high water mark.

Miriam Barberena

Thanks for making my own 'to read' pile feel much less daunting. Out of curiosity, when you add books to your piles, do you place them on top or at the bottom?

Generally speaking, Miriam, new stuff tends to get stacked on the top. But there are a bunch of different stacks and shelves all around my home, so that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be gotten to first. But putting them at the bottom would require more juggling than I’d ever feel like doing.

J. Kevin Carrier

Removing the Spirit from those PLASTIC MAN covers is just bizarre. I frankly would rather they not include the covers at all, rather than mutilate them like that. Is Eisner's estate particularly litigious or something?

I don’t think the Eisner estate is especially litigious, Kevin. Rather, I think that DC/Warner tends to be very strict in observance of IP laws, especially since they have their own library of characters and concepts that they need to protect. And the effort to secure the rights to reproduce those covers may have simply been more time, money and effort than was seen to be worth it.

Leigh Hunt

how do you go about deciding on artists for new runs? Your books right now have a real mixture of styles to my eyes. Some absolutely beautiful breath-taking artists and some whose work I really dislike. And a recent announcement about an artist on a new run with a writer Ilove has me wondering whether to buy it or not.

Presumably you can't like all your artists to the same degree but you presumably do like all your artists at least a little bit? Or are you able to ignore your own subjectivity if the artist is well-liked by others/commercially successful?

TL;DR - would you ever/have you ever put an artist on a book whose work you personally don't like?

if I don’t think that somebody can do the job, Leigh, then I don’t hire them, simple as that. Beyond that, I’m making these books for people who are apt to like them, and that means that I’m not always the target audience really. By that same token, I don’t tend to use artists whose work I don’t like, because I don’t like it.

Najee

So how do we ask a question for an upcoming newsletter?

Like that, Najee, you just did it!

Murewa Ayodele

I'm so happy you watched and enjoyed FRIEREN: BEYOND JOURNEY’S END. It's my favorite show in recent years. DELICIOUS IN DUNGEON is another of my recent favorites right now too.

I tried a few episodes of DELICIOUS IN DUNGEON a while back, Murewa, but fell off of it after a little bit. The stuff I like about FRIEREN isn’t really about the setting or the genre so much as the emotional connections it draws and plays on. So I didn’t get that same hit from DELICIOUS, even though it was taking place in a similar fantasy setting.

Kenny Arena

been an avid reader of X-Men & all things X for 45 years 🤯 & wanted to share two things I’m struggling with a bit on the new Uncanny book. First is the focus on these new mutant kids. The book has an A-List X line-up but 11 issues in and the stories are still focused on and revolving around the kids. (Except for the X-Manhunt tie-in which was my favorite issue so far because it was focused on the actual X-Men I’m reading the book for.) I was hoping after two/three issues the kids would move over to Exceptional (where I feel the “New Mutants” thing is working great) and let Uncanny rock with Rogue, Gambit, Nightcrawler, Jubilee & Wolverine. But it’s not looking like that is happening. I’m getting the feeling that I did years ago with the Inhumans. They were in the spotlight for a bit but for some reason the stories started focusing on new and young Inhumans instead of the awesome first family and not only did I lose interest, everyone else did. And they went away and haven’t had a book since. It’s a little dramatic but my point is that you have a top tier line-up and it’s being completely wasted. Second is that, and maybe it’s the reason for my first concern, is that the book reads like it is for kids or a really young audience. The dialogue, the interactions, the pet names for each other. It all feels kind of like a pre-teen drama. Was that the intention for Uncanny? To be geared to younger readers? It’s possible it’s just not for me. There will always be (I hope) an X book I dig. Enjoying Jed’s X-Men, although line-up wise it could use a shake up (Polaris, Banshee, Colossus, Dazzler, Thunderbird would all be amazing). Bummed that X-Factor is going away, hope it can make a return soon. But I’ve been reading this long I don’t plan to give up now. Thanks for listening

Like a couple of other people that I’ve encountered, Kenny, I think you maybe have the wrong idea about UNCANNY X-MEN. So let me try to articulate what the approach is, and then you can either read it or not as it suits you. I very much do not draw any line between the more established old school X-Men characters and the new young Outliers whom we’ve brought in. They are all equal members of the cast, and they’re all X-Men. In my mind, the closest equivalent in terms of X-Men history is that period when Storm and Wolverine were joined by four newbies: Psylocke, Dazzler, Longshot and Havok. That’s kind of what we’re doing here. And nobody especially complained that those guys were getting too much attention in those books, even though readers may have lamented losing Colossus or Nightcrawler or Kitty or whomever. And I certainly don’t feel as though we’re writing UNCANNY X-MEN down to anyone. If anything, it’s the most Claremont-style title in the line, I think, in terms of the conflicts being very personal and the interactions being very meaningful. But again here, your mileage may vary, and so if it’s not doing it for you, you have every right to look towards something else that might. But we’re definitely not going to be moving half of the cast over to EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN, s if you’re hoping for that, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, though!

