The recent seven issue miniseries Justice League Vs. Godzilla Vs. Kong from DC Comics and Legendary Comics sees the premiere super team of the DC Universe encounter Godzilla, King Kong, and several more monsters from the cinematic Monsterverse.
Lex Luthor and the Legion of Doom break into Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, hoping to steal a Mother Box to use to send the Justice League into another dimension. Unfortunately for Luthor’s plan, sticky-fingered villain Toyman purloins the mystical Dreamstone gem, setting off the Fortress’ alarms. The Justice League shows up to stop the Legion, and in the fight that follows the Mother Box is accidentally activated, transporting Luthor’s team away.
The Legion arrives on Skull Island on the Earth of the Monsterverse. Toyman, still in possession of the Dreamstone, finds himself wishing he could play with the “wonderful toys” that are the titanic monsters of this reality, and he unwittingly transports Skull Island and all of its inhabitants back to the Earth of the DCU. The monsters soon spread across the globe, with Godzilla himself heading to Metropolis to confront Superman.
Much like the recently released Monsterverse entry Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, the Justice League Vs. Godzilla Vs. Kong miniseries is the equivalent of a big budget action-packed popcorn flick. It’s not any sort of sophisticated work of high art… but it sure is a lot of fun, especially if you happen to be a fan of both DC Comics and kaiju movies, like myself.
Justice League Vs. Godzilla Vs. Kong is written by Brian Buccellato. He sets it in what is basically an Elseworlds or Black Label reality, one that is close to yet separate from the mainstream DCU. In this reality Clark Kent and Lois Lane are dating, and Lois knows Clark is Superman, but they are not yet married. In fact, Clark is just about to propose to Lois when Godzilla appears on the horizon spoiling for a fight.
Buccellato writes plenty of action sequences. In addition to Superman vs Godzilla, we get the League fighting several monsters across the world, with the Legion of Doom and its allies thrown in for good measure. There are plenty of moments of awesomeness, such as Batman building a giant-Bat-robot to fight a Luthor-controlled Mechagodzilla, and Kong getting his hands on a green lantern ring.
I did think that the plot could have used a bit more focus, though. At times there were a few too many characters and plotlines to keep track of. Notably, there was this one subplot of Ra’s al Ghul and the League of Assassins using giant Lazarus Pits to resurrect dead monsters, creating skeletal kaijus. It’s a cool idea, but I felt it sort of cluttered up an already-hectic, busy story. And I don’t think we ever find out how Green Arrow gets rescued after getting dumped in the middle of the ocean by the League of Assassins.
Also, despite the title of this miniseries, Godzilla and Kong barely interact with one another, which was definitely disappointing. I was looking forward to seeing those two throw down for at least a few pages.
Buccellato does have a good handle on the Justice League characters. I especially appreciated how he wrote Batman. The Dark Knight is a master strategist, yet he’s not a secretive, paranoid neurotic, and he works closely with the other members of the League and with the “Bat-family” to enact his plans. This Batman also regards Superman as a close friend & comrade, and is genuinely distraught when Superman is grievously injured by Godzilla.
The artwork on the first three issues of Justice League Vs. Godzilla Vs. Kong is by Christian Duce. I’m not familiar with him, but he does solid work on the miniseries. He renders both the DC characters and the monsters really well. There were a few instances where the flow of the action on his pages was a bit confusing. I felt that perhaps he ought to have pulled the “camera” back a bit to allow a wider view of the characters, so it would be more clear precisely what was taking place. But on the whole Duce did a good job especially with the “widescreen” action sequences on several double page spreads.
I believe there were some deadline problems (each issue IS 30 pages long), because on issues 4 to 7 the art chores were split between Duce and Tom Derenick. I’m a fan of Derenick’s work, so I really didn’t mind. I also felt that the coloring by Luis Guerrero helped to make the art somewhat more uniform than it might otherwise have been, so there wasn’t a jarring difference between Duce and Derenick.
I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but it felt like Derekick was working in a bit of a Neal Adams-inspired style here. Whatever the case, Derenick is definitely one of the clearest, most solid artists working in mainstream comic books, and he does quality work.
Rounding out the interior credits, lettering on the miniseries was done by Richard Starkings and Comicraft’s Jimmy Betancourt.
Justice League Vs. Godzilla Vs. Kong was released with a whole heap of variant covers. First the first issue I picked up the variant by Francesco Mattina, because that was literally the only version that wasn’t sold out! That’s actually fine, because even though I’m unfamiliar with Mattina he did a fantastic job on it, depicting the entire Justice League facing down a fighting-mad Godzilla getting ready to unleash his atomic breath.
For the rest of the issues, I picked up the regular covers by Drew Johnson & Romulo Fajardo Jr. I felt that on some of those Johnson had some problems with fitting the radically different scales of the characters into a cohesive composition. Also, some of his human figures were a bit stiffly posed, especially on the cover to #7. Nevertheless, Johnson does a good job rendering all of the monsters, and he tries to give each cover a sense of drama & movement, so in that respect he definitely gets the job done.
So, while not without flaws, Justice League Vs. Godzilla Vs. Kong is nevertheless an entertaining miniseries. As I said before, if you like both superheroes and kaijus, you’ll probably enjoy it.
Prolific comic book creator Keith Giffen passed away earlier this week at the age of 70. It would be difficult to sum up a four-and-a-half-decade long career that encompassed a diverse range of characters and genres, but I’ll try to hit on a few highlights, as well as personal favorites, here.
Giffen broke into the comic book biz in 1976. One of his earliest jobs was penciling the second chapter of a short-lived serial titled “The Sword in the Star!” written by Bill Mantlo that appeared in the black & white Marvel Comics magazine Marvel Preview #7, cover-dated Summer 1976. This story notably introduced a talking raccoon named “Rocky,” a humorous nod to the 1968 Beatles song “Rocky Raccoon.” And, yes, the character eventually transmogrified into Rocket Raccoon. More on that later.
Marvel Preview #7 written by Bill Mantlo, penciled & inked by Keith Giffen, and lettered by Karen Mantlo, published by Marvel Comics in Summer 1976
After this, Giffen left comics for a few years. He returned in 1980, where he worked to establish a professional work ethic and restore his reputation with the editors at DC and Marvel Comics.
Legion of Super-Heroes poster drawn by Keith Giffen & Larry Mahlstedt, released by DC Comics in 1984 (Click on it to embiggen!)
Giffen was first paired up with writer Paul Levitz on Legion of Super-Heroes #285 for DC in 1982, and within a short time the two of them were working very closely together to co-plot the series. The collaboration between Levitz and Giffen proved to be extremely fruitful, and together with inker Larry Mahlstedt they created the five-part epic “The Great Darkness Saga” that ran in Legion #290-294. “The Great Darkness Saga” saw Jack Kirby’s tyrannical god Darkseid return in the 30th Century to face the Legion, and it is generally regarded as one of the all-time greatest Legion stories ever told.
Giffen remained on LOSH until 1984, when he drew a huge, insanely detailed Legion poster featuring pretty much every single character from the series up to that point in time. Giffen would later recount to Jon B. Cooke in an interview for The Jack Kirby Collector #29 (August 2000) from TwoMorrows Publishing why after drawing this poster he made the decision to leave the series:
“What happened was I did this Legion poster, characters all over the place. And in drawing that Legion poster I totally burned myself out on the book. After the poster I just had to walk away.”
Omega Men #1 co-plotted & scripted by Roger Slifer, co-plotted & penciled by Keith Giffen, inked by Mike DeCarlo, lettered by John Costanza, and colored by Petra Goldberg, published by DC Comics in April 1983
While on LOSH, Giffen also penciled & co-plotted the first several issues of the gritty space opera Omega Men, working with writer Roger Slifer and inker Mike DeCarlo. In the third issue Giffen & Slifer introduced brutal alien bounty hunter Lobo, who they intended as a parody of the violent anti-heroes who were starting to become popular in American comics. (I put together a retrospective on the Slifer & Giffen issues in 2015, after Slifer passed away.)
Giffen created the incredibly comedic, irreverent Ambush Bug for DC Comics in 1982. Paired with scripter Robert Loren Fleming, Giffen did an Ambush Big miniseries in 1985, followed by Son of Ambush Bug in 1986. It’s been said that Ambush Bug was Deadpool before there was a Deadpool, i.e. a character breaking the fourth wall with snarky commentary and ridiculous antics, lampooning the tropes of the superhero medium.
Things get REALLY weird… Legion of Super-Heroes #310 co-plotted & scripted by Paul Levitz, co-plotted & penciled by Keith Giffen, inked by Larry Mahlstedt, lettered by John Costanza, and colored by Carl Gafford, published by DC Comics in April 1983
Throughout the 1980s Giffen’s penciling became increasingly stylized, and his layouts & storytelling also started becoming quite unconventional. He was heavily influenced — perhaps TOO heavily — by Argentine artist José Antonio Muñoz. This was especially apparent in the “Prophet and Omen” storyline that ran in LOSH #307-310 in early 1983. If “The Great Darkness Saga” is considered one of the greatest Legion stories, “Prophet and Omen” is regarded as one of the most baffling.
The next major work by Giffen was the 1987 reboot of the Justice League. Giffen plotted and did rough layouts for Justice League International, paired up with scripter J.M. DeMatteis and, initially, penciler Kevin Maguire. While I’ve never been all that much into Giffen & DeMatteis’ sitcom approach to the League, I readily acknowledge that the “Bwah-ha-ha-ha” years have a HUGE number of fans who absolutely loved those stories.
Send in the clowns… Justice League International #25 plotted & breakdowns by Keith Giffen, scripted by J.M. DeMatteis, penciled by Ty Templeton, inked by Josef Rubinstein, lettered by Bob Laphan, and colored by Gene D’Angelo, published by DC Comics in April 1989
The thing about Giffen is that throughout his career his stories were either ridiculous & cheeky, or they were incredibly dark & intense. So, following the comedy of Justice League International, Giffen returned to Legion of Super-Heroes in 1989 with the “Five Years Later” direction that saw the 30th Century United Planets collapse into a horrific dystopia, and the scattered members of the team, now adults, attempting to deal with the political & economic carnage. Giffen worked with co-plotter & inker Al Gordon and scripters Tom & Mary Bierbaum.
In the second half of the 1980s Giffen had begun working in a strict nine-panel grid, but within those panels the layouts & compositions of his penciling were decidedly unconventional. I can only describe it as a fascinating combination of order and chaos. He really leaned into this storytelling technique during the “Five Years Later” era.
A good demonstration of the nine-panel grid… Legion of Super-Heroes #13 co-plotted & penciled by Keith Giffen, co-plotted & inked by Al Gordon, co-plotted & scripted by Tom & Mary Bierbaum, lettered by Todd Klein, and colored by Tom McGraw, published by DC Comics in November 1990
“Five Years Later” understandably proved to be divisive among longtime Legion fans, but three decades on it is now generally recognized as an interesting, bold approach.
During the 1990s Giffen worked on a variety of projects for DC, Dark Horse, Image and Valiant. In the early 2000s he returned to Marvel. He was one of the writers on the Annihilation event in 2006, and one of his main contributions was utilizing the previously obscure character Peter Quill, aka Starlord. A year later Giffen was involved in the follow-up Annihilation: Conquest, which saw him revisit a character from the very beginnings of his career.
