#167: Joy to the World

Got a couple of quick hit subjects to start this week off with.

The first is that it struck me this past week that I’m presently watching shows from all around the globe without a whole lot of effort, thanks to a variety of streaming apps. I’m now getting brand new episodes of DOCTOR WHO and MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM GQuuuuuuX and THE DEVIL’S PLAN just about at the same time that they debut within their native countries, and that’s pretty damned amazing. As somebody who in years past had to workup a collection of contacts across the globe and engage in tape-trading and other such methodologies, the fact that so much is so readily available is nothing short of a miraculous development. For those growing up with this availability, it won’t seem like anything magical. But to me, who often had to put in the effort to get to experience culture from other places, it’s a great step in a positive direction.

This past week was my father’s birthday—or would have been, had he not died many decades ago. And so I was struck by an odd fact, This would have been his 80th birthday, but he only lived to be 41—which means that he’s almost been dead now for as long as he was ever alive. This doesn’t mean anything in particular, but it struck me in an odd way, so I’m sharing it with you. Life is weird.

And speaking of family, my brother’s new album is now available on the music streaming app of your choice or on CD or vinyl. Here’s a Spotify link for those who use it.

And now we can get into the meat of things. So here come your questions, and a few half-baked answers. It’s what you’ve come to expect.

Jeff Ryan

You had mentioned hiring a then-new Patrick Zircher as a "Moneyball" approach -- the 1995 New Warriors couldn't exactly afford Frank Miller or Jim Lee doing pencils. Is part of that approach accepting that good talent will get moved up to "the Bigs" of a better-selling, more prestigious title?

Sort of, Jeff. Certainly a better-selling title is going to generate more revenue for those creators, not just in terms of immediate sales incentive payments but also in the likelihood that the material will be collected over the years in multiple editions and remain in print for a longer time. And a better-selling title can more easily underwrite greater Art & Editorial costs because it generates more income as well. So there’s a sort of self-fulfilling situation where the most in-demand and popular talent will tend to congregate around the better-selling titles and franchises.

Carlos

Will Emma be part of cast of Exceptional after issue 10? Will she retain her telepathy gift or the fight with Mr Sinister has a prize for Emma?

You’re just funnin’ with me after last week’s Iceman barrage, right, Carlos? Ultimately, to find out what’s going to happen in the assorted titles, the answers are in the next issue…and the next, and the next.

Zoombini

So to piggyback off of the New Warriors Timeslip anecdote - it seems like Marvel and DC make it a habit to at least once a year have some sort of "vague predictions" in a comic outlining future plans across their books (Kang's Tribulation Events, Timeless, etc). Does this cause any difficulties when trying to fulfill those predictions? Is the speculation from fans about what it could mean worth the headache?

Not really, in that these situations are a bit different, Zoombini. In the case of something like a TIMELESS, I’d gather up material from upcoming projects and storylines that had already been committed to. And while there’s still occasionally a story here or there that doesn’t come to fruition as expected, the hit ratio is still extremely high, so it isn’t something to worry about.

Yliaster

In your experience, what is the shortest time between an idea being pitched and the comic hitting the shelf? And what is the longest time you can recall before an idea makes it to print?

The longest, Yliaster, is of course decades and decades, as people will occasionally carry around ideas for their whole careers before they get to implement them. So I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to what the longest such stint might be. On the other hand, I once produced an entire ten-page Free Comic Book Day story in two weeks, soup-to-nuts, so while there might be even shorter spans than that somewhere, that’s about the quickest I can recall seeing it done.

Stefan

why do people with psychological problems so often make superhero comic books and superhero characters the focus of their pathology? Do you think there's something about the fact that they originate from human imagination, or the frequently fantastic subject matter, that leads to such attraction? Maybe it has to do with things that were first encountered during formative developmental years? If they had extensively read stories centered on Welsh mythology during their formative years, would that be the fixation?

Who can truly say why we like any of the things that we like, Stefan—why some people gravitate so strongly to different things? Some folks are simply wired that way, it seems. Years ago, in his outline for the never-produced TWILIGHT crossover, Alan Moore opined that perhaps the reason so many readers were drawn to the organized cosmology of fictional worlds like the Marvel Universe is that the real world is so chaotic and haphazard and indifferent and unfathomable that having a clear-cut set of rules and conditions was somehow reassuring. If that’s true, then you can immediately understand why anything that seems to bend or break those rules is reacted to by those readers in such an extreme way. It’s all another reminder of the fact that actual human existence doesn’t play by those same rules.