Seastar

I read something fascinating from Ryan North, where he said he was not very familiar with the Fantastic Four before taking up the job. When thinking of writers for a large title like that, how important is that background knowledge to you? Does it ever make a writer option more compelling because they are familiar with the characters, the books, the history of them? Or is it just about skill sets? It obviously paid off with Ryan North, because he's been fantastic.

It all comes down to what the writer brings to the table, Seastar. To give you a more concrete case, when I approached him about potentially writing FANTASTIC FOUR, Jonathan Hickman hadn’t especially been a fan of the series, and so the first thing he did was a deep dive into back issues to try to wrap his head around what he thought the series was about at its core. I think that most who read his run would conclude that he cracked it well enough. And I’ve also had the opposite, where a creator was very familiar with a series and really loved the idea of working on it but somehow couldn’t find that essential spark that would make it go. So familiarity with the history can be helpful but it’s not an absolute. I’m around to provide help in that area when needed.

JV

Do you find that a 'bad/unpopular' adaptation in film or TV can have a bad ripple effect on a comic character?

I found that a lot of the hard work that Geoff Johns and artists like Ivan Reis and Carlos Pacheco put into Hal Jordan ground to a halt with the release of the (crappy) Ryan Reynolds movie.

Do poorly received adaptations hurt the source material in your opinion? at least temporarily?

Like anything, JV, I think they can, but they aren’t a deciding factor on their own. People not liking, say, a film starring a particular character may make it a lot less likely that a bunch of new people will check out a new iteration of that title. But he existing audience will judge that book based upon how well it does its job. I don’t think you can really blame the failure of GREEN LANTERN after the film didn’t work solely on the performance of the movie. because a GREEN LANTERN book that people want to read will do business, as was proven before there even was a movie.

Thom Dunn

I'm curious about the editorial approach to X-MANHUNT. Reading RAID ON GRAYMALKIN, it felt like a clearly focused crossover between two series — to the point that it genuinely felt that both creative teams were collaborating together and splitting their duties. I was surprised to see X-MANHUNT come do quickly on the heels of that crossover, but the aesthetic approach couldn't be more different. In the case of X-MANHUNT, it almost feels like each creative team was simply told, "Xavier is at X location, and needs to accomplish Y," and then each individual team was left to their own devices to figure out how to fit that into their own respective story.

This is not a value judgment by any means. I'm simply curious about the behind-the-scenes discussions that went into these events. RAID felt much more cohesive, yet I also appreciate how MANHUNT has allowed each series to continue telling its own story, even if the overaching crossover narrative seems a bit more disjointed. I think both are valid approaches to event storytelling, but I'm curious to learn more about why you took such different angles on such temporally close events. Thanks!

Well, each type of crossover is different, Thom. And honestly, I’m enjoying playing around with the different formats and seeing what works where. For X-MANHUNT, I hadn’t done a 1-2-3-4 style crossover in decades, not since “Live Kree Or Die” in AVENGERS, so you’re right in that I wanted everybody involved to serve two masters: the needs of the crossover story and their own ongoing storylines and flavor. And I feel like we were largely successful at that, even if some complained that the different chapters represented too much of a shift in tone or specifics. I’ve also got two other projects coming up that approach the question of crossovers in entirely different ways, and I’m curious as to how those will strike readers. We’ll see in time. And yes, Gail and Jed were able to collaborate much more intimately on “Raid on Graymalkin” both because it was a shorter story and because there were only two titles involved.

Montana Mott

Does your answer about the Young Avengers this week mean the plans that were announced to introduce them in 2025 are maybe put on ice for now?

Yes, Montana, there were plans for a YOUNG AVENGERS project that fell apart at a certain point. That kind of thing happens from time to time.

Ben Morse

I’m really enjoying the New Warriors Chronicles, as I knew I would. Before you know it we’ll be up to the issue of Marvel Vision where I wrote in complaining about the book being cancelled, prompting Fabian to mail me a bunch of Acclaim comics.

So it was a case of insult to injury, Ben? (I kid, Fabian, I kid.)

Mark Paglia

Since we all have them, what's your pet peeve as an editor—the trope or cliché or common phrase thar just rankles you when you see it?

