A M E R I C A N

C H R O N I C L E S
THE

1980-1989 by KEITH DALLAS

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Dedication
Dedicated to the generation of fans
who grew up reading comic books during the 1980s.

Writer/Editor: Keith Dallas

Contributing Writers: Jason Sacks, Jim Beard,
Dave Dykema, Paul Brian McCoy
Layout, Logo and Design: Bill Walko
Cover Photographer: Luis Benitez
Proofreader: Rob Smentek
Publisher: John Morrow

TwoMorrows Publishing
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Abomination, Alpha Flight and all associated characters, Angel, Ant-Man, Avengers and all associated characters, Banshee, Baron Blood, Baron Zemo, Beast, Beta-Ray Bill, Black Bolt, Black Knight, Bucky, Bullseye, Captain
America, Captain Britain, Captain Mar-Vell, Colossus, Cyclops, Daredevil, Dark Phoenix, Dazzler, Destroyer, Doctor Zero, DP7, Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange, Elektra, Epic Illustrated, Excalibur and all associated characters, Falcon, Fan-
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Wonder Girl, Wonder Twins, Wonder Woman, Zatanna TM & © DC Comics • Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, Adventurers, Ex-Mutants, Lone Wolf & Cub TM & © respective copyright holder • American Flagg! TM
& © Howard Chaykin • Armor, Ms. Mystic TM & © Neal Adams • Az TM & © Phil Lasorda • Calvin & Hobbes TM & © Bil Watterson • Captain Victory TM & © Jack Kirby Estate • Comet, Fly, Fly-Girl, Shield, Jaguar, The Web, Black
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TM & © Matt Wagner • Grimjack TM & © Tim Truman • Groo TM & © Sergio Aragones • Justice Machine TM & © Mark Ellis • Love and Rockets TM & © Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez • Marshal Law TM & © Pat Mills and Kevin
O’Neill • Maus TM & © Art Spiegelman • Maze Agency TM & © Mike Barr • Ms. Tree TM & © Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty • MTV TM & © Viacom Media Network • Nexus TM & © Mike Baron and Steve Rude • Omaha the
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Table of Contents
Introduction and Acknowledgements............................................... 4
Introductory Note about the Chronological
Structure of American Comic Book Chronicles................................... 6
Note on Comics Book Sales and Circulation Data............................ 7

Chapter One: 1980

Dark Phoenix and the Darkness
Before The Direct Market by Keith Dallas . ...................................... 8

Chapter Two: 1981

The Roy Thomas Renaissance, Royalties, and
The Return Of The King by Keith Dallas......................................... 24

Chapter Three: 1982

New Publishers, New Formats, New Talent,
and New Mutants by Keith Dallas.................................................... 46

Chapter Four: 1983

Controversy Over A Proposed New Comics Code
by Keith Dallas......................................................................................... 72

Chapter Five: 1984

Teenage Turtle Takeover by Keith Dallas.................................... 104

Chapter Six: 1985

Crisis and Creation
by Jason Sacks......................................................... 128

Chapter Seven: 1986

Watchmen and the Watchers of the
Comics Industry by Jason Sacks........................ 152

Chapter Eight: 1987

Bubbles Burst, Back to Basics
by Jim Beard.......................................................................................... 186

Chapter Nine: 1988

Killing Jokes and Killing Calls
by Dave Dykema.................................................................................. 216

Chapter Ten: 1989

The Year of the Billionaire, the Bat, and the Brits
by Paul Brian McCoy........................................................................... 246
Works Cited........................................................................................... 279
Index....................................................................................................... 286

INTRODUCTION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Ask comic book aficionados about the 1980s and many will
immediately reference such seminal publications as Alan
Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, Frank Miller’s Dark
Knight, and Art Spiegelman’s Maus. Others will mention
such crowd-pleasing series as Marvel Comics’ Uncanny
X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man, or Secret Wars. Even others
will point to the decade’s plethora of new creator-owned
titles, like Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles, Mike Baron and Steve Rude’s Nexus, Howard

The Times they were a’

Chaykin’s American Flagg!, or Los Bros. Hernandez’s Love
and Rockets.
This book’s most prevalent message is that none of these

Changin’
publications would have been printed if not for the prolif-
eration and ascension of a new sales venue for comic books:
the specialty comic book stores known as The Direct Mar-
ket. As the 1980s dawned, the comic book industry was in
critical condition due to the dwindling sales supplied by
newsstand outlets. By the time the 1980s ended, however,
the industry’s fortunes had reversed as the Direct Market
had fully replaced the newsstand as the principal point-
of-sale for comic books.
Unquestionably for the comic book industry, the 1980s
were boom years, both financially and creatively. For the
first time in their histories, the two biggest publishers, DC
Comics and Marvel Comics, offered royalties to writers
and artists working on their best-selling titles. The lure of
royalty payments incentivized professionals to be imagi-
native and strive for excellence. And then there were the
many writers and artists who released their own creations
exclusively to the Direct Market and found themselves fi-
nancially and critically rewarded for doing so. Their suc-
cess encouraged many more professionals (and publish-
ers) to take the Direct Market plunge. In turn, because the
Direct Market wasn’t beholden to the restrictive standards
of the newsstand’s regulatory Comics Code Authority,
contents of comic books became more explicit. Along with
that, the norms of the medium changed. Narrative tech-
niques became more sophisticated, and embracing it all
was a comic book readership that was more mature than
it had ever been before.
But the decade had its share of misfortunes too. A glut of
product in the mid-1980s threatened to undermine the
Direct Market just as it was flourishing. There was also a
pervading fear that if the comic book industry didn’t po-
lice itself, outside watchdog groups would find the explicit
content produced in comic books unacceptable and de-
mand censorship. By the end of the 1980s, some grew con-
cerned the comic book industry was becoming too reliant
on the Direct Market for its success, and it was a concern
that turned prophetic…
But that’s a tale to be told in a different volume of American
Comic Book Chronicles and by a different author. As far as
this volume goes, I cannot emphasize enough that it was
as much a collaborative project as an individual one. This
book was produced through the efforts and assistance of
many, many people. Foremost among them are four writ-
ers who were called upon to help me finish this volume
in a timely manner: Jim Beard, Dave Dykema, Paul Brian
McCoy and Jason Sacks. I designate them my “cavalry” be-
cause they rode in and saved the day.

4
 Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t single out the contribu-
Love and Rockets TM and © Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez.

tions of two individuals: John Wells and Bill Walko. John

Wells’ knowledge of comic books (and comic book history)
is unparalleled. I cannot overstate how much of a vital
resource he was during the production of this book. The
manner in which John checked facts, offered advice, and
responded to my (near daily) queries went above and be-
yond the call of duty. Similarly, I cannot ask for a better
designer than Bill Walko. He is this book’s true maestro.
My prose doesn’t deserve—as it cannot hope to match—
the visually stunning work that Bill provided for American
Comic Book Chronicles.
So I am eternally grateful to both men, and I can only hope
they—and my cavalry of writers—are all gratified by the
experience of producing this book.
Keith Dallas
November 16, 2012

Left: 'Mazing Man makes off with a rack full of 80s-era comics on the cover
of Amazing Heroes Preview Special #3. Above: The girls of Love and Rockets enjoy
some of the best-selling comics of the 1980s, on the cover of Amazing Heroes #62.

And then there are those who offered direct testimony

about the 1980s comic book industry, who verified (or cor-
rected) information, who provided much needed scans
of 1980s comic books, or simply offered feedback as each
chapter was finished. In other words, these people pro-
vided the kind of invaluable aid this kind of book couldn’t
do without, and they include: Tom Brevoort, Rich Buckler,
Rich Cincotta, Dr. Brannon Costello, Brian Cronin, J.M. De-
Matteis, Dave Elliott, Steve Englehart, Robert Greenberger,
Fred Hembeck, Rand Hoppe, Thomas Iaiello, Scott Kolins,
J.T. Krul, Paul Kupperberg, Ralph Macchio, Andy Mangels,
Jonathan Mankuta, Ron Marz, Mark McKenna, John Jack-
son Miller, Doug Moench, Doug Murray, Zane Reichert,
Bill Reinhold, Bob Rozakis, James Sherman, Jim Shooter,
Louise Simonson, Walter Simonson, Dr. Matthew J. Smith,
Joe Staton, Roy Thomas, Chris Tolworthy, Mark Waid, Dave
Wallace, Len Wein, and the “Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez Fans”
Facebook page. A special mention goes to Glenn Fischette
and his entire staff at Fourth World Comics in Smithtown,
New York for their support and for allowing me to use
their (very well stocked) store as an essential library.
Of course, I am grateful to John Morrow for approving
American Comic Book Chronicles and for trusting me to
turn it into a publication worthy of the distinguished
American Flagg! TM and © Howard Chaykin.
TwoMorrows Publishing brand.
5
 NOTES
Introductory Note about the Chronological Structure of American Comic Book Chronicles
The monthly date that appears on a comic book cover
doesn’t usually indicate the exact month the comic book
arrived at the newsstand or at the comic book store. Since
their inception, American periodical publishers—includ-
ing, but not limited to, comic book publishers—postdated
their issues in order to let vendors know when they should
remove unsold copies from their stores. In the 1930s, the
discrepancy between a comic book’s cover date and the
actual month it reached the newsstand was typically one
month. For instance, Detective Comics #1 is cover-dated
March 1937, but actually went on sale one month earlier
in February. Starting in 1940, comic book publishers hoped
to increase each issue’s shelf life by widening the discrep-
ancy between cover date and release date to two months.
In 1973, the discrepancy was widened again to three
months. The expansion of the Direct Market in the 1980s,
though, turned the cover date system on its head as most
Zot! TM and © Scott McCloud.
6
Direct Market-exclusive publishers chose not to put cover
dates on their comic books while some put cover dates that
matched the issue’s release date.
This all creates a perplexing challenge for comic book his-
torians as they consider whether to chronologize comic
book history via cover date or release date. The predomi-
nant comic book history tradition has been to chronolo-
gize via cover date, and American Comic Book Chronicles
is following that tradition. This means though that some
comic books that were released in the final months of one
year won’t be dealt with until the chapter about the fol-
lowing year. Each chapter, however, will include a yearly
timeline that uses a comic book’s release date to position it
appropriately among other significant historical, cultural
and political events of that year.
- Keith Dallas, with the assistance of Ray Bottorff, Jr.
 NOTES

Note on Comics Book Sales and Circulation Data

Determining the exact number of copies a comic book ti-
tle sold is problematic, regardless if the sales outlet under
consideration is the newsstand or the Direct Market. The
best one can hope to learn is a close approximation of a
comic book’s total sales. This is because the methods used
to report sales figures were (and still are) fundamentally
flawed.
During the 1980s, most comic books sold on the news-
stand would print an annual “Statement of Ownership,
Management and Circulation” in one of their issues as was
required by the United States Post Office for all periodicals.
These statements divulged—among other information—a
comic book title’s average print run, average paid circula-
tion, and average returns from the newsstand. The data in
these statements were as accurate as the publishers could
provide. The publishers certainly knew how many copies
they printed, but they relied on the distributors to inform
them of how many copies were sold on the newsstand
and how many unsold copies were being “returned” for
a refund. Most distributors actually didn’t return unsold
copies—or even stripped covers of the unsold copies—
back to the publishers; instead they sent to the publishers
affidavits of the number of unsold copies they destroyed.
In essence, an “honor system” was in place that relied
on the newsstand distributors to be truthful about the
number of copies bought by consumers and the number of
unsold copies being destroyed. And perhaps unsurprising-
ly, once the publishers couldn’t dispute what the distribu-
certain east coast warehouses that illegally sold 'affidavit
returns' comic books (“Tales from the Database” 99).
It’s perhaps even more understandable then why comic
book publishers in the early 1980s looked to the Direct
Market as a replacement sales venue. However, the fact
that Direct Market retailers couldn’t return comic books
sent to them doesn’t necessarily make determining
exactly how copies a comic book title sold less problem-
atical. That’s because Direct Market distributors didn’t
require their retailers to keep track of how many comic
books were purchased by their consumers and how many
comic books became unsold inventory. Famously, Direct
Market retailers ordered 428,000 copies of Marvel’s first
Direct Market exclusive comic book, Dazzler #1 (cover date
March 1981). The ongoing historical inquiry though is
how many copies of Dazzler #1 did retailers order to satisfy
consumer demand and how many copies did they order
as a speculative investment for themselves. This inquiry
can be transferred to any comic book sold exclusively to
the Direct Market.
American Comic Book Chronicles then recognizes the
flawed nature of newsstand and Direct Market circulation
data but is resigned to the fact that it is also the only data
available and will consider it a close approximation of a
comic book’s total sales numbers.

Nexus TM and © Mike Baron and Steve Rude.

tors were reporting in their affidavits, the whole system
became corrupted.
In an interview conducted for American Comic Book Chron-
icles, Jim Shooter detailed a scenario that he described as
emblematic of the newsstand system’s corruption:
Let’s say a distributor orders 1000 copies of a comic
book. So the publisher sends him 1000 copies. But
because the distributor doesn’t really care about
comic books, he maybe only sends 300 copies to
his newsstand dealers. Of those 300, maybe 200
are bought by the consumer. That’s a 66% sell-
through. That’s pretty good. But that’s really only
200 out of the 1000 that was ordered. Now because
affidavit returns are the industry standard, the lo-
cal wholesaler will skew the sale numbers in his
favor. So he’ll report total sales of 125 copies. Even
though he really sold 200 copies, he’s only paying
the publisher for 125 copies. Then the remaining
800 copies he received from the publisher—which
he’s supposed to destroy—he puts into bricks and
sells to the local Costco OR throws them into the
paper wolf and sells the pulp OR sells them for a
nickel apiece through the black market.
Indeed, in his milehighcomics.com column, comic book Left: Zot is crazy for comics on the cover of Amazing Heroes Preview Special #1.
Above: Nexus and friend enjoy some indie comics favorites
retailer Chuck Rozanski relates how he became aware of in Amazing Heroes Preview Special #2.

7
1980
Dark Phoenix,
and the Darkness Before the

Direct Market
On January 23, 1980, President Jimmy Carter opened the
first State of the Union address of the new decade with a
despondent acknowledgment: “This last few months has
not been an easy time for any of us.” The President was
specifically alluding to the 52 American diplomats being
held hostage in Iran since November 4, 1979 as well as
the Soviet Union’s invasion of its neighboring nation of
Afghanistan beginning in December 1979. But the United
States was facing other considerable challenges, includ-
ing a skyrocketing inflation rate that reached 13.9% by
January 1980, a seemingly unshakeable dependence on
foreign oil that weakened the national economy, and an
omnipresent possibility of a global nuclear war. In the face
of America’s adverse circumstances, President Carter con-
cluded his address with a rally call, “Together let us make
of this time of challenge and danger a decade of national
resolve and of brave achievement.”
As the 1980s dawned, the comic book industry faced con-
siderable challenges of its own as the last few years had
not been an easy time. As comic book historian Mike Ben-
ton notes, “Distribution problems and inflation… were
undermining efforts of the comic-book companies as they
struggled out of the 1970s. Many of the traditional comic-
book outlets were vanishing, and comics were being dis-
played less frequently on magazine racks” (81). The grim
reality was that since 1977 monthly comic book sales had
been significantly declining. In 1980, the average number
of comic books sold per month was 5.4 million for Marvel
Comics and 2.8 million for DC Comics. Just three years ear-
lier, Marvel and DC were respectively selling on average
7 million and 4.2 million comic books per month (Tolwor-
thy). It was evident to all interested parties that the comic
book industry had seen better times, but many fans and
professionals didn’t expect a recovery. Instead they fore-
told aloud that the industry’s death knell was about to
ring and that the comic book medium would soon expire
from its many wounds. One person who didn’t share the
pessimistic outlook though was Jim Shooter, Marvel Com-
ics’ Editor-in-Chief since 1978. In an interview with The
Comics Journal’s Gary Groth in September 1980, Shooter
declared:
I keep seeing letters from people, and I keep hear-
ing people at conventions and so forth talking
about the imminent demise of the comic book in-
dustry… I don’t know what I have to do to correct
this erroneous information. We’re not going out
of business. We’re making good money. We’re not
setting the world on fire, but at this point, in this
country, very few people are. We’re doing well.

CHAPTER ONE
by Keith Dallas
Marvel is a healthy company… It’s not a bad year,
or even a mediocre year. It’s a good year. (60)
While Shooter could assure readers that Marvel was pros-
pering, the fact of the matter was that by 1980 the comic
8
book industry had shrunk so considerably that only
a handful of comic book publishers remained in
business. With Marvel Comics and DC Comics
leading the market, Archie Comics contin-
ued to offer its Riverdale High School-
focused titles, and Harvey Comics pro-
duced Casper The Friendly Ghost and a
slew of Richie Rich books (Richie Rich
Cash, Richie Rich Diamonds, Richie Rich
Profits, among others). Long stand-
ing publishers Charlton (Billy the
Kid, Fightin’ Army, Fightin’ Ma-
rines, Ghostly Tales, War), Gold
Key (Battle of the Planets, Bugs
Bunny, Donald Duck, Looney
Tunes, Mickey Mouse, The Pink
Panther, Popeye, Tom and Jerry,
Uncle Scrooge) and Warren Pub-
lishing (Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella), on
the other hand, were all struggling,
and none would last to the end of the
decade. In fact, at the start of 1980,
Gold Key re-branded itself as Whit-
man Comics and began packaging
three different comic books together
in a single plastic bag in order to dis-
tribute them exclusively to retail out-
lets like K-Mart. It was a cost saving move
that still didn’t save the publisher. Charlton had been
reduced to reprinting previously published material, like
Fightin’ Army. The one title that presented new material,
Charlton Bullseye, didn’t even monetarily compensate its
creators. Instead, creators received complimentary copies
of the issue in which their work appeared. The idea of the
title was to give aspiring professionals needed exposure
of their talents. Finally, Fawcett Comics—whose Captain
Marvel titles were best-sellers throughout the 1940s—
abandoned comic book publishing altogether in 1980 with
its final issues of Dennis the Menace: Pocket Full of Fun and
Dennis the Menace and His Friends.
The decade began with one of
Newsstand Wasteland Marvel’s most celebrated story arcs:
“The Dark Phoenix Saga.”
What was crippling the comic book industry was its contin- The X-Men TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

ued reliance on the newsstand market (e.g. supermarkets,

stationary stores, convenience stores, toy stores, magazine
vendors) to sell its product. Comic books had been part of
the newsstand since the comic book industry’s infancy
in the 1930s, but by 1980 it was clear that the newsstand
wholesalers had lost the incentive to provide its retailers
with comic books to sell, primarily because their profit
margin distributing $0.40 and $0.50 comic books was sig-
nificantly lower than what could be had distributing the
more expensive magazines, like Time and Sports Illustrat-
ed—both of which retailed for $1.50 in 1980. As DC Comics
editor Dick Giordano explained in a 1981 Comics Journal
interview, comic books had become an afterthought to the
newsstand market:
Comic books are considered fodder. If [the news-
stand distributor has] that much room in the back
of the truck, they’ll put that many comics, and
they don’t bother to check them by title. “Just grab
a handful of comics, Charlie, and throw it in the
truck.” Is that a way to sell a comic book? (Groth,
“Brushes & Blue Pencils” 54)
Consequently, the sell-through rates—the percentage of
shipped books which actually get sold to consumers—kept
falling. Since the newsstand market could return all un-
sold copies to the publishers for a full refund, the financial
consequences for the comic book industry become obvi-
ous: when wholesalers don’t bother to distribute comic
books to their retailers, only to get a refund for them, the
publishers can’t even recoup the cost of printing, never
mind the greater cost of production. While that is a worst
case scenario, consider the sales figures for Justice League
of America, one of DC Comics’ better selling titles in 1980.
According to its Statement of Ownership, Management
and Circulation located on the letters page of issue #190,
the average print run per issue of Justice League of America
during 1980 was 329,301 copies. But of that print run, the
newsstand returned on average 194,574 copies per issue.

9
1980 TIMELINE April 22: Untold Legend of the Batman
A compilation of the year’s notable comic book industry events alongside – DC Comics’ second foray into the mini-
series format – debuts on newsstands.
some of the year’s most significant popular cultural and historical events.
April 22: Roy Thomas – after writing
and editing Marvel Comics for the
previous 15 years – signs exclusive
contract with DC Comics.
January 1: Marvel Comics’ Star Trek
comic book debuts on newsstands; its
first three issues reprint Marvel Comics
Super Special #15, which adapted
1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
March 1: Dick Dillin – Justice League of America April 24-25: The U.S. military “Operation
penciller since 1968 – dies at the age of 50. Eagle Claw” attempts to liberate 52 U.S.
diplomats being held hostage in the U.S.
Embassy in Tehran, Iran. Ultimately, the
mission is aborted with the death of
eight U.S. servicemen.
June: As of this month, the retail
price of a standard comic book is
$0.50; DC Comics’ titles now have
eight additional story pages while
Marvel Comics adds five more story
pages a couple of months later.
June: The Comics Code Author-
ity refuses to approve a Roger
McKenzie-written/Frank Miller-
drawn story intended for Daredevil
#167 depicting children using
(and addicted to)
drugs. “Child’s Play”
is shelved until 1982
when it is published
in Daredevil #183.
June 17: Jean Grey dies in Uncanny
X-Men #137 as the soon-to-be-
named “Dark Phoenix Saga” story
arc concludes.

JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL M AY JUNE

February 22: In a “Miracle on Ice” the United States men’s May 22: The arcade
hockey team – composed of amateur and collegiate players – game Pac-Man
defeats the heavily favored Soviet Union team during the debuts in Japan.
Olympic Winter Games at Lake Placid, New York; the United
States team would go on to win the gold medal after it defeats
Finland.
May 21: The Star Wars
February 12: Epic Illustrated sequel, Empire Strikes
– a Marvel Comics magazine Back, premieres in movie
modeled after then-popular theatres.
Heavy Metal, featuring May 20: 710 families in the
content aimed at a more Love Canal area of Niagara
mature audience – debuts on Falls, New York evacuate due to
newsstands. toxic chemical contamination.
May 18: In the worst volcanic disaster in U.S. history,
Mt. Saint Helens erupts in the state of Washington.
Batman, The Justice League of America and The New Teen Titans TM and © DC Comics. Epic Illustrated, Moon Knight, Howard the Duck, May 8: Norman Mingo – longtime Mad magazine cover artist as well
Daredevil, Captain America TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. Star Trek TM and © Paramount Pictures. Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back TM as the man who formalized the image of Alfred E. Neuman – dies at
and © Lucasfilm, LTD., Pac-Man TM and © NAMCO Games
the age of 84.

