#37: Thankfulness

G-Gundam! It can fly! It can dance! Aerial!

So I’m starting this particular entry a good bit later than I’d intended to, thanks to me having forgotten that I’d agreed to record a podcast this evening. So it’s already 11:00 on Saturday as I sit down to write these words. Once again, my eternal enemy Past-Tom has screwed me. But I’m going to try to power through anyway.

What I had wanted to write about to kick this installment off was a bit of reflection on my own good fortune, because it’s always so easy to take that sort of thing for granted. So, sure, I have ups and downs like anybody else, but by any practical measure, my life is pretty good. I work a job that I enjoy where they pay me very well to do stuff that I find enjoyable—a job that I’ve been able to keep working at for 33 years now, far longer than most people get in the field. I don’t have any outstanding debt—my house is paid off, as are my various vehicles and education. I’ve got a great wife, which is something never to take for granted (especially given how few in my social circles of days gone by have been able to manage the same thing or to sustain that relationship over the long haul.) My kids are grown and just about all out the door and into the world. For all that I’ve mistreated it horribly over the years, my health is good, as is that of my family. And I have more comic books than the younger version of me would ever have thought possible. So for all it’s flaws and frustrations, the world is overall a pretty decent place. Good to keep one eye on that from time to time, to remind yourself to be thankful for the things you’ve got and the life you’ve been able to live.

But enough of being ephemeral, we got a late start and so it’s time to leave some rubber on the road. And so, let’s go to a few questions from the readership, beginning with Devin Whitlock:

What would it take for Marvel to reintroduce the Ultraverse characters they acquired from Malibu so long ago? I’d love to see them again!

The answer to this one is complicated, I’m afraid, Devin. And it’s also covered by a Non-Disclosure Agreement. So I really can’t get into any of the specifics beyond saying that it seems unlikely that we’ll be able to revive any of those characters any time in the near future.

Next up, one from writer and artist Karl Kesel:

QUESTION: How much of your job— editing comics— is instinctive, and how much is a learned skill? I've been thinking about this a lot lately for what I do— writing and inking— and am curious how it applies to what you do, too.

For me, in very broad stokes, everything start Instinctively— an idea or image or scene or line of dialogue sets off my "spider-sense"/excites the "fanboy" in me— and then as I start refining things, more and more Skill takes over as I connect dots and fill in gaps. But even then I will often be stopped cold by something that simply "doesn't feel right." I have a few strategies to get me past this (the most useful is "do the exact opposite": have a character be angry instead of happy, leave instead of stay, or have a different character do the action; it's surprising how often this approach works) but I usually spend far too much time trying to figure out what's "wrong" and how to fix it. In this regard I deeply admire Kurt Busiek's ability to instantly analyze story problems and just as quickly see a workable— and usually excellent— solution.

Even inking— there are panels or even single figures that I look at and INSTANTLY know how they should look in ink. These are cases where I don't feel I'm inking as much as I'm simply revealing what's already there (to my eye, at least). But there are other times I simply have to rely on what I've learned for how to ink well— line weights, light sources, textures, depth, etc.

I think that what you describe is definitely just about the right answer, Karl, in that it tends to be an application of both. When I started as Marvel, I had read a lot of comic books and I held some strong opinions about them and what I liked and didn’t like. But I didn’t have any particular skill at being able to take an existing script in progress, figure out what wasn’t working about it and how to make it work better. That was a skill set I developed across time, in gaining more experience and in doing it, and learning from those around me who had been doing it longer. (Sometimes, those lessons wound up being about what not to do.) But today, I don’t tend to overthink things all that much. I will typically read a script, be able to isolate any points within it that seem to be problematic and come up with solutions to suggest that might be able to solve the problem. And this all kind of gets done automatically—it requires a certain degree of effort, but it’s a largely autonomous effort. Similarly, while I know on a purely technical level what isn’t likely to work on a page of layouts, most of that analysis happens near-instantaneously and without a whole lot of worry on my part about whether what I think is right or not. In gunslinger terms, I tend to “shoot from the hip” with some degree of accuracy. But it’s the learning and experience that backs up and informs that skill, and its constant use that keeps those skills sharp. So it’s a little bit from column A, some from column B.

And finally, one additional question courtesy of Ryan M:

When comic projects take years to come out, with significant gaps between volumes, is there consideration that goes into collected editions and matching previous sets? I’m thinking about Miracleman Silver Age and hoping that it’s collected edition will sit nicely beside the previous volumes Marvel released.