“This ends now!” Or really, Mark, any dialogue that sounds like it’s come out of a fight scene playbook, rather than sounding like something that people might actually say.

Matthew

Somewhat related, what's your opinion on editorial note captions? And why are they signed? That seems more intrusive than an artist's signature in the bottom corner. (As an aside: it took me a borderline embarrassing amount of time to realise Ed wasn't some guy's name.)

I find it particularly immersion breaking when such captions are left in a collected edition which also includes the issue being referenced, or when an acronym is spelled out chapter after chapter (or when AR logos kept being included, long after the app had been taken down). Obviously with older content it's not as straightforward, but it seems like it would be trivial to remove a digital caption that is arguably worthwhile in single issues, but certainly doesn't need to be in collections.

Editor’s notes have been a part of the lexicon of comic books since before I started reading them, Matthew, so they don’t bother me any. And they’re signed so that you don’t spend a bunch of time thinking that everybody’s name is Ed. And in general, I’m not a fan of removing material from collected reprints, so I don’t see any great value in eliminating the sorts of captions that you’re describing. But everybody’s tastes in this department are different. I know that I used to hate it when the later books in the ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS line would cut out the Next Issue blurbs at the ends of stories.

Jeff Ryan

More people will watch a movie on TV than in the theaters, and I have to think that over the decades, more people will read Marvel comics via reprints and Marvel Unlimited than the original print run. Is it odd to think that an Avengers issue with a 50,000-issue print run may end up with two or three times that readership, mostly from people who'll never touch the original floppy?

No, that doesn’t really trouble me in any way, Jeff. I’m interested in the material more than the delivery mechanism, so I don’t really care what form a particular person reads our stories in (provided that they’ve paid for the experience legally so the creators can get fairly paid.) And it’s always great when some older thing that didn’t get a lot of notice suddenly jumps up on everybody’s radar due to some later project or media play.

Clonegeek

So nothing in ASM is going really matter in the long run? Then why should I care what happens in it? Getting rid of the marriage got rid of any sense that what happens in ASM going forward with the character will really matter.

I think you have a very limited grasp as to what constitutes nothing, Clonegeek. Plenty of things have happened to Peter Parker and Spider-Man over the past seventeen years and most all of them have mattered, both to the character and to the audience. Things change in the world of Spider-Man all the time, always have. So sometimes, he has a black costume and then he doesn’t, and sometimes he’s a school teacher and then he isn’t, and sometimes he’s married and then he isn’t, and sometimes Doctor Octopus takes over his body and then he gets it back. It’s all kind of the same thing. But as always, if you just don’t like Spider-Man without him being married to MJ, you can always stop reading it (or simply read ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN at this point, whichever suits you.)

Antoine D

I have been greatly enjoying the STORM series. I was wondering how the book has been performing so far and how you felt about it's success and critical acclaim given that you are the first editor to give the character a series of this magnitude and lore.

STORM has been doing just fine so far, Antoine—but how I feel about it is far less important than how you and others like you feel about it. Because if you want it to continue to be a going concern, it’s important that you continue to support it.

Jordan L

1. Throughout the 80s, there seemed to be a trend in the mainline Marvel to eliminate excess waste. Scourge killed off a bunch of D-list villains in Captain America. The Mauraders killed off a bunch of D-list mutants in the Mutant Massacre. The Savage Land was temporarily destroyed in the pages of Avengers. Dr. Strange and Blade cast a spell to eliminate all vampires. Most of the background Eternals were whisked away to continuity limbo, along with Olympus and the Greek gods "never to be seen again."

Do you know if this was a deliberate attempt to shrink the Marvel Universe? Or mostly just cleaning up continuity from books that were no longer running at the time (Eternals, Dracula, Ka-Zar, etc.)? A bit of both? Or neither?

2. Several Marvel superheroes and heroines got hitched and had kids in the 70s and 80s. By the end of the 80s, in particular, there seemed to be a mandate to reverse these plot points as quickly as possible. Husbands and wives suddenly transformed into emotionless robots, demon queens, Skrulls in disguise, etc. Newborn babies were either revealed to be imaginary constructs or whisked off into the distant future "never to be seen again." (Naturally, these characters eventually returned in more marketable forms, but not for years later.)

So, what happened?

I'm not one of those readers who demands a certain status quo for Marvel characters. As long as the story is good, I don't mind if the characters are single, married, whatever. My confusion stems from not understanding why these marriage and childbirth stories were greenlit in the first place if they were going to present such a massive problem for the titles going forward.