This means that in 1980 far more cop- books was already in use: the Direct stand didn’t. The very few comic book
ies of Justice League of America were Market. Comic book art dealer and stores that existed back then had con-
returned than sold. Contrast this to convention organizer Phil Seuling trol over the supply of back issues.
the World War II era when many com- created the Direct Market in 1972
But the scarcity of comic book stores
ic books averaged sell-through rates when he proposed a new distribution
at that time testified to the Direct
higher than 60% (Rozanski, “Evolu- system to DC, Marvel, Archie, Harvey
Market’s limited influence. The num-
tion of the Direct Market: Part I”). and Warren. According to Seuling’s
ber of comic book stores operating in
“The old business was dying,” Paul Seagate Distributing arrangement,
the world had grown from 30 in 1974
Levitz remarked in an interview for the comic book publishers agreed to
to 800 in 1979 (Tolworthy), and sev-
American Comic Book Chronicles. “If package and ship new comic books
eral other Direct Market distributors,
something didn’t replace the news- directly to retailers that specialized
like Pacific Comics and Capital City,
stand system, the old comic book in comic books. In exchange, these
emerged to compete with Seagate.
business would probably have been books were non-returnable. Under
While an impressive expansion, this
extinct by 1984 or 1985, in my opin- this system, everyone benefited. The
was still not considerable enough to
ion. The comic book as it was born in publishers wouldn’t have to worry
designate the Direct Market as the
America—cheap, casual purchase, about refunding unsold copies, and
apparent cure to the industry’s ail-
impulsively bought, disposable— the retailers received comic books at a
ments. As Mile High Comics owner
lived a life cycle beginning in the better discount than if they had pur-
Chuck Rozanski describes the situa-
1930s that was pretty clearly ending chased them through a newsstand
tion, “While the Direct Market com-
as we got into the 1980s.” wholesaler. Comic book retailers in
ics shops did manage to transfer a
the 1970s and early 1980s also didn’t
great number of fans to themselves
The Burgeoning Direct Market consider unsold new comics a burden
that otherwise had been purchasing
on them. On the contrary, in those
Fortunately for the comic book in- through newsstand outlets, the harsh
days comic book retailers wanted
dustry, it wasn’t married to the news- reality was that newsstand sales
stock for their back issue bins—the
stand until death did it part. An alter- were dropping far faster than the Di-
product they offered that the news-
native method of distributing comic rect Market was growing” (Rozanski,

10
 September 8: Whitney Ellsworth – DC Comics’
Editorial Director from 1939 to 1953 – dies of a
heart attack at the age of 71.
September 15: The television mini-series
Shogun, an adaptation of the James Clavell
novel of the same name and starring Richard
Chamberlain, debuts on NBC.
September 30: Having drawn Daredevil
since early 1979, Frank Miller becomes the
August 14: Written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by George title’s writer/artist with issue #168, which
Perez and Romeo Tanghal, the first issue of DC Comics’ New also introduces the character of Elektra.
Teen Titans arrives on newsstands after being previewed a
month earlier in DC Comics Presents #26.
December: The second issue of RAW – a black-and-
white anthology comic magazine – features the first
installment of Art Spiegelman’s Maus, which would
go on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1992.
November 4: Republican December 2: Dazzler #1 – the
Ronald Reagan – former first comic book that Marvel Com-
Hollywood actor and California ics offers exclusively to the Direct
governor – is elected the 40th Market – arrives in stores with
President of the United States pre-order sales of 428,000 copies.
in a landslide victory over
Democratic incumbent Jimmy
December 8: John Lennon is
Carter.
assassinated outside his Manhattan
apartment by Mark David Chapman.

December 9:
July 19: The 22nd Olympiad opens in Moscow, The Roger Stern/
Soviet Union. Sixty-one countries, led by the John Byrne
United States, boycott the Summer Olympics as collaboration
a form of protest against the Soviet Union’s inva- on Captain
sion of Afghanistan which began in December America ends
1979. after nine
issues with
issue #255.

J U LY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER

December 23: “Dial ‘H’ for Hero”–

with super-heroes created by
DC Comics’ readers – becomes
August 19: Written by Doug Moench and
October 9: Secrets of the Legion of the new feature for Adventure
drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz, the first issue
Super-Heroes – DC Comics’ third Comics with issue #479 after being
of Marvel Comics’ Moon Knight arrives on
foray into the mini-series format – previewed a month earlier in Legion
newsstands.
debuts on newsstands. of Super-Heroes #272.
December 23: An 80-page celebra-
November 21: Viewers tory Detective Comics #500 – with
October 4: Thundarr The Barbarian – the creation of learn “Who Shot JR?” in contributions from Jim Aparo, Mike
Steve Gerber with art design by Alex Toth, Jack Kirby, an episode of the popular W. Barr, Cary Bates, Alan Brennert,
Mike Ploog, Doug Wildey, and Gil Kane – debuts as a television show Dallas; the José Luis García-López, Walter Gib-
Saturday morning cartoon on the ABC network. episode draws more view- son, Dick Giordano, Joe Kubert, Paul
ers than any other show Levitz, Walter Simonson, Carmine
August 29: Steve Gerber files a federal lawsuit against Cadence Industries in television history up to Infantino, Len Wein, and Tom Yeates
(Marvel Comics’ parent company) over copyright infringement of Howard that point. (The culprit was – arrives on newsstands.
the Duck, a character over which Gerber claims ownership. revealed to be Kristin.)

“Evolution of the Direct Market: Part lawsuit filed by Irjax Distributing ed plethora of new comic book pub-
VI”). Jim Shooter though took it upon against all the comic book publishers lishers that offered their titles solely
himself to research how well Marvel claiming that Seagate had unfairly to the Direct Market.
titles were selling through Seuling received better trade terms than any By 1980, a small group of indepen-
and discovered that Seagate alone ac- other Direct Market distributor. The dent and self publishers had already
counted for as much as 6% of the sales publishers recognized that Irjax’s chosen the Direct Market-only route,
of certain Marvel titles, like X-Men. grievance was entirely valid, and rath- most notably Dave Sim (Cerebus),
What’s more, Shooter learned that the er than lose an expensive court battle, Wendy and Richard Pini (Elfquest),
Direct Market supported titles that each of them settled with Irjax out of and Eclipse Comics, which had been
the newsstand mostly disregarded, court. Marvel Comics’ management publishing graphic novels for the Di-
like Jack Kirby’s Black Panther and though took the additional steps of rect Market since 1978. Eclipse was
Machine Man, for instance. Accord- creating an internal direct sales de- scheduled to publish a Fred Hem-
ing to Shooter, “While Jack’s numbers partment—inaugurally headed by beck book in 1980 (like it had in 1979)
on the newsstands were the lowest, comic book scribe Mike Friedrich— but relinquished the project to new
they were far and away the highest and allowing anyone to become a dis- publisher FantaCo—an Albany, New
in the comics shops… By the time Jack tributor of Marvel Comics as long as York-based comic book store and mail
left [Marvel Comics in 1978] his books it could purchase at minimum $3000 order business that would go on to
were selling something like 30,000 worth of Marvel books at the whole- publish three new Hembeck books for
copies direct, while other Marvel sale level per month. Because Marvel the Direct Market during the year—
comics were lucky to be selling 7,000 offered better credit terms than Phil Hembeck 1980, Abbott and Costello
or 8,000. That’s almost enough to sus- Seuling would, many of Seuling’s ac- Meet the Bride of Hembeck, and Bah,
tain a book exclusively!” (Morrow 28). counts left Seagate to accept Marvel’s Hembeck!—along with a reprint of
All this convinced Shooter of the ne- offer during the summer of 1979. In Eclipse’s Hembeck: The Best of Date-
cessity of testing the Direct Market turn, this initiated the rapid creation line: @!!?# . In an interview for Ameri-
further. of new comic book stores throughout can Comic Book Chronicles, Hembeck
Expediting that test was an anti-trust the 1980s… as well as the unanticipat- reminisced:

11

The Fred Hembeck drawn cover to The Comics Journal #60 features Marvel Comics’ Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter.
The Comics Journal TM and © Fantagraphics
It was a very exciting time….
Wendy and Richard Pini lived
in nearby Poughkeepsie, and
our paths crossed constantly
in those days, as we were all
doing plenty of convention
appearances. I ran into Dave
Sim as well several times,
including at an Ontario con-
vention. There seemed to be
an almost esprit de corps be-
tween the three (or four) of us
at the time. Before us, there
was Jack Katz’s First Kingdom
and the various Star*Reach
titles, but by 1980, the direct
market was really gearing up,
and we (read: Fantaco) did
our best to make the best of
it. In a more crowded market-
place, who knows if my stuff
would have made as much of
an impression, but being out
there virtually alone, along-
side only the Pinis and Sim,
allowed me to stake out a nice
chunk of territory.
Even DC Comics had released one of
their books exclusively to the Direct
Market in the form of Superboy Spec-
tacular #1 (March 1980), a 64-page
one-shot originally intended for ele-
mentary schools. Despite being most-
ly comprised of reprints of Superboy
stories from the 1950s and 1960s, Su-
perboy Spectacular #1 was DC’s best-
selling title on the Direct Market that
month.
12
Marvel Comics: Shooter’s Ship
But the supremacy of the Direct Market
was still more than a few years away.
In 1980, the primary sales venue for
comic books was, again, the shrink-
ing space given to it by the news-
stand, and this space was dominated
by Marvel Comics, then owned by
Cadence Industries. In 1975, Cadence
hired paperback publisher Jim Galton
to be Marvel’s President with the di-
rective that he make Marvel profitable
again. Then in 1978, associate editor
Jim Shooter was promoted to become
Marvel’s seventh Editor-in-Chief since
1970 (following Stan Lee, Roy Thomas,
Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Gerry Con-
way and Archie Goodwin).
By 1980, at the age of 28, Jim Shooter
was already a grizzled comic book
industry veteran, having started
his career as a 13-year-old in 1965
selling Adventure Comics’ Legion of
Super-Heroes stories to DC Comics
editor Mort Weisinger. After leaving
the comic book industry in 1970 to
pursue advertising work back in his
hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylva-
nia, Shooter returned to DC Comics
in 1975 to once again script Legion of
Super-Heroes stories in Superboy. The
following year, then Marvel Editor-
in-Chief Marv Wolfman hired him to
be associate editor, Marvel’s second-
in-command. Upon arriving at Mar-
vel though, Shooter was struck by
how the inmates had taken over the
asylum:
When I became editor at Mar-
vel, it was like running a kin-
dergarten. It was like, “this
one’s catterwauling, and that
one’s throwing a tantrum,”
and they hated it if you told
them the simplest things.
Like, “Look, we really have
to introduce the characters.”
“Rarrh! Nobody tells me any-
thing!” Stuff like that. It had
become normal [for a creator]
to be a prima donna. (Cadigan
96)
Besides wrestling with obstinate
freelancers, Shooter also had to serve
under Marvel’s President who, like
most everyone else, was convinced
that the comic book business was
about to perish. Shooter argued with
Galton that the reason why comic
books weren’t selling well was be-
cause they weren’t good (an evalua-
tion that many comic book critics at
the time agreed with). Improve the
quality of the stories, Shooter con-
tended, and sales will improve.
So when Shooter became Marvel’s
Editor-in-Chief in 1978, he set about
getting Marvel’s creative house in or-
der by hiring more editors, demand-
ing that books be released on time,
forbidding writers from being their
own editors, and striving to amass
the most talented professionals in
the business.
In 1980, Marvel produced books that
were edited by Jo Duffy, Archie Good-
win, Louise Jones, Al Milgrom, Denny
O’Neil, and Jim Salicrup; written by
Chris Claremont, Tom DeFalco, J.M.
DeMatteis, Steven Grant, Mark Gru-
enwald, Roger McKenzie, David Mi-
chelinie, Ralph Macchio, Bill Mantlo,
Doug Moench, Roger Stern, and Roy
Thomas; and drawn by Pat Broder-
ick, Sal Buscema, John Byrne, Michael
Golden, Bob Layton, Bob McLeod,
Frank Miller, Jim Mooney, George
Pérez, Don Perlin, John Romita Jr., Bill
Sienkiewicz, and Walt Simonson.
At one point in the 1970s, Marvel was
publishing 45 titles a month. By 1980,
that output had been reduced to less
than three dozen titles, the great ma-
jority of which featured super-he-
roes. Amazing Spider-Man was Mar-
vel’s best-seller with monthly sales
averaging 296,000 copies, but many
of Marvel’s other super-hero titles
averaged over 200,000 copies sold
per month, including Fantastic Four,
Avengers, Marvel Team-Up (featuring
Spider-Man), Spectacular Spider-Man,
Incredible Hulk, and Savage She-Hulk,
the first issue of which was scripted
by Stan Lee.
Ostensibly Marvel Comics’ publisher,
Stan Lee nonetheless had moved to
Los Angeles in 1980 in order to su-
pervise the Hollywood production of
Marvel’s properties. One such prop-
erty was The Incredible Hulk, a highly
rated CBS television series, starring
Bill Bixby as Dr. David Bruce Ban-
ner and Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk.
The series was in the middle of its
third season when Savage She-Hulk
#1 (Feb. 1980) was published. The
comic book introduces Bruce Ban-
ner’s cousin, Jennifer Walters, who
could transform herself into a green-
skinned behemoth due to an emer-
gency blood transfusion she received
from her already gamma-irradiated
cousin. While publication of the com-
ic book may be seen as an attempt to
capitalize on the success of the televi-
sion show, in actuality, Stan Lee was
concerned that the television show
producers were going to create their
own female version of Hulk that the
production company would then
own the rights to. Something similar
happened a few years earlier when
the Bionic Woman character was in-
troduced in a 1975 episode of The Six
Million Dollar Man, a series based on
Martin Caidin’s novel Cyborg. A Bion-
ic Woman spin-off series—owned by
Universal Pictures—debuted in 1976.
The She-Hulk comic book protected
Marvel Comics against a similar ma-
neuver (DeFalco 197).
CBS had also aired a couple of Captain
America specials in 1979. Starring
Reb Brown as a motorcycle-riding
Sentinel of Liberty, the specials failed
to generate enough viewer interest
(or network confidence) for the pro-
duction of more Captain America TV
shows. Similarly, Marvel’s Captain
America comic book had been strug-
gling for the past few years to hold
on to its readership. By summer 1979,
the regular Captain America creative
team of writer Roger McKenzie and
artist Sal Buscema left the title for Above: 1980-era pictures of Jim Shooter and John
other projects, forcing editor Roger Byrne, originally appearing in the pages of The Comics
Journal. Below: Stan Lee created the She-Hulk to
Stern to petition other creators to ensure Marvel Comics had ownership of a female Hulk.
provide him with Captain America She-Hulk TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
stories until he could find a suitable
13
long-term creative team.
The problem was solved
when Stern stepped down
as Marvel editor and was
subsequently asked to
write Captain America.
John Byrne, looking for
another title to draw be-
sides X-Men, asked to come
aboard. Beginning with is-
sue #247 (July 1980) then,
Stern and Byrne collabo-
rated on a fondly remem-
bered Captain America run
that included the introduc-
tion of love interest Ber-
nie Rosenthal (issue #248),
Cap’s refusal to become a
presidential candidate for
an independent political party (issue
#250), and a celebratory issue com-
memorating the 40th anniversary of
Captain America’s first appearance
(issue #255).
Another creator at the start of a defin-
itive run on a title was Frank Miller.
After beginning his comic book ca-
reer in 1978 with fill-in work on Gold
Key’s Twilight Zone, DC Comics’ Weird
War Tales, and Marvel’s John Carter,
Warlord of Mars, Miller drew a couple
of issues of Spectacular Spider-Man
and then requested to become the
regular artist on Daredevil, a posi-
tion just vacated by Gene Colan, the
long-time Daredevil artist who had
returned to the title for a few issues.
Evidently, Marvel knew what kind
of talent it had in its stable as in his
first issue as Daredevil artist Miller
was bombastically introduced to the
reader: “From time to time a truly
great new artist will explode upon
the Marvel scene like a bombshell!
[We] confidently predict newcomer
lanky Frank Miller is just such an art-
ist!” (Daredevil #158, May 1979).
By issue #165 (July 1980), Miller was
co-writing Daredevil with Roger McK-
enzie, and soon the two found them-
selves at the forefront of a controver-
sy. The scheduled story for Daredevil
#167 (Nov. 1980) was titled “Child’s
Play”; it featured Daredevil and guest
star Punisher confronting drug deal-
ers who sold PCP (a.k.a. “Angel Dust”)
to children. The story opens with a
girl throwing herself out her second
story school window and falling to
her death because of PCP-induced
delusions she was experiencing.
Above: The Comics Code Authority disapproved of
this Frank Miller drawn three panel sequence. As a
result, the planned story for Daredevil #167 had to be
replaced. Daredevil TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
The Comics Code Authority (CCA),
however, refused to approve the
story, principally because of a three-
panel sequence that presents a boy
smoking a drug pipe. The CCA prohib-
its the depiction of drug use, a policy
that made little sense to Frank Miller
who complained, “What the code was
trying to do was kill a story that has a
very strong anti-drug point to it. It’s
not like we’re advocating the stuff”
(“Comics Code Rejects Daredevil
Story”).
Initially, Marvel intended on publish-
ing the issue without the CCA’s seal
of approval, which was the course
of action Stan Lee and then Marvel
14
publisher Martin Good-
man took nine years
earlier when the drug
use-themed Amazing
Spider-Man #96-8 (May-
July 1971) was pub-
lished. But on the week
Daredevil #167 was set
to arrive in stores, Jim
Galton decided to shelve
the tale and replace it
with a David Michelinie-
written/Frank Miller-
drawn inventory story.
Jim Shooter proposed to
publish “Child’s Play”—
and its subsequent con-
clusion—as a Direct
Market exclusive “col-
lector’s album,” but Daredevil editor
Denny O’Neil balked at that propos-
al, claiming the reach of the book’s
anti-drug message would be mini-
mized. Eventually, “Child’s Play” was
published two years later in Dare-
devil #183 (June 1982) with the CCA’s
approval and a revised three panel
marijuana smoking sequence (where
the pipe doesn’t actually touch the
boy’s mouth). The incident though
proved to be a harbinger of the kind
of material Daredevil would become
renowned for with Frank Miller at its
helm… as well as the kind of stance
Miller would take on future censor-
ship matters.
Marvel didn’t just publish super-he-
ro books. It remained committed to
publishing titles directly tied to mov-
ies, television shows or toy lines. The
results varied though. The Star Wars
comic book sold well (over 255,000
copies sold per month on average dur-
ing 1980), and Micronauts, Star Trek,
and Rom all had respectable sales
figures. Both Battlestar Galactica and
Shogun Warriors, however, were can-
celled by the end of 1980. Marvel also
planned Benny Hill and James Bond
comic books—the latter to be written
by Cary Bates—until producers for
both properties dropped the endeav-
ors.
Also cancelled in 1980 were half of
the eight titles reprinting Marvel
stories originally published during
the Silver Age. Amazing Adventures
(X-Men), Fantasy Masterpieces (Sil-
ver Surfer/Warlock), Marvel’s Great-
est Comics (Fantastic Four), and Tales
to Astonish (Sub-Mariner) were all
cancelled, leaving Marvel Super
 This John Byrne/Terry Austin X-Men illustration appeared in Marvel Comics’ 1981 calendar. X-Men TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Action (Avengers), Marvel Super-
Heroes (Hulk), Marvel Tales (Spider-
Man), and Sgt. Fury as the reprint
line. The differing story page counts
between a comic book published in
1980 and one published in the 1960s/
early 1970s posed a unique problem
for these reprint titles. In the opening
months of 1980, comic books retailed
for $0.40 and contained 17 story pag-
es. DC Comics decided that starting
with cover date September, the price
of its standard comic books would be
raised to $0.50, and the length of its
standard comic books would be in-
creased by eight pages. After some
initial resistance, Marvel too decided
to raise the price of its titles to $0.50
(also starting in September), but Mar-
vel only added five more story pages.
The page count of stories being re-
printed, however, varied between 20
and 24. So Marvel’s reprints either
had to abridge the original story by
several pages in order to fit their 1980
page limit or spread out the original
story over two issues and include
additional reprint material to reach
their 1980 page limit. For instance,
Amazing Adventures #8 (July 1980)
reprints the final 11 pages of X-Men
#4 (March 1964) and the five page Cy-
clops/Iceman back-up story from X-
Men #45 (June 1968), and then adds
15
a new title splash page drawn by
Al Milgrom. So while these reprint
titles offered material that by 1980
was expensive to acquire on the
secondary market, the manner of
its presentation was unpalatable to
many collectors.
X-Men: The Making Of A Franchise
Without a doubt, the one Marvel
title that made its mark in 1980 was
X-Men, written by Chris Claremont,
penciled by John Byrne, and plotted
by both. Five years after their intro-
duction in 1975’s Giant Size X-Men
#1, the “Uncanny” X-Men was barely
among Marvel’s top ten best-selling

