Hello! Going to try to do a quick one this time—or at least what passes for a quick one around these parts. And it all begins with a correction on a piece from a previous Newsletter. A few weeks back, I shared Martin Nodell’s original submitted first page for the first Green Lantern story, and gave details on the creation of the character. But I made a dopey gaff—one that nobody pointed out until I received the following communication from Martin’s granddaughter, Jacque Nodell:
I'm really enjoying your Substack so far and thank you for featuring the piece on my grandfather! One comment--where you write Gardner Fox I think you mean Bill Finger. Perhaps this error has been addressed elsewhere and if so, please disregard this comment!
Jacque, appreciate you writing and correcting this. And you are right, it was Bill Finger who was brought in by editor Sheldon Mayer to help conceptualize the Green Lantern strip, not Gardner Fox. I knew that, but for some reason, I must have had Gardner on the brain, or else talking about ALL-AMERICAN COMICS helped put him there. Either way, you can imagine my embarrassment. Sorry about that.
So going from this straight into more questions, here are two that were send my way from JV:
A specific question that leads to a more general one Tom: I heard that Mark Gruenwald had written a plot for a Squadron Supreme series that would follow up on their return to their Earth after their OGN and appearances in Quasar - big fan of those characters - can you share any details on what Mark had planned?
On a more general note: are there a lot of old plots/pencils/half finished issues in the Marvel vaults? Any gems you would like to share? I liked the Tales from the Marvel vaults that printed a bunch years ago..any interest in reviving some of the contents of the 'vault' if there are any?
In answer to your first question, JV, that isn’t entirely correct. it is true that, a short time before Mark’s passing, I did speak with him about doing a follow-up project to SQUADRON SUPREME and he did begin thinking about a storyline for such a project. But he never got so far as having an outline, there were only one or two small ideas that he mentioned. One of which was that the fascist cops who patrolled the utopia-turned-totalitarian-state that the Squadron had set up and left without dismantling would have taken the name the Blue Eagles after the fallen Squadron member. And the underground resistance would be known as the Nighthawks. Both of these were details that I passed on to Len Kaminski when we began work on the SQUADRON SUPREME: NEW WORLD ORDER one-shot that we did sometime after Mark’s passing. Apart from that, though, anything else Mark may have had in mind for a sequel he didn’t share.
And in answer to your second question, there really isn’t all that much. Those Marvel Vault projects mainly came from a time in which every ongoing series in the line was expected to have a completed inventory story finished and in a drawer, to be used if a book was about to miss shipping. As that hasn’t been the way we’ve approached things for the past twenty years or so, any stuff that’s in the vaults is all material for projects that were never finished. But there’s always a possibility that some of that stuff may still one day see print. If there’s something that’s definitively dead, it’s possible that I’ll share it here at some point, but it’s going to need to be absolutely dead before I’ll take that step. After all, a few of those Marvel Vault books only existed because I’d hung onto the materials for years and years, even after it seemed like there was no possibility that they would ever be published. So while there’s still a chance, I’m apt to play the long game.
One from Colin McKenzie:
Speaking of "chasing the dragon", you mentioned in passing Master of Kung Fu, which was THE comic book for me during the 70's. I chased back issues of that back to Doug Moench's first issue, and collected it up until Moench left in the early 80's. The new Shang Chi didn't come close, and it wasn't just the lack of Gene Day or Paul Gulacy. So my question is-- Why, when the Rohmer estate lowered the boom, didn't Marvel just carry on with a "just-different-enough-to-avoid-legal-action" version? Change Black Jack Tarr to, I dunno, Black Tom MacAdam, Sir Denis to Sir Bob, Fu Manchu to Mu Fanchu, etc? OK, it's hokey, but you probably could have gotten away with it. Actually, you DID sorta name-change Fu Manchu and make him the evil emperor of another dimension, so why not the rest? Like I said, the new Shang-Chi just isn't doing it for me.