If I’m being honest, Ryan, not a whole lot of consideration. With something like, say, the MARVEL MASTERWORKS which have been publishing regular volumes since 1988, there is a tendency to try to maintain some manner of consistency (not that this prevents us from making alterations when need dictates,) But when you’re talking about something like MIRACLEMAN where the earlier collected editions are a decade or so old, you’re speaking about something that’s only of concern for a small portion of the readership—and so, maintaining a design consistency with the new series isn’t of primary importance. So I don’t know for sure how similar or different the new MIRACLEMAN collection will be from what came before. But there are likely to be some differences—whether or not those are more wholesale changes remains to be seen. And hey, let’s get the actual single issues out before we even worry about that!

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Behind the Curtain

Here’s something a bit less obscure, simply because I happened to have it sitting around. I think this was my one and only appearance in cartoonist Rick Parker’s THE BULL’S EYE single panel strip that ran on the Marvel BULLPEN BULLETINS page for a couple of years in the early 1990s. The panel was an outgrowth of the regular THE BOSSMEN strip that Rick was then doing for every issue of MARVEL AGE, which caricatured then-Editor in Chief Tom DeFalco and Executive Editor Mark Gruenwald, as well as most of the Marvel staff of that time.

This page ran in books that were released in March 1994 and commemorated my promotion to full Editor from Associate (then Managing) Editor. And as it indicates, I was then doing a lot of work on the expanding lines of Marvel Trading Cards, working under Bob Budiansky. In those days, I didn’t tend to make a lot of noise—I thought it was better from a defensive/survivalist position to remain largely under the radar and obscure, truly known and appreciated only by the relatively small number of people I worked more directly with. Clearly that has changed over time. I also felt there was something weird about turning the staff into would-be stars themselves. I realize that it’s all an outgrowth of the kinds of behind-the-scenes strips that Stan Lee would do back in the 1960s, but it felt a bit aggrandizing and self-important to me. I wasn’t a fan of it, so I tended not to push myself forward when such opportunities might crop up. Rick, though, was determined to get every single staff member into this strip at some point, so it was only a matter of time until my number came up. As you can see, I haven’t really changed materially since 1994.

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Pimp My Wednesday

Only a couple of books from me this week, so I’ve expanded this section with one or two offerings from other folks.

The SAVAGE AVENGERS continue their adventure in the overrun future of 2099, coming into contact with Doom 2099 as you can see on the cover above. Writer David Pepose continues to try to push to see just how wild and insane he can manage to make events within this series, backed up by artist Carlos Magno who is frighteningly game to tackle whatever bizarre scenarios David comes up with. it may not be high art, but it’s pound for pound maybe the comic bookiest comic that we’re putting out at the moment.

And from Associate Editor Annalise Bissa comes MONICA RAMBEAU: PHOTON #1, kicking off a five-issue limited series written by Eve L. Ewing and illustrated by Luca Moresca and Ivan Fiorelli. It’s a wild jaunt from the streets of New Orleans to the depths of space and back again for Monica, who’s getting to headline a project of her own again in preparation for her live action big screen debut in THE MARVELS.

Meanwhile, I’ve handed over INVINCIBLE IRON MAN to editor Darren Shan and assistant editor Kat Gregorowicz, and their first effort is just about to drop. It’s scribed by Gerry Duggan, who’ll be putting Tony Stark through a wringer that involves connections to other characters and series that Gerry has written in the past. Juan Frigeri handles the visuals for this new iteration of the Armored Avenger.

And over in AVENGERS UNLIMITED we have a special single-part seasonal extravaganza by Ryan North and Javier Rodriguez in which She-Hulk attempts to make her way home for the holidays, and runs into difficulty at every turn. It’s witty and heartfelt in that way that you’ve come to expect from North’s work, and Javier makes excellent use of the vertical scrolling format.

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Three Comic Books On Sale 80 Years Ago Today, December 11, 1942

Rather than a single book for this week, I wound up selecting three, all of which saw the light of day 80 years ago, and about which I have a few things to note, but not as much as I might typically do. So let’s get started.

Here we see a wonderfully atypical BATMAN cover by artist Jack Burnley, a rare image that depicts the Masked Manhunter using a firearm. (Though not shooting anybody that we can see—maybe he’s simply test-firing the weapon.) This piece is emblematic of the many patriotic covers that were beginning to show up across the industry now that the nation had become actively involved in World War II. One gets the sense that publishers wanted to be seen as doing their part to support the war effort, even as they separated children and G.I.s from their dimes for the privilege of doing so. As was typical, this issue contains four stories, including a battle with the Catwoman, a story in which a criminal attempts to adopt Batman’s methods in committing his crimes, an interestingly topical story about what the world will be like if the War is lost, and one in which Batman and Robin play Santa Claus to the loneliest men in the world. There was plenty of action and adventure, but it wasn’t quite as dark or brooding as the sort of Batman fare that is typical today.