Paired together, penciller John Byrne and inker
Terry Austin became one of X-Men’s (and Marvel
Comics’) fan-favorite artistic teams.
TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
titles. The title’s average monthly
sales for 1980 (191,927 copies) put it
just above Rom (182,000 copies). But
that was about to change—quickly
and permanently. The back issue
secondary market indicates perhaps
just how popular the X-Men became
within the span of a year. R.M. Over-
street’s Comic Book Price Guide #10,
released in early 1980, listed Giant
Size X-Men #1 as being worth $9 in
near mint condition. Later in the
year though, a Michigan retailer’s
advertisement in The Comics Journal
#60 (Nov. 1980) sold the same issue
for $50.
16
Why were readers of 1980 abuzz
about The X-Men?
Perhaps it was the artwork of rising
star John Byrne, who arrived on the
Marvel scene in 1975 and contributed
primarily to Iron Fist, Marvel Team-
Up, Champions, and Avengers before
taking over art duties on X-Men from
Dave Cockrum with issue #108 (Dec.
1977). Byrne’s expressive, organic
style, in combination with Terry
Austin’s meticulous inks and
detailed backgrounds, produced an
addictive visual grandeur, full of
energy and impact.
Perhaps it was how the read- struction consumed a star, sub-
ers related to the title’s theme. sequently obliterating an inhab-
Nearly every issue of X-Men ited world of five billion sentient
ran a credit page banner that beings. When she returned to
described the protagonists Earth, she was confronted anew
as “MUTANTS – feared and by the X-Men, which allowed
hated by the world they have Professor Xavier to subdue the
sworn to protect. These are Phoenix “within an unbreach-
the STRANGEST heroes of all!” able network of psionic circuit
Put another way by Marvel breakers” (X-Men #136, Aug.
editor Roger Stern, the X-Men 1980). This remedy wasn’t good
were—like many of their de- enough though for the interstel-
voted adolescent readers who lar Sh’iar Empire who abducted
weren’t the most popular kids the X-Men and demanded that
in school—social outsiders Jean Grey be executed as retribu-
who sought to remove them- tion for the Dark Phoenix’s geno-
selves from scorn and ridicule cidal actions. The X-Men hoped
by associating with people just to save Jean’s life through a duel
like themselves (Cooke 28). of honor against the Sh’iar’s
Or perhaps the book’s sudden super-powered Imperial Guard,
rise in popularity resulted from but the melee proved one-sided,
the culmination of a year’s and not in the X-Men’s favor.
worth of issues that would Outnumbered and with fading
become one of the most cel- hope of victory, Cyclops and Jean
ebrated super-hero story arcs Grey—the title’s two young lov-
in the history of comic books: ers—pressed against the Imperi-
“The Dark Phoenix Saga” (as al Guard one final time… which
it would later be termed). Back unleashed the Phoenix once
then, the X-Men consisted again. In a poignant scene, Jean
of Cyclops, Phoenix, Storm, Grey, realizing that she will nev-
Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and er be able to contain the malevo-
Colossus, with precocious
Above: In X-Men #136, the Dark Phoenix is seemingly defeated. lent Dark Phoenix entity within
Below: a page from the original (and scrapped) ending to X-Men #137.
13-year-old Kitty Pryde—yet X-Men TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
her, bid Cyclops farewell and
another vicarious connection killed herself, leaving her lover
for the adolescent alone to mourn and
readers—waiting in a nearby Uatu the
the wings. For years, Watcher to comment
one of the book’s on humanity’s inher-
ongoing sub-plots ent heroism (X-Men
was the threat of #137, Sept. 1980). It’s
Phoenix’s awesome a heart-wrenching
power being too ending…
much for Jean Grey But one that wasn’t
to control. This ca- originally intended.
lamity came to pass As documented in
when Mastermind’s Marvel’s Phoenix:
elaborate, seductive The Untold Story #1
illusions unhinged (Apr. 1984) as well
Jean Grey’s mind so as in many creator
drastically that she interviews since
became a remorse- 1980, Claremont
less, unrelenting an- and Byrne didn’t
gel of annihilation: intend for Jean to
the Dark Phoenix die; instead, they
(X-Men #134, June originally planned
1980). After subdu- for her to undergo a
ing her mutant col- “psychic lobotomy”
leagues, Dark Phoe- in X-Men #137 that
nix launched herself would essentially
into space, travers- wipe her mind and
ing the cosmos until permanently rid the
her appetite for de- threat of Phoenix,

17
 to rescue (?!) her and that the
story would become a loop.
I said that then he should
come up with an ending…
The next morning, Chris
stormed into my office and
said that there was only one
answer—they’d have to kill
Phoenix. I said fine.
I don’t think he expected
me to say that, since killing
characters just wasn’t done
in those days. Chris waffled
a bit, but then I became in-
sistent! She’s dying. That’s it
(Nickerson 9).
Claremont immediately called Byrne
to inform him of Shooter’s decision.
The artist was just as nonplussed as
Claremont and just as unsuccessful
at appealing Shooter’s verdict. The
two creators grudgingly crafted the
story their boss directed them to tell.
In doing so, Claremont and Byrne ac-
complished two feats: first, they es-
tablished themselves as two of the
decade’s most significant—and pop-
ular—comic book creators; second,
they catapulted The X-Men into the
upper echelon of comic book publica-
tions. Indeed, after the “Dark Phoenix
Saga” sales of X-Men increased seem-
ingly exponentially year after year
until in 1985 it had attained average
monthly sales of 449,870 copies, far
and away the industry’s best-selling
comic book. Among the comic book
success stories of the 1980s, The X-
Men earns the highest honors as it
became transformed from a mostly
ignored cult-favorite title to a house-
hold-recognized brand of comics
within the course of a decade.
By the end of 1980 though, John Byrne
This splash page would have appeared in X-Men #138 if not for Jim Shooter mandating that wanted no more part of it. Late in the
Chris Claremont and John Byrne change their story. X-Men TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. year, he stepped down as X-Men art-
allowing Jean to remain with the X- I told Chris [Claremont] that ist, officially claiming he was burned
Men, albeit with a now child-like dis- the ending proposed in his out on the series. What John Byrne
position. However, once Jim Shooter plot didn’t work. It wasn’t was truly burned out on though was
saw the printer’s proofs for X-Men workable with the characters, collaborating with Chris Claremont
#135—the issue in which Dark Phoe- and in fact was a totally lame as he confessed many years later:
nix caused the death of five billion cop-out, storywise. I demanded I’ve always described [my re-
beings—he asked then-X-Men editor a different ending. Chris— lationship with Claremont]
Jim Salicrup how the story was go- enraged—asked me just what as being kind of Gilbert and
ing to be resolved. When he learned that might be. I suggested Sullivan, and we ended up
of what Claremont and Byrne had that Phoenix be sent to some splitting up because we ar-
worked out, Shooter balked, arguing super-security interstellar gued over the color of the car-
that a character who committed such prison as punishment for her pet in the theater… The ulti-
a heinous crime could not be so easily crimes. Chris said that the X- mate breakdown, really, was
let off the hook: Men would never stop trying that we could never entirely
agree on who those characters
18
 were, just personality-wise. one of a handful of double-sized DC 1980, DC Comics published about two
And one day it suddenly books whose sales lagged far behind dozen titles of varied genres. DC had
dawned on me that as much the rest of the line. With its 496th is- Mystery titles (Ghosts, House of Mys-
as I thought Cyclops was this sue though (November 1980), Detec- tery, Secrets of Haunted House), War
guy and Storm was this gal tive Comics became a standard comic titles (G.I. Combat, Sgt. Rock, Unknown
and Wolverine was this guy, book again with its $1.00 retail price Soldier), Sword and Sorcery (Warlord),
Chris was writing it his way, halved to $0.50. Westerns (Jonah Hex, Weird Western
which I didn’t agree with, and In 1980, DC Comics was still recover- Tales), Sci-Fi (Time Warp, Mystery in
that was what was seeing ing from the infamous “DC Implo- Space), and even a Horror/War hybrid
print, was the way that Chris sion” of 1978 when in one fell swoop (Weird War Tales).
was writing it, because he company executives cancelled 30 Of DC’s super-hero titles, very few
had the last hand. So if I didn’t titles (some of which had not even didn’t feature either Superman
like Chris’ interpretation of been released). On a monthly basis in or Batman. Julius Schwartz, a DC
those characters, then I didn’t
like the characters, because
that was who they were, that
was who the fans were lik-
ing. And when I hit that wall,
I sort of went, “Wow. I can’t
do this anymore. I don’t like
these characters anymore”
(Cooke 33).
So Dave Cockrum—the artist who
John Byrne replaced in 1978—re-
turned to X-Men (officially re-titled
Uncanny X-Men with its 1981 issues),
while Byrne asked for and was as-
signed writing duties on Fantastic
Four. Initially, Bill Sienkiewicz was
scheduled to remain as the Fantas-
tic Four artist, but when he opted to
devote himself exclusively to Moon
Knight, that allowed Byrne to become
the writer/artist of “The World’s
Greatest Comic Magazine” with issue
#232 (July 1981). Byrne aspired his
work on Fantastic Four to “recapture
the power and emotional impact of
the Stan [Lee] and Jack [Kirby] years.”
He added, “I’ve always felt [Fantastic
Four] should be selling the way the
X-Men are. It should be the flagship
book” (“John Byrne Leaves X-Men
for FF”).

DC Comics: Turning The Page

DC Comics’ flagship book, Superman,
was that publisher’s best-seller in
1980. The caveat to that distinction
is that with sales averaging 178,946
copies per month, Superman was out-
sold by at least a dozen Marvel titles
and its sales had dropped over 25% in
a year’s time. (Superman sold 246,276
copies per month on average in 1979.)
The rest of DC’s slate sold between
64,000 and 134,000 copies per month,
with Detective Comics at the bottom
of the pack with monthly sales av-
eraging 64,635 copies; with each is-
sue retailing for the then-daunting A 1980 DC Comics house ad promotes both DC’s increased page count and its new back-up features.
TM and © DC Comics
sum of $1.00, Detective Comics was
19

First page of the New Teen Titans preview that appeared in DC Comics Presents #26.
Teen Titans TM and © DC Comics
Comics mainstay since 1944, shep-
herded the Superman line of titles:
Action Comics, Superman, DC Comics
Presents, New Adventures of Superboy,
and Superman Family, along with the
tie-in to the Saturday morning car-
toon Super Friends. Paul Levitz edited
the Batman titles—Detective Comics,
Batman, and Brave and the Bold—and
served as DC’s Editorial Coordinator.
That left Len Wein, Jack C. Harris, and
Ross Andru to edit DC’s remaining su-
per-hero titles (along with their other
genre assignments): World’s Finest
established characters like Aquaman
(Adventure Comics), Firestorm (Flash),
Adam Strange (Green Lantern), Hunt-
ress (Wonder Woman), Air Wave, and
The Atom (both in Action Comics) to
receive new publication life.
Another DC publication of note was
Untold Legend of the Batman, a three-
issue mini-series recounting the Bat-
man mythos. It was DC’s second for-
ay into the mini-series format with
1979’s three-issue World of Krypton
series being its first. Following the
example of such successful television
mini-series as Roots (1977), the comic
book mini-series was an attractive,
cost-effective format for DC, especial-
ly given their reluctance to authorize
any new ongoing monthlies in the
wake of their “Implosion.” As such, by
late 1980, DC announced more three-
issue mini-series for 1981. Besides
the already scheduled Secrets of the
Legion of Super-Heroes, DC would re-
lease Tales of the Green Lantern Corps,
Krypton Chronicles (initially titled
Heroes of Krypton), and The Phantom
Zone, the latter two series intended as
tie-ins to the release of the 1981 Su-
perman II movie. DC’s achievements
with its mini-series encouraged other
publishers to use the format, and it
can be argued that the decade’s most
enduring and celebrated comic book
publications were conceived and pro-
duced as finite series.
Out With The Old,
In With The New Teen Titans
DC’s “Implosion” shell-shock didn’t
mean it wouldn’t publish any new
ongoing titles, only very few of them.
One of them though became DC’s
most popular title for most of the
1980s, even though it featured a cast
of characters that had become a bit of
a laughing stock by 1980: The Teen
Titans. Editor Len Wein explained
Comics (still primarily a Superman/
how he and writer Marv Wolfman
Batman team-up book), Flash, Green
went about convincing then-DC Com-
Lantern, Legion of Super-Heroes, Won-
ics publisher Jenette Kahn to approve
der Woman, Adventure Comics (fea-
their proposed series:
turing Plastic Man and Starman), and
Justice League of America. [Teen Titans was] a book that
had not done terribly well
Other super-heroes received the spot-
creatively in its last couple of
light though once DC increased the
incarnations. [Marv Wolfman
price of its standard comic book to
and I] went into Jenette and
$0.50 starting with its September
said together, “Hi, we have
1980 releases. The new story page
something we’d like to do,”
count of 25 meant the addition of a
and she said, “Sure! Anything
back-up story for most of DC’s titles,
you guys want to do!” and I
and that meant the opportunity for
20
 said, “We want to bring back League of America, the one DC title he
the Teen Titans,” and she gave really wanted to draw (Cadigan 108).
us the “Springtime for Hitler” Indeed, Pérez accepted the New Teen
look. You know, that “What!?” Titans assignment with the
She said, “The last time we assumption that he
cancelled that book [in 1978], wouldn’t be on it for
it was making a profit when very long:
we cancelled it, one of the few I thought [New
occasions in history that we Teen Titans]
cancelled a successful book would be can-
because we were so embar- celled after six
rassed by the creative con- issues…. Realis-
tent. Why in Heaven’s name tically, I was do-
would you think I would let ing a new book
you revive the book now?” for DC, and DC’s
and without missing a beat, track record be-
Marv and I looked at her ing what it was
and said, “Because we’ll do at the time, I
it right,” and she went, “Oh, figured the
okay. Good! Go!” (Cadigan 89) book was going
Each a comic book professional since to die. Even if
the late 1960s, Wein and Wolfman we produced
both left Marvel for DC in 1979. Wein our best work,
was wooed by the opportunity to I didn’t think
write Batman. Wolfman, on the other e n o u g h
hand, objected to Shooter’s stipula- people were
tion that writers couldn’t be their going to take
own editors, so he reached out to DC a look at it….
who welcomed him with open arms It was a book
and assigned him to write Green Lan- I did strictly
tern, DC Comics Presents, and Brave as a favor to
and the Bold. Wolfman conceived The Marv and a
New Teen Titans in order to get him- shot to do one
self out from writing one of the team- issue of the JLA
up books, whose contrived format he (Ringgenberg 55).
found a chore to write (Cadigan 93-4). Since he knew that
His vision for New Teen Titans was most of DC’s comic books sold poorly,
a mixture of established characters Marv Wolfman also assumed that
(Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and New Teen Titans would be cancelled
Changeling—formerly Beast Boy of before the end of its first year. But af-
the Doom Patrol) and new creations ter Wolfman and Pérez had finished
(Starfire, Cyborg, and Raven), each the first issue, DC’s brass was so im-
with a distinct personality to create a pressed with their work that Jenette
multi-faceted emotional dynamic for Kahn made an unprecedented deci-
the team, and each serving as a cata- sion in the hope that it would suf-
lyst for differing sets of stories. ficiently generate reader interest in
Wolfman went to Marvel’s offices to the new series: she told the creators
recruit George Pérez, who at the time to produce a 16-page New Teen Titans
was a freelancer drawing Avengers prelude story that would be inserted
and had collaborated with Wolfman as a “Free Preview” into DC Comics
in 1979 on Fantastic Four Annual Presents #26 (Oct. 1980). This preview
#14 and What If? #15. Pérez began appeared on stands one month be-
his comic book career in 1973 as a fore New Teen Titans #1 debuted. So
19-year-old assistant to artist Rich while the New Teen Titans first offi-
Buckler, but it didn’t take long for cially appeared in DC Comics Presents
Pérez to earn his own assignments, #26, the preview is actually the sec-
and during the ’70s he worked on a ond New Teen Titans work produced
variety of Marvel titles, most regu- by Wolfman and Pérez.
larly on Avengers and Fantastic Four. DC’s faith in New Teen Titans was im- Teen Titans TM and © DC Comics
When Wolfman approached him to mediately rewarded as the sales fig-
be the New Teen Titans artist, Pérez ures showed that its first issue sold
saw it as his stepping stone to Justice
21

four times better than most of the
titles DC Comics was publishing, and
according to Wolfman, while sales
dipped for issues #2 through #5, they
shot back up with issue #6 and all is-
sues thereafter (Cadigan 96). With
New Teen Titans, DC Comics had a
commercial and critical sensation on
its hands, and one that remained a
sensation throughout the decade. As
far as why this was so, perhaps Mi-
chael F. Hopkins explained it best in
a 1984 issue of Amazing Heroes, “The
keys to the Titans’ success lay in the
balance achieved by its co-creators…
It is a firm balance of the greater
Above: Photo of George Pérez and Marv Wolfman
that originally appeared in Comics Scene #11. With
New Teen Titans, the two created a comic book that
would become one of DC Comics’ most popular titles
for the duration of the decade. Wolfman and Pérez
would also collaborate on other DC best-sellers.
Teen Titans TM and © DC Comics
characterization suggested by Marvel
in the ’60s; the social issues deeply
focused on by Gardner Fox, Don Mc-
Gregor, and Steve Englehart; and rol-
licking super-hero action” (43).
New Teen Titans gave DC Comics the
shot in the arm it desperately need-
ed by providing it a title whose sales
were on par with Marvel’s best-sell-
ers. The work of Marv Wolfman and
George Pérez validated DC Comics to
its readership. What the two creators
would produce in the years ahead
though wasn’t just further validation
but greater glory for DC Comics.
22

“Meanwhile, Back In The Caption Boxes...”
Third-Person Omniscient Narrators and Thought Balloons
While the norms of comic book nar-
rative changed radically throughout
the 1980s, two decades-old comic
book story telling devices remained
prevalent as the 1980s dawned:
third-person omniscient narrators
and thought balloons. As they had
in the past, both devices often ei-
ther described actions already clearly
conveyed by the artwork or clari-
fied actions that the artwork wasn’t
conveying clearly. One page from X-
Men #139 (publication date August
1980) typifies both. Written by Chris
Claremont with artwork by John
Byrne and Terry Austin, the issue
opens with a scene in the X-Men’s
Danger Room. On page 4, Angel and
Nightcrawler accidentally collide. In
the second panel as Angel watches
Nightcrawler fall toward plainly vis-
ible flames, he thinks, “Nightcrawl-
er--! I knocked him off his trapeze—
right towards that fire pit! He isn’t
teleporting to safety; I must have
stunned him!” While the artwork
makes obvious that Nightcrawler
was indeed knocked off his trapeze
and is falling toward open flames, the
thought balloon informs the reader
that Nightcrawler is stunned (and
that he has the ability to teleport
himself for any new readers unfamil-
iar with the book’s characters). The
next panel shows Wolverine using his
claws to tear into the Danger Room’s
metal wall, and the panel’s caption
box reads, “With unbelievable speed,
Wolverine lashes out with the re-
tractable claws that extrude from the
backs of his hands. The miracle metal
slashes through the room’s omnium
steel wall like it was made of paper.”
All the information stated by the nar-
rator can already be discerned from
the artwork.
These story telling devices may have
been employed specifically for the
principal consumers of comic books
at the time: adolescents. Since ado-
lescents aren’t experienced readers,
many comic book writers may have
felt it necessary to use omniscient
CHRONICLES FLASHBACK: 1980
explanation on why comic book pre-
sentation had changed: “When guys
like Frank Miller started doing some
innovative things, they started a
trend. As is always the case with the
comic book business, when one guy
does something differently, others
see it and follow him. So when Frank
Miller began writing in that terse,
hard boiled style, other writers began
to copy him. When Watchmen came
out, everyone else began to write
in that gritty style. More than any-
thing, that’s why comic book writers
stopped using third-person narrators
and thought balloons: something
else had caught on. “
Len Wein offered a different explana-
tion, “This is a total supposition on
my part, but I think in the late 1980s
the younger comic book writers were
trying to emulate the narration styles
they were seeing on television and in
film. With few exceptions, television
shows and movies do not have omni-
scient narrators. So these comic book
writers were trying to make comics
more like TV and less like comics,
Two-panel sequence from X-Men #139.
The X-Men TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. which I always thought was a mis-
take because if you want something
narrators and thought balloons to
that’s like TV, you watch TV. There is
point to aspects of the story that ado-
nothing like comics but comics. But
lescent readers may overlook or not
if you try to make comics a different
otherwise readily grasp. Essentially,
medium, you lose what’s special and
the writers were making sure that
unique to the comic book format.”
their readers understood the story.
However, in an interview conducted
for this book, Len Wein disavowed
that premise and instead stressed
that these story telling devices “were
traditional in the style of the comic
book” and that comic book writers
of the early 1980s used them primar-
ily because of their familiarity with
them growing up as comic book read-
ers during the 1960s.
As the 1980s progressed though,
many comic book writers abandoned
third-person narrators and thought
balloons in favor of first-person nar-
rative captions or a dialogue-only
style. For American Comic Book
Chronicles, Jim Shooter offered his
23
1981
The Roy Thomas Renaissance,
Royalties,
and The Return of the King
January 20, 1981 marked the end of a crisis as Iran released
52 Americans it had held hostage since November 4, 1979.
It was the end of a 444-day ordeal that simultaneously dis-
mayed and united the American people. It sparked a resur-
gence of American patriotism as well as partly contributed
to Jimmy Carter’s defeat in the November 1980 Presidential
election.
January 20, 1981 also marked the beginning of a new
American era as Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the 40th
President of the United States. In his inaugural address,
Reagan outlined his remedies for the economic maladies
America was suffering. In doing so, he declared, “We must
act today in order to preserve tomorrow. And let there be
no misunderstanding—we are going to begin to act, begin-
ning today.”
By January 1981, DC and Marvel Comics had both already
begun to act in order to preserve their tomorrows. Execu-
tives from both publishers recognized that the newsstand—
comic books’ primary sales venue since the 1930s—could
no longer sustain the comic book industry. An economical-
ly viable alternative was required, and scrutiny was turned
to the Direct Market. But to embrace the Direct Market, the
publishers needed proof that it could be relied upon to gen-
erate far more revenue than it had up to this point.
For Marvel, that proof came in the form of the first book
they sold exclusively through the Direct Market: Dazzler #1
(March 1981).