1. There were a couple of things going on during the 1980s that you stumbled over here, Jordan. One of them was that editor in chief Jim Shooter didn’t like a bunch of the elements that were then in the Marvel books, finding them unbelievable in what was meant to be a science-based universe. So he set about to have those eliminated, often with Roger Stern as the person who carried those wishes out. I believe that it was Jim who asked that vampires be wiped out and it was definitely Jim that requested that the Savage Land be destroyed. Once Jim had left Marvel, those changes were relatively swiftly reversed by others who liked those elements being a part of the MU. Mark Gruenwald creating Scourge was driven by a similar impulse, he thought that there were a whole bunch of cruddy characters running around that were useless, and so he took it upon himself to eliminate that dead weight. Years later, after a conversation with John Byrne, who had begun to use similar lame-os in his SHE-HULK run, Gruenwald repented and regretted his earlier actions.

2. Same sort of thing. Jim Shooter was broadly in favor of having events move forward, and so under his watch, there were a number of weddings and births and deaths and so forth. And once other people had come in, other people had different opinions on some of those developments, and worked to undo them as need be.

Najee

1. Why doesn’t Marvel openly advertise that certain books are limited series on covers anymore? I’m not exactly sure when the trend started but limited series had “__ of __” for decades and that’s simply not the case anymore. What’s the reason? I don’t think it makes business sense and it’s kinda jarring to have to search solicits to find out.

2. My outside understanding is that every ongoing series gets 10 issues ordered at the outset and then get more depending on how the book performs. That seems low (to me). Any chance it can go up to 12-15? Around what issue is the decision made to continue/cancel? What variables outside of the incomplete sales data we receive affect the decision?

3. A lot of FTA relaunch titles are getting shelved after ten issues, which suggests commercial failure (no disrespect to the talented creators). X-Men have thousands of named characters and an expansive history, a lot of fan favorites will be left behind because that’s just the nature of comics so I don’t blame the current X-Office for that. However, even before Krakoa, the X-Men have had a hub (or two) at a time that allowed for mutants that aren’t currently featured in books to have some sort of role or connection regardless. FTA doesn’t seem to have that because the teams are smaller and all spread out. I understand the FTA books feature mutants leaving isolation and huddling in different corners but what is the plan when these corners are erased after ten issues? Are there any plans to consolidate the favs lost in NYX, X-Force, X-Factor & beyond or it’s just wait and see limbo now?

Looks like I’ve hit the numbered section of this week’s Newsletter. All right.

1. In general, we do tend to try to label limited series in the fashion that you describe, Najee. But with certain title, we don’t know that they’re only going to last for however many issues when we embark, and the hope is that they will be successful enough to run longer, so we don’t want to prematurely limit things by saying up from “only five issues.”

2. Your understanding here is, I’m afraid, flawed. An ongoing series gets a commitment to an open-ended commitment, but that commitment is paired with a need to maintain a certain degree of profitability, and to contribute to Marvel’s overall bottom line. Even books that are theoretically approved for ten issues can end earlier if sales are poor enough, and titles that do well can run unendingly.

3. I don’t view any of these titles as failures, Najee. Right from the start, we knew that not everything that we were going to try was going to connect, and not everything was going to be able to go on indefinitely. That was the case in the Krakoa-era as well. As for future plans for the characters involved in those books, those will come up as need be in future projects. I don’t feel a burning need to make sure that Dazzler or Havok or Forge or whomever has a place to appear every single month—there are simply too many mutant characters for that to be the case. And I’d rather put most of them on a shelf until we have a story opportunity that actually showcases any of these players to the best of their ablities.

Andrew Albrecht

I’m about to start the big manhunt crossover, and it’s… daunting.

A crossover between two books is pretty easy to follow! I’d prefer if you could space the crossovers out a bit further

Honestly, Andrew, i would have liked to have had more space between “Raid on Graymalkin” and X-MANHUNT as well, but there was a story reason why X-MANHUNT needed to happen when it happened. And then, as sometimes also happens, that story need changed, but only after we were committed to doing X-MANHUNT when it was.

oneredeye

Please tell me why your writer Ayodele posted an entire thread about X-Manhunt Omega with more than 10 previously unseen panels from the issue before it was even released? On #xspoilers no less. Way to ruin the climax of this damn event.

Wait a minute, oneredeye, you’re telling me that you went to the hashtag #xspoilers and you’re upset that a story was spoiled for you? Do you not see the problem there? If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t go to where the spoilers live.

Andrew Albrecht

As of me writing this we just got our first official confirmation that an X-men will be in Avengers Doomsday!! Kelsey Grammar is a confirmed star via Marvel Studios livestream! How crazy is that? And I guess I’m curious how far in advance did you know something like this? Edit: as in, does it get mentioned at your meeting with the Studios, or is it the same time as the rest of the world?