Subsequent to “The Sword in the Star!” serial Mantlo brought back Rocky, now calling him Rocket Raccoon, in a couple of issues of The Incredible Hulk published in 1982, followed by a four issue Rocket Raccoon miniseries in 1985. And, other than a couple of other appearances in the early 1990s, that was it for Rocket.
The origin of the Rocket Raccoon and Groot team… Annihilation: Conquest – Starlord #1 written by Keith Giffen, penciled by Timothy Green II, inked by Victor Olazaba, lettered by Rus Wooton, and colored by Nathan Fairbairn, published by Marvel Comics in September 2007
Fast forward to 2007, and Marvel was doing Annihilation: Conquest. Enter Keith Giffen, who wrote the four issue Annihilation: Conquest – Starlord miniseries, featuring artwork by Timothy Green II & Victor Olazaba. The miniseries saw Peter Quill assembling a team of obscure “cosmic” characters to fight against the menace of the Phalanx cyborgs. Among those was Rocket Racoon, with Giffen returning to the character for the first time since his debut 31 years earlier. Giffen also made the decision to pair up Rocket with Groot the talking alien tree, an even more obscure character created by Jack Kirby way back in 1960.
A number of the characters from Annihilation and Annihilation: Conquest, including Peter Quill, Rocket Racoon and Groot, soon after became the core members of the new Guardians of the Galaxy team, who in 2014 featured in the hit MCU movie directed by James Gunn.
So, yeah, Giffen was the man behind the now-iconic duo of Rocket and Groot.
Enter Bat-Cow… Infinity Man and the Forever People #4 written by Keith Giffen & Dan DiDio, penciled by Giffen, inked by Scott Koblish, lettered by Travis Lanham, and colored by Hi-Fi, published by DC Comics in December 2014
Giffen was also the layout artist for the weekly 52 series published by DC in 2006, and he was credited as a “story consultant” for the weekly Countdown series a year later. When DC did their huge New 52 reboot in 2011, Giffen worked on several titles, including O.M.A.C. and Infinity Man and the Forever People with Dan DiDio. On both series Giffen was very effectively inked by Scott Koblish.
In the remembrances posted by Giffen’s colleagues over the past few days, it’s been observed that he was A) a notorious curmudgeon, a part he apparently played with a hidden glee to the hilt, B) incredibly talented & creative, and C) that beneath his cantankerous facade he could be incredibly encouraging & supportive of his collaborators.
I was fortunate to meet Giffen on a few occasions over the years when he was a guest at comic book conventions. A few years ago, he was at East Coast Comic Con. I asked him to sign the Annihilation: Conquest – Starlord miniseries, along with a few other things. And then I enthusiastically said to him “You’re the guy who first teamed up Rocket Racoon and Groot!” To which Giffen, in his typical fashion, basically responded with an indifferent shrug. Yeah, that was Keith Giffen for you.
Infinity Man and the Forever People #9 cover penciled by Keith Giffen, inked by Scott Koblish, and colored by Hi-Fi, published by DC Comics in May 2015
Another time I asked Giffen to sign a couple of issues of Infinity Man and the Forever People. As a fan of Kirby’s Fourth World, I had liked the short-lived title, even if had ended up being very uneven (as I previously blogged, the frequent changes in pencilers didn’t help), because I felt Giffen & DiDio were at least trying to do something new & interesting with the Forever People. I informed Giffen that I’d enjoyed the series. He sort-of frowned and responded “We were trying to repeat what we had with O.M.A.C. but unfortunately we didn’t succeed.” I thought that was indicative of someone who underneath it all really did want to do the best work he possibly could, and who held himself to high standards.
As you can no doubt discern, Giffen possessed a very, um, distinctive sense of humor that frequently made itself known in his work. That quality was on display right until LITERALLY the end, as he requested that his family post the below status to his Facebook page upon his passing.
I wasn’t certain if I should be laughing or crying. I guess a combination of both would be appropriate. Giffen definitely knew how to make an exit, that’s for sure.
While I didn’t like everything Giffen did (s0metimes his work became much too dark & depressing), I definitely admire him for his creativity & versatility, and for his desire to buck trends and walk his own path.
Previously I looked at the final annual Justice League-Justice Society team-up in 1985, before Crisis on Infinite Earths eliminated all of DC Comics’ parallel realities. I also looked at how, following Crisis, the Justice Society of America was shunted off to limbo until 1991, when an eight-issue miniseries featuring the team, set in the early 1950s, was released. I further looked at how the success of that miniseries convinced DC to bring the JSA back from limbo and give them an ongoing series in 1992, only for that title to end after only 10 issues, resulting in DC once again changing course, and the majority of the JSA getting killed off in the 1994 crossover Zero Hour.
Okay, that’s quite a few previous-es! Anyway…
For the remainder of the 1990s the Justice Society was all but dead and buried, with three notable exceptions. Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, was mystically de-aged and re-named “Sentinel.” Jay Garrick, the first Flash, served as a valued mentor to Wally West, the young modern-day Flash. And Ted Grant, aka Wildcat, was still bumping around, crossing paths with Batman and Catwoman.
Finally, though, as the decade was coming to a close, the JSA at last returned, and in a big way. In early 1999 DC released the nine-part The Justice Society Returns event spearheaded by writers James Robinson & David S. Goyer, an epic story featuring the team’s battle with a cosmic menace in 1945.
At the same time, in the pages of the ongoing JLA series written by Grant Morrison, the JSA re-formed in the modern day. “Crisis Times Five” ran thru JLA #28-31, cover-dated April to July 1999. Morrison was accompanied by the regular art team of penciler Howard Porter & inker John Dell, with letters by Ken Lopez, colors by Pat Garrahy & Digital Chameleon, and editing by Dan Raspler & Tony Bedard.
“Crisis Times Five” was the first official Justice League-Justice Society team-up in 14 years. It even follows the naming convention of many of those summer crossovers by containing “Crisis” in the story title, i.e. “Crisis on Earth-One,” “The Super-Crisis That Struck Earth-Two,” “Crisis in Eternity,” and so on. “Crisis Times Five” is also probably my favorite part of Morrison’s three and a half year run on the JLA series.
As I’ve recounted on a few occasions, I really did not start reading comic books regularly until the summer of 1989. As such, I missed Morrison’s groundbreaking run on Animal Man. Rather, I discovered his work via his incredibly bizarre writing on Doom Patrol, where he was paired with penciler Richard Case and cover artist Simon Bisley; I believe Doom Patrol #44 (May 1991) was the first issue I read. Even though it was weird & confusing, I nevertheless found Doom Patrol intriguing, I was soon following the series monthly, and searching out earlier issues.
I was genuinely surprised when Morrison was chosen to launch the new JLA series in 1997 because, well, the Justice League was such a, shall we say, normal team. Whereas the members of the Doom Patrol had always been the freaks & misfits of the DC Universe, the Justice League were the most iconic DC heroes, especially now that Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were headlining the team for the first time since before Crisis.
And while Morrison did soon put his own distinctive spin on mainstream superheroes in the pages of JLA, the reason why I really enjoyed “Crisis Times Five” is that it sees him plugging the team into one of the nightmarishly surreal high-concept plots that he regularly utilized in Doom Patrol.
“Crisis Times Five” sees several reality-warping entities warring across the face of the Earth. Although known as “djinn” or “genies,” these beings in fact originate from the Fifth Dimension, home to perennial nuisance Mister Mxyzptlk. But whereas Mxy is content to harass Superman every 90 days, many of the other denizens of the Fifth Dimension are ready to inflict wholesale destruction on the reality containing the planet Earth.
And one of these imps is revealed to be the Thunderbolt, the glowing pink Badhnesian genie who served longtime Society member Johnny Thunder for decades. This brings the survivors of the team together again to fight alongside the League against these cosmic menaces.
“Crisis Times Five” is something of a backdoor pilot to the ongoing JSA series that launched later in 1999. Alan Scott, Jay Garrick, Ted Grant and Hippolyta encounter teenager Jakeem Thunder, who now has control of the mystic Thunderbolt, and the four of them decide to reform the Justice Society in part so they can mentor the young man and help prevent another reality-threatening emergency.
Hippolyta, by the way, was retconned into the Wonder Woman of the Golden Age by John Byrne. Following her daughter Diana’s death, Hippolyta assumed the role of Wonder Woman, then traveled back in time to the 1940s, where she spent several years as a member of the Justice Society before returning to the present. At the time, with DC still committed to there just being a single Earth, it was a good way to restore a Wonder Woman to the JSA’s history. I had mixed feelings about Byrne’s run on the Wonder Woman series, but I enjoyed that development, and I’m glad both Morrison and Robinson & Goyer continued to utilize the character.
As a fan of the just-canceled The Power of Shazam series by Jerry Ordway, I also appreciated Morrison giving Captain Marvel and the Wizard Shazam fairly significant roles in “Crisis Times Five.” It’s been suggested that there’s really no need to have both Superman and Captain Marvel on the same team, as there’s a fair amount of overlap in the characters’ personalities & power sets. I think there’s a certain validity to this argument, so Billy Batson’s appearance in this storyline did help set up his joining the JSA further down the line, ensuring the character didn’t fall off the radar.
If I have one significant quibble with “Crisis Times Five” it’s that it feels somewhat over-packed with concepts, rushing through events in the last two chapters. Morrison utilizes Triumph, the disgraced, time-displaced ex-Leaguer who, desperate to recapture his lost acclaim, becomes a pawn of the imp Lkz. Triumph’s presence may have made the story a bit too crowded. Or if Morrison really did want to use the character, perhaps “Crisis Times Five” should have been five parts instead of four. Then again, considering this was exactly the point when decompressed, widescreen storytelling was becoming popular in comic books, I appreciate that Morrison wasn’t padding his stories out.
Porter & Dell do a superb job drawing Morrison’s story, really bringing to life the ghastly distortions to reality inflicted by the warring imps, and at illustrating the strange, preposterous state of being and absence of tangible physics in the Fifth Dimension. And I appreciated that Morrison strongly implies that the way that the way Porter & Dell draw Dimension 5 isn’t how it actually appears, but merely the way that Green Lantern and Captain Marvel are perceiving a truly alien reality.
The artwork also effectively brings to life the mind-blowing concept of the Spectre, the wrath of God, physically merged with an inhabited planetoid, imprisoned in such a way that Sentinel and Zauriel seemingly have no way to free their ghostly ally without killing countless innocent life forms.
And the image of the Thunderbolt and Lzk ready to literally start pummeling each other with the Earth and the Moon has one foot in the strange distortions of Morrison’s Doom Patrol and the other in the Spectre stories of the Silver Age. From the later, the cover to Showcase #61 (Mar-Apr 1966) by Murphy Anderson immediately comes to mind.
Anyway, my point is, as brilliantly insane as Morrison’s ideas & stories are, it still falls to artists to actually bring them to life on the page. And just as Richard Case previously did on Doom Patrol, so too did Howard Porter draw the hell out of Morrison’s JLA.
While I can’t say that I’m this huge fan of the entire JLA run by Morrison, Porter, Dell & friends, I nevertheless recognize it as a significant turning point at DC, when the company finally got resolved the various intra-editorial disagreements that had been agitation for the past decade and were once again able to publish a Justice League title featuring all of their A-listers. And I also appreciate that JLA helped play a role in finally lifting the Justice Society out of their prolonged post-Crisis neglect, leading to a great new series for the world’s first superhero team in the final months of the 20th Century.