Well, I think there are probably a couple of different reasons for this. The first, of course, is that MASTER OF KUNG FU was cancelled only a couple of issues after Doug stopped writing the series—and while he came back to the character a few times after that, Shang-Chi never headlined an ongoing series again until recently. But secondly, and more importantly, I think: that original Fu Manchu material is incredibly racist. It’s of its time, to be sure, but in the 21st century, almost anybody working on Shang-Chi would feel a bit sheepish about incorporating such material into their modern work. It’s the same sort of difficulty we have with doing stories with the Mandarin today. He’s an established part of the lore, but he’s just so permeated with “Yellow Peril” DNA that it’s just about impossible to separate the character from the racist overtones that inspired him. So over the years, a bunch of different creators—notably Ed Brubaker when we were working on SECRET AVENGERS—worked to modify Shang-Chi’s backstory, avoiding as much of that off-color material as possible while not discounting any of the previous MASTER OF KUNG FU stories, and adding to the character’s mythology in a way that hopefully would make him more acceptable to an audience in 2022. I can’t really say how well it worked, but it was at least enough to put Shang-Chi into position to where he could be a viable character for other media. So the real answer, i think, is that nobody working at Marvel particularly wanted to maintain any Fu Manchu connection, not directly. And I don’t know that you not enjoying the more recent SHANG-CHI books necessarily comes down to that lack of that connection. Could be that we just didn’t hit the ball to your liking on those stories, as with any issue of any given comic. That said, we did just bring back a bunch of Shang-Chi’s old supporting players in recent issues—so if you haven’t seen them, you might look to check them out.
And a pair of questions from Jason Holtzman:
Do you think that Marvel and DC not being their own companies, but owned by larger corporations, can be compromising to their goals/publishing outlooks? Or rather, is it good, in which the financial backings from the these larger corporations keeps the books propped up? I’ll admit this stems from some of the recent unfortunate happenings within Warner Bros, as some comic fans are concerned if any of it will effect the DC Comics side of things😬
But speaking of large companies owning a lot, yet on a lighter note, have you gotten a chance to watch Amazon’s new “Rings of Power?” What did you think? I’ll admit I’ve not made through all the Lord of the Rings books, but I have fond memories of my dad reading the Hobbit to me, and I quite enjoy all the movies. I appreciate the show as a way of providing a less daunting look into Tolkien’s world than the density of the Silmarillion.
I can’t really speak about DC directly, Jason, because much of what goes on at that company is as unknown to me as it is to you. I would point out, however, that both Marvel and DC have been owned by different entities going back to the 1960s, so while the particular owners of the day may be new, the situation is not. And from the Marvel side, the acquisition by Disney hasn’t really had anything but positive effects from where I stand. Certainly, Disney’s global reach has allowed the Marvel characters to become more recognized and ubiquitous worldwide, which is a good thing, and which makes selling comics into more marketplaces easier. And I know that people don’t believe me when I say this, but under Disney, Marvel has been largely left to its own devices, to continue to be Marvel. Whatever imagined restrictions fans may imagine us operating under now really aren’t there—and any steps we may choose to take are usually taken because we choose to take them, not because some mouse-eared overlords are making us take them. That said, I’m honestly a little bit concerned for the folks at DC as well given all of the recent news. But I’m hopeful that the people at their parent company will realize what a valuable resource something like DC Comics is and treat it accordingly, and not get frustrated that they can’t magically fast-grow a Marvel Cinematic Universe overnight. A DC Cinematic Universe could certainly be created, the raw material is all there, it just needs careful nurturing and development. And that starts with treating the publishing wing with a bit more respect rather than as an annoyance.
And I haven’t been watching RINGS OF POWER, I’m afraid. While I did see all of the LORD OF THE RINGS and THE HOBBIT films, I have never connected to that material in a hugely strong way. The person who did in my family is my Mom, so I get to hear chapter-and-verse about it during our regular phone conversations. And for the record, she is all for it, loves it so far based on the first two episodes. Then again, she’s also still a regular player of the LOTR MMORPG, so she’s maybe something of a receptive audience for the material than most would be.
Finally, a question posed by Bryan Stratton of the Marvel By The Month podcast, which can be found here:
Of all the writers, artists, editors, etc. whose names have ever appeared in a Marvel comic, who do you think is most deserving of more credit than they've gotten from fan culture/the historical record?