CHAPTER TWO
by Keith Dallas
The Dazzler makes her debut in these panels from X-Men #130.
Dazzler TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

24
Dazzling The Direct Market
The Dazzler was a disco music-themed super-heroine Mar-
vel Comics had been tinkering with for three years. She
was originally conceived in 1978 as “The Disco Queen” for
a multi-media cross-promotion proposed by Casablanca
Records. Artist John Romita Jr. even modeled the char-
acter after Jamaican-American singer Grace Jones.
When Casablanca elevated Jim Shooter’s treat-
ment for an animated special into a feature-
length film project, the endeavor seemed
destined for greatness. Financial concerns,
however, forced the record label to bow out
of the undertaking completely. Despite
this, the film project moved forward, even
having its name changed from “The Dis-
co Queen” to “The Dazzler”—courtesy of
writer Roger Stern. “The Dazzler” eventu-
ally became attached to 10 It-Girl Bo Der-
ek—which meant the character’s physical
features had to be changed to resemble
the blonde actress. However, Bo Derek ulti-
mately passed on the project when the film
company refused to let her husband—John
Derek—direct the film, and Marvel was left
searching for new film partners. Dazzler’s of-
ficial first appearance in a Marvel comic book
came in X-Men #130 (Feb. 1980), but accord-
ing to Dazzler writer Tom DeFalco, the
long-planned publication of the charac-
ter’s own title was cancelled five or six
times because of all the Hollywood
false starts (as quoted in Cronin).
So Dazzler could accurately be cat-
egorized as “stuck in limbo,” never
mind the fact that the character was tied to a form of
music whose popularity was waning quickly. Neverthe-
less, Jim Shooter saw Dazzler as the perfect candidate for
Marvel’s first Direct Market-exclusive book. Shooter set out
to prove to Marvel’s upper management that the Direct
Market could support Marvel titles on its own, but at the
same time he was concerned about upsetting the news- Dazzler #1 was the first comic
stand consumers. In an interview for American Comic Book book that Marvel sold exclusively
through Direct Market stores.
Chronicles, Shooter explained that the reason he didn’t Dazzler TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
want an issue of X-Men, Fantastic Four, Thor, or any other
established Marvel title to be sold exclusively to the Direct
newsstand (DeFalco 200). By any measure, it was a tremen-
Market was because those titles already had acquired a
dous success, but Shooter wasn’t surprised as he believes
devoted newsstand audience. Since they didn’t patronize
the comic book retailers simply showed their eagerness to
comic book stores, newsstand readers wouldn’t take kindly
sell a Marvel product given exclusively to them: “I think
to the prospect of one of their favorite Marvel titles being
the comic book store owners felt, ‘Hey, we alone are getting
distributed solely to an outlet they didn’t frequent (or pos-
this comic book. We’re not competing with the newsstand.
sibly didn’t even know existed considering how few Direct
People have to come to my shop to get this book.’”
Market stores existed in 1981). Dazzler, however, was a
new character, albeit one that Marvel had been developing While Shooter’s ploy did indeed avert widespread news-
over the past few years. If such an untested character as the stand reader outrage, some were nonetheless still put off
Dazzler could sell well on the Direct Market, Shooter would by the Direct Market-exclusive release, and others saw
prove his point to his superiors while simultaneously avoid Dazzler #1 as a harbinger of a future where comic books
incurring the wrath of the newsstand audience. disappeared altogether from the newsstand. In the pages
of their favorite fanzines, they voiced their concerns. Mike
When Marvel Comics solicited Dazzler #1 solely to the Di-
Friedrich—then head of Marvel Comics’ Direct Sales de-
rect Market, the comic book store retailers rewarded the
partment—wrote to The Comic Reader to assuage its read-
publisher with total orders of 428,000 copies, almost dou-
ers’ fears by emphasizing the Direct Market’s potentially
ble the number of copies most Marvel titles sold on the
massive expansion:
25
1981 TIMELINE
A compilation of the year’s notable comic book industry events alongside
some of the year’s most significant popular cultural and historical events.
January 8: Fourteen years after relinquishing
art duties on The Flash in order to become March: After a dispute with
DC Comics’ editorial director, artist Carmine Marvel’s editor-in-chief Jim
Infantino returns to the title with issue #296. Shooter, artist Gene Colan
leaves Marvel for DC Comics.
January 20: Ronald Reagan is sworn in as
March 30: Outside the Washington
President of the United States; the same day 52
D.C. Hilton hotel, John W. Hinkley
American diplomats who had been held hostage
Jr. shoots and wounds President
in Iran for 444 consecutive days are freed.
Ronald Reagan and three others.
Claiming he was attempting to
impress actress Jodie Foster,
Hinckley was found not guilty by
reason of insanity at his 1982 trial.
Consequently, many states rewrite
their laws regarding the insanity
defense.
JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL M AY JUNE
February 13: DC Comics president Sol
Harrison retires. Publisher Jenette Kahn
becomes DC’s president as well as its
editor-in-chief. Joe Orlando becomes DC’s
vice president-editorial director.
February: Writer Michael Fleisher files a $2 March 18: The Greatest American
million lawsuit against Harlan Ellison, The Hero – starring William Katt as
Comics Journal, and its editor Gary Groth a school teacher who is given a
for published statements Fleisher perceives super-powered suit by an alien
to be libelous. (When the matter is decided race to help him save the world –
in court in 1986, Ellison and Groth prevail.) premieres on ABC-TV.
Batman and Superman TM and © DC Comics. Fantastic Four, Hulk, Marvel Fanfare, Spider-Man TM and
© Marvel Characters, Inc. Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers TM and © Jack Kirby estate. MTV TM and © Viacom Media Networks.
You express a very valid con-
cern about the future of com-
ics if the comics publishers
“restrict” themselves to spe-
cialty shop sales. However,
I feel you needn’t worry too
much… We are trying at Mar-
vel to reach the widest num-
ber of people with our com-
ics. Our enthusiasm for the
Direct Sales program comes
precisely because we believe
these wholesalers are creat-
ing new business for us, first
by servicing the specialty
shops, and second, by reach-
ing out and bringing their
expertise to other outlets and
thereby help them sell com-
ics to more people.
Only the first issue of Dazzler was of-
fered exclusively to the Direct Market.
Subsequent issues could be bought at
the newsstand. With the success of
John Romita Jr.’s original design for Dazzler was Dazzler #1, however, the Direct Mar-
modeled after Jamaican-American singer Grace Jones.
Dazzler TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. ket had passed Marvel’s viability test,
26
April 21: John Byrne begins his June: Amazing Heroes – a
five-year stint as the writer/artist on Fantagraphics magazine featuring
Fantastic Four with issue #232. comic book industry news, interviews,
reviews and articles – debuts.
April 23: DC Comics’ Madame Xanadu
one-shot – a Steve Englehart/Marshall June: Mike Gustovich’s Justice
Rogers collaboration originally intended Machine debuts on the Direct Market
for the cancelled Doorway into Nightmare as a magazine-sized comic book.
– arrives exclusively to the Direct Market
where it sells over 100,000 copies. June 4: DC Comics launches The
Krypton Chronicles and Arak, Son
April 12: After April 24: IBM introduces its of Thunder, the latter created and
many delays, Personal Computer written by Roy Thomas. Another
the first space with an operating Thomas creation, All-Star Squadron,
shuttle, Columbia, system designed debuts June 18.
makes its maiden by Microsoft and
June 5: The Centers for Disease
voyage when it microprocessor
Control publishes the first report
launches from Cape circuitry manufactured
Canaveral, Florida. of a mysterious outbreak of a
by Intel.
sometimes fatal pneumonia among
gay men. Originally called “gay
April 24: Veteran comic book artist
related immune deficiency” (GRID),
Howard Purcell dies of complications
the syndrome is re-named Acquired
from emphysema. He drew the first
Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS)
adventures of Golden Age heroes like
in 1982.
Sargon the Sorcerer and Johnny Peril and
contributed to Marvel and DC into the
1960s and early 1970s.
May 25: Wearing a Spider-Man
costume, Daniel Goodwin scales
Chicago’s Sears Tower – then
the tallest building in the world
– in seven and a half hours.
May: Cerebus #26 – which
begins the two year long June 19: Superman II – with
“High Society” story arc – Christopher Reeve reprising his
April 14: Marvel Treasury Edition
arrives in stores. role as the Man of Steel – opens
#28 is a joint Marvel/DC publica- in movie theaters; the film
tion teaming Superman and grosses $24 million in its first
Spider-Man against Doctor Doom week of release, a record at
and The Parasite in a 68-page the time.
oversized book written by Jim
Shooter and Marv Wolfman with June 12: George Lucas’ Raiders of the Lost Ark – directed
art by John Buscema. by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford as Indiana
Jones – opens in movie theaters. It grosses more money at
the box office than any other film released during the year.
effectively giving Jim Shooter the
green light to make more titles Di-
rect Market exclusives. Late in 1981,
Micronauts, Ka-Zar, and Moon Knight
became those titles, principally be-
cause, according to Shooter, they sold
well at the Direct Market but not at
the newsstand. Removing these titles
from the newsstand saved them from
cancellation.
Moon Knight, though, was one of
Marvel’s six titles that sold on aver-
age over 200,000 copies per month
in 1981. The others were Dazzler,
Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Star
Wars, and Uncanny X-Men. Average
monthly sales for nearly every Mar-
vel title dropped from the previous
year (Uncanny X-Men was a notable
exception), and therefore total pub-
lishing sales dropped from 1980 to
1981 (Tolworthy). This was partly due
to—again—the declining newsstand
market, but Marvel also published
fewer comic books in 1981 compared
to 1980. That’s because in January
 November: DC Comics December 1: Russ Manning, best known
September 1: DC Comics’ Production Manager announces that retroactive to for his work on Magnus, Robot Fighter and
July: Distributor Pacific Comics launches its July 1981 releases it will Tarzan (both the comic book and comic strip)
Jack Adler retires to be replaced by Bob Rozakis
into the comic book publishing business pay royalties to its writers and dies of cancer at the age of 52.
who will serve in that capacity until 1998.
with Jack Kirby’s Captain Victory and the artists working on comic books
Galactic Rangers, selling 70,000 copies in that sell over 100,000 copies December 3: DC’s Justice League of
Direct Market stores. September 12: The Spider-Man and per issue.
his Amazing Friends Saturday morning America celebrates its 200th issue
cartoon debuts on NBC network. November 2: Award winning with a 72-page story written by Gerry
comic book writer-artist Wallace Conway with art contributions from
September 24: DC Special Series Allan (“Wally”) Wood commits George Perez, Jim Aparo, Brian Bolland,
July 19: Mike Grell #27 is a joint DC/Marvel publication suicide at the age of 54. Pat Broderick, Dick Giordano, Carmine
becomes writer-artist on the teaming Batman and The Hulk against Infantino, Gil Kane, and Joe Kubert.
Tarzan Sunday comic strip. The Joker and the Shaper of the Worlds November 18: Psychiatrist
in a 68 page oversized book written by Fredric Wertham – whose 1954 December 8: The first issue
July 29: Britain’s Prince Charles Len Wein with art by José Luis García- book Seduction of the Innocent of Marvel Fanfare – a Marvel
marries Lady Diana Spencer at St. López and Dick Giordano. indicted the comic book industry Comics bi-monthly
Paul’s Cathedral in London; 700 for corrupting America’s youth anthology book
million worldwide television viewers October 18: Responding to a leading to a U.S. Congressional printed on maga-
watch the wedding. reporter’s question, President hearing on the matter as well as zine style slick
Reagan acknowledges for the the creation of the Comics Code paper and retailing
first time that the United States Authority – dies at the age of 86. for $1.25 – debuts
is in an economic recession. exclusively in
Five days later, the U.S. national Direct Market
debt reaches $1 trillion. stores.

J U LY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER

December 17: Keith

August 1: MTV, a 24 hour a
October: Beginning this month,
day cable network channel
the retail price for a standard DC
devoted to music video,
or Marvel comic book increases
launches at 12:01AM with
to $0.60.
the Buggles’ “Video Killed
the Radio Star”.
October: Marvel Comics’ Ka-Zar
The Savage and Moon Knight are
now sold exclusively to the Direct
Market; Micronauts joins them the
August 12: Under direct orders from President
following month.
Reagan, U.S. fighter jets attack targets in Libya.
Seven days later, in a dogfight over the Gulf
of Sidra, two U.S. Navy F-14s shoot down two October: Eclipse Comics publishes
Soviet-built Libyan jet fighters that had attacked Jim Starlin’s The Price – a black-
a U.S. aircraft carrier. and-white graphic novel continuing
the “Metamorphosis Odyssey”
story arc started in Marvel’s Epic
Illustrated.
November 24: As of this date,
DC Comics and Marvel Comics
jointly own the trademark to the
term “super-hero”.
November 24: Comic book
distributor Capital City becomes
a comic book publisher when
the first black-and-white,
magazine-sized issue of Mike
Baron and Steve Rude’s Nexus
arrives in Direct Market stores.
Giffen begins his
decades-long associa-
tion with DC Comics’
super teens from the
future with Legion of
Super-Heroes #285.
December 22: Marvel
Comics announces it will
begin paying royalties to
creators, writers and art-
ists working on books that
sell over 100,000 copies
per issue.
December 24: The first issue of DC
Comics’ Captain Carrot and his Amazing
Zoo Crew – featuring the sentient animal
super-heroes of “Earth-C” – arrives on
newsstands.

1981, Jim Shooter concluded his edi- did people not want to buy
tors were “horribly overworked.” To anything associated with
relieve this, Shooter cancelled several just the Star Trek movie, my
titles over the course of the year, spe- creators didn’t want to work
cifically Man-Thing, Marvel Premiere, on the comic book series!
Marvel Spotlight, Marvel Super Ac- I couldn’t get anybody to
tion, Sgt. Fury, the Children’s Televi- pay attention to the damn
sion Workshop tie-in Spidey Super thing! So that was a disas-
Stories, and Star Trek, a series that ter, but it was a disaster that
was doomed to fail before its launch, was foisted upon us. If we
as Shooter explained in an interview had gotten what we thought
for American Comic Book Chronicles: we were originally going
We got screwed six ways to get, I think that would
to Sunday on Star Trek. We have worked out fine. It
wanted from Paramount wouldn’t have been Star
all of Star Trek: the motion Wars, but I think it would
picture, the 1960s televi- have been a success.
sion series, everything. But In January 1981, Shooter also tried
what we got was only the to aid Marvel’s exhausted editors
motion picture. Once we by hiring David Anthony Kraft and
already committed to all Lynn Graeme as “interim editors.”
these publishing plans, we By February though, Graeme and
were told we couldn’t do Jo Duffy were out as editors (Duffy
what people wanted: the would continue working for Mar- In this 1981 house ad Marvel Comics
informs its readers that three of its titles will be
television series. We got the vel as a freelance writer), and Tom available only at comic book stores.
lame first movie. Not only DeFalco was added to the existing TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

27
 ecutives that the publication of more
movie adaptations would be lucra-
tive. Jim Shooter didn’t agree with the
reasoning though as he considered
Star Wars a “once in a lifetime deal.”
Nonetheless, he was under orders by
his superiors to do more. So in 1981
Marvel published adaptations of the
new James Bond film For Your Eyes
Only (written by Larry Hama with art
by Howard Chaykin and Vince Col-
letta), the medieval fantasy Dragon-
slayer (written by Denny O’Neil with
art by Marie Severin), and the George
Lucas-Steven Spielberg blockbuster
Raiders of the Lost Ark (written by
Walt Simonson with art by John Bus-
cema and Klaus Janson). Months be-
fore Raiders was released in theaters,
Shooter had read the film’s script and
was so unimpressed with it that he

staff of Louise Jones, Al Milgrom,

Denny O’Neil, and Jim Salicrup.

Marvel Comics Goes Hollywood

Despite all its title cancellations and
editorial turbulence, Marvel could
hardly be categorized as a company on
the decline. In fact, they were branch-
ing out to other media. In 1981, Mar-
vel purchased Depatie-Freleng Enter-
prises animation studio, which they
renamed Marvel Productions and put
to immediate use by creating two Spi-
der-Man animated series. The more
popular of the two was Spider-Man
and His Amazing Friends, which de-
buted as a Saturday morning cartoon
on the NBC television network on Sep-
tember 12, 1981. The cartoon had the
friendliest neighborhood web-slinger
fighting alongside former X-Man Ice-
man and a new heroine created just
for the series, Firestar. The animated
series guest starred heroes and vil-
lains easily recognized by devoted
Marvel Comics readers: the Green
Goblin, Doctor Doom, Thor, and Cap-
tain America, among many others.
In her civilian identity, Firestar even
resembled long-time Spider-Man love
interest Mary Jane Watson. All in all,
the cartoon attempted to adapt the
Marvel comic book universe to the
small screen.
Back in New York, Jim Shooter was
stuck with the task of adapting sever-
al motion pictures into Marvel comic
books. The success of the Star Wars
Top: Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends concept art by John Romita.
comic book convinced Marvel’s ex- Above: Panels from Marvel Comics’ adaptation of the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back.
Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. Star Wars TM and © Lucasfilm.

28
actually turned down the proposed
comic book adaptation: “I thought the
movie was The Perils of Pauline and
then God comes down and saves the
hero at the end.” But Lucasfilm was
so pleased with Marvel’s work on the
Star Wars comic book that they sent
representatives to New York to show
Shooter a 25-minute segment of Raid-
ers of the Lost Ark. That was enough
to amaze Shooter thoroughly, and the
comic book adaptation was a go once
again.
These 1981 movie adaptations are no-
table in that they were Marvel’s first
use of the mini-series format (soon to
be dubbed “limited series” by Marvel).
Prior to 1981, Marvel published movie
adaptations as one-shot Marvel Super
Special magazines (like 1979’s Meteor
or 1980’s Xanadu) or as ongoing titles
(e.g., Star Wars, Star Trek). In 1981
though, Marvel’s three movie adapta-
tions were published as limited series Frank Miller makes his mark on Marvel Comics’ Man Without Fear.
and one-shot Marvel Super Specials. Daredevil TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
One might surmise that Shooter was
testing the viability of the limited se-
ries format with these adaptations, Miller Time and within two years he would make
Daredevil Marvel’s second best-selling
but by this time Shooter was already One ongoing series Jim Shooter
book, outperformed only by Uncanny
convinced the format could succeed. wasn’t going to cancel in 1981 was
X-Men.
As he explained in an interview for Daredevil, even though it was one of
American Comic Book Chronicles, he Marvel’s lowest selling books. Truth be What many readers and critics rec-
had little opportunity to use the for- told, since its debut in 1964, Daredevil ognized was that Daredevil was in
mat prior to 1981, and his principal was never one of Marvel’s best-sellers, the hands of a bonafide auteur. Or as
reason for its use for these movie ad- and its sales had decreased every year Jim Shooter put it in Marvel’s Febru-
aptations was as “a defense against throughout the 1970s. But with its ary 1982 “Bullpen Bulletins”: “Frank
getting trapped into an ongoing se- January 1981 issue (Daredevil #168), Miller is good… real good… too good.”
ries which then would have to be can- 23-year-old Frank Miller, already the Frank Miller was a storyteller like no
celled right away.” title’s artist, became its writer as well, other, and Daredevil became a super-

29
hero comic book like no other. Fore-
most, it was violent, far more violent
than the other early 1980s newsstand
comic books. Characters were shot,
stabbed, impaled, maimed and thor-
oughly bludgeoned. Indeed, in an
early 1982 Comics Journal interview,
Miller asserted that violence was
the book’s theme (Decker 76).
But Miller’s depiction of vi-
olence never relied
on gore, and not
just because
the Comics
Code Authori-
ty wouldn’t al-
low it. Miller’s
art style was
simultaneously
naturalistic and e x p r e s -
sionistic. Miller’s figures had
realistic poses and propor-
tions, but they often inhab-
ited surreal environments:
rooms that seemed to ex-
tend to infinity, jail cells
with barred ceilings
and floors. The charac-
ters performed actions
in extreme shadows
or brightness, ably ma-
nipulated for effect by
colorist Glynis Wein and
inker Klaus Janson (who
in 1982 assumed
colorist duties as
well). The result
was a title that
was part noir,
part martial arts
super-hero fantasy, and part abstract
portrait of New York City.
In many ways then, Daredevil didn’t
fit within Marvel’s existing publish-
ing line. Miller fashioned a fictional
universe practically disassociated
from Marvel’s other titles. Daredevil
didn’t team-up with The Avengers or
Spider-Man, and he didn’t square off
against Dr. Doom or the Red Skull. In-
stead, the protagonist’s world seemed
self-enclosed, inhabited by the insane
mercenary Bullseye, Daily Bugle in-
vestigative reporter Ben Urich, The
Punisher, The Black Widow, small-
time loser Turk Barrett, martial arts
master Stick, the mystical ninja
organization known as The Hand,
criminal mastermind Kingpin and his
sai-wielding assassin Elektra.
wrote and drew, Frank Miller introduced Daredevil’s
Introduced in Miller’s first issue
as Daredevil writer, Elektra quickly
became one of Marvel’s most popular
supporting characters. Miller estab-
lished the back-story of Elektra and
Matt Murdock as college lovers, until
the death of her father caused her to
leave Matt’s side. In Japan, The Hand
trained her to be an assassin, so
when she returned to Matt’s
life, she was his thematic
foil. As a result of his fa-
ther’s murder, Matt Mur-
dock devoted his life to
promoting law and or-
der. As a result of her
father’s death, Elektra
lost faith in the world
and instead dedicated
herself to lawlessness
and cold-blooded vio-
lence. In principles,
motives, and actions,
Daredevil and Elektra
opposed each other,
and the conflict be-
tween them would
reach a tragic reso-
lution in 1982.
On the way to that
resolution, how-
ever, Frank Miller
sought to innovate
how he narrated
Daredevil. At the
start of his Dare-
devil writing tenure,
Miller used the tra-
ditional comic
book story
telling devic-
es of thought
balloons and third-person omniscient
narrator captions. He felt though that
“there are far too many words in most
comic books” (Decker 78), and after
studying Japanese samurai comics—
which Miller assessed as being totally
reliant on their visual images to tell
their stories—he decided to conduct
an exercise: write and draw a story
without any thought balloons or cap-
tions. That exercise was published as
a 10-page black-and-white Elektra
story in Bizarre Adventures #28 (Oct.
1981). In the coming months, Miller
steadily made Daredevil more con-
cise by reducing his use of thought
balloons and captions. He also began
substituting first-person narrators for
third-person omniscient ones. What
In the first issue of Daredevil that he both aided Miller’s narrative experimenta-
thematic foil, Elektra. tion was the fact that he encountered
Daredevil and Elektra TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. little editorial opposition. Jim Shooter
30
 For a story published in Bizarre Adventures #28 that featured Elektra, Frank Miller deliberately avoided using captions and thought balloons.

and Daredevil editor Denny O’Neil

pretty much left Miller alone to his
own endeavors.