Sean

I remember reading Kitchen T’s Usenet posts when I was a kid.

One that stands out is when the creators contributing there were asked which non-Marvel characters they would fully integrate into the Marvel Universe if they could. Not in a crossover sense, but more like what Marvel would eventually do with Angela years later.

Tom, Kurt Busiek, and Scott Lobdell all answered (maybe Mark Waid too), and the names I recall being mentioned were Savage Dragon and X-O Manowar — though I can’t remember who picked which. It’s probably all archived somewhere, now that I think about it.

I wonder how you’d answer that question today. And if X-O Manowar was your pick back then, was there any serious consideration given to making that happen when Valiant was auctioning off their IP? He definitely has a very Marvel-like vibe.

I don’t think I’d have said either Savage Dragon or X-O Manowar back then, Sean, though I’d guess that it was Kurt who suggested Savage Dragon. But there’s not really as much space for an X-O in a universe that already has an Iron Man. And I’m not sure how I’d answer that question today, largely because it isn’t really the way that I approach these universes. I don’t tend to covet characters from elsewhere, and in most cases the specifics of the elsewhere contributes to what I like about the characters. So if you put, I don’t know, the THUNDER Agents in the Marvel Universe, all of a sudden they’d need to change to fit in with their new environment—possibly enough to invalidate the very things that I like about them. This is a thing that people have been talking about a little bit on my blog as we’ve been covering the issue of THOR that attempted to integrate Jack Kirby’s ETERNALS into the Marvel Universe, a project that was haphazard at best.

Andrew Albrecht

there’s not really anything you can say right now to make me feel better about Ms Marvel’s recent stuff in NYX and the new giant size one shots, but I guess I hope that by coming here and sharing feedback on the issues I like, the books I don’t, the stories I absolutely love etc, might give a glimpse as to at least what this fan thinks.

You’re always welcome to come around and let me know what you’re thinking and how you’re feeling, Andrew.

Kurt Busiek

I don't think that rough is by Carmine, I think it's by Andru.

He might have worked from a more detailed sketch by Carmine, but this one doesn't look like Carmine's pencil line, doesn't look like the way he proportioned characters -- it just looks thoroughly like Andru, as backed up by how close the final cover is to those figure sketches, and they're thoroughly Andru, too.

I'd say Carmine did all the trade dress stuff -- that looks like his work -- but he was adding it to an Andru rough.

My accreditation of that rough as being Carmine’s work comes from the inside back cover of the SUPERMAN VS THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Treasury Edition, where these pieces first saw print. It isn’t specific, but the page mentions that Ross Andru took matters from here to pencil the finished, final cover. I agree with you that the rough looks more like Ross’s work, so it’s possible that piece was simply mistaken.

Levi

Do you think it would be worth exploring a new editorial role that wasn’t the head of X-Men or Avengers or Spider-Man titles, but the head of “Events”, who would work closely with those other editorial heads to keep Marvel as strongly connected as it used to be?

I don’t think that would work at all, Levi, not in terms of creating the sort of rolling Event series that you’re talking about. For one thing, it would mean that every Event would interfere with whatever the regular creative and editorial teams were planning, and that’s no way to get a good result. And for all that everybody works decently together, the plain fact of the matter is that there can only be one editor on a project, one person who has the primary say over it. When you have multiple people, you inevitably get into tug-of-war situations, and the results often reflect that.

Arthur

What would be your take on Kitty,Emma,Iceman as a group like Cyclops team has a certain mindset and the same goes rogue team, so what does the exceptional trio offers to the x-line right now in your opinion?

If I follow you, Arthur, you’re asking for a specific definition of the EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN guiding ethos, correct? And I think that’s pretty simple. In fact, it’s the original core principle of the X-Men from the beginning: seeking out newly-discovered mutants, recruiting them to the cause and training them in how to use their powers responsibly. In other words, it’s the school book.

Zachary Williams

I really love the trade paperback designs for the x-men (both current and Krakoan age) as well as the ultimate books. Is there any reason in particular these lines get a uniform design when other lines just use the standard design? Spidey and the Avengers deserve cool trade jackets for all their titles too!

