#160: My Life is Nonfiction
Hey, today is Easter! So happiness to those who celebrate! For me, it’s become something of a non-holiday, given that I can’t (or at least shouldn’t) partake of any candy or sugary treats and I don’t have a special fondness for eggs. Plus my kids are all grown and out of the house, so there’s really no reason to do it up at all. So just Sunday around here.
Got a couple things to share with you this time out. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, the common wisdom is that the audience or comic books turned over every five years or so, with one generation of children aging out of reading the books and another new one entering directly behind them. Accordingly, certain editors, such as DC’s Mort Weisinger, would sometimes recycle plots, cover images and even whole stories. After all, if everybody that had read it previously was now gone, what’s the harm in doing it again? Easier than coming up with a new story, that’s for sure. So what we have here is a link to the very fine 13th DIMENSION site where they’ve posted three different versions of the same story: Superman owes a billion dollars. Not the exact same script, but very, very close, and all released between 1957 and 1961. That would be akin to me redoing the story from an X-MEN issue released in 2021. Anyway, you can experience all thee versions at this link. And feel free to poke around further, they put forward a good variety of comics-based features over there.
I’ve also been delving further into the back catalogue of Japanese singer milet, whom I first noticed performing the end titles song to FRIEREN: BEYOND JOURNEY’S END. Turns out that she’s got quite a few songs that I like, and this one’s been on heavy rotation around these parts for the past week. It’s titled Who I am, and it’s the source of this week’s Newsletter title. You can give it a listen if you’re so inclined at this link here.
And now we come to the crux of the matter: this week’s questions and their responses. So saddle up, here we go.
Eric Brown
DC has been investing a lot into compendium books. I’m curious if Marvel will eventually do the same with their comics and events. Because I would love to buy the Secret Wars (2015) Battleworld (with the Jim Cheung cover for preference sake lol) vol. 1 as a Compendium format and there’s certainly a lot of runs and events or even character focused stories that I feel would fit well for compendiums.
Not that I’m aware of, Eric. I'm not certain what the margins look like on those Compendium volumes or whether they would work for Marvel. So it isn’t out of the question that we might try something like them at some point, but right now it isn’t a thing that we’re doing, sorry.
Joe West
Since the Fantastic Four live in Arizona now, will we ever see them team-up with some Arizona-based heroes (Sam Alexander/Nova, Thunderbird and Warpath, etc.)
I’m not sure that you could really say that Thunderbird or Warpath are Arizona-based necessarily, Joe, even if they originate from there. It isn’t out of the question that these folks might show up at some point, but the whole idea of moving the FF to Arizona was to get them a bit at a remove from the army of super-people that are all over New York, so I don’t know that I’d be in a real rush to bring in any Arizona-based crime-fighters.
Adam Chapman
I’ve always enjoyed the cover to Thunderbolts 30, with Hawkeye kissing Meteorite, and I think part of it was the cover copy of “Uh-oh…”, which tickled me. I remember a Mini-Marvels strip later parodying the moment (but without the cover copy).
Was this particular cover copy yours or Kurt Busiek’s idea, or an uncredited assistant editor?
And another tangent- I miss word balloons on covers, they still happen periodically but nowhere near the prior level of regularity. How do you feel about them, and do your thoughts vary from your perspective as both a reader and an editor?
Kurt already answered most of this in the comments section, Adam, but to reiterate what he said: “Uh-oh!” was the title of the story, and it’s probable that we talked about using it on the cover as well as we brainstormed on the image. So i think you can mostly credit that one to Kurt. And I’m fine with cover copy in general and word balloons on covers in particular, though I use them sparingly. But we just had one on EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #5, for example. Sometimes, they’re the best tool for the job at hand and the idea that you’re attempting to communicate.
A useful post to put words in
Back during Blood Hunt, there were 4 X-Men one shots (Jubilee, Laura Kinney: Wolverine, Magik, and Psylocke), since then, all but Jubilee received a solo series. Was there a reason she didn’t or did the Blood Hunt issues have no connection to the others receiving their own series. If there was no connection, are there any chances, Jubilee will get a solo series down the road.