Hasen worked regularly at DC throughout the 1940s and during the first half of the 1950s, during which he was associated with the Justice Society of America and certain of its members. He was one of the regular artists on the JSA feature in All-Star Comics during the second half of the 1940s. Hasen also co-created Wildcat with writer Bill Finger in late 1941, and he was one of the earliest artists on Green Lantern. Between 1949 and 1954 he drew a number of covers for the Wonder Woman series.
I really feel Hasen was an underrated artist. Some of his Golden Age work for DC was spectacular, and he created several now-iconic cover images that subsequently influenced future comic book creators.
Writer & editor Roy Thomas has acknowledged on several occasions that the All-Star Comics issues published between late 1946 and early 1948 were among the earliest comic books he read as a child, and that they were a significant influence on his work. This is especially apparent when one looks at Thomas’ writing on All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc. for DC during the 1980s.
Hasen’s striking cover for All-Star Comics #33 (cover-dated Feb-March 1947) features the undead swamp monster Solomon Grundy menacingly looming over the JSA trapped in a transparent sphere. To the right is Michael Bair, Tony DeZuniga & Anthony Tollin’s homage to it four decades later for the cover to Infinity Inc. #39 (June 1987), an issue in which Roy & Dann Thomas recounted Solomon Grundy’s history.
Per Degaton, a time traveling fascist who attempted to conquer the world by altering history, made his debut in “The Day that Dropped Out of Time!” by writer John Broome in All-Star Comics #35 (June-July 1947). Hasen drew another striking cover for this issue, on which Degaton’s warping of Earth’s history is represented by his manipulation of a giant hourglass, with past events flowing through it.
Hasen’s cover for All-Star Comics #35 has actually been the subject of several homages over the years. One of these was JSA #72 (June 2005) painted by Alex Ross, which sees Degaton once again up to his old temporal trickery.
There’s also America vs. the Justice Society #4 (April 1985) and The All-Star Companion Volume 4 (July 2009) both by Jerry Ordway, All-Star Squadron #14 (Oct 1982) by the legendary Joe Kubert, and even a splash page from Avengers Annual #2 (Sept. 1968) drawn by Drawn Heck, Werner Roth & Vince Colletta!
Credits for Golden Age comics can be a tricky thing. A lot of work was published without credits, and decades later it can be a real mystery as to who did what. “Five Drowned Men” in All-Star Comics #36 (Aug.-Sept. 1947) is one of those cases. No one knows who wrote it, although it’s been suggestedthat it’s an unused Gardner Fox script rewritten by Robert Kaniger and/or Julius Schwartz. Also, no one has been able to figure out the identity of the artist who drew the Batman chapter in this issue.
And then we come to the cover. Irwin Hasen signed a fair amount of his work, including the previous two All-Star Comics covers I’ve spotlighted. But the cover to #36 is unsigned. All-Star Comics Archives Volume 8 credits it to Win Mortimer. The Grand Comics Database, however, ascribes it to Hasen, with the following explanation:
“The cover was done by Irwin Hasen (as confirmed by Hasen to Dr. Jeff McLaughlin) using various source material. The figures of Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Dr. Mid-Nite seem to be Hasen figures, the Flash figure seems to be a paste-up of a Lee Elias figure, Hawkman is a photostat or paste-up of a Joe Kubert figure, while Superman and Batman appear to be by Hasen, possibly re-touched by John Belfi to give them the look of those done by Wayne Boring and Win Mortimer.”
Well, whoever was responsible, it made an impression on Thomas. Alter Ego was a groundbreaking fanzine founded by comics historian Jerry Bails back in 1961. When Thomas was given the opportunity to revive Alter Ego at TwoMorrows Publishing in 1999, for the first issue he had Jerry Ordway illustrate a homage to the All-Star Comics #36 cover.
All-Star Comics #37 (Oct.-Nov. 1947) has six of the JSA’s greatest enemies forming the Injustice Society of the World, one of the first supervillain teams. Hasen’s dramatic cover, which is echoed inside on the first page splash, sees (from left to right) the Gambler, Brain Wave, Vandal Savage, the Wizard, Per Degaton, and the Thinker carving up a map of the United States between them, with a defeated JSA shackled to the walls behind them.
The initial 10 issue story arc of Infinity Inc. written by Roy & Dann Thomas sees several members of the JSA turned evil by the Ultra-Humanite via the insanity-inducing waters of Koehaha, aka “the Stream of Ruthlessness,” which was introduced nearly 40 years earlier in All-Star Comics #36 (the previous entry in this list). “The Generations Saga” culminated in Infinity Inc. #10 (Jan. 1985) which featured artist Jerry Ordway & colorist Anthony Tollin’s dramatic cover homage to All-Star Comics #37, with the Ultra-Humanite and mind-warped JSA members taking the place of the Injustice Society, and the Infinitors bound to the walls.
These next two entries appear to have led to later covers that were not so much direct homages as images inspired by the earlier works. Julius Schwartz was one of the editors on All-Star Comics in the late 1940s, and a little over a decade later he was the editor of Justice League of America, which was basically the Silver Age reboot of the JSA.
Hasen’s cover for All-Star Comics #42 (Aug.-Sept. 1948) with the members of the JSA tied to a giant “perpetual motion machine,” as per John Broom’s script for the issue, is thought to have possibly inspired the cover to Justice League of America #6 (Aug.-Sept. 1961) by Mike Sekowsky & Murphy Anderson which has the members of that team tied to a giant “wheel of misfortune,” as per Gardner Fox’s script for that issue.
Finally, we come to Hasen’s dynamic cover for All-Star Comics #43 (Oct.-Nov. 1948) which sees the JSA fighting a massive automaton that I’d describe as looking like a cross between a giant wind-up robot and a predecessor to a Gundam mecha from Japan.
That appears to be a direct inspiration for the Sekowsky & Anderson cover to The Brave and the Bold #28 (April-May 1960), the second appearance of the JLA. On that cover the League is tangling with a similar, albeit more advanced-looking, killer robot / giant battlesuit.
These are just the tip of the iceberg, both for the artwork of Irwin Hasen and for homages to Golden Age imagery. But I think it helps illustrate just how much of an influence the work of Hasen and his contemporaries had on subsequent creators.
A quarter of a century earlier, in the pages of Flash #123 (cover-dated Sept. 1961) Barry Allen, the Fastest Man Alive, had been transported to an alternate reality where he discovered Jay Garrick, the comic book hero who had inspired Barry to assume the costumed identity of the Flash, actually existed. “Flash of Two Worlds” established the premise of Earth-One and Earth-Two, with Barry and his fellow crime fighters in the Justice League of America existing on the former, while Jay and his teammates in the Justice Society of America dwelled on the later, having adopted their costumed identities two decades earlier.
The rest of the JSA soon came out of retirement, and in the pages of Justice League of America #21-22 (Aug. to Sept. 1963) the full line-ups of the two teams joined forces for the very first time. “Crisis on Earth-One!” and “Crisis on Earth-Two!” by writer Gardner Fox, penciler Mike Sekowsky, inker Bernard Sachs & editor Julius Schwartz inaugurated what would become the annual Summer team-ups of the JLA and JSA,a practice that would continue uninterrupted for the next 23 years.
But all good things must come to an end. In 1985 DC Comics made the decision to wipe out all of their alternate realities in the 12 issue mega-crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths, and in the ashes all of their characters would exist on one single, solitary Earth. Ostensibly this was because DC believed that readers found the multiple earths concept confusing. And while Crisis did lead to the acclaimed reboots of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman by John Byrne, Frank Miller and George Perez respectively, it also meant that Earth-Two no longer existed… in fact had NEVER existed. The JLA and JSA would no longer be crossing the dimensional barrier to meet each other. And now that both teams existed on the same Earth, the decision was made to write the JSA out of existence, seemingly for good.
And so, as the Summer of 1985 rolled around, the final JLA-JSA team-up saw print, a two-part story that ran in Infinity Inc. #19 and Justice League of America #244. The first part, “Last Crisis on Earth-Two,” was written by Roy & Dann Thomas, penciled by Todd McFarlane, inked by Steve Montano, lettered by David Cody Weiss and colored by Anthony Tollin & Adrienne Roy, with cover inks by Tony DeZuniga. Part two, “The Final Crisis,” was written by Gerry Conway, penciled by Joe Staton, inked by Mike Machlan, lettered by Albert De Guzman and colored by Gene D’Angelo.
Many of the previous JLA-JSA team-ups had seen the two teams facing world-threatening menaces. But as this tale was set right in the middle of Crisis on Infinite Earths, which saw the fate of the whole of reality itself hanging in the balance, the Thomases and Conway instead conceived a much more personal story.
Central to this story was World War II hero Hank Heywood, aka Commander Steel, who originated on Earth-Two. As I recounted in my recent look back at the first year of All-Star Squadron, Steel had been created by Conway and artist Don Heck in 1978. Steel, The Indestructible Man had lasted only five issues before becoming one of the victims of the DC Implosion. Four years later Thomas worked a number of pages by Conway & Heck from the unpublished Steel #6 into All-Star Squadron, and then resolving the cliffhanger ending himself, with Commander Steel joining the All-Stars.
Another four years later, in All-Star Squadron #50, the Commander was transported from Earth-Two to Earth-One, setting up the character to once again be utilized by Conway in the pages of Justice League of America. Conway’s stories had the now-middle aged Heywood transform his grandson Hank Heywood III into a modern-day version of Steel and bankroll the so-called “Justice League Detroit” version of the JLA which Hank the Third joined.
Infinity Inc. #19 sees Commander Steel return to Earth-Two for the first time in four decades, accompanied by Mekanique, a robot shaped like a golden woman. The Commander approaches Infinity Inc, a team of young heroes made up of the sons, daughters and proteges of the Justice Society, requesting their help. He claims that a group of villains on Earth-One have become a new Justice League as part of a secret plan to conquer the world. The Commander requests the Infinitors’ aid in defeating this evil League. Although skeptical, the young heroes agree to accompany the Commander and Mekanique across the dimensional barrier. Meanwhile, the mystic Dr. Fate informs his teammates in the JSA about the impending cosmic calamity of the Crisis.
Arriving in Detroit on Earth-One, the Commander provokes Infinity Inc into attacking his grandson Steel and the other members of the League. The Infinitors quickly realize that something is very wrong, but events are moving much too fast for either side to halt the fight. The Martian Manhunter is able to spirit away the rest of the defeated League members, except for Steel, who is captured by his grandfather and Mekanique.
Justice League of America #244 opens with the League fleeing to the team’s now-defunct satellite headquarters. Realizing that the Infinitors come from Earth-Two, the Martian Manhunter hopes to travel to that parallel world to ask the JSA for help. Zatanna’s magic is able to reactivate the teleportation equipment, and the team transports over to the other Earth.
Back in Detroit, in the bunker headquarters of the new League, the Commander and Mekanique are attempting to “reprogram” Steel. The Commander, ranting that “my generation was tested by battle, forged in the furnace of war,” believes his grandson is too “weak,” too in love with life to be an effective hero, and seeks to “fix” this problem.
The JSA teleports into the bunker while the Commander is in mid-tirade. Horrified at what has become of their former colleague, the JSA steps forward to stop the Commander, only for Mekanique to attack them. The Commander flees, but he is halted by the League and the Infinitors, who have joined forces. Fury, the daughter of the Golden Age Wonder Woman, frees Steel, who confronts his grandfather.