Meanwhile, CAPTAIN MARVEL ADVENTURES had grown so popular that not only was it now regularly outselling the industry leader SUPERMAN, but it had been increased to better-than-monthly publication, with a new issue turning up every three weeks. Some of that popularity was no doubt due to the live action ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL Republic Serial, which had come to movie theaters across the country in 1941.This one, issue #19, showcases the second appearance of Mary Marvel, in which her big brother Billy instructs her in the proper use of the SHAZAM powers before sending her off (literally—it’s talked about in these terms in the story) into the pages of WOW COMICS, where she’ll be the new headliner, replacing the anemic Mr. Scarlet on the covers. That’s a pretty holiday cover by Mary’s designer, artist Marc Swayze. There were three other Captain Marvel stories in addition to the one involving Mary, the strangest of which had Billy Batson’s ego getting swapped with that of his unfortunately caricatured helpmate Steamboat, such that every time Steamboat utters the magic word, Billy is transformed into Captain Marvel—but it’s a Marvel with Steamboat’s personality.

Meanwhile, over in the pages of POLICE COMICS, things were beginning to stabilize a little bit. Breakout character Plastic Man was now firmly ensconced in the cover position, where he was frequently joined by Will Eisner’s character The Spirit. The Spirit was appearing in a weekly newspaper insert “Comic Book Section” that was produced through the Quality Comics offices, and so as a part of the arrangement, Quality owner “Busy” Arnold was allowed to reprint those stories after they had run in the newspapers, which he did in POLICE COMICS and later in a self-titled THE SPIRIT series. But this issue is extra noteworthy as the kickoff to a new strip, one that had been set up in the previous issue when regular feature 711, about a convict who had found a way into and out of the prison he was incarcerated in and who would go out into the world to break up rackets, was shockingly killed off, a rarity in these early comic book days. In this issue, a new character, Destiny, enters the narrative to avenge 711 and bring his killer to justice, and thereafter to take his spot in the magazine. I wrote about this sequence all a bit more in depth over at TomBrevoort.com here.

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A Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date

MIGHTY MOUSE #5 saw print on December 11, 1990, and I had a back-up story in it. The comic had been licensed following the short-lived success of THE NEW ADVENTURES OF MIGHTY MOUSE by animator Ralph Bakshi, a Saturday Morning series that eventually got into trouble with watchdog groups for an episode in which they claimed the Mouse of Might was snorting drugs. (Actually, he was sniffing flower petals given to him by an unfortunate orphan girl who had landed in trouble—context didn’t mean much to these self-styled moral crusaders.) It was a bit of an odd duck series, in that one gets the sense that most of the people who worked on it had never seen the show in question. Consequently, they chose to do what Marvel always did in these situations—turn everything into references to the Marvel books and characters. Consequently, previous issues had introduced a painful animal version of the Sub-Mariner, and later ones would riff on Todd McFarlane’s newly-launched SPIDER-MAN series. And this one, as the cover above indicates, did a parody of DC’s CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. I don’t know what the venn diagram crossover between people who had watched and loved the cartoon and people who had read CRISIS was, but I’d bet that it wasn’t all that much. By that same token, the editorial office realized that if they were going to have any chance at making MIGHTY MOUSE a success, they were going to need to be able to sell it in the Direct Sales marketplace of comic book specialty shops, which was becoming even then the primary marketplace for our books. This is also no doubt why they’d convinced George Perez to ink the cover, a parody of one of his famous covers for CRISIS penciled by Ernie Colon, which was pretty appealing in and of itself.

The story we did tried to take its cues more from the series, which Kanterovich and I had watched and been fans of. As a concession to the approach of the series—and because he was a fun and ridiculous character in and of himself—we chose to focus on the Batman parody that the cartoon had introduced, Bat-Bat. (Yes, you’re not mistaken. He was a bat who dressed up as a bat. His sidekick was a tick.) This story worked out a whole lot better than our earlier COUNT DUCKULA efforts, and that’s really all down to the efforts of cartoonist Mike Kazaleh. As with those previous DUCKULA stories, Kazaleh was working from a “visual script” from us rather than simply a written script. In essence, I had crudely drawn the whole story out on typing paper as well as writing it. Not only did Kaz faithfully execute every dumb gag we gave him without changing a one as Howie Post had dome on DUCKULA, but he added more of his own business, as well as improving the choreography and staging of the pages in general. I had hoped to dig out an example of that visual script to show you here, but, you know, starting writing at 11:00. So instead, here is Kaz’s splash page to the story. It’s way better than the version that I had drawn, trust me. This was the only story we wound up doing for MIGHTY MOUSE—the series only lasted for ten issues. And the interesting one, as well as the best in the run, was the last one, #10, which was given over to the office’s former intern to write, his first professional sale. That intern: Dan Slott.