I don’t know, Andrew, I kind of feel like him turning up in the post-credits scene in THE MARVELS was maybe a bit of a clue? More to your point, we tend to learn about stuff like this ahead of the public, but not on any particular timetable. It comes out usually when we have our regular update interactions with the Marvel Studios team.

Oscar Andreasson

Since OMD(and the current status) keeps on being brought up lets look at it from another angle. One thing that's often being lost in the OMD discussions are what an awesome character MJ is and was, especially wife-MJ. So my question to you Tom is what are your favorite stories from the marriage years that you felt were really enhanced by MJ and Peter being together?

I…don’t know that I can really point to any stories that I feel this way about, Oscar. Most of the stories that I liked during that time would have worked just as well if Pete and MJ were still simply dating or just living together or whatnot. There’s the occasional story like that SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL that Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca did that was all about Pete and MJ’s married relationship, but for the most part, the marriage wasn’t a huge part of what was making those stories work for me.

Jenn

I have been curious about the letter columns in the backs of issues. As a reader, I expected a book to start letters at issue 3 and proceed from there but not every series has done that. What determines if an issue gets a letter page or is skipped?

It’s entirely up to the editorial team on the title whether a book chooses to do a letters page or not, Jenn. And it’s typically the first thing to fall by the wayside when people get busy, as its absence doesn’t really do anything to the sales of the comics. I like letters pages, so I make the time to do them for my books, but not everybody is as consistently disciplined as I am.

Shaun

Since Greycrow is hanging about Alaska with Psylocke, what's the chances of having him appear in Jed's X-Men team?

He’s already shown up there, Shaun, in X-MEN #5. But there aren’t any plans to have him join the Alaska team.

Ducc

The one series I was actually looking forward to reading was Weapon X-Men, because it had one of my favorite writers writing it. But now I am hearing the news that Weapon X-Men was silently canceled and turned into a 5 issue miniseries even after you told me that it was an ongoing.

I’m not going to respond to most of your comments, Ducc, because you’re entitled to your point of view and you presented your thoughts well, in a respectful and polite manner, so I don’t see any point in arguing you on any of it. (Though you’d maybe be astonished how much energy and effort went into X-MANHUNT, so that “thumb-twiddling” crack was a bit off-sides.) But I didn’t want to let this bit go by. Like I just told Najee above, sometimes a book is slated to be an ongoing but the support in the marketplace simply isn’t there to allow for that. That was the case with WEAPON X-MEN.

CG

My question is in regards to X-Force issue 9; is there any way we can get that in the second volume TPB of X-Force? Or who could we email to try to convince them? Or is there BTS stuff that fans aren’t privy to that has event tie ins off in their own TPBs? Thanks for any clarification.

I expect that issue #9 will be in the second X-FORCE collection for sure, CG. it pretty much has to be or else the story won’t make any sense.

Caleb Wong

I would like to know if Marvel has any plan for Darkhawk in the future?

None that I’m aware of, Caleb, at least at the moment. But the character is a favorite of C.B. Cebulski’s, so you never know.

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Off The Wall

Something of a corollary to the piece that I showed off last time, what you see here is the main cover to FANTASTIC FOUR #16 by Mark Bagley and Karl Kesel, which I also own. As I told you last time, this was my final issue editing the series, I thought forever, and so not to be outdone, Mark and Karl decided to gift me with this cover as well, which was grand of them. As you can see, it was inspired by John Byrne’s cover image for the book’s 20th Anniversary Issue, #236. And it’s right next to the Alan Davis alternate cover featuring me in the main upstairs hallway.

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On The Spinner Rack

Spin, spin, spin, and let’s see what goodies the office spinner rack has to share with us this week. Up top, that’s a copy of FANTASTIC FOUR #36 that I bought after a break-in years ago resulted in a chunk of my complete FANTASTIC FOUR run having been stolen. This copy was a bit too chewed up, so I upgraded it almost immediately. Underneath that is FANTASTIC FOUR #60, the 9 cent issue that kicked off the Waid and Wieringo run. Then there’s the first issue of UNTOLD LEGEND OF CAPTAIN MARVEL, a never-reprinted limited series that’s probably the best thing I ever did as a writer. Beneath that is the first part of the two-part MAGNUS, ROBOT FIGHTER/NEXUS crossover. followed by an issue of GREEN LANTERN. Under that is AVENGERS #22 by Kurt Busiek and George Perez, probably the best single issue of their run together. Next is an AVENGERS ANNUAL penciled by Steve Ditko and inked by John Byrne, then a pair of issues of Matt Wagner’s excellent GRENDEL series, and finally WHAT TH…? #26 in which I wrote a pair of stories.

