#10: Happy Spider-Man Day!

The Beloved Wall-Crawler Turns 60 Years Old Today!

Happy Spider-Man Day, everyone! Sixty years ago today, AMAZING FANTASY #15 came out, introducing the world’s most popular wall-crawler to audiences worldwide. But we’ll leave most of the festivities for further down into today’s Newsletter, as there is plenty of other stuff that needs to be talked about as well.

Perhaps most important among the recent news was the surprise announcement by Joe Quesada that he was leaving Marvel after 22 years and heading off to pursue other creative opportunities, both in comics and otherwise. This has caused fans to turn out either to commemorate his legacy or to cheer his departure. Which I suppose is to be expected. But most readers, I think, don’t really understand what Joe’s overall impact truly was, and how much of an influence he had on the success and direction of Marvel during his time at the company. Joe was generous with his ideas, and there are any number of story developments that originated in his imagination and presented as a suggestion that wound up being executed by other creators—often to popular acclaim. It’s the nature of the Editor in Chief position that anybody serving in that role becomes a lightning rod for complaints and controversy, regardless of how much or how little they may have had to do with the events in question. (And, similarly, the EIC is occasionally given credit for something positive that happened on their watch that they had no particular direct impact on as well.) So take it from me, somebody who worked alongside Joe for more than two decades. I certainly argued with him at times, over stories, over creative direction, over office nonsense. But nobody wanted to see people succeed more than Joe did, and he was always willing to break bread and mend fences and give people the opportunity to do well. I always felt like he had my back, and so I always tried to have his in return. He was never precious with his ideas, and most tellingly, he was never hesitant about admitting when somebody else was proven to be right and he was wrong. That alone is a pretty rare quality in any creative business.

So in answer to my request (read: pleading) for more reader questions, we have a couple of things to answer from the comments. To begin with, Evan “Cool Guy” (no other name given—and why would you need one?) asked:

I’d like to know about the mysterious Alan Fine, the Executive Producer who graces the credits of every Marvel Comic. Wait a minute, I just checked a new release and he’s gone?!?!

Alan Fine came to Marvel through Toybiz, when that company acquired control of Marvel in the Bankruptcy days. His primary field of expertise was in toys and consumer products, but as the new company was reorganized, he was given oversight over publishing as well. Alan was a great supporter of Marvel’s publishing efforts and appreciative of the quality of the material we were generating, especially relative to its cost. He was involved in the launching of Marvel’s film efforts as well—I can remember being a part of a couple of brainstorming sessions regarding first Iron Man and later Thor and Captain America in an attempt to drill down and define what elements of the characters were critical in terms of translating the characters into movies. At a certain point, Alan realized that he was getting an Executive Producer credit on all of the films and animation and stuff that he was in charge of, but not on the comics. And he’d been such a genuine ally to publishing that nobody minded giving him that credit on the books. Alan retired a short while back, which is why you’ve noticed his credit disappearing from more recent releases.

And then, Colin McKenzie asked:

I have a question as well. Was DC's decision to refer to the original Captain Marvel purely as SHAZAM! entirely the result of Marvel's co-option of him by Roy Thomas in the 60's?

Kind of. When DC made the deal to bring the original Captain Marvel back in 1972, Marvel had already been publishing a series called CAPTAIN MARVEL, and had secured the trademark on the title. This meant that DC couldn’t put out a book called CAPTAIN MARVEL, nor feature the character’s name on their covers. (They broke that condition on the first batch of issues, subheading the book “The Original Captain Marvel” until somebody at Marvel complained about it.) They could still call the character Captain Marvel on the interiors, though, and did for years, including on the live action Saturday morning series and the cartoon that came after it. But this was always clunky for them, and eventually, after years of marketing the character under the name of his magic word, SHAZAM, DC decided to make it official, and since then, the Big Red Cheese has gone by that moniker rather than his original sobriquet.

And one last question from Luke Spanton:

Since you requested questions: I just checked out your item about FOOM on the T.B. Experience website, and was curious about whether any consideration has been given to publishing a FOOM complete collection? I have seen a few posts on the "Collected Editions" message boards expressing interest in a FOOM omnibus, but even a trade paperback collection would be cool.

It’s come up now and then, Luke, but between not being certain that there’d be enough interest in such a volume to make it worthwhile to put all of the effort into assembling one, plus the problems with rights to certain material (the Conan issue, for example, is a big problem now, as is any other licensed material) make it a bit more tricky than it may appear on the surface.