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A Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date

AVENGERS #61 came out on December 11, 2002 by which point Geoff Johns’ era as the series writer had been solidly established. This was a transitional issue, pivoting the cast away from the Kurt Busiek lineup that Geoff had inherited and bringing in some players that he wanted to do more with in the future while also humanizing the characters that he already had in the team. But the real reason that I wanted to spotlight it is that it was one of two consecutive issues that was drawn by guest artist Gary Frank. Gary was bouncing around from assignment to assignment at this time—I don’t think he’d begun working on SUPREME POWER just yet, but that was a little ways in his future. But more crucially, he and Geoff found that they liked working together, and so when Geoff eventually signed exclusive with DC in a little over a years’ time, he wound up doing a bunch more work with him, including BATMAN: EARTH ONE and of course DOOMSDAY CLOCK, as well as their creator-owned series GEIGER. So, yeah, none of that would have happened quite that way if I hadn’t paired them up for these two issues of AVENGERS. To compound the situation, a few issues later, needing another stopgap issue so as to give incoming artist Olivier Coipel enough time to get through the whole of the “Red Zone” storyline, which expanded from five issues to six after feedback from Marvel President Bill Jemas, I brought in Ivan Reis. So, yeah, same thing—the first time he and Geoff had worked together, after which they’d head over to DC and do BLACKEST NIGHT and JUSTICE LEAGUE and a bunch of other stuff.

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Monofocus

Whether this winds up being its final season or not—reports seem to be circulating that the show is being sunset—DOOM PATROL remains a wild ride and a unique entry among the now-vast sea of super hero television series. It’s certainly not for everyone, but as I’ve been a fan of the DP both in their original incarnation and then later Grant Morrison and Richard Case’s 1980s and 90s reimagining and updating of the team, it consistently hits my sweet spot. It’s also proven to have amazing casting, with Brendan Frazer being, extraordinarily, about the most perfect Cliff Steele one could ever have hoped for. Not to be undone, the other three original Patrol members, Negative Man, Elasti-Girl and the Chief were similarly wonderfully incarnated by Matt Bomer, April Bowlby and Timothy Dalton. Similarly, Diane Gurrero is pitch-perfect as Crazy Jane, and even though his inclusion in the series seemed to be more based on a need for greater diversity than anything else, Jovian Wade has been excellent as Cyborg. I’ve also been getting a kick out of the delightful Michelle Gomez, DOCTOR WHO’s Missy, as Madame Rouge—again, pretty much perfect casting. What’s especially wonderful about the show is how well it’s reinterpreted the source material, and most of the changes that it’s made to the core cast have proven to be clear improvements, at least for a show consumed in 2022. In particular, the idea that Larry Trainor’s veneer as a perfect Kennedy-era jet pilot and astronaut hid a closeted gay man who in that era couldn’t reveal the truth of his sexuality without completely destroying his life is such an utterly perfect fit for the character and adds so much to him as an individual. The show is also, frankly, completely batshit crazy, whole-heartedly embracing both the dadaist concepts of the Morrison era and recontextualizing the most absurd elements of the 1960s series in a meaningful way. This show is using the whole Buffalo in terms of the source material, and doing so in a consistently clever manner. That all said, the reason I’m not entirely too worried about the series possibly ending is a sense as I watched the first two episodes of this latest season that the show had perhaps seen its best days, and what remained ahead of it was a slow decline into mediocrity. Of course, that sense is only going to last until the next big home run episode, as it did last season (which was saddled with finishing up the Season Two plots before doing its own thing, filming having been disrupted by the pandemic.) It’s a show that I’m amazed even exists, much less that it’s done so for four seasons, and so if this is the end of the line, I’m all right with that. (That theme music, both opening and closing titles, is really on point, too. Hell, take a look.

And I was hoping to be able to speak about MONEY HEIST: JOINT ECONOMIC AREA Season 2 as well, which just landed on Netflix. But the truth is, I haven’t had a chance to crack it yet. So perhaps next week. Having both loved the original Spanish series and the first portion of this Korean remake, I think the odds are good that it’ll be worth my time and attention.

Posted at TomBrevoort.com

Just yesterday, I examined one of my favorite forgotten super hero strips of the 1960s, the derivative Sentinels in THUNDERBOLT #54.

And five years ago, I wrote about this very fine issue of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA

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And I think that’s going to about do it for me! Sorry I let this one get away from me a little bit. I’ll try not to let it happen again, but honestly, with the holidays in sight, it’s more than likely that it will. So hunker down, lay in some provisions and be prepared. And hopefully, I’ll be back here in a week with more comic book nonsense.

Tom B