No connection at all, Useful, apart from using the same characters. Those one-shots weren’t trial balloons or anything, merely a collection of characters whom we could easily see having worthwhile stories within the BLOOD HUNT set-up.
David Brazier
If you wrote an episode which villains would you use - I can’t let you say the Daleks, it’s to obvious?
I suspect that if I were to write an episode of DOCTOR WHO, David, I’d probably come up with a new monster rather than bringing back something from the past.
Seastar
Since you are editor of the X-Men and Fantastic Four, can we expect to see those two books crossover again at some point? It left a very sour taste in my mouth the last time they met during Krakoa, with how the X-Men mistreated them. I would like to think with the new era, heroes like Cyclops would be much more appreciative towards the F4, who have only ever been good allies and friends.
I’d say that it’s likely that we’ll eventually see some more interaction between the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, Seastar, especially with the latter on the cusp of making their MCU debut in a few months. And them both being in the same editorial office does make doing something of consequence for both groups a little bit easier to manage.
Jeff Ryan
What’s a great final issue that reads like it was always intended to be the final issue, tying up outstanding plots with well-paced pages, but was alas due to cancellation?
I don’t know that I have a great answer for you on this off the cuff, Jeff. So let’s throw the question open to everybody. What was a great final issue that did what Jeff is saying above, folks?
Sean
Apologies if this has been asked before, but have there ever been any overtures made to Noah Hawley for a Marvel project?
Regardless, would you theoretically be able to use the original characters from LEGION if you wanted to? Some felt like stubs for X-Men cast he couldn’t use, but a lot of them were unique and had potential in their own right.
I can’t really say if anybody ever spoke with Noah Hawley about writing something for Marvel or not, Sean, but I’m not aware of any such conversation. In terms of using any new characters created for the LEGION television show, I’d guess not, though that’s really all down to what the terms of the licensing deal stipulate about ownership of such characters.
JV
Do you ever initiate a project based on a established creator talking (usually online) about a dream project?
Not without speaking to them about it first, JV, no. But I’ve definitely reached out to creators who have mentioned such things online, and I know that others have done the same.
Craig Byrne
do the original pages for the original X-Factor #1 still exist anywhere? I've always wanted to see that, and I remember an issue of Marvel Fanfare that teased that it might come someday.
If they do, Craig, then I’ve never seen them. I suppose it’s possible that Mike Carlin or Bob Layton or somebody else involved in the production of the issue might still have unaltered copies. But I don’t know that anybody would have thought any of it important enough in 1986 to have saved them.
John Austin
A couple of weeks ago in your newsletter you mentioned one of the problems that you have with Magneto is that he was born out of the tragedy and atrocity that was World War 2 and that he would forever be connected with that event and in your eyes that's a bad thing. But why is it bad? That atrocity gave Magneto the strength he needed to go on and survive and try to help make the world a better place for his people.
My question in regards to this story being told in Cable: Love And Chrome is this: do you have other stories in the pipeline with other X-Men characters that is going to be similar to this? By similar, I mean that's going to have bombastic action tinged with a bit of nostalgia in it.
I think you’re misinterpreting my problem with tying in Magneto’s origin to the events of World War Two, John. But it really boils down to this: thanks to the passage of time, there’s really no way that Magneto and Xavier can be contemporaries when they first meet, which seems like a relatively essential piece of their relationship dynamic. Plus, the longer that you need to stretch out Magneto’s pre-super-villain time walking around, the more you’ve got to account for it. So what was he doing that was so important for all that time if he had a burning need to revenge himself upon humanity for the horrors he witnessed and experienced? And so forth. You can answer anything, but it’s really a question of whether the answers truly hold water (and whether you’ll need to revise those answers ten more years down the line.)
Glad you’ve been enjoying CABLE: LOVE AND CHROME. I don’t know that we’re going to have anything else that ‘s exactly like it, because the whole idea is to produce very character-specific stories that go to the heart of the characters in question. Hopefully, we’ve done just that in our assorted solo series up until now, so you might try sampling a few of those as a starting point.
Ben Morse
Did Chris Marrinan design the new Nova costume for Garthan Saal or was that another artist? At the time I was not thrilled Rich was getting replaced, but at least I liked his replacement’s look.