Suddenly the brawl is interrupted by a massive storm caused by the Crisis. The three teams quickly rush outside where they work together to save the citizens of Detroit from this cosmic calamity. And, as this worldwide catastrophe unfolds, back in the bunker Steel, tears in his eyes, is finally able to defeat his deranged grandfather.
And thus ends the last JLA-JSA team-up of the pre-Crisis era. While there was a lot of potential to the story by Roy & Dan and Gerry, it definitely felt rushed. As with a number of the other JLA-JSA stories that saw print from the early 1970s onward, when a third team was added into the mix each year, there were a heck of a lot of characters floating around, and two issues just did not give the story the necessary room to breathe. Justice League of America #245 was also a Crisis crossover, and it would have been perfect to use for a third chapter to this story. Instead, JLA #245 sees Steel hurled forward a billion years into the future where, on a devastated post-apocalyptic Earth, he becomes embroiled in a feud between the League’s old enemy the Lord of Time (no, no, not that guy… it’s THIS guy!) and his ambitious heirs.
“The Long Road Home” is a good story. And since the character would be senselessly killed off a year and a half later during the Legends crossover event, in hindsight it’s nice that Conway wrote a Steel solo adventure. But given the significance of “The Final Crisis” being the final annual Summer crossover of the JLA and JSA, it really would have been a good idea to allot that story a third issue, and then have “The Long Road Home” appear in #246 instead.
Nevertheless, this is still a decent two-parter. As I recounted in my All-Star Squadron post, since last December I’ve been working on assembling complete runs of both that series and Infinity Inc. and as such I was able to see how this storyline fit into the bigger picture.
Roy & Dann Thomas introduce the enigmatic Mekanique in their half of the story. Then, in the second part, when Conway has the JSA arrive, they immediately recognize her, with Hawkman telling his teammates “The tricks this robot used on the rest of you four decades ago won’t work now…” setting it up for Roy Thomas to then show the heroes first encountering the metal woman during World War II in upcoming issues of All-Star Squadron. Roy & Dann then continued that storyline in the follow-up series Young All-Stars, before finally bringing the whole thing to a close a couple of years later in Infinity Inc. Annual #2.
The artwork on these issues is really good. Infinity Inc. was future Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane’s first ongoing assignment, beginning with issue #14. At times I’ve found McFarlane to be somewhat overrated, and later on I feel it was unfortunate that his interest shifted away from drawing comics to manufacturing action figures, collecting baseballs and fighting with Neil Gaiman over the rights to Angela. But looking at McFarlane’s penciling on Infinity Inc. in the mid-1980s, it’s very clear why he became so popular so very fast. He utilized a lot of very interesting, unconventional layouts and storytelling techniques that at the time must have really grabbed the attention of readers.
McFarlane’s work prior to Infinity Inc. was on several back-up stories for Steve Englehart’s creator-owned series Coyote, and his work there had some wonky anatomy and perspectives, which I guess you inevitably find in a lot of pencilers who are just starting out. Given that, I strongly suspect that regular Infinity Inc. inker Tony DeZuniga was performing a fair amount of corrections of McFarlene’s pencils during their run. Guest inker Steve Montano no doubt did the same thing on this issue.
I’m mostly familiar with Montano’s work inking Rod Whigham on Doc Savage for DC in 1989 and then over both Jim Valentino and Kevin West on Guardians of the Galaxy at Marvel in the early 1990s. I liked the line quality Montano brought to all three of those pencilers. He also does very good work over McFarlane on this issue. There are some pages in Infinity Inc. #19 by McFarlane & Montano that remind me very much of George Perez’s dynamic, detailed work.
Justice League of America #244 is guest-penciled by Joe Staton. I cannot think of a more appropriate artist to give the JLA-JSA team-ups a send-off. Staton was the penciler of the JSA feature in All-Star Comics and Adventure Comics between 1977 and 1979, as well as penciling the team’s origin in DC Special #29, co-creating and penciling the adventures of The Huntress (the daughter of Batman and Catwoman on Earth-Two) and penciling a three issue Power Girl adventure in Showcase. In other words, Staton is considered by many, myself included, to be one of the definitive JSA artists, and I’m glad he got to draw one of their final pre-Crisis adventures. It’s also cool to see his depictions of the Infinitors.
Staton is inked by Mike Machlan, an artist who sadly passed away earlier this year. Machlan has previously inked Jerry Ordway on both All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc., so he also had a connection to these characters. I really like the collaboration between Staton and Machlan on JLA #244, and now I wish they could have worked together more often.
Taking a quick look at JLA #245, it’s the first issue by incoming penciler Luke McDonnell, who would remain on the series thru the final issue, #261. As I’ve noted in the past, I find McDonnell to be a really underrated artist. I like his shadowy, atmospheric style. Machlan also inks this issue, and the combination of McDonnell’s gritty pencils with Machlan’s slick, polished finishes works very well.
Last month DC released the third and final volume of Crisis on Multiple Earths collecting together all of the JLA-JSA annual team-ups. All, that is, except this one. It feels like an odd omission. Perhaps DC excluded Infinity Inc. #19 and Justice League of America #244 because those issues were recently collected in both Justice League: The Detroit Era Omnibus and Crisis on Infinite Earths Companion Deluxe Edition Volume 2? I don’t know. But it really sets off my comic book collecting OCD!
Well, if you pick up the three volumes of Crisis on Multiple Earths and then want to get this final JLA-JSA story it isn’t too difficult to find the two issues. Infinity Inc. #19 can be a little bit pricey due to both the early McFarlane artwork and it containing the first appearance of Dr. Beth Chapel, who a couple of issues later became the new Dr. Mid-Nite. I’ve seen it going for up to $25.00 on ebay, although I was able to find a copy at Midtown Comics a few months ago for only five bucks. As for JLA #244, I got it for $2.50, which was definitely a good price. So neither issue is going to set you back significantly if you look around a bit.
While it would definitely be great if DC released All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc. into collected editions, assembling runs of the actual comic books does enable you to read the letters pages and see what readers thought of these stories in real time, and to also read the informative responses & text pieces from Roy Thomas.
Infinity Inc. #24 features readers’ reactions to #19. Carleton K.Brown of Springfield MA writes in to say “Longtime fans may feel that this final team-up ends the tradition with more of a whisper than a bang…” which seems a fair assessment, although he does echo some of my own thoughts, stating “low-key stories can be done well, too.”
Kevin Wohlmut of Saratoga CA finds it unbelievable that Commander Steel, previously depicted as a brave war hero in All-Star Squadron, is now being written as “insane!” Thomas responds with the following information:
“As the creator of the hero for the STEEL title of the late 70s, it was Gerry’s decision to handle him in a certain way when he returned, so the answers to any of your questions will appear (if at all) in upcoming issues of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA.”
Obviously it’s tricky to ascribe real-world rationales for the actions of fictional superheroes written by multiple authors. But if I had to venture an explanation for the Commander’s behavior in this two-part story, I would say he could be suffering severe PTSD.
Shortly after enlisting in the army in late 1939, Heywood was critically injured by fifth columnists, necessitating the risky experimental procedure that transformed him into the cyborg Commander Steel. Some months later while on a covert mission to occupied Poland the Commander was captured by the Nazis and spent the next two years being tortured by them in a prisoner of war camp. He was then brainwashed by Baron Blitzkreig, who tried to use him to assassinate Roosevelt and Churchill. A few months later the Commander was transported to Earth-One, a reality in which he didn’t even exist, and cut off from family & friends had to rebuild his life from the ground up. And then his son Hank Junior died in Vietnam, leaving it to the Commander to raise his grandson, who he tried to remake to replace his dead child.
In other words, the guy has a lot of issues… and I’m not talking comic books!
In his letter Kevin also expresses disappointment at Jade’s “instant recovery” in Infinity Inc. #19 after being felled by Mr. Bones’ cyanide touch just an issue earlier. Thomas replies that JLA #244 was written & drawn beforeInfinity Inc. #19, and that he forgot to tell Conway not to include Jade in that issue, necessitating Roy & Dann having her make a speedy return to good health in the first chapter.
Both of these instances of a less-than-smooth hand-off for both characters & story from the Thomases to Conway are proof positive of the often-rocky creative process that occurs when working within a shared universe.
Along those lines, as someone who has really gotten into the Justice Society of America within the last several years, I definitely agree that the destruction of Earth-Two, the derailing of Roy Thomas’ long-term plans for All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc., and the near-complete disappearance of the team for a decade and a half (minus their brief return in the early 1990s) was very unfortunate. I’m glad that in 1999 DC finally decided to bring them back in a big way. That led to the two teams’ long-overdue first official post-Crisis team-up in the graphic novel JLA / JSA: Virtue and Vice released in 2003.
The JSA’s continuity unfortunately got super-wonky once again during The New 52 in 2011. But I hope that when the current much-delayed Justice Society of America miniseries finally reaches its conclusion (whenever that will be!) we might once again start seeing new JLA-JSA team-ups.
My reread of The Power of Shazam by Jerry Ordway and friends enters the fourth year. This is, regrettably, the home stretch. This has been such an enjoyable series to revisit, and I really with it had lasted longer.
We begin with a storyline that literally had my jaw hitting the floor the first time I read it.
Ordway did a very good job of balancing the serious and the whimsical on this series, but with issue #38 the $#^+ totally hit the fan. Mister Mind, the sole surviving member of the telepathic caterpillars from Venus that tried to invade Earth, manages to take control of Sarge Steel, director of Metahuman Affairs. Previously the government had taken custody of the nuclear-powered robot Mister Atom, and now Mister Mind dispatches it to destroy Bill Batson & Mary Bromfield by having it home in on Billy’s Justice League. communicator. Landing in the town of Fairfield, right outside the Bromfields’ house, Mister Atom self-destructs, obliterating the entire town, killing thousands of innocent people!
Billy and Mary in their Captain Marvel forms are in Fawcett City when they see the mushroom cloud on the horizon. They are understandably horrified, especially as they believe their adopted parents Nick & Nora Bronfield are among the dead. The sorcerer Ibis manages to neutralize the radioactive fallout, but he can do nothing for all those who have already perished.
The two Captains fail to prove Sarge Steel is being controlled by Mister Mind. Mary heads over to the laboratory of Professor Bibbowski (the genius brother of tough guy tavern owner Bibbo Bibbowski from the Superman books) and asks him to try to find a way of detecting & neutralizing Mister Mind.
Billy and Mary return to Fawcett, where they are relieved to learn that Nick & Nora managed to survive by pure dumb luck; they were heading out of Fairfield by car to try to find Billy and Mary when the bomb went off.
Mary uses the device invented by the Professor to drive Mister Mind out of Sarge Steel’s head, and to prevent the worm from taking over the President. Mind has already dispatched thousands of clones of himself to take over innocent people, sending them to nuclear facilities across the world, planning to destroy the Earth as revenge for his own species’ destruction. Mind also found out from possessing Sarge Steel that the government had custody of a massive alien exoskeleton another of his species used 50 years earlier, which we saw in the flashback during the Starman crossover.
Mind rampages across Washington DC in the exoskeleton. Jim Barr, aka Bulletman, watches this on TV, and it causes him to at long last remember his encounter with the alien armor during World War II, and to recall that the Green Lantern Abin Sur defeated the alien menace all those years before. Bulletman calls former GL Alan Scott, who in turn contacts current GL Kyle Rayner. Kyle flies to Washington accompanied by a time-displaced Hal Jordan (looooong story). Billy, Mary, and the two GLs have to figure out what is real and what is an illusion caused by Mind, but at last they crack open the armor. Sarge Steel then kills the murderous alien worm, which in turn causes Mind’s clones to die, saving the Earth from nuclear destruction. Whew!