I tell you, Bryan, that’s a hugely difficult question—in part because the field is so wide. I tend to think that most creators have been apportioned decent credit over the years, even if we might argue with the amount. The easy and politically correct answer here might be Jack Kirby, who was instrumental in innovating all of the early characters and stories, more so than most people realize. But it’s tough to say that a creator who has his own regularly published fan magazine, The Jack Kirby Collector is underappreciated. So I’d tend to think that we’re probably looking for somebody more behind-the-scenes here, whose name may be somewhat known but who may not be recognized for the importance of their overall contributions. I’d say that Carol Kalish is perhaps a good bet, given all that she did as Marvel’s Direct Sales Manager in the 1980s and early 1990s to shore up and stabilize the Direct Sales Market of comic book shops into a working industry. She didn’t do this alone, of course, and there were counterparts to her at DC working on the same sorts of things. But Marvel at that time was close to 50% of the marketplace, so Carol’s efforts to, for example, get cash registers into all of the stores probably bore more fruit given who was asking and what she represented.
And a special Thank You to everyone who’s been putting these various questions to me, and who hopefully will continue to do so. it makes it worlds easier to fill this space every week!
Behind the Curtain
.All right, here’s a bit of show-and-tell in three parts.
What you see above is the splash page to the first full-length story featuring Forbush-Man from NOT BRAND ECHH #5, as drawn by Jack Kirby and Tom Sutton. Forbush-Man was the outgrowth of a running joke in the early Marvel magazines. At some point, needing a funny name for a letters page response, Stan Lee dropped in Irving Forbush—a name that he’d made up many years earlier for Marvel (then Atlas)’s MAD knock-off, SNAFU. Because running jokes make it easier to fill column inches, Lee began making more and more reference to Irving Forbush in aa in-joke capacity—he became the unseen nebbish of the Marvel pantheon. Eventually, the decision was made to launch NOT BRAND ECHH, a parody comic in the MAD vein, and on its first cover, Irv was transformed into an only-seen-from-the-back super hero, Forbush-Man. Five issues later, the notion appears to have struck a chord, as Lee and Kirby set out to do an actual story with this haphazard creation. But this meant that they had to figure out what he looked like.
Before we get to that, though, a couple of observations about this splash page. Judging by the notes in the border, the specific identities of the various figures surrounding Forbush-Man were modified by Sutton after Kirby had penciled them. It seems apparent that Aunt May was likely somebody else, and her speech balloon appears to have been relettered after the fact. Captain America similarly doesn’t seem to have started off as Cap. And Forbush-Man himself shows signs of after-the-fact tinkering on his helmet, boots and gloves. A border note from Jack Kirby indicates that FULL COSTUME OF FORBUSH-MAN ON OTHER SIDE. So let’s take a look.
Sur enough, Kirby had done a loose sketch of Forbush-Man on the back of the board, to indicate what he ought to look like. But Stan Lee had some adjustments, which are indicated here, presumably as instructions for Sutton as he did inks and finishes on the strip: Stan wanted the pot on Forbush-Man’s face lowered so that there was no hint of his chin. He doodled in a safety-pin keeping the hero’s cape on his shoulders. He requested that the insignia be simplified to a single F rather than Kirby’s FB, and indicated that Forbush-Man’s footwear should be galoshes, and that his trunks should be eliminated. There’s also a doodle of what looks like an overhang desk-light, though it could have maybe been in reference to one of those big push-brooms Forbush-Man has on the splash.
That price of $125.00 that some previous dealer had marked on the upper left corner of this page back is only going to be a fraction of what it commands today at auction, I would guess.
And just for completeness’s sake, here’s how Forbush-Man appeared on the cover to NOT BRAND ECHH #1 some months earlier. As you can see, he had no cape at this time, and his helmet isn’t clearly a pot yet. What’s more, those buccaneer cuffs were added to his boots after-the-fact. Kirby did this piece as well, but he doesn’t appear to have been too worried about keeping the costume details consistent between the two. And who can really blame him?