And over on the rack devoted to my books, we start off with MIGHTY AVENGERS #1 by Brian Bendis and Frank Cho, followed by the first issue of AVENGERS PRIME by Brian and Alan Davis, one of the best projects Brian worked on during his long run. Under that is an AVENGERS issue from Geoff Johns and Olivier Coipel’s “Red Zone” storyline, followed by the first issue of Genndy Tartakovsky’s CAGE limited series, can you dig it? Next is the massive INCOMING one-shot, then the final issue of AVENGERS FOREVER and an issue of Jason Aaron’s WEIRDWORLD limited series. Under that is MOON KNIGHT #25, a massive issue, the CAPTAIN AMERICA: DEATHLOK LIVES reprint album, and CHALLENGERS OF THE FANTASTIC, an Amalgam title.

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I Buy Crap

So I went ahead and bought myself this little Frieren figure for my desk area. She sits perched on the edge of this desk-shelf, where she can keep Suletta Mercury company. The figure is listed as a “noodle stopper” figure, and I have no idea what that means but it conjured up strange images in my mind.

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Hey, Kid, This Ain’t A Library!

Here’s a look at another stack of books that’s sitting around in my house waiting to be read, this one on a bureau upstairs. As you can see from the bookmarks that are visible, I’ve started pretty much all of these books but put them aside at one point or another to focus on something else. But I have every intention of getting back to them and finishing them up at some point. Maybe if all of my time wasn’t taken up writing weekly Newsletter columns I could get more done.

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Behind the Curtain

I have a vague feeling that I may have shared this next piece already. I really do need to get that index to this feature finished. But what the hell, let’s hit it again if so.

What you see above is the unused cover to SPIDER-GIRL #60, when it was going to be the final issue in the series. It wasn’t, as it turned out, and the book wound up sticking around for more than another 60 issues, but at this moment it was destined for discontinuation, and this cover would have run on its final issue. It was a riff on the cover to the character’s first appearance in WHAT IF #105. The story intended for this issue, which would have wrapped up the book, was never completed either, though I have a vague memory that maybe three pages of it had been drawn.

Here’s that first appearance cover, so that you can compare and contrast..

Years later, when the series finally did wrap up with AMAZING SPIDER-GIRL #30, artist Ron Frenz produced this similar piece for it. And this wasn’t entirely the end either, as there was a SPIDER-GIRL: THE END project immediately following this, and then the character started being featured in SPIDER-MAN FAMILY. Mayday Parker was absolutely unkillable for a decade.

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Pimp My Wednesday

Coming your way this week to complete your life! Don’t be left out!

X-MEN #14, despite the credits on this mock-up, is delivered to you by Jed MacKay and Ryan Stegman and is the first chapter of a big five-part storyline that will move a bunch of ongoing plotlines down the field towards a climax.

And recently promoted now-Associate Editor Martin Biro releases one of his last X-Projects this week with CONCERT OF CHAMPIONS, which showcases not just Dazzler and her crew but also Luna Snow and Ghost-Spider and Lila Cheney and assorted other characters from across the Marvel Universe who are known to rock out. It’s by the DAZZLER team of Jason Loo and Rafael Louriero.

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A Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date

FANTASTIC FOUR #524 came out on March 30, 2005 and brought an end to the Mark Waid/Mike Wieringo collaboration on the title. For me, every issue since #508 was like a special gift given that the run had been meant to end at that point and only a string of fortune at the right second turned things around. But it meant that I got 16 more issues out of this series than I was meant to. There were still some stories that we never quite got around to—I can remember a body-swap concept where Sue and Johnny would switch forms, the key bits of which got shifted into the Galactus storyline that came immediately prior to this. And the seams in the collaboration were beginning to show a little bit. I can remember Mike in particular being slightly grumpy about certain aspects of this final story, one in which the Fantastic Four had to race around Manhattan to reclaim their lost powers, which were leaping randomly into other people. But Reed had deliberately sabotaged Ben’s tracking device with the intention of taking the Thing’s power into himself and leaving his best friend cured of his affliction. So it was likely just as well that we wrapped things up while everybody was still happy and working well together. Mark and Mike were supposed to move over to next work on a new Spider-Man title, but Waid wound up stepping away from that assignment and Ringo wound up doing it instead for a short time with Peter David. We’d had the concept for this cover for awhile as well, but especially during the period when there were very strict guidelines as to what made for an acceptable cover, we weren’t able to use it previously. I figured that the last issue of the run was as safe as things were going to get.