---

Behind the Curtain

.In honor or Spider-Man Day, let’s look at a rarity from Spidey’s history.

Above, you see the final panel from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #144, the story in which the recently-killed Gwen Stacy showed up at Peter Parker’s apartment alive and well. Today, we know this as the beginning of the original Clone Saga—but back then, it was a much-demanded surprise. As the legend goes, publisher Stan Lee was getting so much negative feedback to the death of Gwen Stacy from upset fans at his personal lecture appearances that he ordered ASM writer Gerry Conway to bring her back—somehow, some way. Not wanting to resurrect the character and spoil one of the most impactful stories in Spider-Man history, Gerry came up with the notion of the Jackal, the mysterious villain who’d been operating from the shadows throughout his time on the title, turning out to really be Peter and Gwen’s college science professor. Obsessed with Gwen, the Jackal would create a clone of her—thus leading Spider-Man into a wild adventure in which he’d be forced to battle his own clone, with neither one knowing which was the true Peter Parker. Its reputation has maybe been a bit tarnished over the years by later storylines to come, but at the time, it was a big deal event.

Anyway, when drawing up this final page, penciler Ross Andru played a bit of a practical joke on Conway and the folks at the office by creating the image seen at the right and taping it down over the actual pencils for this moment that you see on the left. If you look closely at the scan of those pencils, you can see the join line where Ross’s patch of crazy double-take Peter has been placed over the underlying figure. A tiny piece of real Peter’s hair is showing. It’s such a wacky and well-realized figure, one that so captured how both Peter and the readers felt at that moment, that I almost regret them not having gone with the joke version.

---

Pimp My Wednesday

Just one book from my office in stores this week, the second issue of the All-New, All-Different SAVAGE AVENGERS by David Pepose and Carlos Magno, in which our hastily assembled and haphazard team finds itself thrust back in time to the Hyborian Age of Conan’s birth, separated and forced to contend with the myriad dangers therein while having no way to get back to the present. And all the while, with the relentless Deathlok stalking them. I was impressed with how readily Pepose dealt with the introduction of so many characters and concepts in the first issue, so I feel like he’s somebody to watch. And Carlos has really begun to hit his stride on this series—he doesn’t skimp on the detail, and he’s growing stronger in terms of his storytelling and his overall drawing skills. Like its predecessor series, this is a big, fun, over-the-top violent action movie, and so if you approach it with that in mind, you’re guaranteed to have a good time. We’ve got a bunch of additional surprises in store before this initial story arc is played out.

---

A Comic Book On Sale 60 Years Ago Today, June 5, 1962

Well, in this instance, we’re really talking about three comic books all of which came out on this date 60 years ago, and which cumulatively represent the initial full flowering of the Marvel Age. So let’s kick off with the big gun.

As we covered above, AMAZING FANTASY #15 hit newsstands sixty years ago today. There’s plenty of mythology that’s been built up around the creation of this issue and of Spider-Man—I tried to untangle a bunch of it at the Tom Brevoort Experience site here. But let’s simply say that, while there were many, many hands involved in turning Spider-Man from an idea into a finished series, it was really the combination of the talents of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko who made the strip the success that it became. Spider-Man remains the most popular and recognized character in the Marvel stable—only Superman and Batman match him in terms of global awareness (Wonder Woman is kind of a toss-up in this regard; I don’t think she’s got quite the same reach as Spidey and the other two, even after all this time.) and he came along more than two decades after them, which is still an amazing achievement.

But Spidey wasn’t the only notable Marvel hero to debut sixty years ago on this date. Because just one slot over, the Thunder God was making his debut in the pages of JOURNETY INTO MYSTERY #83. This first Thor story was intended as a pilot, with the potential for an eventual follow-up, but before the issue was ready to go, the clear growing interest in super heroes saw publisher Martin Goodman and editor Stan Lee promote it to a series immediately, try-out notwithstanding. This first story was produced by Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott, with Lee kibitzing as editor, and it was sort of a take on the Captain Marvel concept in which a regular person is given the powers of the gods through a magical transformation. The series didn’t really start to resemble the version we’re most familiar with for another year, once Lee committed to scripting it regularly, and Kirby came back and stuck around as primary plotter and illustrator.