I didn’t come up with that design, Zachary, so I can only conjecture. But I expect it’s a byproduct of it being discovered that the X-Line tends to perform better in collected form when the whole of the line is similarly designed, just as it was during the Krakoa days. I think it groups them on a shelf together nicely in a way that encourages greater reader fidelity.

Andrew M. Svec

Colossus is one of my favorite X-Men, dating back to his first appearance in 1975 and his long run as a mainstay in Uncanny X-Men from then to roughly the 90s. I was thrilled to see him take off the Tank mask in the recent X-Force #10, even if it was the last issue of that iteration of that team. Wondering why it was felt necessary to "re-brand" him as Tank and not just feature Colossus from the start. I know many have a hard time getting a handle on his character and writing it well, but he is more than just a strong man. Or maybe it was felt he needed to go undercover from a sense of guilt from the manipulations of him at the end of the Krakoan age?

What you’re kind of asking here, Andrew, is where Colossus/Tank’s story would have gone had X-FORCE lasted longer in its current iteration. And that I’m not going to be able to tell you—apart from that we pick up on the situation somewhat in the upcoming X-MEN: THE HELLFIRE VIGIL Special.

Chip Zdarsky

Tom, I just want you to know: I consider you to be a friend who can fire me.

Come on, you know I can’t quit you, Zdarsky!

Manqueman

Query: What's the back story to this?

https://64.media.tumblr.com/378417e31e7e1039eff31a789f089a3e/fca8a7e0f918692e-10/s1280x1920/3b225c1f29b17e73bd6a51f8dae5dcde01a0fc50.jpg

When was it done and what was it for?

That’s an unused Barry Smith page from a project that Roy Thomas was trying to get off the ground circa 1968 or so. Unless I miss my guess, it was going to be called THE INVADERS (with no connection to the later WWII-era use of that name) and it would have starred Rick Jones as Bucky, Quicksilver and Red Raven (whom Roy had brought back from the golden age in recent issues of X-MEN.) Given the timeframe, my guess is that Roy and Barry were maybe producing a tryout story for MARVEL SUPER HEROES before that title went to an all-reprint format. Either way, the project never happened and the couple of existing pages were never completed.

Andy T

You’ve mentioned “editor’s school” sessions in the past where senior staff teach and coach assistant editors. Did you ever hold any classes on event tie-in books? Would be interesting to hear your do’s and don’t’s on how to tie in to a large event story while making sure a book’s regular readers get the story they’ve been signing up for too.

I can’t recall whether Mark Gruenwald ever did a session specifically on tie-in books, Andy; knowing him, it’s likely that he must have at some point. But I’ve never done the same, not in any official capacity. But we have discussed any number of tie-in issues in our weekly Reading Circle over the years, and so whatever philosophies that I have on the subject would have been communicated there.

Patrick Cabahug

You should stop answering with questions and make a fancy statement. You need to answer the question clearly and precisely.

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt here, Patrick, and assume that you don’t realize just how rude this all was. Here’s the thing: canon is established in the pages of the stories, not in any side conversations like this one, so it’s all nothing but air anyway. But seriously, I have no interest in the specific power-scaling competitions you’re having with fans of other characters. If you don’t like the answers, then you’re always free to stop reading at any time, just like everybody else here. But this is my world, and I’m going to answer the questions put to me any way I like, whether that meets with your approval or not.

Chris Serwacki

Arrako was a large part of the Krakoa experience that we readers watched play out over that era. As mutants, and many becoming leading characters in some books, we viewed them as X-characters. In a non-X book, the entirety of Arrako and it's mutants were wiped out by Aeon the Knife, with Apocalypse being the sole survivor (that we know of). Is there coordination with offices when exterminating characters outside of their IP, and are you able to share why these mutants were ok to be killed off (off-panel) with no known response from the X-Men?

Well, first off, Chris, I think you took something very different away from that story than what was intended, so let’s start there. But even if that wasn’t the case, the Marvel Universe is a communal sandbox, and that means that everybody gets to play with the toys in the service of their stories. In this instance, though, the editor of POWER MAN: TIMELESS is Darren Shan, who is a part of the X-Group, so this wasn’t carried out by some rogue force as you seem to think. And neither has the Arakki civilization and population all been wiped out. So you’re upset about a thing that hasn’t happened.