Chris Marrinan largely designed the Garthan Saal costume, Ben, yes, with some additional minor tweaking from Patch Zircher as I recall.
Ellis
Really been enjoying Richard Rider's role in the Phoenix book and I'm glad he'd have a role in Imperial too, so is there any chance for a new Nova series down the line? Feels like forever since Rich's had a solo series.
I’m sure that Rich will get another series at some point, Ellis. But whether IMPERIAL is that point you’ll have to wait and see—we’re not yet ready to say too much about it just yet.
JV
Some posts here made me think about the early years of X-Factor - what were your thoughts on X-Factor when it launched Tom? The return of Jean Grey, Cyclops leaving Maddie, etc.
Would you have brought the team back or did it do more harm than good to the X-books at the time ?
While there were good stories told in that series, JV—and while I certainly did come back to read the resurrection of Jean as a reader, so the pull of the thing is undeniable—I think that the creation and launching of X-FACTOR in the way that it was done was one of the most wrong-headed and damaging decisions made for the X-Men franchise. Especially doing so against the wishes of both the X-Men editor and writer. Now, sometimes that happens, but in this case, it took years and years before that situation was wrapped up (badly) and hustled off camera, so I don’t really think that it was worth it. On the other hand, X-FACTOR sold well for a long period of time, so on that level, doing it was a smart play.
Chris Sutcliffe
Imagine my shock to learn that this wasn't Jessica at all, but someone called Shadowoman. Since you wrote some of these issues, including Shadowoman getting her own costume, would you be able to share how or why she started off looking exactly like Spider-Woman?
Shadowoman was created by Mark Gruenwald in a couple issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA, Chris, which is where she got that costume. As for why, I think it all boils down to the fact that SPIDER-WOMAN had been one of Mark’s first writing assignments and he liked the look of that outfit. And since Jessica Drew had been depowered and wasn’t using it, he chose to hand it off to another character.
bloopboy
I have a question as a big fan of Noh-Varr/Marvel Boy (there are dozens of us!). Do you remember anything about his creation? I remember reading sometime around the release of Young Avengers Vol. 2 that he was originally created to be somewhat of a pin-up, and I recently got my hands on a copy of Marvel Boy #1 only to notice quite how prominent his bulge is on the physical copy.
I didn’t really have anything to do with the creation of Marvel Boy or the launch of his first MARVEL KNIGHT project, Bloopboy, so there’s relatively little that I can tell you about it. The one thing that I can say is that it was originally supposed to be called CAPTAIN MARVEL, but at the time I was still publishing the Peter David-written CAPTAIN MARVEL series, so Grant and Joe Q and everybody had to come up with a different name for theirs.
KentL
Man, those fifth week comic events were always so much fun! Wish we could still get them. They were super popular there for a while. What made them fall out of favor?
Like anything, Kent, I think the novelty of them simply wore off for readers after we and DC did so many of them year after year. So we eventually hit a point of diminished returns.
Isaac Kelley
a few weeks back you made a comment along the lines of how Marvel Comics were primarily in the business of developing concepts for use in other media. Given how much money is in the Marvel movies (and games) that makes sense, but it seems like there is a real tension between that goal and the fact that y'all need to sell books and the market tends to like old familiar things more than new different things.
Are books being developed with different focus on those two different goals or does sales have to be leading everything, since book sales are a concrete metric and "maybe they will make a Moon Girl cartoon down the road (or Big Hero Six or whatever)" is abstract?
I’m not sure which comment of mine you’re thinking of here, Isaac, but that isn’t really right at all. Marvel is in the business first and foremost of publishing great stories that make us money. While there’s certainly an ancillary responsibility to be generating ideas that can be monetized elsewhere within the larger Marvel machine, that isn’t in any way our primary function. The comics are. And anything we publish needs to pull its own weight and operate at a certain profitability margin. That’s how we stay in business. We can’t really pay the rent or the light bill with “maybe they’ll be a MOON GIRL cartoon down the road,” you know?