Pimp My Wednesday
More goodness is on its way direct to your local comic shop this coming Wednesday. So let’s take a look at what’s new from my office:
Events are ramping up big time in AXE JUDGMENT DAY #4, as we pas the halfway point of our story. This is the point at which Act Two transitions into Act Three, and we begin to race towards our climax. As previously, this issue is the work of writer Kieron Gillen and artist Valerio Schiti. Special note should be given to cover artist Mark Brooks here: at the time we solicited, Brooks hadn’t been able to complete the whole piece, so what we showed was the Celestial only. But as you can see, for the final cover, Mark added in a half-dozen additional hero vignettes.
This IRON MAN cover by Alex Ross is deliberately dark, the better to spotlight the Mandarin’s power-rings as well as Iron Man’s Stealth Armor, both of which play a role in this story. It’s another outing by Christopher Cantwell and Angel Unzueta that sees Tony Stark working to take down the underground weapons dealer Source Control and recover the deceased mandarin’s stolen rings. This one is packed with twists, reversals and some unexpected faces from Shell-Head’s past!
Over in SAVAGE AVENGERS, we say goodbye to both the Hyborian Age and its favorite son, Conan the Barbarian in the closing chapter of the titles’ opening story arc. But despite concerns, it’s not the end of the series—there’s a new adventure waiting that our ragtag team of dysfunctional badasses will be dropped into on the final pages. It’s brought to you by David Pepose and Carlos Magno, as usual. I love that Bullpen designer Carlos Lao chose to set up all of the cover elements on a slant—not my idea, but I was all for it when he showed me the mock-up. It can be difficult for any one cover to be eye-catching when surrounded by a bunch of other covers, so anything that breaks up the usual trade dress can be of benefit—so long as it’s executed well.
In the digital realm of MARVEL UNLIMITED, the ongoing Kaiju War storyline by Murewa Ayodele and Dotun Akande reaches its penultimate chapter. And look, the issue number is now right on this thumbnail, how about that? But that’s about all that goes right for our Iron Trinity this time out, as one of them gets eaten alive and the other two have their armors stripped from their bodies! It’s something to see!
And I missed this one last week, which is a bit inexcusable, but it’s being handled by my associate editor Annalise Bissa, so that’s why it wasn’t at the forefront of my thoughts. But it is one of my more favorite things that we’ve done of late. Also in the MARVEL UNLIMITED Infinity Comics section you’ll now find the first two chapters of Millie the Spy, a really clever re-imagining of perennial Marvel pin-up queen Millie the Model as an undercover operative working for S.H.I.E.L.D. in the 1960s. It’s exactly as much fun as that sounds, and it’s written by Stephanie Phillips and drawn by Nick Roche. This storyline is one of those great surprises that you stumble onto every once in a while, and I can’t take any editorial credit for it—it’s all Annalise’s baby. But I dig it—and so will you if you check it out!
And for completists, here’s the thumbnail of the second chapter of Millie, which will go live this week.
A Comic Book On Sale 80 Years Ago Today, September 11, 1942
We’ve spoken in the past about how strange it is that, during the Golden Age of Comics, no other outfit seriously attempted to field a super hero team of their own in competition with the Justice Society of America in ALL-STAR COMICS. But the one real exception to that was also published by DC Comics—but only the National Comics portion of DC. A quick history lesson is called for. During this period, DC was known as National Comics and was owned by Harry Donenfeld, who became a high roller thanks to the success of Superman. Harry liked to spread his money around, and so at a certain point he invested in a start-up originated by Max Gaines, who had been the syndicate agent that had sent Siegel and Shuster’s SUPERMAN sample strips to him. Gaines’ outfit operated as All-American Comics. Donenfeld was a half-owner in All-American, but they operated out of separate offices and published their own line of books. In order to maximize newsstand rack dominance and to minimize paper costs, ALL-AMERICAN published under the DC imprint as well—at least until things grew strained between Gaines and Donenfeld. But that’s another story. In 1940, ALL-STAR COMICS was conceived as a vehicle to promote characters from both National and All-American, split 50/50 between the two outfits but produced editorially by All-American. With the third issue, somebody—possibly editor Shelly Mayer—hit on the idea of tying the disparate stories together, which led to the