Shooter-Induced Headaches
Other Marvel creators didn’t en-
joy that luxury, chief among them
Roger Stern and John Byrne at
the end of their tenure on Captain
America. Years after the fact, John
Byrne explained how an editorial
edict ended his and Stern’s brief
collaboration on the title:
Shooter woke up one morn-
ing and decided that [Mar-
vel] should only do one-part
stories. And the thing about
Shooter, in those days, all of
his ideas were retroactive.
He would come in on a Mon-
day morning and say, “Why
aren’t you doing this? I just
had this idea, why isn’t it al-
ready in place?” So Roger and
I had already started part one
of a three-part story—Cap
and Red Skull. And [editor]
Jim Salicrup calls me up and
says, “This has to be a one-
part story.” And then Roger’s
calling me saying, “They say
it’s gotta be a one-part story.”
It’s a three-part story, we plot- one-part stories from then on, feel comfortable accepting the assign-
ted it. All of a sudden, Shooter but this is a three-part story.” ment. For one, he didn’t feel a Cana-
wants nothing but one-part “No, this has to be a one-part.” dian should be the writer of a comic
stories. And that was some- So Roger quit. (Cooke 41) book about an American icon, but he
thing that went away, that With Stern gone, Salicrup offered also didn’t want to undermine Stern’s
was his thing of the moment. the Captain America writing duties reasons for resigning. So Byrne turned
Roger just said, “No, I refuse to Byrne. At the end of his run on X- down the offer and quit drawing
to compromise my artistic Men and already assigned to write Captain America too (Cooke 42).
integrity. This is a three-part and draw Fantastic Four, Byrne didn’t
story. We will be happy to do
31

Top: John Byrne-drawn spread page from
Captain America #255, the final issue of Byrne
and Roger Stern’s collaboration on the title.
Above: A 1982 photo of John Byrne at
the drawing table, from Comics Scene #2.
Captain America TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Gene Colan, on the other hand, de-
cided to quit Marvel altogether rather
than continue working under Jim
Shooter. A professional comic book
artist since 1944, Colan had been
drawing for Marvel Comics for the
past 16 years, producing lengthy,
memorable runs on Tales of Suspense,
Daredevil, Captain America, Tomb of
Dracula, and Howard the Duck. Jim
Shooter, though, felt that the quality
of Colan’s artwork had diminished.
His assumption was that the artist
had become more focused on drawing
pages quickly than drawing them to
the best of his ability. Consequently,
Shooter began to demand that Colan
redraw pages that didn’t meet his ap-
proval. That didn’t sit well with Colan,
and the two even had a heated argu-
ment in 1979 over Colan’s refusal to
redraw pages for the second issue
of the Howard the Duck magazine
(“Gene Colan Leaves Marvel” 11). Af-
ter Stan Lee intervened to reconcile
the two men, Shooter proposed a
compromise: whenever Shooter ob-
ligated Colan to redraw pages, Mar-
32
vel would monetarily compensate
the artist beyond his usual page rate.
Colan agreed to the arrangement, but
by 1981 he found Shooter’s revision
stipulations too burdensome, espe-
cially since the two were now paired
together on Avengers. After reaching
out to DC Comics and learning they
would be willing to hire him, Colan
told Marvel Comics President Jim Gal-
ton that he would continue to work
for Marvel only if Shooter no longer
required him to revise his artwork.
Galton had no desire to arbitrate
the dispute, so he passed the matter
back to Shooter who teamed up with
Marvel’s Vice President of Publishing
Michael Hobson to patch up matters
with Colan.
The two sides found themselves at an
impasse: Colan wanted artistic carte
blanche, but Shooter refused to ca-
pitulate. So in March 1981 Colan left
Marvel by signing a three-year exclu-
sive contract with DC Comics. He was
promptly assigned to draw Batman.
When asked by The Comics Journal to
explain Colan’s defection, Shooter of- More New Changes from the New DC business affairs.
fered, “Since I’ve been in charge, Gene With his promotion, Levitz eventu-
One of the most definitive indica-
and I have been having discussions ally relinquished the editing of the
tions of a “New DC Comics” was the
over what I feel Marvel’s approach Batman titles to DC’s new managing
February 13, 1981 retirement of its
to storytelling should be and that editor Dick Giordano. One of the final
president, Sol Harrison—a man who
proved to be something that Gene just issues of Levitz’s editorial tenure was
worked for DC Comics for 38 years,
couldn’t handle. He had his way that Detective Comics #500 (March 1981),
having served, in order, as its produc-
he had developed and I guess he’s very an 80-page celebratory issue con-
tion manager, vice president of opera-
committed to it. He’s a very nice man, taining seven stories, the principal
tions, and finally its president since
I like him very much, he’s a hell of an of which featured Batman and Robin
1976. His departure prompted a slew
artist—but that does not meet my re- journeying to a parallel Earth to pre-
of executive level changes for DC Com-
quirements” (11). This provoked Paul vent history from repeating itself:
ics over the course of the year. Jenette
Levitz to remark wryly, “If Gene Colan they succeed in stopping the Crime
Kahn, DC’s publisher since 1976, was
is being positioned as having been Alley murder of Thomas and Mar-
now its publisher and president. As
rejected from Marvel Comics, we can tha Wayne, saving that Earth’s Bruce
DC’s new vice president-editorial di-
only say we dearly hope Marvel will Wayne from becoming an orphan
rector, Joe Orlando coordinated all of
continue to reject all their talents of (but not necessarily from becoming
DC’s creative efforts while former as-
comparable stature” (12). For his part, that Earth’s Batman). Contributors to
sistant editor—and “Ask The Answer
Gene Colan declined to elaborate the the issue included Jim Aparo, Alan
Man” columnist—Bob Rozakis now
reasons for his departure. Instead he Brennert, Dick Giordano, Jose Luis
headed DC’s production department.
gushed about his new employer, com- Garcia-Lopez, Carmine Infantino, Joe
Karen Berger filled the editorial coor-
plimenting DC Comics’ professional- Kubert, Walter Simonson, Len Wein,
dinator position vacated by Paul Lev-
ism and labeling it “a completely new and Walter Gibson, the creator of
itz when he became DC’s manager of
organization” (12).

Many artists contributed to this cover to Detective Comics #500. Among them was production staffer Bob LeRose who signed the cover,
the only time DC Comics allowed someone from its production department to do so. All depicted characters TM and © DC Comics.

33

A 1981 house ad promotes the titles offered by DC Comics.
All depicted characters TM and © DC Comics.
fabled pulp hero, The Shadow.
Detective Comics #500’s wrap around
cover is one of the most unique in DC
Comics’ history. Besides being an ar-
tistic “jam”—where each of the issue’s
interior artists drew a different char-
acter—the cover also displays many
other Detective Comics covers from
years’ past. This cover montage was
produced by DC production staffer
Bob LeRose who—in those pre-desk-
top computer publishing days—used
a time-consuming hand mechanical
process to shape and photograph the
various covers in varied angles and
positions. LeRose’s efforts were so ad-
mired that according to Levitz, it was
the only time DC Comics allowed a
production staffer to sign his name on
a comic book cover.
But Paul Levitz was now removed from
monthly editorial endeavors, and his
promotion—along with all the other
management changes—augured a
34
dynamically progressive era for DC
Comics. In an interview conducted for
American Comic Book Chronicles, Paul
Levitz described 1981 as a time of “an
enormous amount of exciting change
going on.” The crux of that change
was DC’s decision to innovate its sales
approach. It was in 1981 that DC cre-
ated its own Direct Sales department,
hiring Paul Kupperberg to handle the
creative end of Direct Sales marketing
(e.g., press releases, solicitation copy,
poster designs, et al.). Throughout
the year, Levitz met with Leon Knize,
a distribution consultant loaned to
DC by parent company Warner Com-
munications. After thoroughly ana-
lyzing distribution data and inter-
viewing numerous wholesalers and
comic shop retailers, Knize confirmed
many of the executives’ instinct that
DC Comics should dedicate its sales
efforts to the growing Direct Market.
Levitz explains, “We spent an intense
six to eight months working with the
consultant. He assisted us in build-
ing new sales terms and new sales
techniques that could work for that
market. We did an off-site for the en-
tire staff where we introduced them
to the concept of marketing that we
were going to be making a part of our
conversations.”
And like Marvel Comics did several
months earlier, DC Comics released
its own Direct Market exclusive comic
book in the form of Madame Xana-
du #1 (June 1981). Priced at a dollar,
Madame Xanadu #1 cost double the
standard comic book while offering
32 story pages with no ads instead of
the typical 25 story pages with ads.
According to The Comic Reader, the
Direct Market bought 100,000 copies
(“DC News”). While not as impressive
as the orders for Dazzler #1, the to-
tal sales—combined with the issue’s
higher retail price point—showed
DC where their future sales efforts
should be focused.
DC made clear to Direct Market
consumers that Madame Xanadu was
a comic book intended solely for them
with the cover tag declaration “Spe-
cial Collectors’ Only Edition!” What’s
more, the cover also advertised the is-
sue’s creators: writer Steve Englehart
and artists Marshall Rogers and Brian
Bolland. Prior to 1981, only such com-
ic industry luminaries as Jack Kirby
or Stan Lee were heralded on DC or
Marvel comic book covers. That trend
changed with Detective Comics #500
and its cover that listed all of its con-
tributors. For Madame Xanadu, DC cal-
culated that collectors—more so than
newsstand consumers—were better
aware of the professionals working
in the comic book industry and would
purchase a comic book based on their
admiration of certain
professionals. Englehart
and Rogers had achieved
a fan following in 1977-
8 during a distinguished
collaboration on Detec-
tive Comics. Their lead
story in Madame Xanadu
#1 was actually produced
during their Detective
Comics run and originally
intended for Doorway to
Nightmare, a series fea-
turing the mystical Tarot
reader Madame Xanadu
that ran for five issues
before being cancelled in
1978. (The J.M. DeMat-
teis/Brian Bolland back-
up story for Madame
Xanadu #1, incidentally,
was originally intended
for Mystery In Space, a
series which had been
cancelled by cover date
March 1981.) With its in-
sinuations of drug abuse
and sexual activities, the
Englehart/Rogers Ma-
dame Xanadu story was
likely too “mature” for a
Comics Code Authority-
approved newsstand
release, making it more
suitable for a Direct Mar-
ket exclusive release.
CCA’s seal of approval
does not appear on the
issue’s cover nor does a
warning about the issue’s
content.
No longer writing for DC Comics by
1981, Steve Englehart received no
forewarning that his three-year-
old story was being dusted off for
Madame Xanadu #1. He was mostly
puzzled though that the comic book
was billed as a “Fabulous First Issue”
considering that the story he and Rog-
ers produced was self-contained. In an
interview for American Comic Book
Chronicles, Englehart described how
he related his surprise to DC Comics
and was in turn encouraged to create
two more stories for Madame Xana-
du: “So I did. The editor promised me
a certain page rate, and when I came
to turn the new stories in, he reneged,
so I took those stories and walked out,
with no hope of making any money at
all off them, since they featured a DC
character.” DC Comics didn’t publish a
DC Comics released Madame Xanadu #1
exclusively to comic book stores.
Madame Xanadu TM and © DC Comics.
subsequent issue of Madame Xanadu
until 2008. Steve Englehart, on the
other hand, held on to the new mate-
rial he created for the series and didn’t
take as long to find some use for it.
While Steve Englehart had no plans
to return to DC Comics any time soon,
one creator returning to its fold was
its former publisher and president
Carmine Infantino. Working as a pro-
35
fessional comic book artist since the
mid-1940s, Infantino designed and
drew some of DC Comics’ most suc-
cessful properties in the 1950s and
60s, most notably the “New Look”
Batman and the Silver Age Flash. In-
deed, Infantino’s uninterrupted artis-
tic run on The Flash lasted from 1959
until 1967. It was then
that he became DC’s
art director and after a
series of promotions,
Infantino had full run
of DC by 1971. But a dis-
pute occurred between
Infantino and Warner
executives in 1976 over
DC’s financial losses the
previous year. The end
result was Infantino’s
acrimonious departure,
leaving him a freelance
artist again, drawing
for Warren Publishing,
Hanna-Barbera anima-
tion studios, and Mar-
vel Comics from 1976
to 1980. As Infantino
explains in his autobi-
ography, the man re-
sponsible for bringing
him back to DC Comics
less than five years after
his exodus was his good
friend Joe Orlando: “[As
DC’s editorial director,
Joe] called me regu-
larly and tried often to
get me to return to The
Flash. I’d given DC my
all, and was very hesi-
tant to return. But Joe
was relentless, assuring
me I’d only be dealing
with him. Ultimately,
because of our close
personal relationship, I
caved in and accepted”
(141). Infantino drew an
Adam Strange story for Green Lantern
#137 (Feb. 1981) and a Deadman/Bat-
man team-up for the aforementioned
Detective Comics #500. He then got
paired up with Marv Wolfman on
“Dial ‘H’ for Hero,” which premiered
as an insert in Legion of Super-Heroes
#272 (Feb. 1981) before becoming the
new Adventure Comics feature with
issue #479 (March 1981). The follow-
ing month Infantino was assigned
art duties to the title he left fourteen
years prior: The Flash. It was a dream

This “Dial H for Hero” house ad features artwork by Carmine Infantino.
TM and © DC Comics.
come true for Flash writer Cary Bates
who adored Infantino’s work when he
was an adolescent fan (Scott 78), and
the two would go on to produce Flash
stories for the next four years.
The Roy Thomas Renaissance
Also about to produce many years’
worth of comics for DC was Roy
Thomas. A Marvel Comics mainstay
since 1965, Roy Thomas practically
contributed to Marvel’s entire line
of titles, writing lengthy runs on Sgt.
Fury and his Howling Commandos, The
X-Men, The Avengers, Doctor Strange,
Daredevil, Sub-Mariner, Conan the
Barbarian, The Incredible Hulk, Fan-
tastic Four, The Invaders, Thor, Red
Sonja, and Star Wars. He even served
as Marvel’s editor-in-chief from 1972
to 1974. Like Marv Wolfman before
him though, Thomas objected to Jim
Shooter’s stipulation that Marvel’s
writers couldn’t serve as their own
editors. Indeed, when it came time to
negotiate the renewal of his contract
in 1980, Thomas made clear to Shoot-
er that he wouldn’t work for Marvel if
he couldn’t edit his own work. A pre-
liminary telephone conversation with
Shooter led Thomas to believe that he
would indeed remain employed as
a writer/editor and Shooter directed
Thomas to have his lawyer draw up a
new contract. When Shooter received
the new contract, however, he rejected
its writer/editor proviso. Thomas felt
deceived and betrayed, particularly
because he had to pay for the drafting
of the contract out of his own pocket.
The affront compelled Thomas to call
Paul Levitz to see if he could write for
DC Comics (Amash 59-60).
Levitz essentially hired Thomas over
the phone, offering him a three-year
contract. The move revitalized Thom-
as’s creative energies. Beginning his
DC Comics career with some co-writ-
ten 1981 issues of Green Lantern, DC
Comics Presents, Superman Family,
Batman, and Legion of Super-Heroes,
Thomas confessed in an interview
conducted for American Comic Book
Chronicles that he really had no desire
to write these titles (or the characters
featured within them). Instead, since
he was no longer editing his own
work, he sought assignments that al-
lowed him more creative freedom.
Luckily for Thomas, Jenette Kahn,
Joe Orlando, and Paul Levitz looked
to him to create some new DC titles.
First, they let Thomas take the reins
of his favorite group of comic book
characters since his childhood: The
Justice Society of America. After the
cancellation of its revived All-Star
Comics in 1978 (a victim of the “DC
Implosion”) and its brief appearances
in the anthologized Adventure Comics
in 1979, the JSA seemed like a concept
that could no longer interest readers.
For a fresh approach, Thomas wrote
the future of the JSA by retconning
its past; he presented new stories
set during World War II. But fighting
alongside the Justice Society mem-
bers were other DC Comics characters
36
from the 1940s—like Johnny Quick,
Liberty Belle, and Robotman—as
well as 1940s characters published
by Quality Comics, which DC Comics
acquired in the late 1950s (e.g., Plastic
Man). Thus, with artists Rich Buckler
and Jerry Ordway, Thomas created a
veritable tribute to the Golden Age of
comics: All-Star Squadron.
Like it had done for The New Teen Ti-
tans in 1980, DC Comics demonstrated
its enthusiasm for All-Star Squadron
by previewing it as a “special free 16-
page comic” inserted into another DC
comic book—this time Justice League
of America #193 (Aug. 1981). All-Star
Squadron’s story begins on December
6, 1941—the day before the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor—as various
Justice Society members are confront-
ed and defeated by foes from their fu-
ture. By the end of All-Star Squadron
#1 (Sept. 1981), President Roosevelt
petitions the mobilization of all the
nation’s “mystery men” into a single
unit—an All-Star Squadron—dedi-
cated to protecting the home front
as American forces went overseas to
engage in World War II. With a roster
that swelled to dozens of characters,
All-Star Squadron featured plenty of
super-heroic feats and action. But
Thomas also went to great lengths to
evoke wartime America, not only by
referencing specific historical events
but also by having the characters use
colloquial slang and through cameos
of famous personages (like profes-
sional football quarterback Sammy
Baugh).
All-Star Squadron lasted nearly
six years, spawning two spin-off se-
ries along the way: Infinity Inc. (1984)
and Young All-Stars (1987). Of every-
thing he accomplished in his career,
All-Star Squadron was the project
Roy Thomas was most fond of and
most proud of: “I prefer All-Star
Squadron over anything—over Conan,
over Avengers, over anything I ever
worked on.”
The same month that All-Star Squad-
ron premiered in Justice League of
America, another Roy Thomas cre-
ation debuted as a 16-page insert
in Warlord #48: Arak, Son of Thun-
der. Because of Thomas’s decade-
long stint as writer of Conan the
Barbarian—a very lucrative license
for Marvel Comics—Thomas and DC
mutually agreed than he should cre-

ate a new sword-and-sorcery title.
Thomas initially hoped DC could ac-
quire another Robert E. Howard bar-
barian property, like Cormac Mac Art.
Thomas’s wife, Dann, however, con-
ceived the idea of a Native American
warrior in the Conan mold. Thomas
developed this concept into a charac-
ter initially named (and initially pro-
moted by DC as) “Bloodwolf, Son of
Thunder.” Thomas eventually found
that name unappealing. “It seemed
too comic-booky a construct,” he ex-
plained in the interview for American
Comic Book Chronicles. “Arak” worked
much better for Thomas since he felt
it invoked the classic comic book char-
acter, Turok, Son of Stone. Along with
series like Sgt. Rock, Jonah Hex, and
House of Mystery, Arak demonstrated
DC’s commitment to publishing a va-
riety of genres. Arak itself would last
50 issues, and Remco even produced
an Arak action figure in 1982 as part
of a line based on DC’s Warlord (de-
spite the fact that Arak wasn’t in any
way part of the Warlord universe).
37
In 1981, Roy Thomas created two new DC titles:
All-Star Squadron and Arak, Son of Thunder.
Above: Photo of Roy Thomas, courtesy of Alan Waite.
All depicted character TM and © DC Comics.
With All-Star Squadron and Arak on
his slate, Thomas also hoped to write
a Captain Marvel/Shazam title. His
contract even specified that should
DC Comics decide to feature the char-
acter in his own title, Thomas would
have the right of first refusal. DC
though seemed to be in no rush to
publish a new Shazam comic book, so
Thomas would have to wait several
years for that opportunity. Until that
time, Thomas remained very busy
and a principal attraction of DC’s line
of books.

Marv Wolfman and George Pérez meet the characters that were earning them some good royalty checks
in these panels from New Teen Titans #20. Teen Titans TM and © DC Comics.
With the successful debut of All-Star
Squadron and Arak, Son of Thunder—
and the continued sensation of New
Teen Titans—sales of DC’s publishing
line improved by close to 10% from
1980 to 1981, the beginning of a three-
year upward sales trend (Tolworthy).
The overall physical quality of DC’s
publishing line was about to improve
too. Following Marvel’s lead, in 1981
DC decided to begin the transition
from letterpress printing—which
produced pages at 65 dpi (dots per
inch)—to the more expensive offset
printing—which at that time pro-
duced pages at 120 dpi. Higher dot
densities translate to clearer color re-
production, especially when printed
on sturdier paper. Paul Levitz explains
DC’s decision:
We had been approached for
years by offset printers, but
nobody had an economically
viable pricing model because
for the newsstand side of the
business—if we were going
to take the kind of returns we
did—we couldn’t afford to in-
vest more in the physical prod-
uct. We were paying for three
copies for every one we sold.
So in essence if we were to in-
vest in the physical product,
we were tripling the damage.
But with DC shifting more toward the
no-returns Direct Market that catered
to consumers who might pay more
for a better product, offset printing
became a sensible (and attractive) im-
provement. So DC connected with Bob
Spivak—a representative of Ronalds
Printing in Montreal, Canada—who
offered both DC and Marvel an afford-
able pricing and distribution plan.
While DC and Marvel wouldn’t debut
an offset printed comic book until
cover date 1982, their 1981 decision
meant the days of letterpress printed
comic books were numbered.
Royalty Treatment
As they innovated how their books
were being printed, DC and Marvel
also innovated how they paid their
creators. Since its infancy, the comic
book industry was principally a page
rate business with only a handful
of Direct Market publishers—like
Eclipse—sharing its profits with its
creators. That all changed in Novem-
ber 1981 when DC announced that in
addition to their page rate pay, its cre-
ators would now earn royalties if they
contributed to comic books that sold
38
in excess of 100,000 copies. Four per-
cent of the revenue generated by sales
above a 100,000 copy threshold was
divided among the writer (who re-
ceived 2%), the penciller (who received
1.40%) and the inker (who received
0.6%). If the art duties for an issue
consisted of a layout artist and a fin-
isher, they would each earn 1%. This
new royalties system went into effect
retroactive to DC’s October 1981 cover
date releases, and in that month 13 of
DC’s 29 titles sold over 100,000 copies.
Consequently, many DC creators had
their income supplemented by up to
several hundreds of dollars per issue.
Marv Wolfman and George Pérez ben-
efitted the most since they respective-
ly wrote and drew New Teen Titans.
The explanatory letter that DC sent
to its freelancers in November 1981
even used New Teen Titans #12 as an
example of the kind of royalty money
they could receive. Since New Teen Ti-
tans #12 sold 217,000 copies, writer
Wolfman earned $1404 in royalties
while layout artist Pérez and finisher
Romeo Tanghal split the other $1404
(Thompson, “DC Creates New Royal-
ties System for Freelancers”).
In an interview for American Comic
Book Chronicles, Paul Levitz explained
DC’s rationale for instituting royalties
in 1981:
If we accepted the logic that
we were going into a world
where more and more of our
customers were buying based
on who is doing the work and
how well the work was done,
then we wanted to create an
environment that first of all
aligned the creative people’s
interests with the company
(‘If we succeed, you will suc-
ceed’) and then secondly,
motivated them to take more
time and trouble with their
work. And then, we did hope
that we would have the op-
portunity to pull some talent
from Marvel if we made the
move first.
It didn’t take long though for Mar-
vel—which was already paying roy-
alties for graphic novel work—to
respond. In late December 1981, Jim
Shooter announced that it too would
pay royalties to its freelancers on all
titles that sold more than 100,000
copies. Marvel’s plan would go into ef-
fect for its cover date April 1982 titles
and its terms were virtually identical
to DC’s with the main exception that
Marvel increased its royalty share for
artists from 1% to 1.5% if they drew
from “Marvel style” plots. At a press
conference, Jim Shooter conceded
that DC’s implementation of a royalty
plan forced Marvel to follow suit, but
he also stressed that he had wanted to
institute a royalty plan at Marvel as
early as 1977 but couldn’t work out an
equitable payment structure (Thomp-
son, “Marvel Announces Royalties
Plan”). Marvel’s freelancers stood to
earn more than DC’s freelancers since
Marvel’s titles sold better than DC’s by
a wide margin, a fact that Shooter em-
phasized during the press conference.
Sniping at (and Collaborating with)
The Distinguished Competition
In fact, throughout the year, Shooter
never seemed to pass up the oppor-
tunity to diminish DC Comics and
assert Marvel’s superiority over their
“Distinguished Competition.” For in-
stance, it was in 1981 that Shooter
paradoxically declared that even
though DC Comics started publishing
mini-series before Marvel did, it was
Marvel who first conceived the idea
of a comic book mini-series (“Mar-
vel Drops Two Books, Demotes Two
to Bi-Monthly” 15). Trade magazines
like The Comics Journal—or its sister
publication Amazing Heroes, which
debuted in June—documented Shoot-
er’s statements as well as those of
his detractors, specifically the former
Marvel creators who defected to DC.
It was for a 1981 issue of The Comics
Journal that Roy Thomas professed, “I
have no respect at all for Jim Shooter
as a professional, and not much left
for the whole Marvel organization”
(Gustaveson 85). In a separate 1981
Comics Journal interview, Gerry Con-
way said, “There are so many people
who have stories of the things Jim
[Shooter] has done that we have to
weigh the possibility that Jim re-
ally is… [laughter] as bad as they say”
(Decker 82). Conway also managed to

Clockwise from top left: front cover, back cover and promotional ad for the collaborative
DC Comics/Marvel Comics tabloid, Superman and Spider-Man.
Superman, Wonder Woman and Parasite TM and © DC Comics. Spider-Man, Hulk and Dr. Doom TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

39

Above: Paul Levitz hard at work,
as captured in Comics Scene #4.
Right and below: Front and back covers to the
Batman vs. the Incredible Hulk tabloid.
Batman TM and © DC Comics. The Hulk
TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
40
slip in a subtle shot at one of Marvel
Comics’ flagship properties in Jus-
tice League of America #200, which
reached newsstands in December.
Late in the issue as the assembled
Justice Leaguers charge out of their
old headquarters, the narrator de-
clares, “They have no battle cry—nor
do they need one! They are fifteen of
the greatest heroes this weary world
has even seen—and their strength
resides not in simple slogans, but in
their very identity: for they are The
Justice League!” The notion that the
Justice League doesn’t need a battle
cry implies they are more formidable
than The Avengers who famously—
and frequently—shout “Avengers As-
semble!”
To be clear, DC and Marvel have been
sneaking in playful digs against each
other within the pages of their comic
books for decades. But one might con-
clude from all the back and forth snip-
ing that relations between DC and
Marvel had greatly deteriorated. The
days of informal inter-publisher pok-
er games being held regularly at Paul
Levitz’s home that attracted the likes
of Shooter, Len Wein, Denny O’Neil,
Marv Wolfman, Jack Abel, Marty Pas-
ko, Al Milgrom, among others, were
seemingly now a distant memory,
even though they stopped only in late
1980 and specifically because Levitz
got married.
Despite all the salvos, DC and Marvel
still collaboratively published a Su-
perman and Spider-Man crossover—
written by Wolfman and Shooter with
art by John Buscema—followed later
in the year by a Batman vs. The Incred-
ible Hulk crossover—written by Wein
with art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and
Dick Giordano. According to Shooter,
these collaborations were the brain-
storm of DC Comics’ publisher Jenette
Kahn. Getting her inspiration from
the successful 1976 Superman vs. The
Amazing Spider-Man cross-over, Kahn
proposed to Shooter that DC and Mar-
vel publish a crossover every year.
Although he considered Kahn’s plan
a bit idealistic, Shooter was nonethe-
less amenable to it and got approval
to implement it from his superior, Jim
Galton.
In a couple of years, this cross-over
arrangement would be the cause of a
major—and publicly played out—rift
between DC and Marvel, but as far as
 Above: This John Byrne drawn piece became the
cover to Noble Comics’ Justice Machine #1.
Right: Splash page from Justice Machine #2.
Justice Machine TM and © Mark Ellis.