Najee
WHERE ARE THE BLACK PEOPLE? I feel as though there is a distinct lack of prominent black characters in the current X-Line, especially those who were established prior to this era. Storm is on the Avengers. Bishop seldom used. Sunspot not in use. Synch, Prodigy, Frenzy, are in canceled series. Arakko mutants MIA. Temper isn’t enough.
Let’s be real here, Najee—there isn’t any answer to this question that I could give you that would satisfy you, is there? So I’d be a fool to even try. What I will say, though, is that it’s just a little bit unfair to point to characters appearing in now-cancelled series (especially when the final issues of those books mostly haven’t even come out yet) as some indication of a lack of commitment on our part. We didn’t create those titles to be cancelled, we put every bit as much time and care and attention into them as anything else we’ve done. But the audience gets to decide what they want to read and support. Doesn’t mean that we’ll stop trying, or stop using characters of color throughout the line, though.
Carlos
Will Emma Frost have a prominent role in Hellfire Vigil’s? Are there plans for her in the next stage of From the ashes?
Yes and yes, Carlos.
Cian McDarby
Have you ever read Anthony Horowitz’s Susan Ryeland/Atticus Pund books? I ask because I’d wager pretty good money there’s not much art about a book editor solving murders or doing anything particularly exciting, even if the editor in question does novels, not comics.
I can’t say that I was even aware of this book before now, Cian. So I’ll try to look it up, thanks.
Mortimer Q. Forbush
1. What made team-up books so popular in the 70s and 80s?
2. What happened since then that made the concept so challenging to sell?
In that period, most of the business was conducted in the returnable Newsstand marketplace, for a largely impulse-buy audience. so stories weren’t ordering specific titles, and whatever they didn’t sell got returned for credit. In that environment, team-up books were popular because readers would buy copies when two characters they liked were in them together, and there wasn’t an expectation that every story would be “important to continuity” or a seminal event or anything.
The marketplace switched over to the non-returnable Direct Sales marketplace, which eliminated tons of waste by allowing companies to print only as many copies of a title that the book had orders for. But in this system, retailers are placing their orders three months before the books come out, with no idea how they’re going to actually do on the stands. And any copies that don’t get sold can’t be returned, but instead represent backstock typing up funds. Since most team-up title stories aren’t hugely important to continuity, most retailers tend to order lightly on them—which makes for a self-fulfilling prophesy. And they aren’t wrong, because the Direct audience is more demanding of their time and money and attention, and they want the stories to be important to continuity as well, for the most part.
Off The Wall
Switching things up a little bit, here’s an original animation cell from the 1982 Japanese anime SPACE COBRA, based on the manga by Buichi Terasawa. I bought it at a convention somewhere in the mid-1980s, and it came with the hand-drawn underdrawing, which I believe is still in the frame behind this cell. I was a big fan of both the manga and the anime, both of which had a more European sensibility than most anime and manga of that period, so I wound up buying a couple of different cels from the production as they became available. For those unfamiliar with the show, here’s a link to a subtitled version of the first episode.
On The Spinner Rack
Another weekly turn, and let’s see what the office Rack has to show us this week.
Another assortment of random junk comics! Topping things off is an issue of Steve Ditko’s short-lived DC series SHADE: THE CHANGING MAN, followed by a random issue of SUPERBOY and an issue of SUB-MARINER. Then there’s an issue of KAMANDI from right at the end of creator Jack Kirby’s time on the series (which went on for another few years without him) and a SUPERMAN FAMILY 100-Page Super-Spectacular. Next comes a comic with a rare cover appearance by me: SPIDER-MAN: 101 WAYS TO END THE CLONE SAGA, a bit of a strange goof. Below that is the giveaway issue UNITY #0 that set up the big Valiant crossover. And the bottom of the rack is three random issues of ALPHA FLIGHT, LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (during the infamous Five Years Later period) and WEB OF SPIDER-MAN. No really prominent gems in this bunch of books.