Deborah

once you all became aware of what Al Ewing had written, has it had any influence on how Magneto's story in FtA might develop going forward, or has a decision been made to just ignore it as if it never happened and carry on as originally planned?

Neither and both, Deborah. Jed MacKay is going to write Jed’s story, not Al’s story—he couldn’t write Al’s story if he wanted to, he’s not the same person. And it isn’t right to straitjacket him with whatever a previous writer may have had in mind. In order for him to produce his best work, he needs to have space to interpret, create and execute his own vision. So all of what Al did informs what happens next, as all backstory does. But it doesn’t guide or limit it.

Kenny Sage

I picked up the Marvel Premiere Collection of Fantastic Four: Solve Everything this week and I am enjoying revisiting one of my favorite eras of Fantastic Four (though the current era is coming very close to it) but I am also incredibly curious about how it was put together. From what I’ve seen, the other released and announced Premiere Collections are collecting specific 8-12 issue arcs or storylines in their entirety but Solve Everything is an abridged version of the first 19 issues of Hickman’s run. Did you or Jonathan or anyone else involved with that run have any input into what material was removed from the story? If so, what kind of thought was put into what could or could not be removed from the pared down issues so that it still functioned as a coherent story?

I did the editing work on FANTASTIC FOUR: SOLVE EVERYTHING, Kenny, and it was necessary to do so in order to fit the material into the confines of the format. But with the film coming, and with how director Matt Shakman stated that Jonathan’s work was an influence for what they did, this was the story that was chosen to go out in this line. So I sat down with everything and a target page count and began to edit. The experience was very much like that of editing a film, where you have all of the shot footage and you need to compile a version that tells the story but which also hits a certain run time. So I went through the whole book multiple times, each time compressing and excising material until we were able to hit the size that was needed. I then shared that cut with Jonathan. And while we haven’t announced the specific project yet, I did the same thing with another long-form story that’ll be appearing in that format in the months to come.

Stuart Perks

What if.....the marketing department at Marvel came to you and said "Tom, we have run out of ideas for themed month covers and we desperately need your help"; what theme would you suggest ?

This isn’t really a fair question to put to me, Stuart, because if I have a good (or even half-baked) idea for a theme month, I can immediately suggest it and most of the time get it to happen. So I’m not really sitting on a pack of great ideas that I’ve not been able to make into reality. Sorry, I’m sure that’s an unsatisfying answer, but that’s the way of it.

Ananais

I'm also a big fan of Cyclops. Will he get a Solo this year? I've been hoping he gets one. 616 adult Cyclops has never had a Solo ongoing.

I don’t know that I think that a Cyclops solo series is a viable long-term proposition, Ananais. But a limited series, sure.

Nina

what’s the point of having Stephanie writing a Phoenix comic if other writer will retcon what she wrote and retcon the Phoenix lore a couple months after? I’m not trying to be rude, i just don’t understand why other writer can dictate what is valid or not on Stephanie comic

Seems like we’ve got something of a running theme going on this week about perceived ownership of stories and characters. I’m not sure exactly what story you’re referring to, Nina, or what retcon you’re speaking of where, but as I said above, the Marvel Universe is a shared space, in which an assortment of people work every month to bring you the stories that fill our pages. And that means that everybody gets to play with the toys and to bring their own spin to them, Stephanie included.

Chris Sutcliffe

In my big read of everything Spider-Man, I have reached the moment where Peter retires into the sunset, and Ben Reilly takes over for two months.

Was the intention for this to be a permanent status quo change? If so, is there anything you'd change with hindsight to make Ben a more attractive alternative that would hand around longer?

When that moment was conceived, Chris, it was absolutely intended to represent a permanent change in the status quo, in which the married Peter and MJ would walk off into the sunset to have their baby and Ben Reilly would resume his life as a single Peter Parker again in its aftermath. That was the whole reason the Clone Saga was begun in the first place, so that we would wind up with an unattached and unmarried Spider-Man once again. I only worked on the periphery of some of those books, though, so I don’t think that I could tell you what I would have done to make it all work better; I don’t know that I would have set out on that course in the first place. And even by the time those books were being produced and coming out, the wheels were already turning to reverse it, so that was a factor no doubt in how well it landed with people. If you’re going to try something like that, you can’t do it with one foot out of the bed, you know?

