As I am sure everyone is aware, there is a new Superman movie out, directed by James Gunn. Unfortunately, I have yet to see it, so I cannot comment about it here on my blog. However, I really wanted to do a Superman-related blog post, because he really is one of my favorite characters.
It then occurred to me that I had not done a It Came from the 1990s entry in quite a few months, so why not do a one about Superman? After all, the 1990s were MY era of Superman. And there was a Superman-related project from DC Comics that came out in October 1998 that I feel was sort of lost in the shuffle, and which deserved to be spotlighted.
Superman: War of the Worlds was published by DC under their Elseworlds imprint. The concept of the book is brilliantly simple: what if Superman fought the Martian invaders from H.G. Wells’ classic science fiction novel The War of the Worlds? This special is written by Roy Thomas, drawn by Michael Lark, lettered by Willie Schubert, colored by Noelle Giddings & Heroic Age, and edited by Joey Cavalieri.
As Thomas’s script and Lark’s artwork make clear, though, this is not the modern-day Superman. Rather, it is the original Golden Age version of the character created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, the figure who could leap an eight of a mile & run faster than a locomotive, and who nothing less than a bursting shell could penetrate his skin. In other words, this Superman, at the beginning of his career in late 1938, very quickly realizes that he is going to be surely challenged by the might of the Martian invasion.
As I’ve observed before in previous entries, Thomas has an abiding love for the Golden Age of comic books, so it’s not at all surprising that he takes to writing the original Superman like a duck to water. He’d actually written this version of Superman before, in the early 1980s on All-Star Squadron, so I’m sure he enjoyed revisiting the character & time period. Thomas also does fine work on Lois Lane, penning her as a feisty reporter pushing against the gender roles of the era. And Lex Luthor is coldly, brilliantly arrogant. I liked the touch that this Luthor starts out with a full head of red hair, much like the character did in the early Golden Age, before losing it in a fire caused by the Martians’ heat ray.
In addition to being the year that Superman made his publishing debut, 1938 was when Orson Welles broadcast his infamous radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds, spawning panic across the country. As such, it’s entirely appropriate to have a crossover between the two properties.
Coincidentally or not, Superman: War of the Worlds was published on the 100th anniversary of Wells’ The War of the Worlds in novel format (as per Wikipedia, it had first been serialized in Pearson’s Magazine in the UK and Cosmopolitan magazine in the US in 1897).
I emailed Thomas to ask if he would be willing to share a few thoughts about Superman: War of the Worlds for this blog post, and he kindly responded:
“That’s one of my favorite memories of work done for DC. It was originally going to utilize materials from the 1938 Mercury Theatre broadcast, but because Koch had gained full rights to the script and wanted something like $40,000 (at least) for any use of it, we just forgot about that part of it…all that mattered was that it took place in 1938, the year Superman first appeared…which was only coincidentally the year of the “Martian Invasion” broadcast by Welles and company. I left out any mention of radio people in the comic, just to be on the safe side. The artist did a great job, and I feel it was a successful project. I enjoyed writing the page near the end about the aftermath of the war, with all the things that happened that seemed “inevitable” to the people living through them… which were, of course, completely different from the way things went in our world.”
I definitely agree with Thomas that the artwork was fantastic. This was still fairly early in Lark’s career, but already he was producing great work. He does a fine job with both the period settings and the sci-fi elements. His Superman really evokes the original work of Shuster from the late 1930s. It’s not at all surprising that Lark soon after went on to great acclaim on such titles as Gotham Central and Daredevil.
And I certainly appreciated the homage to the iconic cover to Action Comics #1 that Thomas & Lark managed to include within this story, as Superman lifts up an automobile to smash into a Martian tripod.
If you haven’t read Superman: War of the Worlds, I highly recommend tracking down a copy. It’s an exciting story with quality artwork. Glancing over on eBay, I see there are several copies for sale for just a few dollars more than the original cover price, so fortunately it’s a fairly easy book to acquire.
Welcome to JSApril. I’m participating in the blogging event that celebrates the original superhero team, the Justice Society of America, who made their debut in All-Star Comics #3, published by DC Comics in November 1940.
On this blog I previously took a look at the first year of All-Star Squadron, the early 1980s series written by Roy Thomas which was set on Earth-Two during World War II, and which featured not just the JSA but practically all of the heroes of the early 1940s fighting against the Axis menace and sundry other assorted villains. So, for JSApril, I’m going to be offering up a brief overview of All-Star Squadron’s second year.
Let’s start with All-Star Squadron Annual #1, which features Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Alan Scott), Flash (Jay Garrick), Wildcat, Atom and Guardian. Roy Thomas has often been interested in drawing threads in his stories, connecting random bits of past continuities. Here, he focuses on the similarities in the origins of Wildcat, Atom and Guardian to offer up a common denominator, as well introduce a cosmic-powered menace.
Thomas also offers up, via the splash page by Adrian Gonzales & Jerry Ordway, a fun homage to the cover to Comic Cavalcade #2 by Frank Harry from 1943. By the way, I think it’s incredible that Gonzales & Ordway, who were the regular art team on All-Star Squadron, found the time to also draw this annual. The two artists really had incredible speed & work ethics.
Following on from the Annual, we get All-Star Squadron #14 and #15, which crossover with Justice League of America #207-209, by the team of writer Gerry Conway & artist Don Heck. “Crisis on Earth-Prime” was 1982’s annual Summer crossover between the JLA and the JSA.
In what I found an unusual choice, Thomas & Conway decided to use time traveling fascist Per Degaton as the main villain, even though he’d already been the bad guy in the inaugural All-Star Squadron story just a year earlier. Even more perplexing, “Crisis on Earth-Prime” ends exactly the same way as the previous story, with the events of the story being erased, and everyone forgetting it ever happened. Ah, well, at least the artwork by Gonzales & Ordway was top-notch.
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Adrian Gonzales, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza, and colored by Carl Gafford
Fortunately, things do pick up for All-Star Squadron after this. Issue #16 sees the Squadron facing off against Nuclear the Magnetic Marauder, a villain with a highly unusual pedigree. Nuclear was first introduced in Wonder Woman #43, published in 1950. However, as Thomas observed in an article in Alter Ego from TwoMorrows Publishing, it was very obvious from that story that there was a previous encounter between Princess Diana and Nuclear which was never published, and which by 1980 was long lost. Thomas set out to tell the “first” story to feature Nuclear the Magnetic Marauder, presenting a prequel which saw both Diana and the Squadron facing against the magnetic menace.
All-Star Squadron #17 puts Squadron member Robotman in the spotlight. Secretly the scientist Robert Crane, who had his brain transplanted into an artificial body after his own was mortally wounded, Robotman is put on trial to determine if he is actually a human being, or merely somebody’s property. This is another good issue in which, in addition to the focus on Robotman, Thomas further develops the Squadron members Johnny Quick, Liberty Belle, Firebrand and Commander Steel.
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Adrian Gonzales, inked by Rick Hoberg, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Gene D’Angelo
Issue #18 sees the Squadron encounter Thor… or rather a deranged, dangerous criminal who believes he is the Norse god of thunder. I wonder if Thomas was poking a bit of fun here at his work, as well as that of his former boss Stan Lee, since he has the Squadron members mocking the counterfeit Thor’s pseudo-Shakespearean dialogue. Fighting alongside the Squadron against Thor is obscure Golden Age hero the Tarantula, who soon after gains a spiffy new costume and becomes a regular presence in the series.
All-Star Squadron #16-18 are inked not by Ordway, but by Rick Hoberg, who does nice, but certainly different, work over Gonzales’s pencils. That’s because Ordway took off to get a head start on becoming the series’ regular artist. All-Star Squadron #19-20 feature full artwork by Ordway,and he does an incredible job on these two issues. The double page splash of the Squadron arriving at the remains of the 1939 World’s Fair exhibition in Flushing Meadows – Corona Park, Queens is absolutely stunning.
