Super fun as always, Tom! Here's a question for you: X-Men #137 is probably the best-known case of an eleventh-hour change to a comic that radically improved it, but are there more recent interesting examples?
A couple behind-the-scenes questions for you, Tom. You’ve talked about sentence case lettering in the past, and I’m wondering if you can shed some light on how the decision was made to go that way on the new FF relaunch. Was this the creative team’s idea or something that you wanted to do as the editor?
Second, can you talk a little about what goes into deciding on a cover artist for a series? It seems like it’s become far more rare at Marvel to see the same artist handling covers and interiors? Why is that?
I must admit to slight disappointment in your comments on Fang in Captain American Comics #6. Cover date September 1941, published 6-25-41, so well before Pearl Harbor, and at a time when the Japanese were being portrayed as monsters but the Chinese were generally portrayed in comics as heroic victims of the Japanese. The story itself is about two Chinese gvt emissaries coming to the US to get loans from the American gvt. Yet the scriptwriters, who I see were Simon & Kirby, make Fang into both a Japanese monster and a Chinese tool of the Japanese gvt, undercutting the generally pro-China position of most comics. Sure, Fang is in mode of the Yellow Peril pulp villains, but he's got an unusual (to say the least) political symbolism.
According to Tom DeFalco and Peter David, DeFalco's relationship with Owsley/Priest was extremely strained at the time of the Hobgoblin saga, and although Owsley (and David) both believed that DeFalco intended the Hobgoblin to be Leeds, DeFalco in fact had Richard Fisk in mind. Kingsley would have turned out to be The Rose, since even though people were aware of Stern's idea to reveal him as Hobgoblin, everyone involved felt that would be too lame a reveal for such a major villain (they were right). Anyway, because of the bitterness in that relationship, DeFalco and David attest that Owsley killed off Leeds solely to mess with what he believed to be DeFalco's story, and instructed David to reveal the Foreigner as the Hobgoblin, to which David strongly protested, as the Foreigner was his creation, leaving Owsley to tell him basically "Well, Leeds is dead, so you figure it out." The rest is as you told it.
Is Mike Carey no longer working for Marvel due more to a lack of interest on Mike or Marvel's part? I think he's a terrific writer.
On a side note, I hope Marvel returns one day to being lucrative/attractive enough to retain the top writers in the industry. It seems these days that most writers stay only until they hit it big enough to succeed at creator-owned, and given the comparative upsides, I really can't blame them.
Mike Carey wrote some amazing X-Men stories - really great use of tons of characters - old and new. Including some issues focused mainly on Prof X that were exciting.
As a child of the 80s who loved the original Hobgoblin saga (and was let down by the finale), i was really happy with the Hobgoblin lives mini in the 90s. Great use of continuity in a fun and accessible way. Lots of suspects and red herrings and Stern really gave the Hobgoblin a sense of menace. Really fun way to tie in all the messed up continuity (Stern was always great at that. So is Kurt Busiek, Dan Slott, and a few others).
It was a fun time of Marvel mysteries - who is the scourge? Who is Hobgoblin? Origins of various X-men, etc..something of a bygone era but would be interesting to revisit in a modern context.
Oh man! I went to that "Back to Back to Back" screening in Boston in '89! I'd totally forgotten about it. I was maybe 12? 13? The vibe waiting in line was such a blast. Just everyone celebrating this thing they loved. I think I have a t-shirt from it? I'll have to poke around my parents' attic. But thanks for the memory!
Great newsletter as usual. The FF stuff is always fascinating.
This is all bananas. Each week it's like Chiquita bought out the whole grocery store. People in the comics industry must forget how it seems to people outside the industry. As a kid, I assumed there were Indian Jones warehouses with decades of detailed, future story plans that would eventually boggle the mind. As an adult (or "adult") I just assumed meticulous, whip cracking task masters and rigid corporate processes that would never green light something not full mapped out, or ever run the risk of a deadline whooshing by unmet. But all the magic is still made by fallible human people doing fallible human stuff I guess. (Except for Chip, obviously) .