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Off The Wall

While it exclusively featured Benjamin J. Grimm, the page above is actually from HULK #9, illustrated by Ron Garney and Sal Buscema. Ron had been wanting to draw a Thing vs Hulk battle, and so we gave him one. He, in turn, gave me this page at some point; the specifics elude me after all these years. But it’s a nice page, with a real solidity to his depiction of the Thing.

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On The Spinner Rack

We’ve turned the wheel again, so let’s see what new batch of classic books I’m staring at throughout my day.

Up at the top, that’s FANTASTIC FOUR #60, a great Lee/Kirby issue that wraps up the sequence in which Doctor Doom steals the power of the Silver Surfer. Underneath that is FANTASTIC FOUR #187, which was the first issue that I bought new off of a spinner rack much like this one (though that isn’t my original copy.) Below that is the final issue of UNTOLD LEGEND OF CAPTAIN MARVEL, which I wrote, then MIRACLEMAN #6 which featured the first new material following up on the strip’s run in WARRIOR under the Marvelman name. Below that is UNCANNY X-MEN #171, the issue where I stopped reading for a couple of years, then an issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA from right after the BLOODSTONE HUNT storyline. Under that is the once-pulped ELSEWORLDS 80 PAGE GIANT from its eventual later issuing, then another pair of issues of Matt Wagner’s great GRENDEL series, and finally one of the 1990s reprints of an issue of VAULT OF HORROR from 1950s EC Comics.

Across the room on the rack dedicated to books I put together, we start with AVENGERS #7, part of the “Live Kree or Die” crossover. Under that is the AVENGERS #1 Rough Cut Edition which reproduced George’s uninked pencils and Kurt’s plot. Next is the first DEATHLOK bookshelf limited series issue, then a Hickman-helmed issue of FANTASTIC FOUR in which the team goes inside the body of mailman Willie Lumpkin to save his life. Then there’s CIVIL WAR #1, a reprint of HUMAN TORCH COMICS #5 with a full-book bout between the Torch and Namor, an issue of Fraction and Allred’s FF, an issue of Slott and Pelletier’s SHE-HULK, an issue of SECRET AVENGERS that Warren Ellis wrote and issue #500 of FANTASTIC FOUR.

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I Buy Crap

I don’t tend to contribute to Kickstarter campaigns or the like. I’ve been burned too many times in the past when the item in question was never completed or released but my money was just as gone. But I made a rare exception for this volume, GAMEMASTERS is a graphic novel telling the story of the development of Roleplaying Games. It was written by Fred Van Lente, who had previously done the same thing with the history of comic books in THE COMIC BOOK HISTORY OF COMICS. Here, he’s joined by cartoonist Tom Fowler in his efforts. It’s a good, if broad, survey of events, and solidly entertaining. It was interesting to discover just how long any game involving the use of dice was typically considered gambling—with some of the early pioneers of this form choosing to use euphemisms for dice to avoid this comparison—”cubit” is the one that comes to mind. And the packaging is designed to make it resemble one of the Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks from my youth in the 1980s. I’m hearing that copies of the volume are now available through regular distribution channels, so if you’re interested, pick yourself up a copy.

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Behind the Curtain

I have a strange fascination with overseas reprints of American-made comic books, especially those that did their own thing with the packaging, including new cover illustrations and the like. These are super-interesting to me, and I own a bunch of examples gathered throughout the years. But not this one.

What you see here is a copy of GLOBO JUVENIL MENSAL from 1943, a Brazilian kids comic that reprinted work from the States. And that’s where you get this fascinating cover featuring a home-grown version of Superman walking arm-in-arm with his competitor from Timely Comics, the Human Torch. Fortunately, the Man of Steel is indestructible, otherwise he’d be shrieking in pain from making contact with the still-blazing Torch. It’s a very strange image, one that I believe may have been based on a similar early cover to WORLD’S FINEST COMICS. Of course, on the insides, these two mighty figures never crossed paths, but the cover image makes for an intriguing What If suggestion.

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Pimp My Wednesday

More releases from my office to quicken both your pulse and your step as you race to your local comic book retailer on Wednesday.