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled & inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Gene D’Angelo
Issues #19-20 are another prequel of sorts by Thomas, as he has the Squadron encounter Brain Wave, the telepathic villain who in real life was not introduced until All-Star Comics #15 in early 1943. Brain Wave has captured the JSA and trapped them in a mental dreamscape wherein they are endlessly fighting against the Japanese forces. The Squadron’s attempts to rescue the JSA are ultimately futile, and it is only Green Lantern’s immense willpower that eventually enables the teams to escape the clutches of Brain Wave.
Here we get to what I would refer to as the main event, the Ultra-Humanite saga, which runs through All-Star Squadron #21-26 and Annual #2. This seven-part epic introduces several new characters, some of whom would go on to have significant roles in the DC universe. Ordway continues as penciler on these issues, with his friend Mike Machlan inking issue #21-26. Ordway provides full artwork for Annual #2, once again proving what a speed demon he is in the art department.
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Jerry Ordway, inked by Mike Machlan, lettered by Carrie McCarthy and colored by Gene D’Angelo
The Ultra-Humanite was Superman’s original arch-enemy in the early comic books. A mad scientist, Ultra eventually died, but using his technology his lackeys transplanted his brain into the body of actress Dolores Winters. The gender-swapped Ultra continued his criminal schemes, and in All-Star Squadron he shows up with several super-powered henchmen in tow, seeking to acquire several items of mystical power. The sexist Ultra, who hates being trapped in a woman’s body, also seeks to have his brain re-transplanted, this time into Robotman’s powerful mechanical body.
One of the Ultra-Humanite’s henchmen is Amazing-Man, a new character created by Thomas & Ordway. An African American, Amazing-Man is given the power to change his body into whatever substance he touches. Amazing-Man’s real name is Will Everett, a homage by Thomas to his late friend & colleague Bill Everett, who created a different Amazing-Man character back in 1939. Amazing-Man, resentful of the racism & segregation in America, starts off as a willing accomplice to Ultra’s schemes, but eventually he switches sides and joins the JSA and Squadron to fight against the man scientist. A flashback to Amazing-Man’s origin in issue #23 is penciled by Hoberg and inked by Machlan.
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Rick Hoberg, penciled by Mike Machlan, lettered by David Cody Weiss and colored by Gene D’Angelo
Even more significantly, the Ultra-Humanite saga introduces Infinity Inc., a group of teenage heroes who have traveled back in time from the year 1983. Yes, it’s yet another time travel story, the THIRD one since All-Star Squadron started! I guess the difference here is that the Ultra-Humanite epic does NOT end with everyone forgetting the events of the storyline. Whew!
Although not revealed to the Squadron and the JSA, the readers are privy to Infinity Inc.’s secret, namely that they are the sons, daughters, and wards of various JSA members. Initially mentally controlled by Ultra, Infinity Inc. soon break free of the villain’s control and help the Squadron fight off the arch-villain and her forces, which includes several criminals who have also traveled back in time to 1942 from the present day.
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Jerry Ordway, inked by Mike Machlan, lettered by David Cody Weiss and colored by Gene D’Angelo
The members of Infinity Inc. were created by Thomas, his wife Dann Thomas, Ordway and Machlan. They were soon spun off into their own title, which lasted for 53 issues, with two Annuals also being published.
One artistic contribution that I haven’t yet highlighted is legendary artist Joe Kubert, who contributes covers to All-Star Squadron #14-18. As I mentioned in my look at the first year of All-Star Squadron, Kubert started his career way back in the Golden Age of comic books as a young teenager, and actually drew some of these characters in the 1940s. So, it must have been a thrill for Thomas, a huge Golden Age fan, to get Kubert to contribute to this series.
Penciled and inked by Joe Kubert
The majority of the issues I’ve covered in this blog can be found for reasonably low prices. The exceptions are, of course, All-Star Squadron #25-26, the first two appearances of the members of Infinity Inc. Those might unfortunately set you back more than a few bucks, but if you search around you may eventually find them for affordable prices.
And hopefully one of these days All-Star Squadron will finally get a proper collected edition from DC Comics. Until then, keep searching the back issue bins for editions of this great series.
Earlier this week longtime comic book creator Larry Hama posted to his Facebook fan page that due to medical issues he would soon no longer be able to do any drawing. This sad news was a sobering reminder to me that Hama, like many of my other favorite writers & artists in the comic book field, isn’t getting any younger.
I feel like I’ve not adequately blogged about certain creators whose work I enjoy until after they have passed away. Hama’s announcement motivated me to put together a short tribute to the man & his career while he is still with us, because it’s important to let people like him know how much their work means to us while we still have the chance.
Larry Hama was born on June 7, 1949 in New York City. He attended High School of Art & Design in Manhattan and also studied martial arts. In an interview with the Daredevil fan website Man Without Fear, Hama described his early career thus:
“I sold my first cartoon to “Castle of Frankenstein Magazine” in 1966. I was still in school, at the High School of Art & Design in NYC. That’s where I met Ralph Reese who later became an assistant for Wally Wood. When I came home from the army in 1971, I needed a job, and Ralph set me up with Woody. I wrote, lettered and did “swipe-o-graphing” for Woody on “Sally Forth” and “Cannon”, which were two strips for “The Overseas Weekly”, a tabloid for servicemen. My contacts through Woody led me to studio space at Neal Adams’ Continuity Associates, and from there, I got my first penciling job in regular comics at DC.”
One of Hama’s earliest noteworthy assignments was as the second penciler on Marvel’s Iron Fist after co-creator Gil Kane bowed out following the character’s debut in Marvel Premiere #15. Hama penciled the Iron Fist feature in Marvel Premiere #16-19 (July to Nov 1974) where he was inked by Dick Giordano.
Iron Fist in Marvel Premiere #16, written by Len Wein & Roy Thomas, penciled by Larry Hama, inked by Dick Giordano, lettered by Gasper Saladino and colored by Glynis Oliver, published by Marvel Comics in July 1974
Hama became an editor at DC Comics in 1977, although his stint at that publisher was relatively short due to the infamous DC Implosion that resulted in a severe culling of the company’s line. As he explained to Comic Book Historians:
“Well, Jenette [Khan] hired me as an editor along with Al Milgrom. We were like the new blood. But a year later, they had what they called the DC implosion… So they, pretty much jettisoned all the new hires… Milgrom and I got the boot, and Milgrom went straight over to Marvel. And after a couple of months, he calls up, basically says, “Hey, the water’s fine. Come on over here.” [chuckles]”
Going to work as an editor at Marvel, Hama soon oversaw the line of Conan comic books and the humor magazine Crazy.
It was in the early 1980s that Hama first became associated with the property that would become one of the defining projects of his career. In 1982 he became the writer of the G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero comic book series published by Marvel, to tie in with the new toy line from Hasbro. It was not initially considered to be a prestigious assignment, to say the least. As Hama recounted to Comic Book Historians:
“They asked all the contract writers and they all turned it down. Every writer at Marvel turned it down. Nobody wanted a military book… As a toy license, it paid this lowest rates in town because the licensing fee came off of the top of the page rate… But I had been trying to get writing work for years. Nobody would give me a writing work. They say, “Well, you’re an artist.” So I took it.”
The “Hama Cut” of G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #1, with Hama’s original script for this key scene restored. Written by Larry Hama, penciled by Herb Trimpe, inked by Bob McLeod, lettered by Jim Novak, and colored by Glynis Wein, re-issued by Image Comics in November 2023
Hama also had the job of writing the “dossier” cards for all of the Hasbro action figures, giving the entire line-up of the G.I. Joe team, as well as their terrorist adversaries Cobra, real names, birthplaces, training, abilities, weapons specialties & personalities, drawing heavily on his own experiences serving in Vietnam and studying martial arts. In other words, Hama took what could have been a one-dimensional toy line & comic book about the military and made them into fully formed human beings.