“The Monster Society of Evil” (so named by Ordway after the original Mister Mind storyline from the 1940s) was an emotional rollercoaster. The series had only shifted its setting to Fairfield about a dozen issues earlier, so there really wasn’t too much time for the readers to get to know the new supporting cast, but it’s still a gut-punch to see the entire town destroyed, especially when it appears that Nick & Nora are among the dead.
I was genuinely relieved that the Bromfields had survived. Billy & Mary had already lost their real parents, and the idea that they might be made orphans a second time was horrifying. Plus I like how Nick & Nora, even if they were on the staid, conservative side, nevertheless very quickly adjusted to learning Billy & Mary were the Marvels, and tried their best to be there for the siblings.
POS #38-41 were Peter Krause’s final issues, and he really does a great job on this storyline, conveying the intense emotions and choreographing the dramatic, action-filled scenes. Inker Dick Gordano, letterer John Costanza and colorist Glenn Whitmore fill out the creative team. Whitmore’s coloring definitely plays a major role in setting the mood of these issues. Mike Carlin edited the whole shebang.
With issue #42 writer & cover artist Ordway also assumes penciling duties, with Giordano providing inks / finishes. Ordway is such a great artist, and I was glad to see him now both writing & drawing. Whitmore and Costanza continue as colorist and letterer.
Following the destruction of Fairfield, the President dedicates a memorial to all those who have died. Billy, Mary and Freddy are all there in their superhuman forms. This is the first time we see all three of them together since Mary changed to her new costume, and so this was the moment when it finally occurred to me that Ordway had now given them red, white and blue uniforms. What can I say? Sometimes I’m not the quickest on the uptake.
Billy, Mary, Nick & Nora move to Fawcett City, where they are joined by Freddy, who has returned to settle his grandfather’s estate. Freddy shows Billy and Mary the classic car he inherited, and the three go for a spin. Unfortunately the metahuman Chain Lightning who suffers from multiple personality disorder is obsessed with Freddy, and she attacks the three teens while they’re driving, causing the car to go off the cliff. The teens try to summon the magic lightning to transform into the two Captains Marvel and CM3, but Chain Lightning somehow intercepts it. Billy, Mary and Freddy all end up in the hospital in critical condition. The magic somehow gives separate physical forms to each of Chain Lightning’s personalities, who go on a rampage in Fawcett City.
Ordway has said that one of his favorite comic books when he was growing up was Avengers by Roy Thomas & John Buscema. The form that Chain Lightning’s personality Amber takes looks like a cross between Arkon the Magnificent and Thundra the Femizon, both of whom were created by Thomas & Buscema.
With the Marvel Family out of action Deanna Barr dons the costume of her late mother Bulletgirl to protect Fawcett, although she uses her Air Force codename Windshear. Her father Jim comes out of retirement to help her, but the two of them can barely hold their own against Amber. Only the intervention of Amy, the “good” Chain Lightning personality, saves them.
Uncle Dudley and Tawky Tawny travel to the Rock of Eternity, hoping they can find some way to heal Billy, Mary and Freddy. The sorcerer Ibis tells Dudley and Tawny that they need to find the Mother Boxes that enable the teens to summon the magic lightning while the Wizard Shazam is on New Genesis.
Issue #42 and #43 are certainly compelling and suspenseful, although I wonder if Ordway would have embarked on this storyline, putting the main characters in the hospital, if he had known cancellation was just around the corner. Fortunately there are still a few more issues to go. Whatever the case, the artwork by Ordway & Giordano is top-notch.
We are now at the editorially-mandated DC One Million crossover issue. This one is a bit painful to read, not because it’s bad, but because the series would be cancelled in just a few short months, and it’s sad that Ordway was forced to cut away from his ongoing storylines to do a totally-unrelated issue set in the far-off 853rd Century.
Nevertheless, Ordway turns in sold work here. We previously saw an ancient Billy Batson having assumed the Wizard Shazam’s role in The Power of Shazam Annual #1. Now, even farther into the distant future, Billy still keeps vigil at the Rock of Eternity, only to have his home overrun by thrill-seeking rich kids from the planet Mercury.
Man oh man, the people in this story are awful. They’re behaving exactly like modern-day humans. Humanity is never going to survive to the 22nd Century, much less the 853rd, if people keep acting like this!
I think Tanist, the new champion of Shazam introduced in this story, popped up in a couple of other DC One Million stories, but hasn’t been seen since. It’s sort of disappointing that Ordway took the time to create this new character and no one else has bothered to use him, because that might have helped save this story from being completely inconsequential.
Anyway, returning to the year 1998, issue #44 resumes the plot of the teens being hospitalized, their powers having been stolen by the multiple personalities of Chain Lightening. Freddy and Mary are attacked by Lightning’s “inner child” and “id” personas. Nick & Nora risk their lives to save her, and the severely injured Mary shows she’s also willing to sacrifice herself for them, all of which surprises Lightning, a survivor of parental abuse. Inner Child and Id make off with Freddy, but he manages to convince them not to kill him, that he isn’t to blame for Lightning’s problems.
Meanwhile, Dudley and Tawky Tawny travel to the Rock of Eternity again, still looking for a way to help the hospitalized teens. Ibis, still suffering from the immense exertion needed to dissipate the radiation from the destruction of Fairfield, is wrapped up as a mummy by his immortal wife Taia so that he can enter suspended animation.
Oh, yeah, I love Tawny’s line… “Dud! Save me! It’s a talking dog!” Dudley and Tawny really did make a great double act.
Taia, working with Dudley, catapults Tawny into the timestream surrounding the Rock, so that the tiger can search for a future incarnation of Captain Marvel to help the teens. Tawny locates CeCe Beck, aka Thunder, previously seen in Annual #1, and is attempting to bring her back to the present when a force knocks them apart. Thunder disappears into the timestream… but don’t worry, she ends up materializing in the 30th Century in Legion of Super-Heroes #110, where she joins the team.
Tawny gets pulled back to the Rock, but he’s not alone. He’s accompanied by the former champion of Shazam turned villain, the infamous Black Adam. Uh oh!
Issue #45 sees Black Adm back on Earth. Surprisingly, rather than acting in his usual villainous manner, Adam is filling in for the still-hospitalized Billy, Mary & Freddy. Understandably skeptical, the Justice League is keeping a close eye on the so-called “Mighty Adam” as he performs heroic deeds across the globe.
Throughout his run Ordway has been peppering this series with nods to Jack Kirby’s New Gods, with the Marvel Family using Mother Boxes and Boom Tubes, the events of the Genesis crossover being referenced, and the Wizard Shazam relocating to New Genesis. Now we finally get an appearance by one of the New Gods as Orion stops by the hospital to look after Billy and give him advice. And when Black Adam shows up, Orion is more than ready to mix it up with him. Sadly we only get to see them trade blows for a few panels, so who knows how that fight might have gone?
Black Adam insists to the JLA that he is not Theo Adam, the criminal who murdered Billy & Mary’s parents, but an entirely different person, and demands his day in court to argue his case.
If there is a weakness to these last several issues it’s that the story feels somewhat disjointed. First there was DC One Million interrupting things for a month, and now, when #46 opens, events have suddenly leaped forward an unspecified amount of time, with Black Adam having been declared not guilty. The first time I read this I really thought I had missed an issue. Obviously this is Ordway doing the best job he can to fit his storyline into the remaining issues he had left.
For the first time since the accident caused by Chain Lightning, Billy calls on the Wizard’s power, transforming into Captain Marvel, ready to pound Black Adam into the pavement. Superman reluctantly intervenes, as in the eyes of the law Black Adam is not guilty… although it isn’t at all clear as to the specifics of how that works, and how he convinced the courts that he’s not Theo Adam, other than them having different fingerprints. Presumably this is something that Ordway would have explained in more detail if he’d had more issues.
Captain Marvel and Superman trade blows for several pages, until Mary and Freddy also transform, causing Billy’s own powers to weaken enough for Superman to beat him. The Man of Steel departs, and Mary and Freddy finally get Billy to calm down.
Meanwhile, Adam has made his way to the Rock of Eternity where, in an effort to settle accounts, he intends to free his former mistress, the demonic Blaze, from her imprisonment there. Adam recruits the evil Doctor Sivana to help him, and they manage to release Blaze… only to find that they’ve been manipulated into also freeing the Wizard’s ancient adversary the Three Faces of Evil, aka King Ghidorah’s even uglier cousin.
As #47 opens, Mother Box calls up a Boom Tube and transports Billy to the Rock, also bringing the Wizard back from New Genesis. Billy, the Wizard and Adam join forces against the Three Faces of Evil. In a great example of Chekov’s Gun — or more precisely Chekov’s Mystic Raygun — Billy retrieves the mystical Scorpion weapon introduced two years earlier in issue #24 and uses it to seal the Three Faces of Evil back inside the Rock.
The Wizard transports Captain Marvel and Adam to the River of the Dead to settle their differences once and for all. Adan continues to insist that he is a different person than Theo Adam… but if he has to kill Billy to escape the River, he’ll do just that. At the last minute Billy transforms back to his human self, and Adam realizes that he cannot bring himself to kill a child, even if it’s the only way he’ll be free. This convinces both Billy and the Wizard that Adam is sincere, and they let him go on his own way.
The Wizard, having attained godhood on New Genesis, returns to his home on the Rock of Eternity. Billy and Mary’s stepparents Nick and Nora, overjoyed their children are once again healthy & whole, throw a party, inviting over many of the characters we’ve seen over the past four years, and everyone gets a happy ending.
It’s unfortunate the series got cancelled. Ordway revealed in interviews that he had the book plotted out thru to issue #50, and was really looking forward to reaching that milestone, so it’s regrettable that he wasn’t allowed to get there. Still, if you count the graphic novel, the annual, and DC One Million, that is 50 issues. Whatever the official count, POS was a great series.
By the way, looking at these last several issues, it’s now apparent they were a major influence on writers Geoff Johns & David S. Goyer, who just a couple years later made violent antihero Black Adam a central character in their JSA run.
On #45 and #46 Ordway is once again inked by Giordano, resulting in some nice work. Costanza letters #45, with Albert T. Guzman filling in on #46. Whitmore colors both issues.
The finale in #47 has Da Ordster doing full artwork and coloring, with Costanza’s letters. The issue looks great, closing out the series in style.
Ordway’s painted covers for all three issues stand out. Issue #45 has Black Adam fighting the JLA. Captain Marvel and Superman face off on the cover to #46, a homage to Nick Cardy’s cover for Superman #276. And finally #47 has Cap in a fight to the death with the Three Faces of Evil.
If you haven’t read this series then I highly recommend picking up the hardcover collection that reprints the graphic novel & the first 12 issues, and then seek out copies of the other issues. It’s definitely worth the search.
Thank you, Jerry Ordway, for a great read. More than two decades later The Power of Shazam is still incredible.
I was very sorry to hear about the passing of legendary comic book creator George Perez on May 6th. Perez had announced back in December that he was suffering from with inoperable pancreatic cancer, and that he had approximately six months to a year left to live. We all knew this day was coming soon, but it doesn’t make it any less sad.