1981 goes, in separate interviews for

American Comic Book Chronicles, both
Jim Shooter and Paul Levitz asserted
that no genuine animosity had devel-
oped between the publishers. Instead,
Levitz offered this explanation:
You go through a period in the
early 1980s when Jim Shoot-
er’s role running editorial at
Marvel goes through a very
rough time with a bunch of
talent, and certainly DC tried
to take full advantage of that,
welcoming anybody who
wasn’t happy with him at
that stage. That didn’t mean
we particularly “hated” Jim.
There were times when who-
ever was DC’s editor-in-chief
or business leader pissed off
people too and driven them
to other publishers. That’s
kind of the natural ebb and
flow of the industry.
planet Georwell (a fusion of the name Perhaps no one was better suited to
New Kids on the Comic Book Block of dystopian novelist George Orwell) create new comic books for the Direct
until they are branded as traitors and Market retailers than the companies
Beyond DC and Marvel, new work op-
banished to Earth. Gustovich hired that controlled the flow of product to
portunities became available to comic
top talent for his endeavor, includ- them: the Direct Market distributors.
book creators, mostly in the form of
ing John Byrne who drew the first And in 1981, two comic book distribu-
new publishers that offered their
issue cover. Subsequent issues tors indeed ventured into comic book
books solely to the budding Direct
involved such industry veterans as publishing.
Market.
Terry Austin, Bob Layton, Rich Buck- The Madison, Wisconsin based Capi-
For instance, in 1981 writer/artist ler, and Keith Pollard. Besides launch- tal City Distribution created its own
Mike Gustovich co-founded Noble ing the professional careers of both publishing arm, Capital Comics, with
Comics in order to publish his Justice Bill Reinhold and William Messner- Richard Bruning serving as its edi-
Machine comic book, which featured Loebs, Justice Machine would also tor-in-chief and art director. Capital
a group of super-powered policemen prove to have a steady publishing City owners Milton Griepp and John
serving a military dictatorship on the existence throughout the 1980s.
41

Davis wanted their first publication
to be a black-and-white super-hero
comic book. Upon learning this, fel-
low Madison residents Mike Baron
and Steve Rude—who had been col-
laborative partners since 1979 and
tried unsuccessfully to get their work
published in both Heavy Metal and
Eclipse Comics when Bruning was its
art director—got together and brain-
stormed. Baron recalls,
We said, “All right, super-he-
ro. What would be dramatic?”
Well, somebody who kills
people is dramatic. That is
your ultimate drama: an exe-
cutioner-judge… so we want-
ed to do a guy who was an
executioner, but I didn’t want
to reprise some of the many
characters who were running
around delivering justice out
of their hip pocket (Collier 32)
Instead what Baron and Rude cre-
ated for Capital Comics was Nexus
a.k.a. Horatio Hellpop, a super-pow-
ered young man living in the 24th
century who suffers prophetic night-
mares about mass murderers. Hora-
tio’s nightmares are so torturous they
cause him physical pain, even threat-
ening to kill him. The only way to re-
lieve his agony is to hunt down the
murderer he’s been dreaming about
42
Top: Photo of Steve Rude and Mike Baron that first
appeared in Amazing Heroes #58. Left and Above:
Capital Comics house ads promoting Nexus.
Nexus TM and © Mike Baron and Steve Rude.
and execute him. The first person he is
forced to kill is his own father, a mili-
tary governor who ordered the geno-
cide of an entire planet before Hora-
tio was even born. As he executes his
father, Horatio says, “I love you, dad.”
Amazing Heroes tagged Nexus “one
of the most innovative super-heroes
to emerge from the alternative press”
(Collier 28).
Nexus was innovative in
other ways too. For one, the manner
in which writer Mike Baron and art-
ist Steve Rude collaborated was rath-
er unique: Baron actually drew his
scripts. Whereas the great majority
of comic book writers formatted their
scripts like a screenplay, Baron drew
each page as if he were the (self-pro-
fessed frustrated) artist himself, com-
plete with dialogue and captions. He
would then hand deliver his finished
comic book to Rude at his apartment.
Baron preferred this method of writ-
ing as it forced him to think visually
and helped him to communicate to
the artist what exactly was needed on
each page (Bennett 57, 64).
The innovations didn’t end there.
Nexus #3 included an audio “flexi-disc”
to be played on a turntable. Essential-
ly, readers were provided with a 20-
minute Nexus soundtrack of sound
effects, music and character voices.
Devoted to Saturday morning car-
toons when he was a boy, artist Steve
Rude modeled Nexus after Hanna-
Barbera’s Space Ghost and when
asked what his expectations for the
comic book were, Rude remarked, “We
believe that we’re going to have a re-
ally big thing going with Nexus, if not
right now, then in a few years. I think
people are going to be talking about
it… because it’s different” (Collier 34).
And people did talk about it. Baron
and Rude’s work on Nexus became
so acclaimed they eventually earned
multiple Will Eisner Comic Industry
Awards because of it.
The Return of the King
The other Direct Market distributor to
venture into comic book publishing
in 1981 was Bill and Steve Schanes’
Pacific Comics. By the late 1970s, the
Schanes brothers had parlayed their
San Diego comic book mail order busi-
ness into four comic book retail stores.
They then closed those stores and sold
off its inventory in order to raise the
capital necessary to expand its Direct
Market distributorship. In 1980, serv-
ing 500 accounts, Pacific Comics’ gross
revenues approached a million dol-
lars (Sanford). Although Pacific had
dipped its feet into publishing waters
by releasing artist portfolios and Mar-
vel Comics indices, the Schanes broth-
ers decided the time was right in 1981
to jump into the ocean, and the way
Steve Schanes saw it, “if you want
to get people’s attention with a new
comic book, who better to do it with
than the King of Comics, Jack Kirby!”
(Sanford).
As Schanes’ declaration makes clear,
by 1981, Jack Kirby had already been
crowned comic book royalty. Along
with Stan Lee, Kirby was the most re-
spected and celebrated creator in the
industry, having co-created some of
its most recognizable (and profitable)
properties: Captain America, The Fan-
tastic Four, The Hulk, The Avengers,
The second issue of Comics Scene magazine
had a feature story on Jack Kirby that included the
below photo of “The King” admiring his work.
The X-Men, and the list goes on and
on. His comic book career during the
1970s, however, had been tumultu-
ous. After creating “The Fourth World”
for DC Comics, Kirby returned to Mar-
vel Comics in 1975 where he went on
to write, draw, and self-edit such titles
as Captain America, Black Panther, The
Eternals, Machine Man and Devil Di-
nosaur. Alas, none of his new Marvel
series proved to be commercial—or
even critical—successes. What’s more,
Kirby was put off by Marvel’s con-
stant editorial interference as well as
its young staffers who were—some-
times publicly—disrespectful toward
him and his work. He dubbed Marvel
“The Viper’s Nest” (Knowles 6). So in
1978, Kirby declined to renew his con-
tract with Marvel and instead turned
his artistic talents to animation stu-
dios that welcomed him with open
43
arms. He became a concept designer
for the Steve Gerber-created/Ruby-
Spears produced Saturday morning
cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian.
The Schanes brothers were already
friendly with Kirby when they
reached out to persuade him to cre-
ate a new comic book for Pacific. The
Schanes assured Kirby that he would
retain full ownership of whatever he
created, and they would even pro-
vide royalty payments—an offer that
came months before DC and Mar-
vel unveiled their royalty plans. The
Schanes only wanted the publishing
rights (Sanford). Kirby remembered
a science fiction graphic novel he had
begun a few years earlier for an entre-
preneur who wanted to publish a line
called “Kirby Comics.” Due to lack of
funding on the entrepreneur’s part,
that endeavor was aborted (Ro 209).
So Kirby pulled those pages out of his
pile of unpublished material and of-
fered them to the Schanes as the first
two issues of Captain Victory and
the Galactic Rangers. He agreed to
produce more issues. Kirby described
his series as a deliberate rejoinder to
Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film Close En-
counters of the Third Kind. Whereas
the aliens who came to Earth in Spiel-
berg’s film sought peaceful relations
with the human race, the aliens in Kir-
by’s series had a different goal: world
domination. Earth’s only chance to
repel the alien invaders lies with Cap-
tain Victory and his comrades. As Kir-
by historian Chris Knowles explains,
Kirby was disgusted by the
rosy optimism of [Close En-
counters of the Third Kind]….
Kirby was a student of his-
tory and of nature and he
reckoned that the only rea-
son an alien race would cross
the vast reaches of space to
visit us would be to conquer
and subjugate the Earth, not
take a few of its inhabitants
on an interstellar joyride. In
fact, at the end of the original
48-page graphic novel, Jack
promised a sequel to be en-
titled “Encounters of the Sav-
age Kind.” (14)
The Schanes scheduled Captain Vic-
tory for bi-monthly release. When
the first issue reached Direct Market
stores in July, it sold almost 70,000
copies, and Kirby agreed to let Pacific

Above: cover to Pacific Comics’ first publication: Jack
Kirby’s Captain Victory and his Galactic Rangers #1.
Below: Kirby with Pacific Comics Editor-in-Chief
Howard Zimmerman, from Comics Scene #2.
Captain Victory TM and © Jack Kirby estate.
Comics publish another of his proj-
ects, Silver Star (Sanford). Even though
there weren’t any immediate plans
to release Silver Star, the comic book
world had been alerted that “The
King” was back, and Pacific had him.
The Schanes had designs of expand-
ing Pacific Comics’ line to include oth-
er genres and other creators. Indeed,
they wanted Pacific Comics to seri-
ously challenge the DC/Marvel he-
gemony. While Bill Schanes handled
the accounting end of the enterprise,
Steve took on the role of recruiter,
getting the word out that Pacific was
44
considering submissions and enticing
established writers and artists with
the prospect of having their creations
published while still retaining owner-
ship. By doing so, Pacific Comics in-
cited the creation of other comic book
publishers, and their arrival onto the
scene would come shortly enough.
The Sad Death of
One of Comics’ Greatest
On November 3, 1981, the owner of
Nuance Publications entered the Van
Nuys, California apartment of comic
book artist Wallace “Wally” Wood
and found him dead. At the age of 54,
Wood put a gun to his head and shot
himself. He left no suicide note, but it
wasn’t difficult to determine his state
of mind when he ended his life. Wood
had been in very poor health for sev-
eral years. A few mild strokes left him
with slurred speech, and high blood
pressure caused severe vision prob-
lems. He was forced to draw with one
eye closed which consequently ruined
his depth perception as well as the
quality of his work. On the day he was
found dead he was also scheduled to
begin dialysis treatments for kidney
failure (Catron). Physically, Wood was
a ruined man.
He wasn’t faring well profession-
ally either. By 1981, Wood no lon-
ger worked on assignments for DC
or Marvel or even one of the new
publishers that serviced the Direct
Market. Instead, Wood was reduced
to drawing pornography for Nu-
ance Publishing. While Wood was no
stranger to provocative material (e.g.,
Sally Forth, Cannon), his artistry had
become a degraded echo of the kind
of magnificently detailed visuals he
created in his heyday in the 1950s
and 60s, working on such varied titles
as Will Eisner’s The Spirit, MAD mag-
azine, and even Marvel’s Daredevil.
Wood earned his reputation drawing
a plethora of war, horror, crime and
science fiction titles for EC Comics,
and during a November 18 memorial
service at Warner Communications
auditorium, the former publisher of
EC Comics, William Gaines, commem-
orated Wood as “the greatest science
fiction artist there ever was” (Decker/
Thompson 12). Undoubtedly, Wood’s
work left an indelible impression on
those who read it. Neither the man
nor his work would be forgotten.
 Above: Photo of Wally Wood near the end of
his life. Below and right: Examples of Wally Wood’s
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents work.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents TM and © John Carbonaro estate.
One of Wood’s most fondly remem-
bered creations was T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents, a group of United Nations
operatives equipped with fantastic
gadgets that helped them combat
would-be world conquerors and ne-
farious Chinese communists. The
concept was part James Bond/part
Justice League of America. Indeed, the
original Justice League of America art-
ist, Mike Sekowsky—along with other
established artists like Dick Ayers,
Reed Crandall, Steve Ditko, Gil Kane,
Joe Orlando, and George Tuska—
contributed to the series that Tower
Comics published from 1965 to 1969.
Despite all the talent that worked
on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, it was truly
Wally Wood’s brainchild as it was
Wood who Tower contracted to create
and develop the concept.
But in 1981, Tower licensed
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents to comic fan
John Carbonaro who planned on both
reprinting the 1960s Tower mate-
rial and publishing new adventures
through his newly formed JC Produc-
tions.
In 1982, Carbonaro would go one step
further. After Tower went bankrupt,
rights to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents ended
up with Dorchester Publishing Co.,
who agreed to sell them to Carbonaro
for $2,000 (Heintjes 9). As Carbonaro
tried to come up with the money to
45
make the payment, he had a license
from Dorchester to use the characters.
Once he made the payment, he would
own T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents outright.
Or at least Carbonaro thought he
would own them outright. Others
argued differently. And the fight for
control over T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents
would be one of the most compelling
conflicts of the comic book industry
during the 1980s.
1982
New Publishers,
New Formats, New Talent, and

New Mutants
As 1981 came to an end, an editorial in The Comics Jour-
nal celebrated the year’s successes and foretold more great
times for comic book readers:
I’m so excited, I just don’t know where to begin! It’s
no secret that these are thrilling times for comic
book fans!... The fan market has grown so large
that it’s now able to financially sustain individual
titles and specialty magazines…. Pacific Comics is
now publishing comics that are every bit as good
as Marvel’s or DC’s…. And Marvel and DC are ris-
ing to the challenge of the alternative press that
are calculated to appeal directly to this market—
and what could be better than that? Alternative
publishing efforts like Eclipse, The Justice Machine,
Nexus, and Galaxia are providing true alternatives
and giving the fans just what they want. Despite
the whining of a few grumpy critics, we are, with-
out any doubt—dare I say it?—entering into a re-
naissance of comics art. (Decker)
The editorial is actually a bit of a sham as TCJ’s new man-
aging editor Dwight R. Decker decided to have some fun by
masquerading as TCJ’s executive editor Gary Groth in order
to write a gushing assessment of the comic book industry
that flew in the face of Groth’s usual jaded negativity.
Nonetheless, the editorial reflected many readers’ op-
timism that with the doldrums of the late 1970s behind
them, happy comic book days were here again. And some
comic book professionals even took the time to fan their
fans’ enthusiasm even further. Take, for instance, Marv
Wolfman’s remarks in the Green Lantern #154 letters page
(July 1982): “For too long, DC [Comics] was a sleeping gi-
ant. Well, we’re awake and rarin’ to go ahead at full steam.
In the next few months we’ll be coming out with all new
comics and ideas…. DC’s on the move—so climb aboard the
wagon. We think you’ll enjoy the ride!”

DC Comics: Where the Action Is!

The wagon ride that Wolfman wanted readers to take
equated to the biggest expansion in DC Comics’ line since
the ill-fated “DC Explosion” of 1978. Clearing some room
on its slate was necessary, so DC cancelled several long-
running titles that executives felt would no longer perform
well as the industry became more reliant on the Direct
Market for sales. In order, Secrets of the Haunted House,
The Unexpected, and Ghosts all published their final issues
between cover date February and May 1982. DC’s manag-
ing editor Dick Giordano had some qualms about the can-

CHAPTER THREE
cellation of these horror/mystery anthologies because for
years they had been used as training grounds for promis-
ing, inexperienced artists hoping to break into the indus-
try. After proving himself on a couple of short stories for
by Keith Dallas one of the mystery titles, an artist could earn promotion

46
to a regular DC assignment. Alex Saviuk and Paris Cul- Superman established that these super-heroes existed
lins—to name just two professional artists—began their within DC continuity on the parallel world “Earth-C.” With
careers in this fashion. But now DC’s sole remaining horror each issue, the series parodied a recognizable character
title was House of Mystery, and the combined inventory or genre (e.g., “Frogzilla,” “Bow-Zar The Barkbarian,” The
of completed stories from the three cancelled horror titles Indiana Jones-inspired “Oklahoma Bones”), and from its
would have to be published there. That inventory was so start, the series sold well, over 100,000 copies per issue,
considerable that Giordano estimated it would take three making it one of DC’s best-sellers that year. ABC television
years before DC needed to commission new work for the even optioned Captain Carrot for a Saturday morning car-
title. Therefore, House of Mystery could no longer serve toon, but plans never progressed beyond the pre-produc-
as an artist’s training ground. Giordano’s solution to the tion stage, despite a proposal to pair up the funny-animal
problem was the creation of a workshop at DC Comics for super-heroes with Wonder Woman (Roy Thomas 16).
promising new talent. While DC couldn’t pay the artists Wonder Woman, by the way, received a new costume
who participated in this workshop, Giordano hoped that emblem in 1982. Unveiled in a preview insert in DC Com-
the expansion of DC’s line of books would mean these art- ics Presents #41 (January 1982), the new emblem—man-
ists could soon graduate to paid assignments (Kim Thomp- dated by Jenette Kahn and designed by Milton Glaser
son). (who had created DC’s bullet logo in 1976)—consisted
The cancellation of the three horror/mystery titles cleared of two connected “W”s, and as such, had greater poten-
the way for new books of a variety of genres. The first was tial as a merchandising insignia than the eagle emblem
something that billed itself as “Not Just Another Funny- found on Wonder Woman’s costume since 1941. The em-
Animal Comic!” in a 16-page insert debut in New Teen Ti- blem change also inaugurated Roy Thomas and Gene Col-
tans #16 (February 1982): Captain Carrot and His Amazing an’s short tenure on Wonder Woman, which began with
Zoo Crew. The concept’s origins dated back to Roy Thomas’
tenure at Marvel Comics. A childhood fan of funny-animal
super-heroes, Thomas had designs as far back
as 1969 on reviving Marvel’s Golden Age-
era Super Rabbit. Nothing ever came of the
idea at Marvel, though. In 1981, Thomas
pitched to his new DC Comics bosses
a funny-animal super-hero title
to be drawn by Herb Trimpe
who was ready to jump Mar-
vel Comics’ ship because of
dissatisfaction with his
page rate. Marvel eventu-
ally gave Trimpe the pay
raise he desired, leaving
Thomas without an artist.
By this point, Thomas had
expanded his idea—with
the help of his then-fian-
cée Danette Couto and
fellow writer Gerry Con-
way—into a funny-ani-
mal super-hero version of
the Justice League of Amer-
ica: “Just’a Lotta Animals.” DC
publisher Jenette Kahn and edi-
torial director Joe Orlando liked the
idea but not the name. So the title
became changed to “Super-Squirrel
and the Super-Animal Squad.” When
Joe Staton declined DC’s invitation to
serve as the series’ artist, Hanna-Bar-
bera animator Scott Shaw came on board,
and he and Thomas produced a two-page sam-
pler of the funny-animal JLA confronting a giant car-
rot version of Galactus. For licensing reasons though, the
two creators were then directed to create new characters Above: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez’s
that didn’t resemble existing DC properties (Roy Thomas Wonder Woman sheet for DC’s in-house
Style Guide shows the Amazon warrior’s
10-14). Thus was born Captain Carrot whose Amazing Zoo new emblem. Right: Roy Thomas and Gene
Crew included Alley-Kat-Abra, Fastback, Pig-Iron, Rubber- Colan’s collaboration on Wonder Woman
began with issue #288.
duck, and Yankee Poodle. Their introductory team-up with Wonder Woman TM and © DC Comics.