In an interview with Joe Battle Lines, Hama reflected on his early days writing the G.I. Joe comic book:
“I was terrified that I would run out of ideas by the third issue. I pretty much did. I didn’t really get rolling until I fully understood that it was all about the characters and not the plot.”
Indeed, G.I. Joe was an extremely character-driven series, a labyrinthine soap opera that has frequently been compared to the works of Charles Dickens. What’s even more astonishing is that Hama has been very forthwith about having made it all up completely as he went along, with no advanced planning. As he explained to CBR:
“I made up the back-story as I went along, mostly as retcon. I never submitted a single story arc beforehand because I never knew how any one given issue was going to end until I got to the last page.”
“The soldiers always lose and the politicians and deal makers always come out smelling like roses!” G.I. Joe #76 written by Larry Hama, penciled by Ron Wagner, inked by Fred Fredricks, lettered by Rick Parker, and colored by Bob Sharen, published by Marvel Comics in Sept 1988
Hama frequently touched upon his feelings about serving in the armed forces, of duty & honor. G.I. Joe was not a jingoistic book, by any means. Often the Joe team found themselves at odds with the Pentagon generals or members of Congress who had their own selfish, shadow agendas, and who regarded the armed forces as nothing more than a tool to be used to achieve their political goals. At times the Joes would even find themselves temporarily allied with members of Cobra as the power structure in that fascist organization continually shifted. Hama peppered the series with intelligent levels of social & political commentary.
G.I. Joe ran for 155 issues, with the finale coming out in late 1994, a remarkable run for a series based on a toy line. Hama wrote nearly every single issue of the title’s 13-year run, plus all but one of the 28 issue spin-off G.I. Joe: Special Missions that came out in the late 1980s.
Like a lot of fans who got into comic books in the 1980s and early 90s, one of the titles that I read was G.I. Joe. Truthfully, I only ever picked up around 20 or so of the issues throughout the run as they came out. But other kids at school and summer camp followed the series, so I would frequently read their copies of the issues that I missed. And during my senior year of high school in 1994 I did a deep dive and bought a whole stack of back issues, catching up on storylines I had missed.
Snake Eyes in “Silent Interlude!” G.I. Joe #21 written & pencil breakdowns by Larry Hama, finishes by Steve Leialoha, and colored by George Roussos, published by Marvel Comics in March 1984
Although he became better known as a writer due to his work on G.I. Joe, Hama still worked as an artist. He would draw up concept sketches for many of the comic book covers, and he also occasionally contributed to the series’ interior pages. Most notably, he penciled the now-famous G.I. Joe #21, “Silent Interlude” (March 1984).
It’s been observed by some of the most talented industry professionals that the mark of a really good penciler is that if you were to take away all of the dialogue & captions, and be left with nothing but the pictures, you would still be able to follow the basic story. “Silent Interlude” definitely illustrates that point. Hama’s pencils very clearly, effectively tell an action-packed story without any words. It’s understandably regarded as a masterpiece of storytelling.
Hama was regarded by Hasbro as such an integral part of the G.I. Joe toy line that they released a member of the Joe team whose likeness and military specialty was based on Hama himself. As per Wikipedia:
“Tunnel Rat… is the G.I. Joe Team’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal specialist and debuted in 1987… The character’s facial appearance and military specialty is based on G.I. Joe comic book writer Larry Hama, who was an EOD specialist for two tours of duty during the Vietnam War.”
Enter Tunnel Rat! G.I. Joe #59 written by Larry Hama, penciled by Ron Wagner, inked by Bob McLeod, lettered by Joe Rosen, and colored by George Roussos, published by Marvel Comics in May 1987
In addition to his work on G.I. Joe, Hama also had a short run on Avengers in the early 1990s where he introduced the inner-city teenage superhero Rage, who later joined the New Warriors. Hama had an even longer run on Wolverine, writing the series from 1990 to 1997. During that eight year period Hama was scripted a number of key storylines featuring Logan’s attempts to uncover his mysterious past. It was an exciting time to be following the series.
Among his other credits, Hama also wrote Nth Man the Ultimate Ninja, Conan, Elektra, Venom and the unfortunately short-lived Wild Thing for Marvel, the last of which was covered here on this blog several months ago.
Hama has had the opportunity to return to the G.I. Joe universe, first at IDW and now at Image, picking up both the numbering and continuity of the original Marvel series. He continues to write the series to the present day.
A fan of the great Carl Barks, in interviews Hama has been forthwith that his greatest unfulfilled ambition in comic books is actually to write Uncle Scrooge. Regrettably, the closest that he has come to the funny animal world of Duckville was co-creating & editing Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham and co-creating Bucky O’Hare, as well as writing a Howard the Duck Holiday Special.
Hama has lived in the New York City area for many years, and I’ve been very fortunate to have met him on several occasions at comic conventions and store signings. He’s always come across as being very generous with his time for his fans.
The last time I met Hama was a couple of weeks ago at the Undiscovered Realm Comic Con in White Plains, NY. I’m glad that I finally asked him for a sketch of Tunnel Rat, the G.I. Joe who was modeled on him. Of course he did a great job.
Thank you for all of the great comic books over the years, Mr. Hama.
Legendary comic book artist Ramona Fradon has passed away at 97 years old.
This is one of those occasions when I feel ill-equipped to write an obituary on this blog. Perhaps that is due to the fact that during her lifetime Fradon was interviewed on a number of occasions, most extensively by Howard Chaykin for the book The Art of Ramona Fradon published by Dynamite Entertainment in 2013. Another excellent interview was conducted by Jim Amash for Alter Ego #69 (June 2007) from TwoMorrows Publishing. Therefore, I feel like whatever biographical information I might post here would only be reiterating what Fradon herself already recounted with genuine life & passion.
So, instead, I am merely going to share my own personal thoughts on Fradon as an artist and as a person.
Apologies for the cropped image, but at 12 by 9.5 inches this great extra-large volume is just a little too big to fit on my scanner!
By the way, if you haven’t already, I encourage you to purchase The Art of Ramona Fradon. The conversations between Fradon and Chaykin are marvelous and informative, and the book features a treasure trove of Fradon’s work across her decades-long career.
Having gotten into comic books in the late 1980s, I missed much of Fradon’s work for DC Comics. I also admit to all-but-ignoring her work on the Brenda Starr newspaper strip because I was a teenager, and what teenage boy wants to read a romance series? I fully cop to making some foolish decisions in my younger years that I now regret!
I finally discovered Fradon in the late 1990s and early 2000s when her older work was just beginning to get reprinted by DC Comics, and she was doing some new material for smaller publishers, such as her charming cover illustration of Hedy Lamarr for Dignifying Science, Jim Ottaviani’s book about women scientists, which was illustrated by a line-up of female artists, which was published in 1999 book by G.T. Labs.
Fradon lived in upstate New York, and so she was a regular guest at conventions in the tri-state area. I first met her at the All-Time Classic New York Comic Book Convention held in White Plains, NY in June 2000. At the time I had just started my Beautiful Dreamer theme sketchbook. I knew Fradon had a genuine affinity for drawing lovely ladies, and so I asked her to do a piece in the book.
Now keep in mind Fradon had never read Forever People by Jack Kirby. She was totally unfamiliar with the character. Nevertheless, she agreed to do a Beautiful Dreamer sketch for me, and she proceeded to draw a wonderful sketch. A quarter century later Fradon’s piece still remains one of the very best in the entire sketchbook.
That was the sort of person Fradon was. In interviews she admitted that she wasn’t a fan; for her drawing comics was merely a job. Nevertheless, she was a consummate professional, always doing her very best on every single job she did. And she was always kind enough to try to draw whatever odd or unexpected character requests fans might give her for convention sketches & commission illustrations.
I next met Fradon at one of the Big Apple Comic Con shows, back when they were in the church basement near Columbus Circle. I purchased an illustration of Metamorpho, the absolutely wonderful elemental shape-changer that she had co-created with writer Bob Haney and editor George Kashdan at DC Comics in 1964.