Perez had an incredibly lengthy, diverse career. As I did a week ago to mark the passing of fellow legend Neal Adams, I am going to refrain from even trying to put together any sort of comprehensive retrospective of Perez’s career, and instead just focus on my own impressions of his work as a fan.
Batman #439 cover drawn by George Perez and collored by Anthony Tollin, published by DC Comics in Sept 1989
I first started following comic books regularly in 1989 when I was 13 years old, so I missed Perez’s early work on Fantastic Four and Avengers for Marvel Comics in the late 1970s, as well as his wildly popular collaboration with writer Marv Wolfman on The New Teen Titans at DC Comics beginning in the early 1980s.
While I can’t be 100% certain, I think the first work by Perez that I ever saw were his covers for the “Batman: Year Three” and “A Lonely Place of Dying” story arcs that ran through Batman #436-442 in the summer and fall of 1989. I was immediately struck by Perez’s intricately detailed work and his complex compositions. His cover to #439 featuring Nightwing hanging on for dear life from the bell tower of a church in the midst of a fierce rainstorm, highlighted by the Bat-signal, especially stood out in my mind. Perez and colorist Anthony Tollin did absolutely stunning work in rendering that atmospheric image.
Within a couple of years I was following quite a few DC titles. War of the Gods was a major crossover that DC published in the summer & fall of 1991, and it tied in with Perez’s run on Wonder Woman. So I picked up Wonder Woman #58 which was written & cover-illustrated by Perez and the four issue War of the Gods miniseries for which Perez was writing, doing interior pencil layouts and drawing full covers. As I’ve mentioned before, this was an absolutely insane time for me to try to dive into Wonder Woman, because this was the culmination of a number of plotlines & character arcs that Perez had been developing over the past five years.
War of the Gods #4 cover drawn by George Perez, published by DC Comics in Dec 1991
Three decades later I only remember three things about War of the Gods: 1) the evil sorceress Circe was the main villain, 2) I didn’t understand even half of what was going on, and 3) DC promoted the fact that for the cover of the final issue of the miniseries Perez set out to draw a cover featuring ONE HUNDRED different characters. That must have been my first exposure to Perez’s fondness for drawing literal armies.
At the exact same time Perez was also penciling another crossover, this time at Marvel. The Infinity Gauntlet was another “cast of thousands” cosmic extravaganza that ran for six double-sized issues. Truthfully, I wasn’t especially into writer Jim Starlin’s story for The Infinity Gauntlet, either, since it very predictably followed the arc of Thanos becoming a god and wiping the floor with everyone else in the Marvel Universe for half a dozen issues before finally losing the titular Infinity Gauntlet.
Nevertheless, Perez, paired with inker Josef Rubinstein, did a fantastic job drawing the cosmic spectacle… at least until working on two mega-crossovers simultaneously became too much for even someone of Perez’s talent & speed, and he had to bow out partway through issue #4, with Ron Lim taking up penciling duties for the remainder of the miniseries. To show support for Lim stepping into this high-profile assignment and having the unenviable job of following in his footsteps, Perez inked Lim’s pencils on the covers for the final two issues of The Infinity Gauntlet.
The Infinity Gauntlet #1 cover drawn by George Perez and colored by John Stracuzzi, published by Marvel Comics in July 1991
So, while I haven’t revisited The Infinity Gauntlet in the last 30 years, either, I definitely was impressed by the work Perez did on the first half of the miniseries. Certainly his intricate cover for the first issue, colored by John Stracuzzi, is one of the all-time greatest depictions of Thanos in the character’s half-century history. Heck, even Jim Starlin, the writer / artist who created Thanos, has used Perez’s cover artwork for The Infinity Gauntlet #1 for his own convention banner. Now that is respect.
Anyway, throughout the 1990s, when I was in high school & college, I went to a lot of comic book conventions, and bought a lot of back issues from the 1970s and 80s. Amongst these were several books that Perez worked on: Avengers, Justice League of America, The New Teen Titans, Marvel Fanfare, Crisis on Infinite Earths and Action Comics. I also had the opportunity to pick up a lot more issues of Perez’s epic, groundbreaking five year run on Wonder Woman, at last getting in on the earlier parts of his incredible, highly influential revamp of Princess Diana of Themyscira.
Straight from the back issue bin… Crisis on Infinite Earths #10, written by Marv Wolfman, penciled by George Perez, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Anthony Tollin, published by DC Comics in january 1986
In the mid 1990s Perez penciled the first six issues of Isaac Asimov’s I-BOTS, written by Steven Grant, published by Tekno Comics / Big Entertainment. I took a look at Perez’s work on that series a few months ago as part of the most recent round of Super Blog Team-Up, in which the various contributors examined different parts of Perez’s amazing career.
In 1998 Perez had another opportunity to pencil Avengers, this time paired with writer Kurt Busiek. Perez remained on the series for three years. After the meandering, confusing events of “The Crossing” and the controversial Heroes Reborn that saw Rob Liefeld take over the book, Busiek & Perez’s run was warmly received by long-time Avengers readers.
Now here’s another one of those occasions when I am going to go against conventional fan wisdom. The truth is I wasn’t especially enthusiastic about Busiek’s writing on Avengers; I feel Busiek is an amazing writer on smaller, intimate, character-driven stories set against the epic backdrops of superhero universes, something he’s demonstrated again and again with his incredible work on Astro City. Same thing for Thunderbolts from Marvel, which was a very character-centric series. In contract, Avengerswas the epic superhero event book, and I just didn’t feel that Busiek quite had the faculty to pull off those sorts of stories. (Just my personal opinion, so feel free to disagree.)
The Scarlet Witch tears up the dance floor! Avengers vol 3 #19 written by Kurt Busiek, penciled by George Perez, inked by Al Very, colored by Tom Smith and lettered by Richard Starkings, published by Marvel Comics in August 1999
That said, Busiek did really solid work on the character-driven subplots in Avengers involving the Scarlet Witch, the Vision, Wonder Man, and Carol Danvers / Warbird, as well as his own creations Silverclaw and Triathalon. And of course Perez did an incredible job illustrating Busiek’s stories, both the action scenes and the quieter character moments. I certainly appreciated the stunning costume Perez designed for the Scarlet Witch. And that bellydance sequence featuring Wanda from Avengers vol 3 #19 (Aug 1999) seen above was absolutely gorgeous, a superb example of Perez’s storytelling abilities.
In the early 2000s Perez signed an exclusive contract with startup publisher CrossGen Comics. Perez penciled the quarterly double-sized CrossGen Chronicles, followed by the monthly series Solus. I only read a handful of the CrossGen titles, but I picked up a couple of issues of CrossGen Chronicles specifically for Perez’s artwork.
One of the things I appreciated about the CrossGen books was that it was not a superhero-centric universe. CrossGen enabled Perez to stretch his boundaries and work in the genres of fantasy and sci-fi / space opera. He did some incredible work for them. Regrettably CrossGen only lasted a few years, going bankrupt in 2003.
CrossGen Chronicles #4, written by Mark Waid, penciled by George Perez, inked by Mike Perkins & Rick Magyar, colored by Laura DePuy, Chris Garcia & Mike Garcia, and lettered by Dave Lanphear & Troy Peteri, published by CrossGen Comics in Sept 2001
Back in 1981 Perez had begun penciling a Justice League / Avengers crossover, but the project was left uncompleted due to editorial conflicts between DC and Marvel Comics. Two decades later, in 2002, the Big Two at last came to an agreement to work together and publish a crossover between their two superstar teams. Even though Perez was signed to CrossGen, he’d included a clause in his contract with them that if Justice League / Avengers ever happened he would be allowed to draw it. And so he was reunited with Kurt Busiek and colorist Tom Smith to produce the long-awaited meeting of the Justice League and Avengers in four double-sized bookshelf issues.
JLA / Avengers once again gave Perez the opportunity to draw his casts of thousands. The absolute highlight of the event was the wraparound cover to the third issue, on which Perez depicted every single member of both teams up to that point in time. Tom Smith recently recounted that it took him two whole weeks just to color that cover.
Where’s Waldo?!? JLA/Avengers #3 cover drawn by George Perez and colored by Tom Smith, published by DC and Marvel Comics in December 2003
It seems like everyone has a George Perez story, so here’s mine: I met writer Marv Wolfman at a comic con in White Plains NY in June 2000 and had him autograph my copy of Crisis on Infinite Earths #8, the historic (and at the time absolutely permanent) death of Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash. A few months later, at a store signing in Connecticut, I met artist Jerry Ordway, who had inked that issue,and I had him autograph it, too. He smiled and said “I’d better leave room for George Perez to sign it.” I responded that he didn’t have to do that, since I didn’t expect to ever meet Perez (and, really, I didn’t think I’d have the opportunity, because he was such an incredibly popular artist). Ordway just smiled again and autographed the book, leaving several inches space between his and Wolfman’s signatures.
Fast forward a few years, and low & behold none other than George Perez was a guest at a comic con in Manhattan. Of course I brought along my copy of Crisis on Infinite Earths #8, and Perez autographed it in between Wolfman & Ordway’s signatures. So, a big “thank you” to Jerry Ordway for his foresight.
Crisis on Infinite Earths #8 signed by Marv Wolfman, George Perez and Jerry Ordway!
I wish I could regale you with some fascinating anecdotes about my meeting George Perez. The simple fact is, in the couple of minutes I spoke with him he came across as a good person, and that’s it. From everything I’ve heard Perez was always like that; he always made an effort to be friendly to all of his fans, to greet them with a warm smile.
About a decade later Michele and I were at New York Comic Con. We ran into Perez when he was between panel discussions or something; I don’t recall the specifics. I just remember that Michele had had a copy of Wonder Woman vol 2 #19 with her, and she went up to Perez and asked him to sign it. I think he was talking with someone, or maybe he was on his way out of the room, but whatever it was he was doing he paused, turned to Michele, smiled, pulled out a sharpie, and autographed her comic. That’s the type of person Perez was, always making time for his fans.
George Perez was an incredible artist and a genuinely decent person. He will definitely be missed. I wish to offer my condolences to his family, friends and colleagues for their loss.
Longtime, influential comic book writer and editor Denny O’Neil passed away on June 11th at the age of 81.
A journalism major, O’Neil got started in the comic book filed in the mid 1960s. After brief stints at Marvel and Charlton, O’Neil came to DC Comics, where he made a significant impact.
O’Neil was a very socially conscious individual, and he brought his concerns about inequality and injustice to his work. He was assigned the Green Lantern series, which at the time was struggling in sales. Working with artist Neal Adams, another young talented newcomer interested in shaking thing up, O’Neil had GL Hal Jordan team up with the archer Green Arrow, aka Oliver Queen, in a series of stories that addressed head-on issues of racism, pollution, overpopulation, drug abuse, and political corruption.
The above page from Green Lantern / Green Arrow #76 (April 1970), the first issue by O’Neil & Adams, is probably one of the most famous scenes in comic book history.
I read these stories in the 1990s, a quarter century after they were published. At the time I found them underwhelming. I felt O’Neil’s writing was unsubtle, that he threw Hal Jordan under the bus to make a point, and that Oliver Queen was just the sort of smug, condescending left-winger who gives the rest of us liberals a really bad name. As with a number of other people, I always though Hal Jordan’s response to the old black man should have been “Hey, I saved the entire planet Earth, and everyone on it, on multiple occasions!”