We’re at the midway point in ONE WORLD UNDER DOOM with this week’s issue #5, and so far, everything’s coming up Victor. And this issue is no exception, as the Lord of Latveria and Sorcerer Supreme leads the forces of the world’s super heroes in pitched battle against Dormammu for the sake of the Earth. Ryan North wrote it and RB Silva illustrated it, just as Doom demanded.

EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #10 by Eve Ewing, Carmen Carnero and Federica Mancin wraps up the book’s Mister sinister storyline in an unexpected blowout. Will Emma Frost come out of it unscathed? Well, if you’re like our friend Carlos, you’re going to have to pick up a copy to find out!

And over in GIANT-SIZE DARK PHOENIX SAGA #1, Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly are joined by artist Rod Reis as they take Kamala Khan further through mutant history, to perhaps the most written-about moment in X-Men canon. It’s the 45th anniversary of that epic adventure, so that’s why it’s a stop on our journey. Additionally, there’s a back-up story by Steve Foxe and Lucas Werneck that’s sure to generate some fan questions this next week. Hopefully, Stephanie Phillips will be all right with everything revealed herein.

And speaking of Stephanie Phillips, PHOENIX #12 is also in stores this week, breaking down just how Jean Grey’s long-dead sister can still be alive—to say nothing of what she’s doing on an alien planet. Roi Mercado provides the visuals, and Associate Editor Annalise Bissa put it all together. But she’s also a part of the X-Group, so it should be fine.

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A Comic Book On Sale 60 Years Ago Today, June 8, 1964

I know that we only just talked about AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #2 a week or so back, but this same month’s regular issue of ASM was equally noteworthy. Because after only 28 issues and three years, Peter Parker graduates from High School in this one. Stuff like this never happened to Archie! And even Peter would have a difficult time replicating this success—It would take him another 157 issues to graduate college, and even then he still had to make up a gym credit. This story also introduces the Molten Man, who in his earliest appearances was simply a man with metal skin. It wouldn’t be until years later that Gerry Conway would expand on the character, making his epidermis literally molten. Anyway, it’s hard to say whether these developments were masterminded by editor and scripter Stan Lee or plotter and artist Steve Ditko. The two were only communicating through intermediaries at this point, so it seems more likely that Ditko was the one behind it. Which is ironic, because in later years Ditko expressed regret at having graduated Peter Parker. His point of view was that it was all right for a kid to foul up and make mistakes, but once a character transitioned into manhood, if he was going to be a hero he had to behave a lot more flawlessly than that. You can see this dichotomy throughout the remainder of Ditko’s time on the series, places where he’s trying to get across one idea in the visuals but Stan undercuts or changes the intent of the scenes through his copy. It must have been frustrating. Anyway, this is also the last we see of longtime supporting cast member Liz Allen, apart from one cameo appearance the following month. having left school, she went into the workforce rather than college, and so away from Peter Parker’s circles. Flash Thompson, though, was too good a foil to leave behind, and so Ditko and Lee give him a football scholarship to Empire State University so that he can still be around to torment Peter and cheer Spidey. That’s also a very striking graphic cover by Ditko on this issue—though I think it would have been even better if they had left Spidey’s eyepiece white rather than coloring it red like the rest of his figure.

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A Comic Book On Sale 40 Years Ago Today, June 8, 1985

MECHANICS # 1 was the first issue in a three-issue series reprinting the earliest stories by Jamie Hernandez from LOVE AND ROCKETS in color. It was the first place that I sampled the strip, and while I’d become a solid fan and regular reader of LOVE AND ROCKETS in a few years’ time, it really did nothing for me. I was confused by its strange blend of grounded humanity and otherworldly fantasy. As time went on, Jamie moved away from the rocket ships and dinosaurs and globe-trotting adventures and honed in on the more slice-of-life material centered around Barrio life that became the signature of his work. The artwork, though, was top notch even in this earliest material, and the addition of color made it more palatable to the fickle audience of comic book nerds like me that weren’t 100% on board with the magazine size or the black and white presentation yet. Eventually, though, I came to prefer the work in that original format. Anyway, my local comic shop, Captain Blue Hen in Newark, Delaware, had copies of this issue on hand for years, all of them autographed by Jamie at some early store signing before the series had really exploded.