I regret to say that, following the Great Recession in 2009, I was out of work for quite some time. During the next several years I sold off much of my collection of comic book artwork to help pay the bills, and the Metamorpho by Fradon was one of those that I reluctantly parted with. Hey, I did mention regrets before, didn’t I?
I eventually acquired a copy of 1st Issue Special #3 (cover-date June 1975) which had Haney & Fradon’s one-off return to Metamorpho a decade after their original work on the character. I had Fradon autograph that book for me, which took some of the sting out of losing the original art.
While I never did obtain another Metamorpho sketch from Fradon, I did purchase a charming Catwoman piece by her through her art rep Scott Kress of Catskill Comics. I previously blogged about that one, but I’m going to share it again here. I also bought a piece of Brenda Starr artwork as a holiday gift for Michele, which she loved.
Fradon’s artwork was always charming, always had this enjoyable quality to it. It was fun. Even on the darker stories she drew for DC Comics’ horror anthologies, there was a certain charm & humor to her work. It was always a joy to view her art.
One of Fradon’s very few jobs for Marvel Comics was guest-penciling Fantastic Four #133 (April 1973). Fradon would later acknowledge that she was much more comfortable working from the full scripts of DC Comics than the relatively short plots that Marvel specialized in giving their pencilers at the time. Fradon would offer the opinion that inker Joe Sinnott saved the art on “Thundra at Dawn!”
Nevertheless, as a huge fan of old-school Marvel Comics, I find that issue to be a fun combination of Fradon and Sinnott’s two distinctive art styles. I actually feel that Fradon’s work really enhances the comedic aspect of the brawl between the Thing and Thundra atop the Unisphere in a way that might not have been there if FF regulars John Buscema or Rich Ruckler had penciled it in a more traditional, straightforward manner.
Fantastic Four #133 plotted by Roy Thomas, scripted by Gerry Conway, penciled by Ramona Fradon, inked by Joe Sinnott, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Stan Goldberg, published by Marvel Comics in April 1973
The last time I met Fradon at a comic con, I smiled and told her, “I know that you’ve said that drawing comic books was just a job for you, but I wanted you to know that a lot of people genuinely love your work.” She smiled back and, with an implied shrug, merely responded, “Well, I always tried to do the best work I could.” Fradon was modest like that, about her incredible talent, and about the impact she had on so many readers over the decades.
One of the frustrating aspects of discussing comic books from the 1990s is certain people have this idea in their head that because there were a handful of flashy, red-hot superstar artists on mainstream superhero books during that decade, and numerous other artists who imitated them, often with lackluster results, that consequently all comic book artwork from the 1990s was awful.
The reality is much different. There were a number of very good, talented artists working in comic books during the 1990s. One of the reasons I have for doing these It Came from the 1990s features is to spotlight the work of these individuals.
Geof Isherwood is among the artists from that decade whose work I enjoy. Isherwood had actually been working in comics since the early 1980s. However, it was his art on Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme for Marvel Comics in the early 1990s that first caught my attention and instantly made me a fan.
12/23 Update: Isherwood read this post and was kind enough to offer a few comments which I’ve added.
Isherwood had drawn several “The Book of the Vishanti” back-up stories in Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme in 1990 and 1991. In those features writers Roy Thomas & J.M. Lofficier explored various elements of the magical history of the Marvel universe.
I’m guessing that it was on the strength of these back-ups that Mike Rockwitz, who became the series editor with issue #31, asked Isherwood to become the book’s regular penciler. Isherwood’s first full issue of Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme was #37, cover-dated January 1992.
I already blogged about issue #37 years ago, but I’m going to share another page from “Frankensurfer” here, because Isherwood’s work is just so stunning. His depiction of the conflict between Frank von Frankenstein and Vlad Tepes (the future vampire lord Dracula) really demonstrates his affinity for rendering historical and fantasy elements.
Written by Roy Thomas & J.M. Lofficier, drawn by Geof Isherwood, lettered by Pat Brosseau and colored by George Roussos
Next, we have the splash page of Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #43 (July 1992) which was a crossover with the Infinity War event. We see Strange with the Silver Surfer, Nova and the world-devourer Galactus. Isherwood shows a real affinity for rendering the Kirby-created cosmic concepts of the Marvel universe.
In an interview Isherwood discussed the difficulty in positioning normal-sized figures like Strange with an immense being such as Galactus, especially with that towering helmet, of framing figures of such different scales in the same panels and actually making it work. It’s the sort of storytelling challenge that I now realize doesn’t typically occur to readers such as myself. I feel like we only notice it when it DOESN’T work, and the perspectives are off. When id does work, we have an unfortunate tendency to take the artist’s skill at pulling it off for granted.
Written by Roy Thomas, drawn by Geof Isherwood, lettered by Pat Brosseau and colored by George Roussos
Issue #45 (Sept 1992) is another Infinity War crossover. In short, Doctor Strange dies, because that sort of thing happens with alarming frequency in mainstream superhero comic books. Of course, he soon gets better. But in the meantime he is confronted by the physical personification of Death itself, who is attempting to convince Strange to give up the ghost, so to speak, and succumb to oblivion.
Isherwood’s double page spread is very effective, with his use of three smaller close-up panels of Strange’s face on the left, which lead us right to his striking encounter with Death.
Isherwood comments:
“Issue #45 was the story Scott Derrickson used in the Dr Strange movie. He raised some scenes, like the car crash and how Strange goes on a hot date and ignores his brother who’s sick (or something, gotta read the comic again). Thus I was in the Special Thanks.”
Written by Roy Thomas, drawn by Geof Isherwood, lettered by Pat Brosseau and colored by George Roussos
Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #49 (Jan 1993) is part of the storyline wherein the various mystical entities who Strange has been invoking for years forcibly attempt to recruit him to fight for them in the millennia-long cosmic War of the Seven Spheres. Instead, Strange refuses, and invokes the Law of Emancipation, freeing him from his obligations to the Vishanti and other entities, but also leaving him seriously de-powered, no longer able to call on his former magical patrons. Isherwood does a good job drawing the various bizarre entities in this sequence.
This is one of several issues from Isherwood’s run where he only does penciling. In this case, inks are by Bob Petrecca & Don Hudson. The issues on which Isherwood just did pencils really make you realize how much of his distinctive style is in his inking. Not to disparage Petrecca, Hudson, or any of the other embellishers who were paired with Isherwood, but I usually prefer his full artwork. This is a good demonstration of the role inking plays on the look of finished artwork.
Written by Len Kaminski, penciled by Geof Isherwood, inked by Bob Petrecca & Don Hudson, lettered by Pat Brosseau and colored by George Roussos
No sooner does the weakened Strange return to Earth than he discovers his bitter enemy Dormammu has returned, now more powerful than ever. So in issue #50 (Feb 1993) Strange is forced to assemble a team of Secret Defenders for the first time, in this case the Hulk, Silver Surfer and Ghost Rider.
This two-page spread of the Defenders entering Dormammu’s bizarre realm is incredibly striking. It’s a good example of Isherwood’s aptitude at rendering unearthly Ditko-esque realms.
Written by Len Kaminski, drawn by Geof Isherwood, lettered by Pat Brosseau and colored by George Roussos
Also from issue #50, here’s a page of Strange confronting the now-titanic, multi-limbed Dormammu. I really like Isherwood’s unconventional storytelling & panel shapes in this sequence. Really gives the battle a lot of energy & excitement.
Written by Len Kaminski, drawn by Geof Isherwood, lettered by Pat Brosseau and colored by George Roussos
Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #53 (May 1993) sees another old foe of Strange, the dream demon Nightmare, actually take over Strange’s body. Nightmare is opposed by the tortured anti-hero Morbius the Living Vampire.