47
1982 TIMELINE
June 4: The second Star Trek
film, The Wrath of Khan, opens in
movie theaters.
June 5: Budapest, Hungary
A compilation of the year’s notable comic book industry events alongside hosts the first Rubik’s Cube
World Championship.
some of the year’s most significant popular cultural and historical events.
June 12: Over a half-
January 8: American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) March 2: Science Fiction pioneer Philip K. million anti-nuclear demon-
agrees to divest itself of its regional and local “Baby Dick dies five days after suffering a stroke. strators protest in Central
Bell” phone companies in order to settle a U.S. Justice Park, New York City.
Department antitrust lawsuit against the company. March 2: Priced at $1.50, the
first issue of Marvel’s G.I. Joe: A
January 12: The first Marvel Real American Hero – featuring June 30: The Equal
Comics graphic novel – The Death characters from Hasbro’s new Rights Amendment,
of Captain Marvel, written and action figure line – goes on sale. intended to guarantee
drawn by Jim Starlin – goes on Television commercials promoting equal rights under the
sale exclusively at Direct Market both the toys and the comic book law for all Americans
May 1: The World’s Fair opens regardless of their sex,
stores. soon follow. in Knoxville, Tenn. The event is ratified by 35 states,
January 13: Soon after attracts over 11 million people three states short of
take-off, an Air Florida 737 during its six-month run. the minimum of states
jet crashes into the needed for Constitution
Washington D.C. 14th Street ratification.
Bridge over the Potomac
River, killing 78 people.

JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL M AY JUNE

June 1: The first issue of

Marvel’s Wolverine limited
series – written by Chris Clare-
March 5: At the age of 33, April 2: The Falklands War mont with art by Frank Miller
comedian John Belushi is begins when Argentine troops and Josef Rubenstein – goes
January 20: Heavy metal found dead of a cocaine and seize the south Atlantic Falkland on sale.
singer Ozzy Osbourne bites heroin overdose at a rented Islands from Great Britain. The
off the head of a bat during Hollywood bungalow. conflict lasts until June 14 when
a performance at a Des Argentina surrenders.
Moines, Iowa concert.

February 19: Directed and written by

Wes Craven, Swamp Thing – based on
the DC Comics character – opens in
movie theaters.

Batman, Swamp Thing, the Teen Titans TM and © DC Comics. Captain Marvel, The New Mutants, Wolverine, and the X-Men TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. G.I. Joe TM and © Hasbro.

issue #288 (February 1982) and end- also co-created another title added to since leaving Marvel in 1980.
ed with #296 (October 1982). Thomas DC’s lineup in 1982: Night Force. Orig-
Along with these new properties, DC
quickly lost his patience with the inally titled The Challengers and then
revived several characters already in
Wonder Woman assignment when The Dark Force, Night Force was writ-
its catalog. One was Swamp Thing,
an editorially-directed three-issue arc ten and conceived by Colan’s 1970s
the plant monster created by writer
was foisted upon him. Wonder Wom- Tomb of Dracula collaborator, Marv
Len Wein and artist Bernie Wright-
an #291 launched a story that guest Wolfman. It introduced and fea-
son in 1971. The character’s original
starred almost a dozen other DC su- tured the sorcerer Baron Winters who
series was cancelled in 1976 after 24
per-heroines. After that, Thomas had would dispatch from his Washing-
issues. The new series, The Saga of
to deal with the unwanted intrusion ton, D.C.-based Wintersgate Manor a
the Swamp Thing—written by Mar-
of a Huntress back-up feature. Writ- team of hand-picked operatives—his
tin Pasko, drawn by Tom Yeates, and
ing nine issues of Wonder Woman “Night Force”—to combat supernatu-
edited by Wein—involved the title
was all Thomas could muster: “I felt ral threats in various time periods.
character in a complex year-long
[DC] had sabotaged what they had As a nod to their previous Tomb of
story that saw him pursued by the
wanted us to do… If they had just left Dracula work, one of Baron Winters’
evil Sunderland Corporation and ulti-
us alone…, I’d have stayed on it for a operatives created by Wolfman and
mately pitted against the Antichrist.
long time” (Cassell 30). Colan was Vanessa Van Helsing, the
The February 11 release of the first is-
Gene Colan had no particular fond- granddaughter of Dracula’s fabled
sue of the new comic book preceded
ness for his Wonder Woman assign- arch-enemy, Professor Abraham Van
the theatrical premiere of the Wes
ment either: “[DC] asked me to do Helsing. Night Force debuted as a 16-
Craven directed Swamp Thing movie
it, but I really didn’t want to do it. It page insert in New Teen Titans #21
by one week. DC even published an
had nothing to do with the writing… (July 1982) before the first issue of
“official” adaptation of the film in
Whatever [DC] gave me to draw, I its own title premiered the following
The Saga of the Swamp Thing Annual
did it. I felt I had to” (Cassell 29-30). month. Besides writing Night Force,
#1, written by Bruce Jones, drawn by
So despite Thomas’ departure, Colan Wolfman also served as its editor, his
Mark Texeira and Tony DeZuniga, and
stayed on Wonder Woman, and he first opportunity to be a writer/editor
edited, again, by Len Wein.

48
 July: The Coca-Cola company introduces Diet Coke.
July 25: Harold “Hal” Foster, creator
and artist of Prince Valiant, dies at
the age of 89.
August 10: Marvel and
DC Present: The Uncanny
X-Men and The New Teen
Titans #1 joins both pub-
lishers’ top selling teams
against Darkseid and Dark
Phoenix in a 64-page
offset printed book written
by Chris Claremont with
art by Walt Simonson and
Terry Austin.
September 7: The fourth Marvel Comics graphic November 10: Washington D.C.’s Vietnam Veterans
novel – introducing The New Mutants – goes on Memorial, presenting the names of every serviceman who
sale exclusively at Direct Market stores. died during the Vietnam War, officially opens.
October 1: Disney World’s November 10: Soviet Union’s Secretary General
EPCOT Center opens in Leonid Brezhnev dies at age of 75 of a heart attack. Yuri
Orlando, Florida. Andropov becomes the new leader of the most powerful
Communist country in the world.
October 7: The long- December 4: The U.S.
running Andrew Lloyd unemployment rate reaches 10.8%,
Webber musical Cats its highest rate since 1945.
opens on Broadway.
December 16: Batman #357 –
introducing young circus trapeze
artist Jason Todd – goes on sale.
September 16: Camelot
3000 #1, printed on
high-quality Baxter
paper, goes on sale
exclusively at Direct
Market stores.

J U LY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER

September 30: Extra-Strength

December 26: For
Tylenol capsules laced with
the first time in the
cyanide kill seven people in
publication’s history,
the Chicago area, prompting
Time magazine’s Man
August 12: film actor Henry Johnson & Johnson to recall and
of the Year is not a
Fonda dies from heart disease destroy 31 million bottles as well
human being; it’s the
at the age of 77. as create a triple-sealed safety
computer.
package.
August: Commodore Business Machines (CBM) December 2: 61-year-old Barney
releases the Commodore 64 home computer, September 30: sit-com Cheers Clark receives the world’s first
retailing at $595. Over the next four years, the premieres on NBC-TV. permanent artificial heart in a
Commodore 64 dominates the home computer September 23: Gene Day, artist most surgery conducted in Salt Lake
market and becomes the best-selling home famous for his work on Master of Kung City. He will live for 112 days
computer up to that time. Fu, dies at the age of 31 of a coronary. before dying of multi-organ
failure.
August 1: Israeli planes bomb West Beirut in September 15: The first issue of USA Today hits
November 30: Singer-songwriter
an attempt to force the Palestinian Liberation newsstands.
Michael Jackson releases the
Organization (PLO) to withdraw from Lebanon,
September 14: Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, album Thriller, which will become
which it did on August 30.
dies at the age of 52 of injuries suffered from a car the best-selling record ever.
crash the day before.

Another character revival title edited feature (Dallas 100-1). Like The Flash,
by Len Wein was The Fury of Fire- Firestorm was a brightly colored su-
storm. As a result of a nuclear reactor per-hero who grappled with an ar-
disaster, high school student Ronnie ray of brightly colored super-villains.
Raymond and physicist Martin Stein Dr. Fate—as a mystical super-hero
are fused into the super-hero Fire- engaging supernatural enemies—of-
storm with the power to rearrange fered Flash readers something dif-
the molecular structure of inanimate ferent from the lead feature. That, at
objects. The creation of Gerry Conway least, was Mike Barr’s line of reason-
and artist Al Milgrom, Firestorm’s in- ing, and Len Wein—the former Flash
augural series lasted only five issues, editor who instituted the Firestorm
another casualty of DC’s 1978 “Im- back-up in the first place—disagreed
plosion.” But the character remained with it. Privately, Barr and Wein ar-
a visible presence in DC Comics’ fic- gued about Firestorm’s removal as
tional universe. He joined the Jus- a back-up feature, but the bottom
tice League of America in issue #179 line was that Barr wanted nothing
(June 1980) and became the back-up to do with the character. If Firestorm
feature of The Flash with issue #289 wasn’t going to be a back-up feature,
(Sept. 1980). On cover date Febru- then Wein figured there was only one
ary 1982 though, Flash editor Mike other sensible course of action: let the
W. Barr replaced Firestorm with Dr. character have his own ongoing title
Fate for the book’s back-up feature. again (Dallas 101).
Barr did so because he considered For the Firestorm relaunch, Gerry
Firestorm “a tremendously derivative Conway remained at the writing DC Comics house ad promoting the launch
character” and one whose adventures helm, joined by artist Pat Broder-
of a new Swamp Thing series.
Swamp Thing TM and © DC Comics.
were too similar to the book’s lead ick who had been drawing Marvel’s

49
Micronauts since
1980. According
to Broderick, Jim
Shooter prompted
his departure from
Marvel in 1981
when the editor-in-
chief told Broderick
that he wasn’t fond
of the artist’s work
and therefore would
never give him a
page rate increase
(Offenberger). So
Broderick left for DC,
which assigned him
to Legion of Super-
Heroes, a title he in-
tended on drawing
for at least a year.
When he was subse-
quently offered Fury
of Firestorm, Broder-
ick felt the opportu-
nity to launch a new DC title was too
good to pass up (Cadigan 138). In Fury
of Firestorm’s first issue letters page,
Conway explained that Firestorm was
intended to be a super-hero who just
got pleasure out of being a super-he-
ro, “a hero… who still feels a little joie
de vivre,” unlike his dour and insecure
contemporaries. And with Broderick,
Conway shaped Fury of Firestorm
into a lighthearted super-hero romp
with its protagonist confronted by
nemeses both already established
(Killer Frost and Hyena) and new
(Black Bison and Plastique).
Wein had one more revival to edit in
1982, a decades-old property whose
movie rights had just been optioned
by Steven Spielberg: Blackhawk.
Rather than relaunch Blackhawk with
a new first issue, DC instead contin-
ued the series’ numbering where
it left off in 1977 with issue #251.
Written by Mark Evanier and drawn
by Dan Spiegle, with covers by Dave
Cockrum, the Blackhawk comic book
of 1982 returned to the concept it be-
gan with in 1941 when introduced in
Quality comics: The Blackhawks were
a team of World War II-era multi-na-
tional fighter pilots battling the Axis
powers.
By late summer, Wein inherited edi-
torial responsibilities on the Batman
titles (Batman, Detective Comics, The
Brave and the Bold) and consequently
had to relinquish the reigns on some
of the other titles he was editing. So
1982 house ads promoting two new
DC Comics series: The Fury of Firestorm and
Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew.
TM and © DC Comics.
with issue #252 (November 1982)
Marv Wolfman assumed Blackhawk
editing duties. There is perhaps no
better indication of Wein’s burden-
some workload than the fact that his
adventure hero comic book Pandora
Pann—which early in the year DC an-
nounced as part of its 1982 lineup—
had to be postponed indefinitely be-
cause Wein never found the time to
write it (“DC News”).
Replacing Pandora Pann on DC’s
schedule was Arion: Lord of Atlantis, a
50
sword-and-sorcery
title about an im-
mortal mage pro-
tecting the king-
dom of Atlantis in
pre-historic times.
Created by writer
Paul Kupperberg
and artist Jan
Duursema, Arion
first appeared as
a back-up feature
in Warlord, from
issue #55 (March
1982) to issue #62
(October 1982), be-
fore graduating to
his own title (No-
vember 1982).
Kupperberg also
wrote DC’s final
new addition to
its 1982 slate: The
Daring New Ad-
ventures of Supergirl, whose first is-
sue (cover date November 1982) was
published two months after the can-
cellation of Superman Family. DC’s
second attempt at giving the “maid
of might” her eponymous title had
Linda Lee Danvers enrolling as a psy-
chology major at Chicago’s Lake Shore
University—this despite the fact that
in her civilian identity Supergirl had
already graduated from Stanhope
College in Adventure Comics #406
(May 1971) and completed post-grad-
uate drama work at Vandyre Univer-
sity in Superman Family #165 (July
1974). Handling art on the title was
Carmine Infantino, who also contin-
ued to draw The Flash every month.
One of DC’s 1982 publications
couldn’t be bought at either the news-
stand or the Direct Market. Instead
Atari Force—created and written by
Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway and
drawn by Ross Andru and Gil Kane—
was published as a serialized insert in
five Atari 2600 video games: Defend-
er, Berzerk, Star Raiders, Phoenix, and
Galaxian. Operating in the (then-dis-
tant) year 2005, the Atari Force was
a multi-national team of astronauts,
charged with searching other dimen-
sions for humanity’s new home to
replace the war-ravaged, ecologically-
devastated planet Earth. Their
adventures mimicked the game play
of the Atari cartridges themselves.
Even though the Atari Force accom-
plished its mission by the end of its
“Galaxian” chapter, the final panel
promised readers “the new Atari
Force” was coming soon.
Like the previous year, DC Comics un-
derwent several managerial changes
in 1982. Artist Ernie Colón became a
junior editor under Marv Wolfman
before assuming full editor duties
late in the year on The Flash, Green
Lantern, and Arion. Michael Flynn—
who created The Legion Outpost
fanzine in 1972 at the ripe old age
of 13—was hired as DC’s Promotion
Manager for the Direct Sales market.
Andy Helfer was now working under
Joe Orlando as the Special Projects
Editor. In mid-November, Dick Gior-
dano was promoted from Managing
Editor to Vice President—Executive
Editor while earlier in the year Paul
Levitz became DC’s Vice President of
Operations whose responsibilities
included licensing, marketing, legal
affairs and administration.
These Keith Giffen-drawn Legion of Super-Heroes pages appeared in the 1982 DC Sampler. Legion of Super-Heroes TM and © DC Comics.
A Better Tomorrow with
The Legion of Super-Heroes
While Levitz’s climb up DC’s corporate
ladder was a considerable achieve-
ment in and of itself, his name would
soon become inexorably associated
with a different task he performed for
DC Comics: writing The Legion of Su-
per-Heroes. With Legion of Super-He-
roes #284 (Feb. 1982), Levitz relieved
Roy Thomas as the title’s scribe. This
was Levitz’s second go-round with
DC’s “teens from tomorrow”; he pre-
viously scripted Superboy and the Le-
gion of Super-Heroes between 1977
and 1979. Truth be told, the Legion
wasn’t a much sought after profes-
sional assignment. With over two
dozen main characters to keep track
of, writing—or drawing—the Le-
gion of Super-Heroes amounted to a
daunting undertaking. What’s more,
the general consensus amongst fan-
dom was that the Legion was DC’s
51
most puerile of super-hero team of-
ferings, much less mature than the
Justice League of America or the New
Teen Titans (Broertjes 6). And Legion
fans were generally accused of being
peculiar. Even for comic book fans,
the Legion devotees were regarded as
peculiar, with their preoccupation on
costumes and alien cultures and oth-
er seeming minutia of the series. Con-
sider this fan letter printed in Comics
Scene #6 (Nov. 1982): “I feel rather
sorry for… the pathetic ‘thousands’
of fans of the Legion of Super-Heroes,
because try as I might, I cannot un-
derstand anyone liking, much less
following, this series of inept beach
bums through padded and inane
plots of adolescent banality!” (“Letter-
ing” 7). Neither the prospect of labor
intensive writing nor the lack of fan
appreciation affected Levitz though;
his love of the Legion of Super-Heroes
dated back to his childhood. So when