On the Me rack, things are a little better. We top off with an issue of AVENGERS: THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE, followed by the issue of THOR that introduced Thor Girl, a somewhat divisive character at the time. Below that is the first issue of FANTASTIC FOUR that I ever worked on, #47, finishing up a story started by outgoing editor Bobbie Chase. Then an early issue of Ed Brubaker’s CAPTAIN AMERICA and my recently-released X-MEN #1. Under that is the second issue of the GLA limited series (with a huge word balloon on the cover) and a copy of MARVEL COMICS #1000 that was signed to me by all of the attendees at one of our Marvel Retreats. Under that is the Amalgam SPIDER-BOY #1, a very good comic, an issue of the Marvel/DC crossover series UNLIMITED ACCESS, and the issue of FANTASTIC FOUR in which the FF met God. So stronger material here pretty much across the boards.
I Buy Crap
As the above Spinner Rack look maybe indicates, I king of love old junky comic books. While I don’t go crazy with it, I do have a habit of scooping up small piles of random crap from the past, which I read as a sort of palate cleanser before getting into the week’s new books. A lot of these comics are legitimately bad, with a poor use of basic craft. But they all have a certain spark about them that I find interesting and that keeps me coming back for more. It’s always a good day when I stumble across some hidden gem story from the past that almost nobody remembers.
So in that spirit, this past month I picked up a complete run of THE GOOD GUYS from Defiant comics, Jim Shooter’s second company after he was ousted from Valiant. I read the first three issues or so when the series was new, but it wasn’t good enough to keep me coming back. To be honest, I remember precious little about it—I couldn’t tell you the names of any of the characters—apart from the gimmick that was behind it when it was launched. Defiant had run a contest of some sort where the winners got to effectively sell their names and likenesses to the company in exchange for becoming the basis for one of the heroes in this new book, all of whom are comic book fans given genuine super-powers by some event or other. There were nine issues in total, and today I kind of wonder what ever happened to the young fans who made this deal. Where are they now? Anyway, I don’t really expect these issues to be great, but I do think they’ll be entertaining, and that’s about all that I’m looking for from them.
Behind the Curtain
I’ve only got the first page of this next item to share with you, but hopefully it’s entertaining enough on its own.
Back when I started at Marvel, Executive Editor Mark Gruenwald used to head up a weekly Assistant Editor School that met every Wednesday with the intention of teaching the young incoming editors about storytelling and comic book history and all of the essentials that they might need. It was a pretty memorable thing, for all that most of us grumbled in a defacto way about having to make time for it every week. Anyway, Mark would often end his various units with multiple choice quizzes of the sort you see above. This one wasn’t put together by Mark, though, but was instead a parody of them created by the Assistant Editors, primarily my friend and future NEW WARRIORS writer Evan Skolnick. Viewed in the light of 2025, there are probably one or two HR violations in even the portion of this document that you see above. But it was all done in only slightly mean-spirited fun and it very much reflects the chaotic and casual frat room atmosphere that Marvel had in those days.
Pimp My Wednesday
Books coming your way this Wednesday.
ONE WORLD UNDER DOOM enters its third month as the beleaguered heroes make a devil’s bargain with the villains of the world to unite against the tyranny of the Earth’s new emperor, Doom. Seems like a fine strategy except that this is only issue #3, so you kind of have a sense as to how it’s all going to go. But the interesting part is how. It’s by Ryan North and RB Silva.
And over in X-MEN #15, a search and rescue operation has turned into a desperate fight for survival as something massive and unexpected has been unleashed that will require every last resource that the mutant heroes have to contain. Jed MacKay and Ryan Stegman bring the surprises here.