Isherwood does another good job with the storytelling here, the long vertical panels and positioning of the figures really making this feel like an intense confrontation. The lurid green coloring by George Roussos and distinctive lettering by Pat Brosseau definitely enhance the mood & action. A good reminder of the roles both color and lettering play in the finished product.
Geof comments:
“I always felt George’s coloring was a bit bizarre, but since it was Dr. Strange he must have felt bizarre was the way to go.”
Co-plotted by Roy Thomas & Geof Isherwood, scripted by Thomas, drawn by Isherwood, lettered by Pat Brosseau and colored by George Roussos
The 1993 Marvel annuals all introduced brand-new characters, the company’s attempt, in the wake of the formation of Image Comics, to attempt to show that they didn’t need the superstar artists who had made their exodus from Marvel. DC Comics did the same thing in their 1993 annuals. The results for both companies were decidedly mixed, to say the least!
Possibly one of the more effective creations on the Marvel side was Kyllian, who made his debut in Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme Annual #3. Kyllian was a young, angry man who became invested with the powers of the Celtic gods. A reluctant Strange took Kyllian on as his new apprentice. Due to Kyllian being created by Isherwood, who both wrote & penciled the Annual, Kyllian was quickly integrated into the monthly series, meaning that he wasn’t instantly forgotten like many of the other new characters.
On the main story in Annual #3 Isherwood’s pencil breakdowns were finished by the very talented Dave Simons. In this case, I actually liked the collaboration, as I feel the artwork was a lovely synthesis of their two styles.
Written & pencil breakdowns by Geof Isherwood, finishes by Dave Simons, letters by Diana Albers and colors by Ovi Hondru
The art on Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #54 (June 1993) is a bit of an oddity. Frank Lopez, who was mostly known for his work as a colorist, provided breakdowns, with Isherwood contributing finishes. This crossover with the Infinity Crusade event has Strange seeking out the cosmic entity Eternity in an effort to discover the truth of the mysterious Goddess who is promising to bring about universal peace.
This page has Strange pitted against his time-displaced mentor the Ancient One, framed around the stellar visage of Eternity in a way that helps convey the immensity of that entity. Lopez utilized a lot of multi-panel layouts on this story. Isherwood’s finishes give the work a real punch.
Isherwood comments:
“Issue #54: I was on vacation with my first (now late) wife Sonja. For once I decided to do a real vacation and not take work with me. So Rockwitz hired Frank, who did a very nice job, and I inked it after we came home, to maintain the overall look.”
Written by Roy Thomas, layouts by Frank Lopez, finishes by Geof Isherwood, lettered by Pat Brosseau and colored by George Roussos
Issue #58 (Oct 1993) sees our hero once again encountering alien sorcerer Urthona, who unlike Strange has become embroiled in the sprawling War of the Seven Spheres, a conflict the tentacle-faced being seeks to utilize for his own personal benefit. Drawn to the planet Gevaltu, Strange uses the Eye of Agamotto to discover exactly what sort of back-dealing his foe has been involved in and expose that duplicity to Urthona’s subjects.
Once again, Isherwood does a fine job with the storytelling, and with depicting the non-human beings and alien landscapes in this story.
Written & drawn by Geof Isherwood, lettered by Pat Brosseau and colored by George Roussos
Isherwood’s Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme run ended with issue #59 (Nov 1993). Incoming editor Evan Skolnick brought on the new creative team of writer David Quinn & penciler Melvin Rubi, a run that I’ve blogged about previously. Isherwood drew a short Doctor Strange story in Marvel Comics Presents that tied into Quinn’s ongoing storyline, and then that was it for his involvement with the character.
Fortunately, Rockwitz became the editor on Namor the Sub-Mariner, and he brought Isherwood over with him to that series. I’m still glad that, at a time when the industry was starting to experience a major implosion, Isherwood was able to continue working regularly for another couple of years. He certainly did great work on Namor the Sub-Mariner, a title that was as suited to his rich, illustrative artwork and fantasy sensibilities.
In recent years Isherwood has worked as a movie storyboard artist. As he explained:
“The film industry was just picking up steam at the end of the 90s in Montreal, so I transitioned in good time. Drawing comics, and superheroes when commissioned to do so, is like riding a bicycle to me, easy to jump back into even if the work takes a lot of focus.”
Isherwood still does the occasional independent comic book series and has a few projects in the works. I certainly look forward to seeing what he does next, and I hope to promote his new work either here or on First Comic News.
Isherwood is in my personal Top Five Favorite Doctor Strange Artists. For the record, the other four are Steve Ditko, Gene Colan, Frank Brunner and Mark Buckingham.
The full run of Geof Isherwood’s Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme is reprinted in two Marvel Epic Collections, Volume 10: Infinity War and Volume 11: Nightmare on Bleeker Street. I definitely recommend picking them up.
In the early 1970s Jim Starlin made a significant impact at Marvel Comics, creating the arch-villain Thanos the Mad Titan and revitalizing the moribund Captain Marvel series. Starlin later had a falling-out with Marvel, and for several years in the 1980s he went over to DC Comics. Eventually, though, Starlin returned to Marvel at the end of the decade, where he became writer of the Silver Surfer series. In his first issue, #34 (cover-dated Feb 1990), Starlin revived Thanos.
Starlin spent the next year and a half building up to a major storyline wherein Thanos acquired the six Infinity Gems, obtaining godlike power, with the goal of wiping out half of the living beings in the universe. Apparently this storyline was originally going to take place primarily within the pages of Silver Surfer, but at some point the decision was made to spin it out into the massive six issue Infinity Gauntlet miniseries, which crossed over with a number of other titles. And when Infinity Gauntlet concluded, it led into the ongoing series Warlock and the Infinity Watch, as well as two further crossovers, Infinity War and Infinity Crusade.
And then, in the Spring of 1993, yet another book was spun off from all of Starlin’s various Infinity going-ons. The Warlock Chronicles #1, cover-dated July 1993, was written by Starlin, penciled by Tom Raney, inked by Keith Williams, lettered by Jack Morelli, and colored by Gina Going. (I recently got my copy autographed by Starlin, Raney and Williams.)
The Warlock Chronicles ended up lasting only eight issues. The series was clearly part of Marvel’s early 1990s efforts to flood the market. I don’t know if Marvel actually believed it was viable for there to be two ongoing series featuring Adam Warlock, or if they were just tossing stuff at the wall to see what would stick. Whatever the case, less than a year later the industry began its catastrophic crash. I seem to recall Marvel retroactively claiming that The Warlock Chronicles was intended to be a miniseries all along.
Whatever the case, this series offers a good demonstration of the state of mainstream comic books in the early 1990s: dump a bunch of product to push the competition off the comic shop shelves, have it tie in with a huge crossover, in this case Infinity Crusade, and slap an attention-grabbing gimmick cover on the first issue. I believe this one is known as a “holofoil” cover.
Keeping all this in mind, “Things Past” is a surprisingly good story. Following on from the early chapters of Infinity Crusade, Adam Warlock has been rendered comatose and is drifting “far from home, in a dimensional reality unknown to him.” Adam is discovered by the sorcerer Darklore and his fairy-like disciple Meer’lyn. Darklore is able to communicate with the Infinity Gem on Adam’s forehead, and the sentient jewel begins recounting the history of its golden-skinned host.
Looking at the recap of Adam Warlock’s convoluted history in The Warlock Chronicles #1, I am reminded that sometimes assigning accurate credit for the creation of comic book characters is anything but simple.
If we want to get technical about it, Adam Warlock was created by Jack Kirby… but not really. That is to say, that without Kirby there would be no Adam Warlock, yet the character he ultimately became is very far removed from Kirby’s original conception.