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Another Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date

CAPTAIN AMERICA #616 came out on March 30, 2011 and was the 70th Anniversary Issue of the title, which meant that this issue was oversized with a number of secondary stories to mark the occasion. I always relished the opportunity to put together a big anniversary issue along the lines of the ones that had been so impactful to me as a reader, and CAPTAIN AMERICA, with its long history, was an ideal title to put build such a package around. This was I think the only cover that artist Travis Charest ever did for one of my books, and it was arranged by C.B. Cebulski in his position as Talent Manager. Travis did also do a one-pager recapping Captain America’s origin and history with Ed Brubaker for this issue, though. Ed wrote two more stories for this issue, one the start of the next movement of Bucky Barnes’ journey as he’d been incarcerated in a Russian gulag. That one was illustrated by Mike Deodato. The other one was drawn by Ed McGuinness and starred Steve Rogers in his then-role as Super-Soldier, having passed the mantle of Captain America on to Bucky. We had a short art gallery that featured pieces from classic artists who had never drawn Captain America before, such as Jim Aparo and Curt Swan. Howard Chaykin provided us with a wartime Cap story, and Cullen Bunn and Jason Latour did a very stylish modern adventure. Pretty much just for myself, I had Paul Grist draw a WWII-era story involving Baron Blood written by Mike Benson, which was fun. Frank Tieri and Paul Azaceta did a creepy modern piece about an artist who turns out to be a clone of Adolf Hitler and Cap needs to figure out what to do about this. And Kyle Higgins, Alec Siegel and Pepe Larraz finished up with another wartime adventure to round out the issue. I still feel like it’s a strong package of material with some definite range to it—while I’m sure that not every person liked every story, there was enough variety here so that most readers would find something they really connected with among the offerings.

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Another Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date

Five years later, it was time to do it all again! As it turned out, the 75th Anniversary Issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA was released on March 30, 2016. Once again, it was an oversized special, and I brough the same celebratory ethos to lining up its contents. To make matters more complex, the issue was also a part of the STANDOFF crossover that was running through the AVENGERS titles at the time, though I downplayed the tie-in trade dress on the Alex Ross cover so as to better maintain the vintage look. Alex Ross did the piece, a homage to the cover of CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS #1, and all of the cover copy was picked up and adapted from that 1940 comic book, which is why the lettering style is so haphazard and distinctive. The main story was written by Nick Spencer who was then the main author on the series and illustrated by Daniel Acuna and Angel Unzueta, who did the Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers sections respectively. At this time, Sam had taken over as Captain America due to Steve having been prematurely aged. By the end of this issue, though, Steve had been rejuvenated, setting the stage for the divisive Hydra Cap story to come. Backing this extra-length main tale up was a trip of stories by guest contributors, another strong line-up. The first was a really funny, really powerful story by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday that almost didn’t get included—there was a problem with some paperwork from Joss that only got sorted out at the eleventh hour. It would have been a real shame to have lost it. The middle tale was both written and drawn by Tim Sale, one of the few stories that he filled both roles on. And the final story starred Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff and was delivered by Greg Rucka and Mike Perkins. Again, this feels like a strong package with something to recommend it to just about anyone. Which of the two is better? Well, that’s a bit of a coin toss, I think—though if I were pressed on it, I think I’d give the edge to this one.

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The New Warriors Chronicles

NOVA #16 wrapped up the Deathstorm storyline that had been counting down pretty much since I had taken over the title. It also wound up being writer/artist Chris Marrinan’s final issue on the series. Having given the matter some thought, Chris found that he wasn’t interested in setting up some other character in the lead role, and so he thought that the best thing for him to do was to finish up his story and depart. He did agree that I could continue to use the alternate Nova design that he’d sketched up, as he’d already produced a cover for issue #17 that it would be seen on. But this meant that I was once again looking for a creative team.

Now, expediency would say that the simplest thing for me to have done in this situation would have been to bring Evan Skolnick on to write NOVA as well as NEW WARRIORS. Possibly this would have even solved Evan’s difficulties with the notion of Rich Rider handing the helmet over to some new person. The problem with that was that Evan and I were friends. I was already skittish about the appearance of having hired him in NEW WARRIORS, so handing him the other book as well was a move that I thought would be detrimental to my reputation in the office. Instead, I looked elsewhere.