creation of the Justice Society of America. The JSA was a success and headlined in the series for a decade, surviving even the split between National and All-American and the latter’s eventual absorption into the former. And it was enough of a success that somebody at National, possibly editor Mort Weisinger, wondered why they didn’t create their own Justice Society filled exclusively with National characters. Thus, in the pages of a new title, LEADING COMICS, the Seven Soldiers of Victory was born. Known alternately as the Law’s Legionnaires as well as the Seven Knights of the Round Table and a few other inconsistent appellations, the Seven were the Green Arrow and Speedy, the Shining Knight, the Vigilante, the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, and the Crimson Avenger. The Avenger’s partner Wing didn’t merit membership for some reason (likely due to his ethnicity) despite being a regular part of the Seven’s adventures. It wasn’t a bad line-up of characters, but it somehow lacked the spark of the JSA—the most successful long-term was definitely Green Arrow, who was never out of print, even if it was only in the back-pages of some anthology title. Anyway, the Seven Soldiers never quite measured up to the Justice Society, but they did headline in LEADING COMICS for 14 issues, after which the book was given over to better-selling funny animal shenanigans. There was a 15th script written for the Seven, and it was eventually illustrated and run as a serialized back-up in several issues of ADVENTURE COMICS in the 1970s. This particular issue of LEADING COMICS, on sale 80 years ago today, sees the Law’s Legionnaires taking on five criminals whose capers each relate to one of the five senses, and whose boss calls himself the Sixth Sense. The story was written by Bill Finger, and whereas the JSA typically had its chapters featuring its solo members drawn by their regular artists, this entire story was the work of artist Ed Dobrotka.
A Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date
I’m focusing on this issue of UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER-MAN, #15, which saw print on September 11, 1996, for possibly the craziest of reasons. It isn’t an especially noteworthy issue in the run, for all that it introduces Betty Brant’s former mob-affiliated boyfriend Gordon “The Terrier” Savinski—not really one of the more memorable new villains we introduced in this run, and one that hasn’t been seen since. No, the reason I’m spotlighting this issue is due to the ridiculous amount of work writer Kurt Busiek did for this issue’s cover. While working on MARVELS, as an attempt to create verisimilitude especially given the realism of Alex Ross’s paintings, Kurt had gotten into the habit of actually writing up full articles whenever a newspaper was displayed, regardless of the fact that most of the text would be too small to bother with, and some of it would be obscured by whatever else might be going on in the image. So it was in that mindset that, while we were brainstorming on a cover image for this issue of UNTOLD TALES that Kurt suggested we do the image above. And yes, all of that copy is genuine, none of it is Greeked in or repeated—it’s a full-length newspaper story about the events that take place within the issue. And yes, some of it is obscured by the figures of Gordon slapping the heck out of Spider-Man, but Kurt wrote those bits too, heedless of the fact that they wouldn’t be visible to the readers. This is how much effort and energy we expended on these books, when we were all a lot younger and more foolish. But you got your money’s worth, all 99 cents of it! As for Gordon, the idea was that he was meant to look a bit like an older Peter Parker, which would underscore one of the reasons why Betty was drawn to Peter—she had a type. But the end result, drawn by Pat Olliffe, looks more to me like Pat himself, like a self-caricature. So whenever I see this cover image, I instantly flash on the idea of the artist slapping down Spidey for being late or making him draw tough stuff. On this cover, though, Pat could have few complaints, as most of the heavy lifting of the background was carried by Kurt and the typesetter.
Monofocus
Covered a few new things in my free time this week, while continuing to wrap up on shows and books that I had previously started. One little find was PINBALL by Jon Chad, a graphic novel that charts the history of the game of the silver ball throughout history. I was never a huge pinball player (I needed those quarters for comics) but I did love the game whenever I had the opportunity to play it, so the subject matter was of interest to me. Chad also has a nice linear style that lends itself to detailed reproductions of classic machines, inside and out. So I liked it.