In 1967 Kirby was still the plotter & penciler on Fantastic Four. In issues #66-67, Kirby introduced a group of scientists called the Enclave who sought to create an artificial, perfect human being who was initially known as “Him.” Kirby intended this story as a critique of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, which Kirby’s fellow writer / artistSteve Ditko had embraced & incorporated in his own work. “Him” would have turned on his well-intentioned creators, destroying them because they failed to meet his own standards of perfection. However, when Stan Lee provided the script to those Fantastic Four issues, he reduced the story to a much simpler tale of good vs evil, with the Enclave intending to use Him to conquer the world, only for the artificial being to reject their plans, banishing them.
This was one of the incidents that fueled Kirby’s growing disenchantment with Lee, ultimately culminating in Kirby departing from Marvel in 1970, and his decision to script all his stories from that point on so that he would no longer have to worry about his plots & characters being altered by others. Kirby used Him only one more time before his departure from Marvel, in Thor #165-166. In certain respects, it is one of those stories where it feels like Kirby was phoning it in as he awaited an opportunity to jump ship from Marvel. One can hardly blame him for feeling that way.
There’s no way of knowing what might have happened next with Him after this, except in early 1972 in the pages of Marvel Premiere #1 writer Roy Thomas, paired with penciler Gil Kane, brought Him back. Thomas & Kane revamped Him into Adam Warlock, a cosmic messiah figure, a direction influenced by Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice’s popular rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, which had premiered several months earlier. Dispatched by the High Evolutionary to the parallel world “Counter Earth” on the opposite side of the Sun, Adam Warlock, now gifted with what came to be known as the Soul Gem, was pitted against the Man-Beast, an evil being of temptation & corruption.
After appearing in the first two issues of Marvel Premiere, Adam Warlock graduated to his own ongoing series. Ultimately, however, Warlock only lasted for eight issues before being abruptly canceled in 1973.
Two years later, though, Starlin got his hands on Adam Warlock. Starlin was highly skeptical of organized religion, and so he took “Warlock as cosmic messiah” to what was, to him, a logical conclusion. Adam encountered The Universal Church of Truth, a galaxy-spanning religious empire ruled by his own evil future self, the tyrannical Magus. Starlin also quickly incorporated Thanos into the Warlock storyline, soon positioning the Mad Titan to be Adam’s arch enemy.
So, when Starlin returned to Marvel in the early 1990s and resurrected Thanos, it was all but inevitable that he would also bring back Adam Warlock. And even though this new Thanos epic had begun in the pages of Silver Surfer, once Warlock returned he quickly became the main protagonist in Starlin’s corner of the Marvel universe. (Honestly, I feel Starlin made Warlock, like Thanos, too important, to the point that at times he wrote everyone else as incompetent, just so Warlock and Thanos would always be the two smartest people in the room.)
Back in 1993 Marvel still had yet to institute a comprehensive reprint program to collect their earlier stories in trade paperbacks. There was also no Wikipedia or Google or whatever, so it’s not like I could have looked up any of this online. This no doubt made Starlin’s recap of Adam’s history in The Warlock Chronicles #1 very informative for new readers at the time.
That said, there weren’t any footnotes in this issue, so you would have no idea where of these events originally took place. As it is, for quite some time I actually thought Adam Warlock had been created by Starlin, and it wasn’t until at least a decade later that I learned about the character’s convoluted conception & development.
Amusingly, I met Gil Kane when he was a guest at a comic con in 1999. He had a small pile of original artwork with him for sale, including a few Warlock pages. My immediate reaction was “When did Gil Kane draw Warlock?” I thank God that I did not vocalize this thought, instead keeping it to myself. Kane was known not to suffer fools gladly, so I can only imagine what sort of rebuke this might have earned! A few years later I finally learned about the character’s publication history, at which point I gave myself a mental facepalm.
Cutting to the chase, all of this is why I find the first issue of The Warlock Chronicles to be simultaneously pointless and very effectively done. It’s basically an illustrated Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entry, but it came out at a time when readers such as myself who weren’t even born when most of the original Warlock stories were published would have found it a very useful source of information.
Occasionally I’ll pick up a new comic book from Marvel or DC, and my reaction to it ends up being “Who the fuck are these characters supposed to be?” Seriously, half the time I have no idea who they are. I understand that both publishers have embraced the “writing for the trade paperback” model, but it would not interrupt the flow of a collected story too badly to occasionally include these sorts of recaps, especially if you have a character with a very convoluted backstory.
Tom Raney does a great job illustrating Warlock’s history in this issue, with accompanying cameos by a wide-ranging cast of characters. Raney is one of those pencilers who I’ve always felt should have been much bigger. He has a very dynamic, flashy, detailed style, but unlike some of the other artists who broke into the comic book biz in the early 1990s he also has a good grasp of storytelling & anatomy. Raney is still in comic books, having recently drawn Green Lantern DC. I’m glad that he’s still working, unlike too many of his contemporaries who unfortunately have been forgotten by the Big Two. (I suppose this post is as good an excuse as any to showcase his work.)
Keith Williams does a good job inking Raney’s pencils here. I’ve always found Williams to be a versatile inker, doing fine work over a variety of different pencilers.
The lush, vibrant coloring is by Gina Going, who is married to Tom Raney. I feel Going brought out the best in his work, because obviously she would have understood exactly what he was going for with his pencils. She did a good job coloring all of the weird, dynamic cosmic events recounted in this story. Going subsequently colored Raney on Mutant X, Stormwatch and Outsiders.
I do find it a bit difficult to believe that The Warlock Chronicles #1 came out 30 years ago, now making it older than all of the stories it was recapping. (Fantastic Four #66-67, the debut of Him, would only have been 26 years old in 1993).
The Warlock Chronicles remains an interesting glimpse back at a time when Marvel attempted to inundate the market with dozens upon dozens of titles & gimmick covers… as opposed to the present day, when they are inundating the market with hundreds of variant covers. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, and all that.
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.
I discussed writer & editor Roy Thomas’ great fondness for the Golden Age of comic books when I took a look at The Invaders miniseries published by Marvel Comics in 1993. That four-issue series brought back the World War II era team of superheroes whose adventures Thomas had previously chronicled in the mid to late 1970s.
Penciled by Rick Buckler, inked by Dick Giordano, lettered by Gasper Saladino and colored by Tatjana Wood
As much as Thomas liked the original Timely / Marvel superheroes from the 1940s, he has an even greater fondness for the Justice Society of America, the original superhero team, who were published by DC Comics in the pages of All-Star Comics from 1940 to 1950. In fact, Thomas was born on November 22, 1940, the very same day that All-Star Comics #3, the debut of the JSA, went on sale. Perhaps he was destined to become one of the JSA’s biggest fans. Whatever the case, some of the earliest comic books Thomas read were the All-Star Comics issues featuring the JSA which were published in the second half of the 1940s, and they made a huge impression on him.
It had long been Thomas’ ambition to write the JSA, but working at Marvel for the first decade and a half of his career he never had the opportunity. A dispute with Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter led Thomas to seek work with DC and beginning in 1981 he wrote & edited several titles for them. Among these was All-Star Squadron, a series set on the parallel reality of Earth-Two during World War II that featured not just the JSA but nearly every single costumed crime fighter from that era.
By the late 1980s Thomas was back at Marvel. I didn’t begin following comic books regularly until that time, and so I unfortunately missed all of the books Thomas did for DC, instead becoming a fan of his via his new work for Marvel. I also spent most of the 1990s searching through the back issue bins at comic shops and comic cons to assemble a complete run of The Invaders.
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Rich Buckler, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Carl Gafford
I’m surprised it took me this long to seek out Thomas’ work on All-Star Squadron and its two spin-offs, Infinity Inc. and Young All-Stars. There’s a thrift store in my neighborhood that regularly has comic books for sale for a dollar each, and I’ve discovered some great stuff there. Well last November I came across a few issues of All-Star Squadron at that store. I really enjoyed them, and that really whetted my appetite for the series. Since then I’ve been working on assembling a complete run of the series. I acquired the early issues on eBay, but for the later ones I’m trying to see how many I can find the old-fashioned way. It’s a fun challenge.