These are so fun to read. Thank you so much for making it.
as always, thank you for thinking about my pleasure
Thanks for the color Tom
Super fun as always, Tom! Here's a question for you: X-Men #137 is probably the best-known case of an eleventh-hour change to a comic that radically improved it, but are there more recent interesting examples?
A couple behind-the-scenes questions for you, Tom. You’ve talked about sentence case lettering in the past, and I’m wondering if you can shed some light on how the decision was made to go that way on the new FF relaunch. Was this the creative team’s idea or something that you wanted to do as the editor?
Second, can you talk a little about what goes into deciding on a cover artist for a series? It seems like it’s become far more rare at Marvel to see the same artist handling covers and interiors? Why is that?
I must admit to slight disappointment in your comments on Fang in Captain American Comics #6. Cover date September 1941, published 6-25-41, so well before Pearl Harbor, and at a time when the Japanese were being portrayed as monsters but the Chinese were generally portrayed in comics as heroic victims of the Japanese. The story itself is about two Chinese gvt emissaries coming to the US to get loans from the American gvt. Yet the scriptwriters, who I see were Simon & Kirby, make Fang into both a Japanese monster and a Chinese tool of the Japanese gvt, undercutting the generally pro-China position of most comics. Sure, Fang is in mode of the Yellow Peril pulp villains, but he's got an unusual (to say the least) political symbolism.
According to Tom DeFalco and Peter David, DeFalco's relationship with Owsley/Priest was extremely strained at the time of the Hobgoblin saga, and although Owsley (and David) both believed that DeFalco intended the Hobgoblin to be Leeds, DeFalco in fact had Richard Fisk in mind. Kingsley would have turned out to be The Rose, since even though people were aware of Stern's idea to reveal him as Hobgoblin, everyone involved felt that would be too lame a reveal for such a major villain (they were right). Anyway, because of the bitterness in that relationship, DeFalco and David attest that Owsley killed off Leeds solely to mess with what he believed to be DeFalco's story, and instructed David to reveal the Foreigner as the Hobgoblin, to which David strongly protested, as the Foreigner was his creation, leaving Owsley to tell him basically "Well, Leeds is dead, so you figure it out." The rest is as you told it.
Is Mike Carey no longer working for Marvel due more to a lack of interest on Mike or Marvel's part? I think he's a terrific writer.
On a side note, I hope Marvel returns one day to being lucrative/attractive enough to retain the top writers in the industry. It seems these days that most writers stay only until they hit it big enough to succeed at creator-owned, and given the comparative upsides, I really can't blame them.
Mike Carey wrote some amazing X-Men stories - really great use of tons of characters - old and new. Including some issues focused mainly on Prof X that were exciting.
As a child of the 80s who loved the original Hobgoblin saga (and was let down by the finale), i was really happy with the Hobgoblin lives mini in the 90s. Great use of continuity in a fun and accessible way. Lots of suspects and red herrings and Stern really gave the Hobgoblin a sense of menace. Really fun way to tie in all the messed up continuity (Stern was always great at that. So is Kurt Busiek, Dan Slott, and a few others).
It was a fun time of Marvel mysteries - who is the scourge? Who is Hobgoblin? Origins of various X-men, etc..something of a bygone era but would be interesting to revisit in a modern context.
Oh man! I went to that "Back to Back to Back" screening in Boston in '89! I'd totally forgotten about it. I was maybe 12? 13? The vibe waiting in line was such a blast. Just everyone celebrating this thing they loved. I think I have a t-shirt from it? I'll have to poke around my parents' attic. But thanks for the memory!
Great newsletter as usual. The FF stuff is always fascinating.
This is all bananas. Each week it's like Chiquita bought out the whole grocery store. People in the comics industry must forget how it seems to people outside the industry. As a kid, I assumed there were Indian Jones warehouses with decades of detailed, future story plans that would eventually boggle the mind. As an adult (or "adult") I just assumed meticulous, whip cracking task masters and rigid corporate processes that would never green light something not full mapped out, or ever run the risk of a deadline whooshing by unmet. But all the magic is still made by fallible human people doing fallible human stuff I guess. (Except for Chip, obviously) .
These are so fun to read. Thank you so much for making it.