I’m not quite certain what put writer Len Strazewski onto my radar right at that moment. Possibly, he’d reached out about being available for assignments and looking for new gigs. But I had liked some of the things that I’d read by him from Malibu and DC and thought he might be a good person to try out for the NOVA gig. So I asked him to submit a pitch for the series, outlining what I was looking to do with it. It’s been a long enough time now that I honestly don’t remember many of the specifics at all, only that his pitch for the new Nova was Asian-American and that Rich Rider was going to wind up wheelchair-bound after the Nova power was forcibly ripped out of him. Evan hated all of this—as I said last time, he saw Rich as being his central character, and so he didn’t want the guy depowered and crippled up. But at that moment, I felt that I needed to do what I thought would be best for the series, and so I stuck to my guns and hired Len to take over the series.

And just at that moment, the axe fell. I was informed that, based on the latest sales figures that we had, NOVA was going to make its exit with issue #18. At that moment, there wasn’t any point in going ahead with anything that I had planned, and so I was forced to call up Len, appraise him of the situation and let him know that we wouldn’t be proceeding. I could have left him on to write the final two issues, but given the situation I was in, I didn’t think that was the best choice. Because, you see, the next issue had already been solicited with Marrinan’s cover showing (in silhouette) the new Nova. So I needed to figure out how to back out of doing the storyline that I had planned without making that issue returnable. (If you solicited something to the retailers and didn’t deliver on it, especially when it was a big status quo change like this one, they could return any unsold copies for credit, killing your sales.)

So at that point, I huddled with Evan, brought him on to write the final two issues figuring that, as the series was ending and Marrinan was leaving, this was an understandable choice, and working out a crossover with the main NEW WARRIORS title that would give us the room necessary to wrap everything up and springboard future events to come.

I feel like I’m shortchanging Chris’s wrap-up story here, but there really isn’t all that much to say about it. It was a solid conclusion, Nova 0:0 turned out to be an alternate version of Rich’s brother Robbie from a world where the Deathstorm had destroyed his Earth. Nova also got to battle and defeat Kraa, the brother of his first foe, Zorr, and Chris arranged the story in such a way that he was able to draw Nova in his preferred original costume for most of that battle, a little gift to himself. There was also some fun with a Skrull member of the Nova Corps, which is a little bit strange in retrospect but plays kind of cool. Marrinan’s NOVA was never all that deeply literate, but it was a strong meat-and-potatoes action comic in the Marvel style, and he did a decent job with it.

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Monofocus

I finally got around this week to watching the new series of DAVE GORMAN’S MODERN LIFE IS GOODISH featuring a writer and comedian whose work I enjoy a whole lot. It was Dave’s usual mix of observational humor and silliness punctuated by powerpoint presentations. The three episodes were very enjoyable—there were meant to be four and four were recorded, but one contained a linking routine that was built around a public figure who had been caught in some unsavory scandal in the time since the show was filmed. With no way to excise the material relating to this person as it was woven throughout the structure of the episode—Gorman regularly builds routines that have what seem like separate tracks of thought that wind up dovetailing for the climax—there wasn’t anything else to be done but to discard the entire thing. Still, three new episodes is better than nothing. Among the best regular bits that Gorman does on his show is the “Found Poem”, where he takes comments from the internet on a particular subject and arranges them to form a funny spoken word piece. Here’s an example of one for you to sample

And as I mentioned last week, I worked my way through the DC’S FINEST collection of vintage PLASTIC MAN stories. A bit of a misnomer, that title, as these comics weren’t originally published by DC at all but rather rival Quality Comics. But ultimately DC bought out Quality’s properties when the latter went out of business in the late 1950s. In any case, Jack Cole’s strip was one of the best and funniest of the Golden Age, and it’s quite fascinating to see it develop and grow here. When the character started out, he wasn’t even the headline feature. Plastic Man was just meant to fill six pages towards the back of each issue of POLICE COMICS. But within just a few months, it became clear who the readers were buying for and Plas displaced the hapless Firebrand as the cover feature. Speaking of covers, as we talked about last time, a bunch of the reproductions in this volume have been doctored to remove images of the Spirit and his cast, as DC doesn’t possess the rights to them. This kills a couple of the cover gags and makes others seem empty and ill-composed, so I don’t know that this was the best way to handle matters. Anyway, these stories are all great fun, and I enjoyed seeing Cole focus and streamline his approach, initially making a lot of hay out of the fact that Plas is secretly wanted criminal Eel O’Brian before writing that aspect out of the strip conclusively before the book is at an end.

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Posted at TomBrevoort.com

Yesterday, I wrote about 5 Attempts To Replicate Spider-Man

Five years ago, I wrote about the debut of the memorable Fat Fury in HERBIE #8

And ten years ago, I wrote about this Great Cover

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All right, seems as though Year Four is off to a roaring start, so we’ll keep things jamming along in a week’s time. Stop by if you’re feeling up to it!

Hat’s All, Folks!

Tom B