The series actually made its debut in a special 16-page insert included in Justice League of America #193, cover-dated August 1981, which led directly into the first issue of All-Star Squadron a month later.
I commute to work on the subway, and my trip is usually about 45 minutes each way. After I acquired the first few issues of All-Star Squadron, I brought them with me to read, and I just barely managed to finish the first issue in the time it took to get from Queens to Midtown Manhattan. Thomas wrote very dense, verbose scripts for this series! Look at all that text!
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Rich Buckler, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Carl Gafford
Seriously, I really lament the trend of decompressed storytelling at both DC and Marvel, especially as individual issues continue to have increasingly-higher cover prices. I definitely miss comic books like this where you more than got your money’s worth. I don’t think I’d mind comics costing so much nowadays if we still got this sort of value.
The initial All-Star Squadron storyline takes place on December 7, 1941, with Imperial Japan’s attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor serving as the backdrop. Per Degaton, the time traveling fascist, intends to utilize the chaos of that “day of infamy” in order to alter history and conquer the world.
I have to admit, I found it an odd decision for Thomas to launch the series with this story. Due to the JSA not encountering Degaton for the “first” time until 1947, all of the characters end up forgetting almost everything that takes place in the first three issues. That’s such a weird way to kick off your series!
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Rich Buckler, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Carl Gafford
Thomas endeavored to have the history of Earth-Two remain as close as possible to our own real world. As such, he detailed why, following Pearl Harbor, the JSA and the rest of the newly-formed Squadron didn’t simply use their fantastic abilities to quickly win the war. Certainly when you have a series set in a world where Superman, Wonder Woman, the Spectre and Doctor Fate exist, you’re going to need to address that!
The explanation Thomas devised was that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan acquired the Spear of Destiny and the Holy Grail, respectively, and the mystical energies of those two artifacts prevented the All-Stars from entering any territory occupied by the Axis powers. That meant they were forced to operate in the Western hemisphere and other unconquered countries, where they would only be able to prevent the Axis from advancing any further. Obviously still a formidable task, especially as the Naxis are revealed to have their own super-powered agents, but one that meant that, just as in actual history, the war in Europe and Asia would have to be won by ordinary men & women on the battlefield.
Issues five and six see a contingent of the All-Stars travel to Mexico to prevent a Nazi-backed coup that would install a fascist puppet government controlled by the Third Reich. This is then followed by a three issue arc in which the armored Baron Blitzkreig infiltrates the United States to stage an assassination attempt on President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill during a summit meeting in Washington DC. This later story enables Thomas to utilize a number of pages of artwork from the unpublished sixth issue of Steel, the World War II series created by writer Gerry Conway that was abruptly canceled four years earlier during the infamous DC Implosion.
Written by Gerry Conway & Roy Thomas, penciled by Don Heck, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by John Costanza and colored by Carl Gafford
All-Star Squadron #10-12 (June to August 1982) are, with the benefit of time, quite interesting. A group of well-intentioned scientists fakes an alien invasion in an attempt to bring an end to World War II and unite the world. Yes, it’s the same basic concept that Alan Moore would famously utilize five years later in Watchmen. It’s also the plot to The Outer Limits episode “The Architects of Fear” broadcast in September 1963, as well as “The Last War on Earth” in Weird Science #5 published by EC Comics in January 1951. And I’m sure there are few other examples of the trope out there. In Thomas’ version for All-Star Squadron, though, the scheme is subverted by Hawkman’s immortal arch enemy Hath-Set, who wants to rule the world himself.
Thomas ties a bow on the first year of All-Star Squadron with issue #13. “One Day, During War…” is set a month after Pearl Harbor, in mid-January 1942. The various All-Stars are afforded a brief pause in the ongoing hostilities of the war to take stock of all that has happened to them recently. It’s a very well-done character piece. When I met Thomas at Big Apple Comic Con a few months ago this was one of the issues I got autographed by him.
Thomas also utilizes this story to address the virulent anti-Japanese sentiment that erupted following Pearl Harbor, which led to the shameful interment of over one hundred thousand American citizens of Japanese ancestry. That is one of the qualities of All-Star Squadron that I appreciated, namely that while Thomas does utilize somewhat idealized depictions of real-life figures such as FDR and Churchill, he also did not shy away from the morally complex areas of the era.
Penciled and inked by Joe Kubert
Although various members of the JSA appear throughout the run of All-Star Squadron, Thomas very quickly placed the focus on much lesser-known Golden Age superheroes such as Johnny Quick, Liberty Belle, Hawkgirl, Robotman and the Shining Knight. He also soon incorporated Conway’s character Commander Steel into the cast, as well as introducing Danette Reilly, a female version of the ultra-obscure 1940s costumed crime fighter Firebrand. With her red hair and that first name, Firebrand was undoubtedly based on Thomas’ wife & writing partner Dann (formerly Danette) Thomas.
Thomas sought to place his own All-Star Squadron stories as smoothly as possible in-between the original JSA adventures. All-Star Comics had been published on a quarterly schedule for much of the 1940s, and that gave Thomas plenty of space in which to insert his new stories. Nevertheless, having the primary focus on Johnny Quick, Shining Knight, Robotman et al enabled Thomas to really develop those characters, and to plot out their story arcs, in a way that was not possible for the JSA members who had well-established histories to take into account. I also get the feeling that Thomas very much enjoyed developing the relationship between Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle, playing them off one another and giving them a real sexual tension.
One other note on these stories: While reading through the early issues of All-Star Squadron it suddenly occurred to me that those comic books are now as old as some of the issues of All-Star Comics were at the time when Roy Thomas was referencing them in his stories. Yeah, it sort of blows my mind that we are now as far away from the 1980s and the 1980s were from the 1940s.
Forty years ago is a long time ago, right? Right?!?
The initial art team on All-Star Squadron was penciler Rich Bucker, inker / embellisher Jerry Ordway, letterer John Costanza and colorist Carl Gafford. Buckler had already been working regularly for a decade at this point, having established himself at Marvel both on the flagship series Fantastic Four and his own creation the cyborg anti-hero Deathlok in Astonishing Tales. Buckler was definitely an artistic chameleon. His penciling on All-Star Squadron is very much reminiscent of Neal Adams’ style.
Ordway, in contrast to Buckler, was very new to comics, and All-Star Squadron was his first ongoing assignment. It’s interesting to look at the evolution of Ordway’s style. His inks on the JLA #193 preview and the first issue of All-Star Squadron are very muted (part of that is probably due to several of Buckler’s penciled pages from the first issue getting lost in the mail, requiring Ordway to ink photocopies of them on vellum).
By the second issue, though, you can really see Ordway’s characteristic style & flourishes beginning to appear. Ordway was often required to bring Buckler’s pencils “on model” by making certain the clothing, vehicles, buildings, historical figures and other real-world elements were all accurate for the early 1940s.
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Adrian Gonzales, inked by Jerry Ordway, lettered by Ben Oda and colored by Carl Gafford
Adrian Gonzales becomes the new regular penciler with issue #6, and Ordway remained on as inker. The two made a very effective art team. Initially I wasn’t sure how I would feel about Buckler departing the series so early in its run, especially as offhand I was unfamiliar with Gonzales’ work. But I found myself appreciating the collaboration of Gonzales & Ordway even more than I had the issues by Buckler & Ordway.
The unpublished Steel #6 had been penciled by the very underrated Don Heck and inked by Frank Chiaramonte. To be honest, I’ve never been overly fond of Chiaramonte’s work, and as such I’m glad the Heck pages were re-inked by Ordway when they were incorporated into All-Star Squadron #8-9. The combination of Heck’s solid, effective storytelling and Odway’s very polished, slick inking worked very well indeed.
Mike DeCarlo guest inked All-Star Squadron #13 over Gonzales’ pencils. The result is finished art rather different than when Ordway provided inks. But it suited the quieter, character-driven nature of that particular issue.