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The New Warriors Chronicles

This past week saw a return in our comments section of NEW WARRIORS writer Evan Skolnick, who had this to say about the issue covered last time:

Evan Skolnick

The inclusion of Timeslip's flash-forward images in NW #64 was indeed a big risk! Looking back on it, out of the five images shown, we were able to pay off on four of them before the series was cancelled 11 issues later.

The image of Garthan Saal apparently hitting Turbo with a Nova blast was the trickiest one that we paid off on, since I ultimately saw no way of getting us there. When that exact panel showed up again in a future issue, we recontextualized it so that Saal was actually using his Nova force at a low level to slow Turbo's speed after she was clobbered by someone. I felt pretty happy with that particular rejiggering!

And if we had had more time, I would've found a spot for that fifth image...

NEW WARRIORS #65 is another of those issues about which I don’t have a whole lot in particular to say. It’s another one where i squandered the opportunity to feature the Scarlet Spider on the cover, which was maybe not the wisest sales tactic. But I can recall that we on the book’s creative and editorial team were concerned about the series not turning into just another disposable Spider-Man appendage, so we behaved in a contrary manner. Apart from that, I like this cover just fine, with the exception of the placement of Protocol’s head. I didn’t feel like I could make the logo any smaller than this, but it still bugs me that the S in WARRIORS is poking Protocol in the eye. Fortunately, he’s tough; he can take it.

Evan was doing a good job at this point of both juggling subplots and setting up future events while also keeping the main story in each issue interesting. Having had Namorita/Kymaera captured by the Soldiers of Misfortune back during our run’s opening arc, this issue brought her back and spotlighted her situation, creating a bit more empathy with the other Soldiers. Like the Warriors, they were all people who wanted to make a positive change in the world but whose fanaticism had led to them being turned into mind controlled soldiers under Protocol. So Nita is our focal point character in the story, as we get caught up on what she’s been experiencing and get to understand her struggle from the inside. Patch Zircher also gave her a design refresh, something I thought that she needed, as I wasn’t a big fan of her “sea-shell and netting” look. Zircher’s version is deliberately very 1990s, with enormous spikes everywhere. I believe we designed the outfit so that those bits could be discarded when eventually Nita came back to herself.

We also get a bit more development with Helix in this issue, who shows signs that he’s not quite so mindless as he’d previously appeared. And having seen future events where he’s already a member of the team, Timeslip inspires the Warriors to recruit Alex Power, now operating under the name Powerhouse and borrowing all four of the Kymellian-derived super-powers from his siblings. But what he team really needs is his ride, Friday the Smartship. We also get a parallel to Timeslip’s future visions in this issue as Speedball also begins dreaming about his own future and impending demise in a way that provides a few hints as to where that eventual story is going to go.

Based on the credits, this was the point at which Malibu began doing color separations for the series. This was a real monkey’s paw situation, because Editorial had been trying to get the funds to improve the color situation with our books for some time, ever since Image raised the bar with their releases. In part, Marvel bought Malibu Comics in order to get access to their color separations apparatus, and wanted them used on Marvel books from that point on. The problem was, the Malibu separators often had an inflated sense of what they should be doing. They would ignore the color guides they were given and add in all sorts of unnecessary enhancements: textures, gradations, special effects, you name it. And typically, with little regard for the story being told. Too often, we’d see proofs that took relatively straightforward pages and made them impossible to figure out, covered with a lot of show-offy crud. It was a difficult situation to manage, as Malibu was on the West Coast a continent away, and so none of the editors could speak with the separators directly. And there were egos involved on both sides. Today, I’d damn the torpedoes and simply call them directly, but at the time that seemed like it would be a dicey breach of protocol, so like everybody else, I did my best to navigate the situation on an issue-by-issue basis. And I do have to say, the separations on this particular issue are pretty solid.

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Posted at TomBrevoort.com

Yesterday, I wrote about the first Superman rip-off and the perjury of Will Eisner.

Five years ago, I wrote about the Best Issue of SUPERMAN ever published.

And ten years ago, I wrote about this Great Cover

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And that’s another one in the can! Hope you enjoy the week to come—and if not, we’ll be waiting with further succor for you in seven days.

Hat’s All, Folks!

Tom B