When I voiced these criticisms, older readers typically responded “You really needed to read these stories when they were first published to understand their impact and significance.” I never really understood this until I started reading Alan Stewart’s blog Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books. Alan writes about the comic books that he read as a kid half a century ago. When I came to Alan’s posts about O’Neil’s early work on Justice League of America for DC Comics in the late 1960s, I finally began to understand exactly what sort of an impression O’Neil’s stories, with their commentary on critical real-world issues, made upon so many young readers of that era.
So, upon further consideration, while I still find O’Neil’s writing on Green Lantern / Green Arrow to be anvilicious, I recognize that he was attempting to address serious social & political crises for which he felt genuine concern, and in a medium that for a long time was regarded solely as the purview of children. However imperfect the execution may have been, I admire O’Neil’s passion and convictions.
In any case, O’Neil & Adams’ work on Green Lantern / Green Arrow is yet more evidence that comic books have addressed political issues in the past, and anyone attempting to argue otherwise is flat-out ignoring reality.
O’Neil & Adams were also among the creators in the late 1960s and early 1970s who helped to bring the character of Batman back to his darker Golden Age roots as a grim costumed vigilante operating in the darkness of Gotham City. O’Neil & Adams collaborated on a number of Batman stories that are now rightfully regarded as classics.
I really enjoy O’Neil’s approach to Batman. His version of the Dark Knight was serious and somber, but still very human, and often fallible. I wish that more recent writers would follow O’Neil’s example on how to write Batman, rather than depicting him as some brooding, manipulative monomaniac. O’Neil really knew how to balance out the different aspects of Batman’s personality so that he was intense but still likable.
O’Neil & Adams, following the directive of editor Julius Schwartz, created the immortal ecoterrorist Ra’s al Ghul and his beautiful daughter Talia. Ra’s al Ghul debuted in Batman #232 (June 1971) by O’Neil, Adams and inker Dick Giordano.
Ra’s al Ghul was certainly an interesting villain in that he possessed shades of grey. He admired Batman, and easily deduced that the Dark Knight was actually Bruce Wayne. Ra’s wanted Batman to become his successor and marry Talia. Ra’s was genuinely passionate about saving the environment; unfortunately his solution was to wipe out 90% of the Earth’s population and rule over the survivors. While Batman had feelings for Talia and sympathized with Ra’s end goals, he was understandably repulsed by the ruthless, brutal means Ra’s pursued, and so the two men repeatedly came into conflict.
Throughout the 1970s O’Neil, working with artists Adams & Giordano, as well as Bob Brown, Irv Novick, Michael Golden, Don Newton & Dan Adkins developed the globe-spanning conflict between Batman and Ra’s al Ghul, with Talia often caught in the middle of their immense struggle of wills. These epic stories were later reprinted in the trade paperback Batman: Tales of the Demon. It is some of O’Neil’s best writing, and I definitely recommend it.
O’Neil of course wrote a number of other great Batman stories during the 1970s outside of those involving Ra’s al Ghul and Talia. Among those stories by O’Neil that are now considered classics is “There Is No Hope In Crime Alley” illustrated by Dick Giordano, from Detective Comics #457 (March 1976).
“There Is No Hope In Crime Alley” expanded upon Batman’s origin and introduced Leslie Thompkins, the doctor and social worker who cared for young Bruce Wayne after his parents were murdered in Crime Alley. The story was later included in the 1988 collection The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, which is where I first read it. It was actually one of four stories from the 1970s written by O’Neil to be included in that volume, a fact that speaks to how well-regarded his work on the character was.
In the early 1980s O’Neil went to work at Marvel Comics. In addition to editing several titles, he wrote Iron Man and Daredevil. On Iron Man he decided to follow up on Tony Stark’s alcoholism, which had been established a few years earlier by Bob Layton & David Michelinie. O’Neil had struggled with alcoholism in real life, and he wanted to address that in the comic book Stark was apparently white-knuckling it, trying to stay sober without a support system or a program of recovery.
O’Neil, working with penciler Luke McDonnell & inker Steve Mitchell, wrote a three year long story arc around Stark’s alcoholism. Corporate raider Obidiah Stane, a literal chess master, ruthlessly manipulated events so that Tony fell off the wagon hard, then swooped in and bought out Stark International from under him. Stark became destitute and homeless, and was forced to make a long, difficult climb back to sobriety, rebuilding both his life and his company from the ground up.
It’s worth noting another development in O’Neil’s Iron Man run. Previously in Green Lantern / Green Arrow, O’Neil & Adams had introduced African American architect John Stewart, who they had become a new Green Lantern. Twelve years later on Iron Man O’Neil had African-American pilot & ex-soldier James Rhodes, a longtime supporting character, become the new Iron Man after Stark succumbed to alcoholism. Rhodey would remain in the Iron Man role for over two years, until Tony was finally well enough to resume it.
So, once again, the next time you hear some troll grousing about SJWs replacing long-running white superheroes with minorities, or some such nonsense, remember that O’Neil did this twice, telling some really interesting, insightful stories in the process.
This is another instance where the argument comes up that you had to be reading these comic books when they were coming out to understand that impact. In this case I can vouch for it personally. It was early 1985, I was eight years old, and the very first issue of Iron Man I ever read was in the middle of this storyline. So right from the start I just accepted that there could be different people in the Iron Man armor, and one of them just happened to be black.
In the late 1980s O’Neil returned to DC Comics, where he became the editor of the various Batman titles. He also continued to write. Among the noteworthy stories he penned was “Venom” in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #16-20 (March to July 1991), with layouts by Trevor Von Eeden, pencils by Russ Braun, and inks & covers by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez.
“Venom” is set early in Batman’s career. After the Dark Knight fails to save a young girl from drowning, he begins to take an experimental drug to heighten his strength. Unfortunately he very quickly becomes addicted to the Venom, and is almost manipulated into becoming a murderer by the military conspiracy that developed the drug. Locking himself in the Batcave for a month, Batman suffers a horrific withdrawal. Finally clean, he emerges to pursue the creators of the Venom drug.
It is likely that “Venom” was another story informed by O’Neil’s own struggles with addiction. It is certainly a riveting, intense story. Venom was reintroduced a few years later in the sprawling Batman crossover “Knightfall” that O’Neil edited, which saw the criminal mastermind Bane using the drug as the source of his superhuman strength.
In 1992 O’Neil, working with up-and-coming penciler Joe Quesada and inker Kevin Nolan, introduced a new character to the Bat-verse. Azrael was the latest in a line of warriors tasked with serving the secretive religious sect The Order of St. Dumas. Programmed subliminally from birth, Jean-Paul Valley assumed the Azrael identity after his father’s murder.
Azrael soon after became a significant figure in the “Knightfall” crossover. After Batman is defeated by Bane, his back broken, Azrael becomes the new Dark Knight. Unfortunately the brainwashing by the Order led Azrael / Batman to become increasingly violent and unstable. After a long, difficult recovery Bruce Wayne resumed the identity of Batman and defeated Azrael. O’Neil appears to have had a fondness for the character, as he then went on the write the Azrael ongoing series that lasted for 100 issues.
Another of O’Neil’s projects from the 1990s that I enjoyed was the bookshelf special Batman / Green Arrow: The Poison Tomorrow, released in 1992. Written by O’Neil, penciled by Michael Netzer, and inked by Josef Rubinstein, The Poison Tomorrow had the Dark Knight and the Emerald Archer working together to prevent a ruthless corporation from using the femme fatale Poison Ivy to create a virulent plague.
O’Neil’s liberalism definitely shines through with his clear distrust of Corporate America. In one scene that evokes “the banality of evil” multi-millionaire CEO Fenn casually discusses with Poison Ivy his plan to poison jars of baby food, killing hundreds of infants, and then to sell the antidote to millions of terrified parents across the nation. Reading this story again in 2020, it is not at all far-fetched, as in recent months we have repeatedly seen various corporations publically musing on the various ways in which they can turn a profit on the COVID-19 pandemic.
I also like how O’Neil wrote the team-up of Batman and Green Arrow. Bruce Wayne and Oliver Queen can both be very stubborn, inflexible individuals. Each of them has a tendency to browbeat others into submission, so having them forced to work together is basically a case of unstoppable force meets unmovable object. O’Neil got a lot of mileage out of the tense, almost adversarial chemistry that existed between these two reluctant allies.
The Poison Tomorrow is a grim, unsettling tale. The moody artwork by Netzer & Rubinstein and the coloring by Lovern Kindzierski effectively compliment O’Neil’s story. There were such a deluge of Batman-related projects published by DC Comics in the early 1990s that I think The Poison Tomorrow sort of flew under a lot of people’s radar. I definitely recommend seeking out a copy.
O’Neil had such a long, diverse career that I have really only touched on a few highlights in this piece. I am certain other fans, as well as the colleagues who actually worked with & knew him, will be penning their own tributes in which O’Neil’s many other important contributions will be discussed.
For example, I’m sure some of you are asking “How can you not discuss O’Neil’s fantastic run on The Question with artist Denys Cowan?!?” Regretfully I have to admit that I have never read it. However, if you are a fan of The Question then I recommend that you read Brian Cronin’s excellent tribute to O’Neil’s work on that series.
I was very fortunate to meet O’Neil at a few comic book conventions over the years. Briefly talking with him while he was autographing some comic books for me, and hearing him speak on panel discussions, it was immediately obvious that he was an intelligent and passionate individual. Those qualities definitely came through in his work.
I am sorry to report that another comic book creator whose work I enjoyed has passed on. Frank McLaughlin was a talented artist whose career in comic books and comic strips lasted for nearly five decades, from the 1961 to 2008. He passed away on March 4th at the age of 84.
McLaughlin, like a number of other comic book creators, got his foot in the door via Charlton Comics. He was hired on to do a variety of production work for the Derby, Connecticut publisher. In a 2016 interview McLaughlin recounted how he came to work for Charlton:
“All through my career, I have been blessed with the greatest of friends, beginning with a classmate at art school; Larry Conti. Larry hooked me up with his brother, Dan Conti, who was a department head at Charlton Press. Dan, in turn, introduced me to Charlton’s Pat Masulli, editor in chief of comics. Timing was perfect, because his assistant, Sal Gentile, was about to leave for Florida, in two weeks. I was hired on the spot, and Sal gave me an immediate ‘cook’s tour’ of the plant. It took me a few days for all this to sink in, but Sal was a terrific guy, and this made it easy for me to understand the job.”
During his time at Charlton, McLaughlin worked closely with fellow artist Dick Giordano. If you look at McLaughlin’s work, especially his inking, you can see that Giordano was a definite influence. Considering Giordano was an incredibly talented artist himself, one could certainly do worse than to draw inspiration from him.
McLaughlin had studied judo since he was 18 years old, and he drew on his martial arts experience to create the character Judomaster for Charlton. Judomaster made his debut in Special War Series #4, cover-dated November 1965. The next year an ongoing Judomaster series was launched, which lasted for ten issues. (Confusingly the issue numbers for Judomaster were #89 to #98, carrying on the numbering from the cancelled series Gunmaster. This was a common practice at Charlton.) McLaughlin wrote, penciled & inked the entire ten issue run.
Unfortunately I am not especially familiar with McLaughlin’s work on Judomaster or the other Charlton “Action Heroes” titles from the 1960s, but judging by the artwork I’ve seen from it online he clearly did good work on it. The cover for #93 (“Meet the Tiger!”) is especially striking. I did recently locate copies of Judomaster #96 and #98 at Mysterious Time Machine in Manhattan, and I found them to be enjoyable, well-drawn comic books.