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Adrian Gonzales, inked by Mike DeCarlo, lettered by Ben Oda and colored by Carl Gafford
Finally, looking at the covers, a few of them were penciled by Buckler and inked by Dick Gordano, another solid collaboration. Veteran artist Joe Kubert illustrated the covers for #2 and #7-13. Some of Kubert’s earliest work was drawing the Seven Soldiers of Victory, a team that included the Shining Knight, in the early 1940s. A few years later he regularly worked on the Hawkman chapters of the JSA stories in All-Star Comics. Given Kubert’s historic connections to those two Golden Age heroes, Thomas was undoubtedly happy to have him contribute to this series.
Kubert’s covers with their raw, shadowy inking definitely stand in contrast to the slick finishes Ordway was providing on the interior art, but I nevertheless liked them. He contributed several striking images.
Penciled and inked by Joe Kubert
As I continue in my quest to put together a complete run of All-Star Squadron — 67 monthly issues and 3 annuals, for those who are counting — perhaps I’ll take other looks back at this great series.
Comic book artist Mike Machlan passed away earlier this month. Machlan’s career in comic books lasted from the early 1980s to the mid 1990s. He worked primarily as an inker, although he did do the occasional penciling job. His art had a fun quality to it.
All-Star Squadron #24 written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Jerry Ordway, inked by Mike Machlan, lettered by David Cody Weiss and colored by Gene D’Angelo, published by DC Comics in August 1983
Machlan was a longtime friend of fellow artist Jerry Ordway. They were both from Wisconsin, and the two had met in the mid 1970s when they were working on fanzines and self-published comic books. Ordway broke into professional comic books first, and one of his earliest regular assignments was doing inks / finishes on All-Star Squadron. Written by Roy Thomas, All-Star Squadron featured the Justice Society and their numerous costumed allies fighting against the Axis powers during World War II.
Ordway assumed the penciling chores on All-Star Squadron with issue #19, and two months later on issue #21 (cover-dated May 1983) Machlan had joined him as the series’ inker. The two worked very well together, as can be seen by this superb splash of Batman page from All-Star Squadron #24 which evokes the character’s Golden Age origins.
All-Star Squadron #28 written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Mike Machlan and inked by Jerry Ordway, published by DC Comics in December 1983
Roy Thomas and his wife Dann devised a spin-off for All-Star Squadron. Set in the then-present of the early 1980s, Infinity Inc. would feature the sons, daughters & other successors of the JSA on Earth-Two. Other than the already-existing Power Girl and Huntress, the members of Infinity Inc. were new characters devised by Roy & Dann Thomas, Mike Machlan & Jerry Ordway. Machlan and Ordway worked closely together to design the visuals of the team members.
As Ordway recounted in Modern Masters Volume 13: Jerry Ordway, published by TwoMorrows Publishing in 2007:
“I think Jade and Obsidian were the two characters that were closest to me and to Mike, because we really had the most input on them. And there was some stuff that Mike did on his own. I don’t think I went over every one of those things, and he turned out a lot of sketches. He turned out Mr. Bones, a new Hourman, and a male version of Harlequin.”
Above is the double page promo piece by Machlan & Ordway that ran in All-Star Squadron #28 to promote the upcoming series.
Infinity Inc. #9 pencils & inks by Mike Machlan, published by DC Comics in December 1984
The initial plan was for Machlan to pencil Infinity Inc. with Ordway inking him. However, at the last minute the two artists switched roles, with Ordway penciling and Machlan inking.
Machlan did still get to pencil a few of the Infinity Inc. covers, which Ordway inked. Machlan also did the full artwork for a number of profile images of the various team members, which were published throughout the series’ run.
Continuing his account of Infinity Inc’s origins, Ordway explained:
“But then you had Fury, and then finally Silver Scarab. And I think Fury and Silver Scarab are pure Mike Machlan-channeling-Kirby kind of designs.”
Above is Machlan’s profile pic of Silver Scarab, one of the characters on which he was primary designer, which appeared in Infinity Inc. #9.
West Coast Avengers #29, written by Steve Englehart, layouts by Al Milgrom, finished by Mike Machlan, letters by Bill Oakley and colors by Gregory Wright & Bob Sharen, published by Marvel Comics in February 1988
Ordway and Machlan both departed from Infinity Inc. after the series’ first year. Machlan went on to ink Chuck Patton and George Tuska on Justice League of America, and Rafael Kayanan on The Fury of Firestorm, as well as doing a few inking jobs for First Comics.
Machlan began working for Marvel Comics in 1987, providing finishes over Al Milgrom’s layouts on West Coast Avengers beginning with issue #24. I felt Milgrom & Machlan made a solid team. One of the best examples of their collaboration was West Coast Avengers #29. “Death Run” features Moon Knight on a single-minded pursuit of Taurus, head of the Zodiac crime cartel. Machlan’s finishes really helped to enhance the intense, moody tone of writer Steve Englehart’s story.
Marvel Fanfare #41 penciled by Mike Machlan, inked by Al Milgrom and colored by Greg Wright, published by Marvel Comics in December 1988
The anthology series Marvel Fanfare that Milgrom edited frequently featured pin-up galleries that spotlighted the work of different artists. Milgrom especially enjoyed giving artists who were best known as inkers the opportunity to contribute pin-ups, enabling them to demonstrate their penciling abilities.
Marvel Fanfare #41 had a gallery of Mike Machlan pin-ups which featured various characters & events from the Silver Age. A different artist inked each piece. In an interesting reversal of their roles on West Coast Avengers, Machlan was inked by Milgrom on the pin-up of Captain America and his rogues gallery.
Avengers West Coast #50 written & penciled by John Byrne, inked by Mike Machlan, lettered by Bill Oakley and colored by Bob Sharen, published by Marvel Comics in November 1989
In 1989 John Byrne became the writer / artist on West Coast Avengers, and the series was soon re-titled Avengers West Coast in a move to make sure the book would be stocked on the shelves right next to the main Avengers series, hopefully increasing sales.
Machlan remained on Avengers West Coast for several issues, inking Byrne’s pencils. Once again, I felt Machlan did a good job, complementing Byrne’s work. Above is a page from Avengers West Coast #50 featuring the continuity-shattering meeting of the Vision and the original android Human Torch.
Amazing Spider-Man #338 written by David Michelinie, penciled by Erik Larsen, inked by Mike Machlan, lettered by Rick Parker and colorer by Bob Sharen, published by Marvel Comics in September 1990
Machlan hopped over to Amazing Spider-Man in 1990, where he was paired with penciler Erik Larsen. I’m a huge fan of Larsen’s work, and I like the quality that Machlan brought to the finished art in those days before Larsen did his own inking. Machlan remained on Amazing Spider-Man for about a year.
Following this, Machlan worked on another Spider-Man project. Once again paired with Al Milgrom, he inked the four issue Deadly Foes of Spider-Man series in 1991.
Justice Society of America #1 written by Len Strazewski, penciled by Mike Parobeck, inked by Mike Machlan, lettered by Bob Pinaha and colored by Glenn Whitmore, published by DC Comics in August 1992
Machlan also began working for DC Comics again in the early 1990s. His main assignment saw him return to the heroes of the Golden Age with the all-too short-lived Justice Society of America series that ran for 10 issues between August 1992 and May 1993. I recently blogged about this great, underrated series. Machlan was a good match for series penciler Mike Parobeck.
The mid-1990s saw a major downturn when the inflated speculator bubble finally burst. Machlan, like a number of other comic book professionals, departed the industry to find work elsewhere.
While no longer working for any of the major publishers, in recent years Machlan did commission work for private collectors. He did several great pieces for fans Michael Dunne and “Marvel Two-in-One Guy” which can be seen on Comic Art Fans.
Although Machlan’s career in comic books only lasted about a decade and a half, he did really good, quality work during that time. Many fans, myself included, fondly recall his art, and were saddened by the news of his death.
In My Not So Humble Opinion 