A Comic Book On Sale 80 Years Ago Today, April 30, 1945
As the cover call-out indicates, by 1945 CAPTAIN MARVEL ADVENTURES had the biggest circulation of any comic magazine on the stands. It was wildly popular, so much so that at its height it was released every three weeks rather than on a monthly basis. While it appears unassuming on the surface, its cover focused on a simple story from within , issue #46 is actually a key release in comic book history. For it contains the concluding chapter of “The Monster Society of Evil”, a massive 26-chapter serial that had run for the past two years, pitting the Big Red Cheese against pretty much all of his greatest foes, organized by an otherworldly intelligence: Mister Mind! Typically, in the whimsical style that defined the series, after having started out as simply a mysterious voice, Mister Mind had turned out to be the smallest and most unassuming of creatures, a genius worm. Nevertheless, he and the galaxy=spanning organization that he’d creates to spread terror, cruelty and misery had run Captain Marvel around the block for two entire years, with each chapter concluding in an epic cliffhanger in the style of the movie serials of the period. (Much of Captain Marvel’s popularity had grown out of appearing in the 1941 movie series THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL, the first time a super hero had ever been recreated on film.) In this final chapter, having lost the last of his allies, Mister Mind tries and fails one last time to kill his mortal enemy as Billy Batson, and winds up captured at last. He’s put on trial for the murder of 186,744 people—which, given the era, makes him something of a piker when compared to the Nazis. Nevertheless, he’s found guilty—his own defense lawyer turns against him before the trial is concluded—and is scheduled to be executed for his crimes against humanity. AND HE IS! What’s even more incredible is the fact that, after his death, the State has Mister Mind stuffed and mounted and put on display as a warning to others who might follow in his fiendish footsteps! There are two other stories in this issue, but how could they possibly hold a candle to a finale like that?
“The Monster Society of Evil” is one of the most stellar accomplishments of the Golden Age of Comics. It’s only ever been reprinted once, and that was in a costly massive slipcased edition decades ago. More recent efforts to reprint it have been foiled by the fact that there’s no getting around a number of offensive caricatures that show up throughout its pages. This was wartime America, so not just the Japanese but foreign cultures in general are treated poorly by this story. You’d need a hell of a disclaimer to collect it today. Which is a shame on a certain level, but I get it completely.
A Comic Book On Sale 40 Years Ago Today, April 30, 1985
These days, Jim Valentino is probably best known for being one of the founding members of Image Comics, where he launched his violent super hero creation, the spine-breaking Shadowhawk. Marvel fans remember him as the person who was first able to make a go out of turning the futuristic Guardians of the Galaxy into an ongoing concern in a well-remembered run. And I first encountered his work on his broad parody series NORMALMAN, which I quite enjoyed at the time but which looks a bit quaint and unsophisticated looking back at it today. But the stories of his that I really clicked with are his many autobiographical tales of growing up in the 1960s, which appeared in scattered comics and fanzines as he was first getting started. A swath of that material was collected in this first issue of VALENTINO by Renegade Press in the mid-1980s. Renegade was founded by Deni Loubert, the ex-wife of CEREBUS creator Dave Sim. Deni had expanded hers and Dave’s operation at Aardvark-Vanaheim to include publishing the work of other people they liked, and so when the divorce happened, she inherited most of those projects in the split and became a small publisher for the next couple of years. This first one-shot did well enough that it was followed sometime later by a second, and then a third. By that point, Valentino was having to craft new material for them, his backlog having been exhausted. All three were eventually collected in a Trade Paperback collection under the title VIGNETTES in the late 1990s.
A Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date
The final issue of SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, #27, came out on April 20, 2005 and reunited writer Paul Jenkins and artist Mark Buckingham for one final adventure. The pair had come to prominence when they had taken over the secondary Spider-Man book PETER PARKER, SPIDER-MAN, investing it with a bit more fun and spirit and uniqueness than the surrounding Marvel books of the period. They carried on working together into the early years of Joe Quesada’s tenure as Marvel’s Editor in Chief, where while they’d do the occasional multi-part story, their bread and butter was single issue stories with a strong theme and approach. But that wasn’t an approach that the marketplace was really supporting in the early 2000s, and so Jenkins was prevailed upon to change up his approach, involving more multi-part stories, more continuity and more involvement in crossovers. There was also a push to other art styles seen in the moment as more commercial, with Buckingham moving on to other projects, his place taken by Humberto Ramos and Michael Ryan and Greg Land and others. Eventually, though, Jenkins tenure had run its course, and so for his final issue, I asked Buckingham to return and I gave the team the latitude to tell one final self-contained single issue Spider-Man story. The issue is a spiritual sequel to the team’s first Spidey story from PETER PARKER, SPIDER-MAN #20 in which Peter once again visits the grave of his dead Uncle Ben and communes with him about the state of his life. It’s quiet and thoughtful, without any particular derring-do or super-villain plots in it. But it’s very effective, and very much a return to form for both the creators and the series as it takes its final bown.