McLaughlin left Charlton in 1969 to freelance, and by the early 1970s he was regularly receiving work from both Marvel and DC Comics. The majority of his assignments for the Big Two were inking the pencils of other artists. It was actually via his work as an inker that I first became aware of McLaughlin, and developed a real appreciation for his art.
As a teenager in the 1990s I spent a lot of time attempting to acquire copies of every issue of Captain America published during the 1970s and 80s. One of my favorite artists on Captain America was Sal Buscema, who penciled the series from 1972 to 1975. Buscema was paired with several inkers during this four year run. Reading those back issues during my high school & college years, I very quickly noticed there was something different, something special, about the work of one particular inker, namely Frank McLaughlin.
To my eyes, McLaughlin’s inks over Buscema’s pencils were really striking. McLaughlin gave Buscema’s pencils kind of a slick polish. I guess that’s how I would describe it. As a non-artist, sometimes it’s difficult for me to articulate these things clearly. Whatever the case, it looked great.
McLaughlin only inked Buscema’s pencils on six issues of Captain America, specifically #155-156, 160, 165-166 and 169. I really wish he’d had a longer run on the title. McLaughlin’s final issue, #169, was the first chapter of the epic “Secret Empire” storyline written by Steve Englehart. The remaining chapters of that saga were inked by Vince Colletta.
I realize Colletta is a divisive inker, so I am going to put this in purely personal, subjective terms. Speaking only for myself, I just do not think Colletta’s inks were a good fit for Buscema’s pencils. As incredible as the “Secret Empire” saga was, I feel it would have been even better if McLaughlin had been the inker for the entire storyline.
Now that I think about it, when I was reading those Captain America back issues in the mid 1990s, and comparing Buscema inked by McLaughlin to Buscema inked by Colletta, and in turn comparing both to the other inkers who worked on that series the early 1970s, it was probably one of the earliest instances of me realizing just how significant a role the inker has in the finished look of comic book artwork.
McLaughin also inked Buscema on a few of the early issues of The Defenders, specifically #4-6 and 8-9. Again, I wish it had been a longer run, because they went so well together. In these issues the Asgardian warrior Valkyrie joined the team, and the combination of Buscema’s pencils and McLaughlin’s inks resulted in a stunningly beautiful depiction of the character.
I definitely regard Frank McLaughlin as one of the best inkers Sal Buscema had during the Bronze Age.
McLaughlin actually did much more work as an inker at DC Comics. One of his regular assignments at DC was Justice League of America. He inked issues #117-189, a six and a half year run between 1975 and 1981.
During most of McLaughlin’s time on Justice League of America he was paired with the series’ longtime penciler Dick Dillin. Although I would not say that I am a huge fan of Dillin, I nevertheless consider him to be sort of DC’s equivalent of Sal Buscema. In other words, much like Our Pal Sal, Dillin was a good, solid, often-underrated artist with strong storytelling skills who could be counted on to turn in a professional job on time. I like quality that McLaughlin’s inking brought to Dillin’s pencils. They made an effective art team.
Tragically, after completing Justice League of America #183, in March 1980 Dillin died unexpectedly at the much too young age of 51 (reportedly he passed away at the drawing board working on the next issue). McLaughlin remained on for the next several issues, effectively providing finishes for a young George Perez’s pencil breakdowns, as well as inking over Don Heck and Rich Buckler. Nevertheless, as he recounted in a 2008 interview, he made the decision to leave the series:
“I did one or two issues, and then I said to Julie [Schwartz] “you know, I think I’d like to move on.” I was so used to what Dillin and I were doing together. I moved on and did a lot more other stuff.
“It was a good change of speed at the time, inking groups was fast becoming not a favorite–there’s too many people in there!”
Among his other work for DC Comics, McLaughlin inked Irv Novick on both Batman and The Flash, Ernie Chan on Detective Comics, Joe Staton on Green Lantern, and Carmine Infantino on the Red Tornado miniseries and the last two years of The Flash during the “Trial of the Flash” storyline. He also assisted Giordano on several DC jobs during the mid-to-late 1980s.
McLaughlin’s last regular assignment in comic books was for Broadway Comics in 1996. There he inked a young J.G. Jones on Fatale.
Between 2001 and 2008 he drew the Gil Thorpe comic strip. In 2008 McLaughlin collaborated with his daughter Erin Holroyd and his long-time colleague Dick Giordano on The White Viper, a web comic serialized on ComicMix that was subsequently collected in a graphic novel in 2011 by IDW.
McLaughlin taught at both Paier College of Art in Hamden CT and Guy Gilchrist’s Cartoonist’s Academy in Simsbury CT, and he worked with Mike Gold on the instructional books How to Draw Those Bodacious Bad Babes of Comics and How to Draw Monsters for Comics.
In his later years McLaughlin did commissions for fans. One of the characters he was often asked to draw was Judomaster, which all those decades later still had devoted fans.
Writer & editor Robert Greenberger, who worked at DC Comics from 1984 to 2000, wrote a brief tribute to McLaughlin on Facebook:
“I grew up on Frank’s work, first at Charlton then DC and Marvel. When I joined DC, he quickly welcomed me and was a font of stories.
“Frank was a gracious man, friendly, and willing to talk shop with eager newcomers, share tips with rising new talent, and lend a hand wherever needed.
“He was a workhorse of an artist, adaptable and reliable — two of the qualities desperate editors always welcomed. Even after I left staff, we’d run into one another at cons and it was picking up where we left off.
“I will miss him.”
I fortunately had an opportunity to meet McLaughlin once at a convention in the early 2000s. At the time I was regrettably unaware of his work for Charlton, but I did have him autograph one of the Captain America issues that he had so wonderfully inked. I only spoke with him briefly, but he came across as a nice, polite person.
One of the most iconic images associated with the American holiday Thanksgiving is Norman Rockwell’s painting Freedom from Want. Painted by Rockwell in November 1942, it was published in the March 6, 1943 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. I am going to quote from Wikipedia here, and hopefully it’s accurate!
“Freedom from Want” by Norman Rockwell
Freedom from Want, also known as The Thanksgiving Picture or I’ll Be Home for Christmas, is the third of the Four Freedoms series of four oil paintings by American artist Norman Rockwell. The works were inspired by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union Address, known as Four Freedoms.
The website Totally History offers the following analysis of the painting’s composition:
The painting depicts three generations of a family around a table at Thanksgiving. The father is standing at the head of the table as the mother is about to place a large turkey in front of him.
The opulence of the turkey is counterbalanced by the relative scarcity of other foods on the table and the presence of water as the only beverage.
Over the past 75 years Freedom From Want has been the subject of numerous homages and parodies, including within the comic book medium. For my tongue-in-cheek celebration of Thanksgiving this year, here are 10 of those images.
Probably one of the best well-known comic book covers to pay tribute to Freedom From Want is JSA #54 (Jan 2004) from DC Comics. Drawn by Carlos Pacheco & Jesus Merino, this cover features Superman and Power Girl serving Thanksgiving dinner to the Justice Society and Justice League. I am going to abstain from making any comments about “breast or leg” here, although the jokes do sort of write themselves. Sorry, Power Girl!
Nobody does political satire in comic books quite like the legendary Howard Chaykin. Here is a panel from American Flagg! #4 (Jan 1984) from First Comics, featuring one of the most dysfunctional Thanksgiving dinners you are likely to ever come across.
Hmmm, this turkey tastes a little funny. Ha ha ha… sorry, I just couldn’t help myself. Anyway, speaking of dysfunctional, not to mention just plain disturbing, here is the cover to Evil Clown Comics #4 by the late Alan Kupperberg from 1989. I’ve never found any physical copies of this series, but I believe that it collected together the Evil Clown Comics stories by Kupperberg that were published in National Lampoon.
A slightly less unsettling image is offered up on this variant cover to Garfield #7 (Nov 2012) published by Boom! Studios. I’m certain anyone who has ever had cats can identify with the danger of your feline companions attempting to make off with the Thanksgiving turkey. It’s certainly happened to us on a couple of occasions!
The talented and much-underrated Gordon Purcell offers up this lovely tribute to Rockwell on his cover for Flare #31 (Feb 2006) from Dennis Mallonee’s Heroic Publishing, which has been releasing fun, entertaining comic books since the mid 1980s.
Back in the early 1990s Marvel Comics had not one, but two ongoing Barbie comic book series, both of which lasted for several years. Both titles had some talented creators working on them. It was probably one of Marvel’s more successful efforts to reach a young female audience. Here’s the cover to Barbie Fashion #37 (Jan 1994) by Anna-Marie Cool & Jeff Albrecht.
Chase was one of those really good titles from the 1990s that unfortunately never really found an audience and was cancelled too soon. D. Curtis Johnson did some really great writing on this series. Cameron Chase had some serious family issues, so of course here we are flashing back to Thanksgiving of days past on the cover to issue #6 (July 1998). This striking image is by the superb team of J. H. Williams III & Mick Gray.
Good old MAD Magazine, always ready to skewer politics, pop culture and society! This send-up of The Saturday Evening Post is from issue #39, published waaaay back in May 1958. Unfortunately I have not been able to find a credit for the artist. Can anyone help out?
Update: As per the link helpfully provided by M.S. Wilson in the comments below, this piece was done by regular MAD contributors writer Tom Koch & artist Bob Clarke.
Marvel’s First Family celebrates Thanksgiving on the cover to Fantastic Four #564 (April 2009) by Bryan Hitch. I’m sure that, among the various things for which the Invisible Woman is thankful for this year, it’s that Reed Richards opted to slice up the turkey in the traditional manner, as opposed to inventing an Atomic Powered Turkey Carver which would have undoubtedly blown the roof off of the Baxter Building.
Let’s close things out with the cover to Betty #119 (Jan 2003) by Stan Goldberg & Bob Smith, which has the gang from Riverdale celebrating Thanksgiving, complete with Reggie Mantle’s usual snarky comments. I’m not absolutely certain if this cover is a specific homage to Rockwell, but it is certainly close enough. In any case, Archie Comics too often falls under the radar, which is too bad, since they have some really great art.
(This was by no means a comprehensive list, and a quick search of the internet will reveal many more tributes to Freedom From Want.)
2022 Update: I just came across this Freedom from Want homage drawn by Todd Nauck and colored by Rachelle Rosenberg last year as a variant cover for the now-classic Uncanny X-Men #308 which took place on Thanksgiving and saw Scott Summers & Jean Grey finally get engaged. I don’t know if this was physically published or just released digitally, but I really enjoy Todd’s work and it’s too cool not to share here.
This is the description Nauck gives for this piece on The Art of Todd Nauck on Facebook:
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
This is a variant cover I drew (with @rachellecheri on colors!) for an NFT of Uncanny X-Men #308 (1994) comic book exclusively for VeVe.
I hope everyone enjoyed this little selection of Thanksgiving-themed comic book artwork. Have a good holiday, and let’s all try to be thankful for for what we have, because there are a lot of people much less fortunate in the world.
During his time at Charlton, McLaughlin worked closely with fellow artist Dick Giordano. If you look at McLaughlin’s work, especially his inking, you can see that Giordano was a definite influence. Considering Giordano was an incredibly talented artist himself, one could certainly do worse than to draw inspiration from him.
In My Not So Humble Opinion 