Continuing to search for new shows, I watched the first five or so episodes of MO on Netflix, comedian Mohammad Amer’s series about an undocumented Palestinian immigrant who finds himself caught between three cultures: his own, that of the new country he finds himself in, and that of his long-suffering girlfriend from Mexico. It isn’t quite a comedy, it isn’t quite a drama, but it has a unique flavor and the insight into other cultures is always fascinating to me. And it helps that the episodes are closer in length to 30 minutes, which makes it a lot easier to pop them off. Seriously, in a world in which the average K-Drama runs an hour and fifteen minutes per episode, I’d give my kingdom for some shorter fare like this.
Which is also one of the appeals of FAKES, also on Netflix, which concerns a pair of high school girls who inadvertently build one of the largest fake ID rings in American history. It’s based loosely on a true story. What I’ve been finding interesting about it is that the two leads, Zoe and Rebecca, alternate narrating episodes, and both are presented as unreliable narrators, which means that you’ll occasionally revisit events and see them completely differently depending on who is recounting the tale. It’s a very interesting narrative choice, one that gets even more bizarre once Tryst, their shady backer, drops in to narrate an episode focused on his perspective. I don’t know that it’s a show whose premise can really be stretched beyond a single season, but assuming that it stays to that run-time, it’s very watchable.
And talking of shows whose premise has been stretched beyond all rationality, the new season of COBRA KAI dropped this past Friday. I can really empathize with the struggles the creators of the series must be having, as following a stellar first season that was truly a complete unit in and of itself, their success has caused them to have to find new ways to keep things running in a circle, in which things seem to progress but never truly progress. Which is very much like the way super hero comics operate by necessity. And for all that it’s a bit unbelievable that the central conflicts between competing karate dojos dating back to the events of the original KARATE KID trilogy can remain simultaneously of the utmost importance and seriousness for five seasons while also not truly advancing in the slightest, the show remains eminently enjoyable so long as you don’t take any of it too seriously. In particular, William Zabka is wonderfully engaging and sympathetic as the clueless Johnny Lawrence, who can’t leave the past behind and can’t get out of his own way. He really is the glue that makes all of this other nonsense work. Also absurd at this point is just how deep the production is going in terms of bringing back characters and actors from the original trilogy, scaping beyond the bottom of the barrel and into the concrete below. But the show does have a strange sense of nostalgia to is, similar to that I felt for TOP GUN: MAVERICK. Which is to say, I didn’t love the source material, but having grown up when it was in its prime, I was aware of it and had seen it. So simply having callbacks to those events elicit a response, whether I’ve thought about or cared about those events at any time since. It’s a pretty good party trick.
And finally, RICK & MORTY has returned for another all-new season. It’s a difficult show to like, in part because a portion of its fandom is so toxic and off-putting. But there’s no getting around the fact that in many ways it’s the Rosetta Stone for so much of the animated shows that have come since: SOLAR OPPOSITES, STAR TREK: LOWER DECK and FINAL SPACE all owe a debt of style and approach to RICK AND MORTY, and have followed in its footsteps. And I enjoyed the first episode back—although I was also amused by the fact that a series that so aggressively tries to rebel against the notion of canon and of serialized long-form storytelling tends to also work best when it pays off on elements of its canon and long-form storytelling. It’s also the most merciless series of its kind, willing to push the envelope further and drive itself off the cliff faster than anything else that’s attempting to emulate it. And even as most of its creative staff has turned over, with its graduates going on to better assignments in the field, the producers seem to have had no great difficulty in finding equally clever writers to replace them.
Also, it is phenomenal in Japanese.
Think that’s going to do me for this week. Hope you’re all having a good one, and we’ll get together and do this again in seven days’ time.
Tom B
Wow! Lots of great stuff in this one! I will definitely check out Millie the Model. Marvel Unlimited brought me back to comics as an adult, plus I’ve been to a bunch of really cool events thanks to the Plus membership.
Anyway, here’s my question for this week! Tom I remember you saying that the Variants (which I am really enjoying, we’re getting lots of multiverse stories right now but this one hits on the things I like most about them) started from a story idea by you. Which of your story ideas are the most well known, and are there any you wish you could take back?
Thanks as always!
New Millie The Model! - great stuff Tom, didn’t think we’d ever see that. I shall be firing up Marvel Unlimited later. Now If we can just get those epic collections going ....