Another Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date
The cover to this issue of AVENGERS proved to be a lot more seminal than anybody thought when we first executed it. It was released on April 20, 2011 and was the finale of a sequence in which the villainous Hood was attempting to gather together the Infinity Gems and reconstitute the Infinity Gauntlet with them, so that he’d possess ultimate power. In the end, it’s Iron Man who winds up with the completed Gauntlet, and he uses it to seemingly destroy the Gems themselves, thus keeping them out of the hands of any evildoers. In reality, however, as we discover at the end of the issue, this has all been a feint. Iron Man only pretended to destroy the Gems, and instead he spirited them away, feeling that their power might be needed in the days to come. In order to provide a safeguard against their misuse, he divides the Gems up among the members of the Illuminati, the secret consortium of geniuses and leaders from throughout the Marvel Universe who have been pulling the strings from behind the scenes since the days of the Kree/Skrull War. This was a big, bombastic comic by Brian Michael Bendis, John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson that showed that even after the end of the cycle of stories that had culminated in SIEGE, Brian was still committed to pushing the title to the forefront of the Marvel line. The Gems and the Illuminati’s possession of them would go on to be key plot points in Jonathan Hickman’s later NEW AVENGERS run leading up to SECRET WARS. And, of course, that cover moment was effectively recreated in a slightly different context at the climax of the fourth AVENGERS film ENDGAME—which is what most people reading this will associate it with.
The New Warriors Chronicles
NEW WARRIORS #59 was the issue in which everything clicked into place and the creative team and myself began to operate in synch. I can remember feeling it even as we put this issue to bed at the time—this was the point at which the book became Evan’s NEW WARRIORS rather than Evan doing a cover band version of Fabian’s NEW WARRIORS. It also coincided with some behind-the-scenes changes to the title that would be forthcoming, but I’ll get into those as we hit the issues in which those elements were played out.
The primary story was the second half of the two-part Sabra adventure begun last time. Here, though, with the set-up and the preliminaries out of the way, it becomes a focused showcase for Vance Astro, Justice, who would soon find himself thrust to the forefront of the series. Writer Evan Skolnick had intended to make Nova his mainstay character, but events in the character’s solo title would prevent that from happening. By this point, though, Evan had adapted to that change of direction and moved to build Vance into a central character.
Part of those efforts involved getting him out of his current costume, which we rip to tatters in this issue with that outcome in mind. Ever since it had been introduced, I hadn’t liked it—I referred to it derisively as Justice’s “umpire costume” with its pronounced chest-protector and red visor. It looked awkward to my eye, and I wanted to change it. So artist Patrick Zircher designed a new look for Vance and in the meantime we shredded the offending garment here.
This was also the issue that introduced Rina Patel, the new character who would become known as Timeslip. She had a very restrictive power set as initially conceived of by Evan, in that she could project her consciousness forwards and backwards along her own personal timeline, inhabiting the body of herself at different ages. Pretty quickly, we figured out that we needed to broaden her abilities to give her time-shifting powers as well that made her a defacto speedster character, albeit only in a localized area. But her first appearance in this issue gave us the opportunity to do something audacious that even today I’m a bit amazed that we pulled off. And that was to have her jump forward in this debut appearance into a later issue, one that hadn’t been written at the time that we did this. So through her, we gave the readership a glimpse of some of what was to come, including Vance’s new costume and the inclusion of the Scarlet Spider on the team. Right up until issue #65, when we did the reprise of this scene, we weren’t certain that we’d be able to match it precisely, but we were apart from a haircut or two. It displayed a front-facing commitment to long-term plotting that I think served us well among the book’s dedicated core audience.
The coloring on this cover, however, is really not good. It’s all way too muddy, and none of the text pops as well as it ought to, the logo in particular, It’s an effective line art image, but here the overproduction of the color approach detracts from it rather than enhancing it We were still figuring out how to make digital coloring an asset at this point, the gauntlet having ben thrown down by Todd McFarlane’s SPAWN, which used it to great effect at the time. But even the slightest bit of grey-black in a color (what we once called K-tones) made the image darken up like crazy when it was printed, as happened in this instance.