And if that wasn’t enough, there was a third Marvel super hero who first appeared on this date, at least in the form of a costumed hero. Ant-Man was a bit of a flop in those early Marvel years, but the concept has proven to have legs, and has now been the focus of two very successful films with a third on the way. As the story goes, Marvel publisher Martin Goodman noticed a jump in sales for the first appearance of Hank Pym as a one-off scientist who accidentally shrinks himself and enters an ant hill, and so he instructed editor Lee to bring the character back. Whose idea it was to turn him into a super hero is anybody’s guess, but given that he’d been pushing to do more super hero characters for a while, I would suspect that Jack Kirby was involved in that change. (Based on Steve Ditko’s recollections, Kirby’s unused design for Spider-Man strongly resembled this Ant-Man design, and so I’ve always wondered if Jack didn’t rework the Ant-Man look from it.) At the same time, Martin Goodman seems to have always had more faith in the Ant-Man concept than anybody else, keeping the strip around long after he might have ended it. Reportedly, he was influenced by the strong sales of early issues of DC’s THE ATOM. Either way, TALES TO ASTONISH #35 gave Hank Pym a costumed identity, in a story by Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby with Stan Lee getting a credit for the plot.

Amazingly, you can even get a sense of what it was like when these three titles went on sale. By chance, an episode of the popular crime series THE NAKED CITY was filmed during this period, and the set designer for the episode dressed a newsstand in the early minutes of the episode with comic books purchased locally that morning, including both AMAZING FANTASY #15 and JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #83, as seen in the still above. (As usual, Ant-Man got no respect.) For those who are curious, the entire episode is available to watch here.

---

A Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date

I put out seven titles on the week of June 5, 2002: AVENGERS #54, DEADLINE #3, SPIDER-GIRL #48, THOR #50, THUNDERBOLTS #65 and the two I’m about to talk about. That’s a hefty workload, and it doesn’t even represent the bulk of my output for the month: I put out a further 10 books in the weeks that remained in June.

This issue of FANTASTIC FOUR, #56, was one of a pair of fill-in issue intended to buy some time until the new creative team of Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo would be available to start working on the series. But it accidentally became an issue of note due to the story content. Because this was the first time it was ever confirmed in print that Ben Grimm was Jewish. Writer Karl Kesel and I didn’t think this was any big deal when we were putting the issue together—we had been inspired by a drawing that FF creator Jack Kirby had done for a Hanukkah card in 1976 depicting the Thing in a tallis and yarmulke.

So this was simply intended as a fun story that would take Ben back to Yancy Street and put him in touch with his roots. As I recall, Karl consulted with writer Greg Rucka in order to make sure all of the Jewish material was correct, Karl not being Jewish himself. Artist Stuart Immonen drew the issue powerfully and sensitively. And we sent it to press and thought no more about it—until the phone started to ring and requests for interviews and quotes began to pour in. The book blew up in a major way and caught us all a bit flat-footed. Which was, honestly, pretty great—the sort of reaction that you hope to get from a story. While, as you’d expect, there were some who wondered why we’d ruin the Thing by making him Jewish, the overwhelming sentiment about the tale was positive. And today, Ben’s Jewishness is a fundamental part of his character.

This must have been an especially Thing-centric week—I had forgotten until doing the research for this feature that in addition to FF #56, the first issue of THING: FREAKSHOW also came out twenty years ago today. This was a four-issue limited series written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Scott Kolins, and was the first thing that I worked with Geoff on. I had already earmarked Geof as a person I would turn to once Kurt Busiek was ready to finish up his time on AVENGERS, based on Johns’ JSA work. But before that even became an issue, Geoff and Scott approached me at a San Diego convention. I had known Scott from when he was on staff at Marvel as a “Romita’s Raider” doing art corrections, and we had collaborated on a very forgotten limited series featuring the Kree Captain Marvel. Geoff and Scott had a Thing story that they wanted to do as a limited series, and I was only too happy to get Geoff in the door. Scott had developed an interesting line-based style while working on THE FLASH that kicked his work up to the next level, and which he employed here. And like FF #56, the story focused on Ben going back to his roots—in this case, to a circus he’d seen while a kid living on Yancy Street, at which he’d harassed one of the carnival freaks. Now a monster himself, Ben has to come to terms with his past actions and make amends. There’s also a Watcher baby in this one, as well as some cool FF foes from t past

---

Monofocus

RESET

THE BLACK SHEEP GAME

OBI-WAN KENOBI

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

CHIP & DALE RESCUE RANGERS

THE ORVILLE