Monofocus
It doesn’t really need any help from me, and given my closeness to the production, there’s very little that I can say about it in the first place. But the trailer for FANTASTIC 4: FIRST STEPS dropped this week, giving everybody a much better look at the film to come. And it looks pretty good—though my reactions are somewhat skewed, I expect, thanks to actually having stood on those streets and in that building and experienced that world firsthand.
Elsewhere, I’ve started working my way through the latest series of BLACK MIRROR, which continues to be a sort of TWILIGHT ZONE for the digital age. I’ve watched the initial four episodes of this season at this point, and they’ve all made for pretty compelling television backed by interesting ideas. I’m honestly sort of dreading the season finale that’s a sequel to the earlier STAR TREK parody episode, only because it feels so blatantly shameless. But I’m hoping that the story has a strong enough hook to it to make it worthwhile to double-dip. I find that I don’t actually need or want sequels to these episodes for the most part, even as talk has increased about doing more of them. Not everything needs to be a series.
Meanwhile, MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM GQuuuuuuX made a really bold and really weird choice for its second episode. It entirely abandons the cast of characters it introduced in the first episode to wind the clock back a few decades to show us the events that led to this alternate timeline in the first place. What it really is is an almost shot-for-shot remake of the first two episodes of the original 1979 MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM but with the one What If element that it’s series baddie Char Aznable who steals the Federation Mobile Suit Gundam and thereafter the White Base carrier ship, and that this action turns the tide of the way. I can only imagine director Hideaki Anno’s delight at being able to so perfectly mimic this series that was so fundamental to his development as an animator. I first saw that episode ‘round about 1982, so I was pretty familiar with it, and it’s eerie how closely this new version matches it, even with the addition of computer-assisted graphics. There are a bunch of videos floating around that show off the direct comparison, here's one of them.
Also, at the recommendation of Dan Slott, I sampled the first two episodes of LUDWIG, a British series about a reclusive puzzle maker who is forced to assume the identity of his twin brother, a Detective-Inspector, after the latter goes missing under mysterious circumstances. It’s a very pleasant, thoughtful, charming show, as lead character John stumbles through his ongoing impersonation, trying to piece the clues of the larger case together while also employing his skills developed crafting puzzles to solve smaller crimes along the way. The cast is very charming, and it’s a very easy show to watch, so I expect I’ll continue on through the rest of the initial six=episode series.
Finally, I came across a copy of Carrie Fisher’s memoir THE PRINCESS DIARIST floating around at Marvel, so I wound up reading it. Fisher is obviously best remembered from her STAR WARS role, but I find I’m more interested in her as an author and a script doctor. The book, though, is specifically about her time on the original STAR WARS set and the affair she carried on with co-star Harrison Ford. I can remember it causing a bit of a stir when it first came out. Fisher reproduces pages from a journal that she kept at the time, filled with overwrought quasi-poetry as she tried to make sense of just what she was doing romantically, so it’s a fascinating look behind the curtain at an aspect of that production that nobody else had really covered. She also has a very revealing perspective both on her fans and on the need to play the Convention circuit, signing autographs and taking photos for money in an attempt to maintain her style of living. So it was a quick but interesting read.
Posted at TomBrevoort.com
Yesterday, I wrote about Doctor Who: Lux
Five years ago, I wrote about Five Best Forgotten DC Retcons
And ten years ago, I wrote about this Great Cover
So that’ll do us once again, boys and girls! Thanks for your attention, and we’ll see you on the flimpode!
Hat’s All, Folks!
Tom B
Hey Tom, any thoughts on the paper being used for new comics these days? I and others are finding that the ink smears easily now just from holding them, and there are the ripples in the paper. Are they not getting enough time to dry before going out the door, or something about the stock being used?
Hello Mr. Brevoort, happy Easter to you and yours. Are you having fun leading the X-Office? It has been about a year now, and I hope the task has been as fun as it might be challenging. Having led the heroes office for 20 years, I assume switching over to a new set of characters might be a bit jarring, and with a fanbase that I'm sure can be seen as demanding. But I hope the job has been fun, because it's been fun for me as a reader this last year.