Keith Giffen-drawn cover to the penultimate chapter of “The Great Darkness Saga”: Legion of Super-Heroes #293.
Legion of Super-Heroes TM and © DC Comics.
Legion editor Mike Barr invited him
to return to the title, Levitz quickly
accepted and he sought to make The
Legion of Super-Heroes more “new
reader friendly” (Cadigan 146-7).
In 1982, the Legion could be found in
an array of DC Comics publications.
They guest starred in DC Comics Pres-
ents #43 (March 1982) and World’s Fin-
est Comics #284 (Oct. 1982). With its
relaunch as a digest with issue #491
(Sept. 1982), Adventure Comics began
reprinting the earliest adventures
of the Legion in chronological order,
starting with their introductory ap-
pearance in 1958’s Adventure Comics
#247. Finally, the Best of DC #24 digest
(May 1982) not only offered a new
Legion tale—written by Levitz and
drawn by Carmine Infantino—it also
presented a 16-page George Pérez
Legion of Super-Heroes gallery.
But the elevated visibility of DC’s
super-teens from the 30th centu-
52
ry wasn’t the cause of the Legion’s
newfound popularity. Instead, the
catalyst for the team’s success was
the unique creative collaboration be-
tween Levitz and the Legion’s new
artist, Keith Giffen.
By 1982, Keith Giffen was looking
to atone for the professional sins he
committed only a few years earlier.
He began his career at Marvel in 1976.
That same year Gerry Conway—then
a DC Comics editor—hired Giffen to
draw breakdowns for Wally Wood on
All-Star Comics. That led to other as-
signments from both DC and Marvel
like The Defenders, Challengers of the
Unknown, and Claw the Unconquered.
But Giffen was unreliable and er-
ratic, and in 1978 he simply left the
industry, abandoning projects with-
out notice. After a period of living in
New Jersey as a repo man and selling
vacuum cleaners door-to-door, Giffen
approached Joe Orlando in 1980 to
see if Orlando would give him a sec-
ond chance at DC. Orlando did, but he
effectively put Giffen on probation
(Cadigan 141). After first drawing a
few horror stories for Dick Giordano,
Giffen proved himself and Mike Barr
offered him two ongoing assign-
ments for 1982: the Dr. Fate back-up
feature in The Flash and The Legion of
Super-Heroes.
Giffen’s tenure on Legion actually
began with a back-up story featur-
ing Dream Girl in issue #285 (March
1982). With issue #287, Giffen had
replaced Pat Broderick as the title’s
regular penciller, and what he made
immediately clear was that he was
going to let his imagination run
wild for the book’s visuals. With a
style evocative of Jim Starlin as fil-
tered through George Pérez, Giffen
created a futuristic universe filled
with bizarre aliens, astounding ar-
chitecture, and intricately designed
machinery and gadgets. As he drew
pages that often had more than sev-
en panels—and on occasion 11 or 12
panels—Giffen committed himself to
depicting a future so technologically
evolved as to be almost unfathom-
able to the comic book reader of 1982.
Or put more simply by Giffen, “In the
Thirtieth Century, if it’s got wheels,
it’s wrong!” (Cadigan 141).
Levitz and Giffen embodied con-
trasting creative processes. Levitz
described himself as the “linear,
literal” storyteller, but Giffen was
the “unrestrained, creative thinker”
(Schweier 35). Put together, the me-
thodical writer and the free spirited
artist found their opposing tenden-
cies weren’t at odds with each other.
Instead, Giffen’s imagination infused
Levitz’s intricately laid out plots. By
doing so, they made each other better
creators, and they went on
to produce a nearly three
year long collaboration
that many consider to be
the standard by which all
other Legion of Super-He-
roes eras are judged.
And the most celebrated
story of the Levitz/Giffen
Legion run came near the
beginning of their col-
laboration: “The Great
Darkness Saga.” Legion of
Super-Heroes #289 (July
1982) bills “The Great
Darkness Saga” as “The
Most Monumental Bat-
tle-Epic the Legion An-
nals Have Ever Recorded!”
That wasn’t empty hype.
The story begins with
super-powered “Servants
of Darkness” seeking out
magical artifacts for their
mysterious master. Even
with Superboy’s help, the
Legion proves to be little
match against these ser-
vants. The conflict’s stakes
escalate with the shadowy
villain boasting he is des-
tined to reign over all the
cosmos, and at the end of
the penultimate chapter,
he stands revealed. The
Legionnaires find them-
selves up against none
other than… Darkseid.
For those who first read
“The Great Darkness Saga” when it
was collected into a trade paperback,
the appearance of the ruler of Apo-
kolips came as no surprise; he’s fea-
tured on the TPB cover. But those who
read “The Great Darkness Saga” as a
monthly serial in 1982 were treated
to a jaw-dropping reveal. Darkseid
had never before confronted the Le-
gion of Super-Heroes, and readers
were more accustomed to seeing one
of Jack Kirby’s finest creations fight
the New Gods, Superman, the Justice
League, and the combined forces of
the Uncanny X-Men and New Teen places a curse on the Legion, proph-
Titans in the late summer 1982 Mar- esying the team’s self-destruction.
vel/DC cross-over special. Darkseid’s As a publication though, Legion of Su-
appearance in Legion of Super-Heroes per-Heroes was anything but cursed.
was a plot development few read- In the aftermath of “The Great Dark-
ers could have anticipated, which is ness Saga,” The Legion quickly be-
one reason why “The Great Darkness came DC’s second best-selling title
Saga” made such an impression. with only New Teen Titans above it.
The story concluded in Legion of The two titles would remain DC’s top
two sellers for the next three
years, but being second
best was no consolation to
Giffen as he confessed many
years later, “Oh, I wanted
to knock [New Teen Titans]
off #1 so bad back then! We
were always chasing them,
and I wanted to just get one
month where we could just
knock them off the perch”
(Schweier 35). Alas for Giffen,
there was no stopping the
sales juggernaut that was
New Teen Titans. In 1982,
DC even further capitalized
on the team’s popularity by
publishing the four-issue
Tales of the New Teen Titans
mini-series.
Barr, Bolland and
King Arthur on Baxter Paper
While New Teen Titans re-
mained DC’s most successful
publication in 1982, its most
ambitious one of the year
was its first 12-issue “maxi-
series”: Camelot 3000. As the
editorial page of Camelot
3000 #1 details, writer Mike
W. Barr first conceived the
story during his college
years at the University of
Akron in the mid-1970s.
Enrolled in an Arthurian lit-
erature course, Barr contem-
plated writing a sequel to Sir
Thomas Malory’s Le Morte
The cover to Legion of Super-Heroes #294
makes clear who the villain of
D’Arthur. He created Pendragon, an
“The Great Darkness Saga” is: Darkseid. epic tale about King Arthur’s mes-
Darkseid and Legion of Super-Heroes TM and © DC Comics.
sianic return in the year 3000. With
Earth under siege by alien invaders,
Super-Heroes #294 (Dec. 1982), a 41-
the planet’s populace desperately
page issue priced at a dollar, featur-
needs a legend to inspire them. From
ing not only every Legionnaire—and
his Glastonbury, England tomb Ar-
again, there are a lot of them—but
thur rises to resume his heroic duty.
also practically every supporting
character in the history of the team: As a freelance writer in 1980, Barr al-
Superboy, Supergirl, Legion of Substi- most agreed to have Marvel Comics
tute Heroes, Wanderers, among many publish his King Arthur sequel as a
others. Their combined might forces Marvel Preview feature. He chose not
Darkseid’s retreat, but not before he to, instead putting the project aside
53
as he became a DC Comics editor in
1981. When he heard DC’s executives
wanted to create a “maxi-series” for-
mat, Barr offered Pendragon, soon to
be renamed Camelot 3000. Barr opted
for the maxi-series treatment since
he figured his story wouldn’t work
as an ongoing series. He had con-
cerns though that a 12-issue series
would require some padding on his
part, but Len Wein assured him oth-
erwise (Greenberger 33). Wein also
suggested the artist for the project:
Brian Bolland. After achieving con-
siderable recognition drawing “Judge
Dredd” for the British anthology 2000
AD in the late 1970s, Bolland was re-
cruited by DC Comics to provide them
some covers, most notably for Green
Lantern, Justice League of America,
and the 1981 mini-series Tales of the
Green Lantern Corps, co-written by
Barr and Wein. By 1982, Bolland had
also drawn a couple of short pieces
for DC—a seven-page sci-fi story in
Madame Xanadu #1 and a five-page
segment in the celebratory Justice
League of America #200—but Camelot
3000 was his first protracted commit-
ment for an American publisher.
With production underway by the be-
ginning of 1982, DC Comics realized
it had a special series on its hands.
Camelot 3000 was previewed for at-
tendees at the summer comic book
conventions in New York, San Diego
and Chicago, and it became the first
DC Comics series sold exclusively via
the Direct Market as well as the first
DC Comics series produced via offset
Camelot 3000 was the first series DC Comics
printing on sturdier, whiter Baxter offered exclusively to the Direct Market as well as its
paper. In an interview conducted for first Baxter paper, offset printed comic book.
Camelot 3000 TM and © DC Comics.
American Comic Book Chronicles, Paul
Levitz admitted that Camelot 3000 concluding issue arrived in stores,
was originally intended for release Camelot 3000’s publishing schedule
on the newsstand, but DC’s execu- became ironically legendary.
tives agreed the series seemed tailor
made for the Direct Market audience. Doug Moench Quits
The higher quality paper and supe- Marvel Comics Jim Shooter Moench and Jim Shooter about Master
rior printing process would make Bol-
During 1982, artists George Pérez, Pat of Kung Fu that precipitated Moench’s
land’s art look even more stunning,
Broderick, and Gil Kane all signed departure from Marvel. Moench had
and the standards of the Direct Mar-
contracts to work exclusively for DC been writing the title for the previ-
ket would allow Barr to take his story
Comics. And then in late August, one ous eight years, and while each issue
in more mature directions.
of the industry’s most prolific writ- sold over 100,000 copies, it remained
Even though DC initially scheduled to ers also settled into DC’s stable: Doug one of Marvel’s lowest performers.
release Camelot 3000 #1 in May 1982, Moench. Both Jim Shooter and Master of Kung
the first issue didn’t get published un- Fu editor Ralph Macchio felt the title
Since 1973, Moench had been writing
til September. That would prove a har- had stagnated and needed a change
for Marvel Comics. His 1982 assign-
binger of future delays. The series was in creative direction. In an interview
ments included Moon Knight, Thor,
planned and promoted as a monthly for American Comic Book Chronicles,
King Conan, and Master of Kung Fu.
publication, and it held to that sched- Moench claims that one August day
In fact, it was an argument between
ule for five issues. But by the time its in 1982 Shooter called him to tell
54
Moench what changes he needed to
make. Shooter specifically ordered
Moench to kill the protagonist of Mas-
ter of Kung Fu, Shang-Chi, and replace
him with a ninja who would become
the new master of Kung Fu. Moench
explained to Shooter that the sugges-
tion made no sense since Kung Fu is
a Chinese form of martial arts while
ninjas were Japanese. Undeterred,
Shooter insisted that
Moench write the death
of Shang-Chi. What’s
more, over in Thor,
Shooter wanted Dr. Don-
ald Blake dead so a new
character could happen
upon Blake’s walking
stick, accidentally tap
it on the ground and
thereby be transformed
into Thor.
According to Moench,
the deaths of Donald
Blake and Shang-Chi
were the initial steps of
a grand scheme dubbed
“Jim Shooter’s Big Bang
Theory of the Marvel
Universe.” It involved
the death of nearly the
entirety of Marvel’s
catalog of super-heroes,
to be replaced by those
same super-heroes with
new secret identities.
Someone else would
assume the role of Cap-
tain America after Steve
Roger’s murder. Some-
one else would wear
Iron Man’s armor after
Tony Stark suffers a fa-
tal heart attack. And
someone else would
be bitten by a radioac-
tive spider to become
Spider-Man after Peter Parker dies.
The Marvel fictional universe would
be essentially rebooted, purportedly
for the sake of new readers who now
wouldn’t be overwhelmed trying to
fathom twenty years of continuity.
But Doug Moench wanted no part of
it. With the exception of his upcom-
ing Six from Sirius work for the Epic
imprint—which he considered be-
yond the reach of Shooter’s imperial
grasp—Moench resigned from all his
Marvel assignments, but he empha-
sized in his interview that “I didn’t
quit Marvel; I quit Jim Shooter.” The
day after he quit Jim Shooter, Mo- wode. Quoting Moench and other un-
ench was at DC’s offices with Dick named sources, Yronwode detailed
Giordano asking him what titles he Shooter’s supposed plans in her
wanted to write for DC. Moench re- “Fit to Print” column in The Buyer’s
plied that he was always fond of Bat- Guide to Comics Fandom #461. When
man. Since Gerry Conway was soon her report went viral, the fan press
ready to move on from both Batman erupted. The Comic Reader’s execu-
and Detective Comics, Moench was tive editor Mike Tiefenbacher wrote a
handed those two books, along with particularly scathing editorial, label-
the Superman/Batman team-up title, ing Shooter’s plans self-serving and
“repugnant” and ac-
cusing Shooter of hav-
ing no affection for the
very fictional universe
he was responsible
for caretaking (Tiefen-
bacher 57-9).
That so many would
treat Yronwode’s re-
port as fact perhaps
is unsurprising given
the kind of public
statements Shooter
had made in the past.
For instance, in 1981,
Shooter told an inter-
viewer for FantaCo’s
X-Men Chronicles that
he planned on retcon-
ning Wolverine’s his-
tory in order to estab-
lish that the character
never killed anyone.
Shooter didn’t want
Marvel’s heroes to be
killers (Broertjes 10).
Ultimately though,
that revision to Wol-
verine’s history never
occurred. By this point,
Marvel’s creators and
editors were used to
Shooter rescinding
one of his mandates
almost as quickly as
he implemented them.
An issue of Comics Feature magazine focused As recounted earlier,
on the rumor that Jim Shooter ordered the death Roger Stern and John Byrne’s collabo-
of every major Marvel Comics character.
Comics Feature TM and © New Media Publishing. ration on Captain America ended due
to their objection to Shooter’s stipula-
World’s Finest Comics. In addition, tion that all stories be self-contained,
because of his fondness for Moench, a stipulation that Byrne described as
DC editor Ernie Colón removed Paul Shooter’s “thing of the moment” that
Kupperberg from Arion, Lord of At- quickly went away (Cooke 41).
lantis and asked Moench to write the
book, starting with issue #4. Moench But in this case, Shooter repeatedly,
obliged, and he would continue to publicly denied ever having ordered
write for DC Comics for the remain- Moench to kill off any character, never
der of the 1980s. mind Shang-Chi or Don Blake. In his
“Bullpen Bulletins” column, for pub-
Meanwhile, Jim Shooter’s designs to lications like Comics Scene and Com-
reformat the Marvel Universe went ics Feature, and even for “Bad Moon
public, thanks principally to Cat Yron- Rising”, a Cincinnati radio program
55
devoted to sci-fi
and—occasional-
ly—comic books,
Shooter insisted
that he hadn’t
ordered Moench
to change the
course of Mas-
ter of Kung Fu in
any specific way.
Instead, as he
explained to ra-
dio interviewer
Chris Barkley,
Shooter wanted
Moench to create
a new direction
for the book and
that the sky was
the limit as far
as what changes
could be made:
As a rhetorical example, I said
that there are no sacred cows,
meaning that if some writer
came to me with a brilliant
plan to revamp or make Cap-
tain America more exciting
that it would be considered.
I chose Captain America par-
ticularly because I thought
that was probably the most
extreme, unlikely example
I could think of. [I was] try-
ing to demonstrate to [Doug
Moench] that he shouldn’t be
fettered, he shouldn’t let his
mind be shackled by imagi-
nary constraints. (Steven
Thompson)
Shooter claims he gave Moench the
option of killing off the entire Master
of Kung Fu cast and creating a new
one. The essential goal was re-ener-
gizing reader interest in the title, and
Shooter was willing to entertain all
possibilities. Moench, however, felt
Master of Kung Fu was fine just the
way it was. In Shooter’s estimation,
Moench left Marvel because he didn’t
want to make any changes. Shooter
concedes that in his conversation
with Moench, he may not have ex-
pressed himself perfectly clearly, but
he did want to make one thing per-
fectly clear, “I never told anyone to
kill anyone. Not Tony Stark, not Don
Blake, not anyone else” (Schuster 7).
Some comic book professionals and
fan press commentators came to
Shooter’s defense. In a letter printed
Above: 1982 Michael Golden-drawn poster
features dozens of Marvel Comics characters.
Below: Photo of Jim Shooter at the 1982 San Diego
Comic Con. Courtesy of Alan Light.
TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
in The Comic Reader, Roger Stern
blasted Mike Tiefenbacher for what
Stern called Tiefenbacher’s irrespon-
sible journalism—that he likened to
National Enquirer standards—and
labeled the report of Shooter’s plans
as “a pack of lies” (“TCR Mailboat” 10).
In response to Stern, Tiefenbacher
apologized to Shooter. Similarly, in a
Comics Feature column, Hal Schuster
doubted the accuracy of Yronwode’s
report, especially after Schuster spoke
with Marvel editor Mark Gruenwald,
Iron Man writer Denny O’Neil, and
Jim Shooter himself, all of whom
denied that Shooter had ordered
the death of any Marvel character
(Schuster 6-7). What’s more, Comics
Scene reported the existence not of
a “Jim Shooter Big Bang Theory” but
of a Marvel interoffice “Bang List” or
“Bang Program” that identified Mar-
vel’s weakest selling titles, thereby
56
requiring Shoot-
er’s intervention
(“Moench Goes
Freelance” 10).
Moench con-
tends that in the
aftermath of his
departure from
Marvel, Shooter
began lying about
what he had told
Moench and what
he wanted to do
to the Marvel uni-
verse. And those
other Marvel cre-
ators and editors
who confirmed
Shooter’s version
of the events? Mo-
ench believes they
were either ignorant of what Shooter
intended to do or too scared to tell
the truth for fear of being fired. The
way Moench understands the situa-
tion, Shooter’s “Big Bang Theory” was
ultimately squashed when Stan Lee
caught wind of it, thanks to the fan
press furor.
In an interview conducted in 1983,
writer/artist Jim Starlin added one
more angle to the story. Allegedly,
Starlin witnessed Jim Shooter’s sup-
posed maniacal planning first hand:
[Jim Shooter, myself, Tom De-
Falco, and Mark Gruenwald]
went out for a drink after work
and as comic writers and art-
ists tend to do, after we had
a few drinks in us we began
speculating on what could be
done with what. There was
talk of Captain America being
replaced and Tony Stark and
Iron Man. It was all just spec-
ulation. There was no fact to
it… At one point it was sug-
gested that the entire Marvel
Universe be destroyed and
the next month all the books
start off again with new ori-
gins at issue number one… It
was all just talk. I don’t know
who got the story to who, but
nothing was ever going to be
done with it, but it was re-
ported as a fact. (Harris 33)
So as Starlin tells it, “Jim Shooter’s
Big Bang” was a Happy Hour frivol-
ity amongst colleagues that later
got circulated around Marvel’s
office. As to why Doug Moench would
subsequently feed the story to the
fan press, Starlin theorized that Mo-
ench had an ax to grind, especially a
month after his departure from Mar-
vel when he was mourning the sud-
den death of a close friend, one who
Moench felt never received appropri-
ate recognition (or equitable compen-
sation) from Shooter: artist Gene Day.
Howard Eugene “Gene” Day had
been working on Master of Kung Fu
since 1979, first as an inker over Mike
Zeck’s pencils and then, beginning
with issue #102 (July 1981), he per-
formed both pencil and ink duties. By
1982, Day’s work was just beginning
to receive deserved accolades from
fans and pros alike. By all accounts
though, Day didn’t take care of him-
self. He worked long hours at the
drawing board, didn’t exercise, main-
tained a poor diet and chain smoked.
On September 23, 1982, Gene Day
died of a heart attack in his sleep. He
was 31 years old. Memorializing him,
Moench wrote of how he had tried to
get Day to be more conscientious of
his health, but Day would only tell his
creative collaborator that in order to
pay the bills, he had to shackle him-
self to his drawing board. Moench
used that admission to assert that
Marvel (i.e. Shooter) didn’t compen-
sate Day fairly: “New artists, even as
we spoke, were being hired to start at
20 dollars per page more than Gene
was making after years of ‘loyal ser-
vice’” (Moench 24).
Regardless of where the truth of this
story lies, the most unlikely of comic
book creators got in the final word:
Fred Hembeck. He ended up writing
and drawing a one-shot comic book
published later in the decade titled
Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel
Universe, inspired by the events
played out in 1982.
Marvel Comics:
New Address, Same Success
In 1982, Marvel Comics was on the
move, both creatively and literally. In
May, the publisher moved its Man-
hattan offices about 30 blocks down-
town, from 575 Madison Avenue to
387 Park Avenue South. For the year,
Marvel’s sales improved by over 19%
(Tolworthy), and with its new roy-
alty plan in place, Marvel ended up
paying $2 million in bonuses to its
creators (Michael Thomas). In fact, shattered spine, a physical crippling
Marvel’s entire line was selling so that matches the emotional one
well that all of its creators received suffered by Daredevil. Subsequent
royalty bonuses because no title sold Daredevil issues showed Matt Mur-
less than the 100,000 copy royalty dock coming to grips with Elektra’s
threshold. Predictably, the most pop- death, confronting The Punisher in
ular Marvel title was Uncanny X-Men, the “Child’s Play” story that was origi-
which sold on average 313,000 copies nally meant to be published in 1980,
per issue. The other Marvel titles that and dealing with amplified sensory
sold on average over 200,000 copies perceptions that overwhelmed him.
per issue were Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil reached a creative and
Fantastic Four, Avengers, and Star commercial zenith.
Wars. And the title whose sales most But as 1982 drew to a close, Frank
dramatically increased was Frank Miller had already committed to
Miller’s Daredevil, improving the walking away from the title. His en-
130,000 copy average it had in 1981 ergies were more focused on a new
to 180,000 in 1982. project for 1983, one he created him-
With its 181st issue (April 1982), self, and one that was going to be
Daredevil produced one of Marvel’s published solely for the Direct Mar-
most illustrious publications, and ket… by DC Comics.
not just for 1982 but for all of its vo-
luminous, decades-spanning history.
The 38-page issue—dedicated to the Matt Murdock mourns the death of Elektra in this
memory of Wallace Wood—be- image taken from the cover to Daredevil #182.
gins with Daredevil nem- Daredevil TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
esis Bullseye breaking out
of prison. Once free, he at-
tempts to reclaim his po-
sition as The Kingpin’s
chief assassin by
hunting down the
assassin who
replaced him:
Elektra. After a
lengthy, sparse-
ly narrated
sequence,
B u l l s e y e
stabs Elektra
through the
chest with her
own sai. It is
a vivid image,
brutal for its
time. With her
last vestiges of
life, Elektra stum-
bles through Man-
hattan to reach
the home of her
lover, Matt Mur-
dock. She then
dies in his arms.
By issue’s end,
Daredevil puts
Bullseye in
the hospi-
tal with a
57

Printed on magazine quality glossy paper, Marvel Fanfare was the first ongoing series
that Marvel Comics offered exclusively to the Direct Market.
Angel, Marvel Fanfare and Spider-Man TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Direct Market Marvels
Marvel had its own Direct Market
plans for 1982, starting with the one-
shot Star-Lord: The Special Edition #1
(Feb. 1982). Ostensibly a colorized re-
print of Chris Claremont, John Byrne,
and Terry Austin’s first collaboration
from Marvel Preview #11 (June 1977)
as well as a seven-page Dave Gibbons
drawn story from Dr. Who Magazine
(May 1981), Star-Lord #1 was “special”
because it was Marvel’s first foray into
offset printing on Baxter paper stock,
sold exclusively to the Direct Market.
The following month, Marvel pub-
lished the first issue of an ambitious,
Direct Market exclusive, ongoing title
that had been in the works since 1980:
Marvel Fanfare. Released bi-monthly,
priced at $1.25, printed on magazine-
quality glossy paper, and boasting 32
pages of content with no ads, Marvel
Fanfare was a slick super-hero an-
thology, showcasing both Marvel’s
58
most popular creators and promising
new talent. Indeed, at one point dur-
ing its inception, the series had been
titled Marvel Showcase before being
renamed Marvel Fanfare (“Marvel
News: August” 6). The first issue’s
content includes a Spider-Man/Angel
main feature by writer Chris Clare-
mont and artist Michael Golden (the
story had originally been slated for
Marvel Team-Up), a Spider-Man/Sil-
ver Surfer inside cover spread by John
Byrne, a back cover drawn by Frank
Miller, and a Daredevil back-up story
by writer Roger McKenzie and artist
Paul Smith (officially Smith’s first pro-
fessionally published work). Guiding
Marvel Fanfare was Al Milgrom, who
not only edited the title’s stories but
also wrote and drew its “Editori-Al”,
a nine-panel grid cartoon in which
Milgrom, as himself, introduces the
issue’s contents while poking fun at
such Marvel luminaries as Claremont
and Jim Shooter.
Marvel’s plans for the Direct Market
didn’t end with Marvel Fanfare. Fol-
lowing European publishers’ lead, in
1982 Marvel launched an ongoing
line of graphic novels with larger di-
mensions than a typical comic book
(8-1/4” x 11” as compared to the typi-
cal comic book’s 7” x 10-1/4”) and a
much higher price point (either $4.95
or $5.95 depending on the graphic
novel’s page count). The first graphic
novel Marvel published in this new
line was The Death of Captain Mar-
vel (April 1982), written and drawn
by Jim Starlin. Marvel actually in-
tended on debuting its graphic novel
line in 1981, but as The Comic Reader
announced in its Nov. 1981 issue, Sta-
lin suffered a dislocated finger on his
drawing hand while playing volley-
ball. That injury pushed back the re-
lease dates of all the scheduled graph-
ic novels to 1982 (“Marvel News:
November” 3).
Like its title makes clear, The Death of
Captain Marvel relates the demise of
Kree-born soldier Mar-Vell, a.k.a. the
appointed “Protector of the Universe,”
Captain Marvel. On his death bed on
the Saturn moon of Titan, Mar-Vell is
paid his final respects by the pantheon
of Marvel Comics super-heroes—Spi-
der-Man, The Avengers, The Fantastic
Four, The X-Men, The Defenders—and
even by some of his adversaries—the
Skrulls officially honor Mar-Vell as
their greatest single enemy—before
he passes away from cancer. With his
last breath, Mar-Vell finds himself in
another dimension, confronted by his
arch-enemy, Thanos, who introduc-
es him to the robed figure of Death.
When Mar-Vell’s heart beats its last
beat, Mar-Vell, Thanos and Death
walk hand-in-hand into a bright light,
presumably the threshold to the after-
life. With that, Mar-Vell’s vital signs
go flat. And he is pronounced dead.
Made famous for its spectacular, su-
per-heroic melees, Marvel presented
one of its most restrained, solemn sto-
ries with The Death of Captain Mar-
vel. Readers were enrapt nonetheless.
In a “Bullpen Bulletins” column, Jim
Shooter claimed the graphic novel at
one point was the best-selling trade
paperback in the country as over
50,000 copies had been sold by the be-
ginning of the summer (Kim Thomp-
son). All told, The Death of Captain
Marvel sold out eight print runs, total-
ing 200,000 copies (Schmuckler 31).
But that graphic novel was just the
first of several Jim Starlin books to be
offered exclusively to the Direct Mar-
ket in 1982. Late in the year, Marvel
published Warlock #1 (Dec. 1982), the
first of a six-issue mini-series, reprint-
ing Jim Starlin’s Adam Warlock saga
from the 1970s. In the same format
as the Star-Lord one-shot, Warlock of- rial and more importantly, let creators
fered 48 story pages on Baxter paper, own their creations. Instead of being
priced at two dollars. It gave Marvel paid a page rate, creators would earn
“a chance to showcase a series which a percentage of their book’s sales.
met with critical acclaim but little Upon hearing the offer, Goodwin be-
commercial success its first time out,” rated Shooter right out of his office.
as reprint editor Al Milgrom attests in Goodwin had no time to coordinate
his introduction to the first issue. the launch of a new Marvel imprint;
his workload was already too burden-
An Epic Imprint some. So Shooter asked Al Milgrom
Jim Starlin was also involved in a new if he wanted to be the line editor.
Marvel imprint: Epic Comics. Due Upon learning that Milgrom heartily
to the success of Marvel’s Epic Illus- accepted the assignment, Goodwin
trated magazine, which let creators stormed into Shooter’s office and be-
retain copyright of their work, several rated him again, this time for taking
creators—chiefly, Sergio Aragonés, Epic Comics away from him (Michael
Frank Miller, Walt Simonson, and Jim Thomas). With that, Epic Comics was
Starlin—proposed to Jim Shooter that under Goodwin’s control, Mary Jo
Marvel publish new creative proper- Duffy was his assistant, and Shooter
ties but with the stipulation that the left them alone to do their jobs.
creators—and not Marvel—retain, Despite what his tirade against Shoot- Top: Mar-Vell, a.k.a. Captain Marvel, on his deathbed.
Above: The Death of Captain Marvel was the first of
not just copyright, but ownership of er might suggest, Archie Goodwin many Marvel Comics graphic novels.
these new properties. Won over by was one of the most amiable profes- Captain Marvel TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

the propositions, Shooter turned to sionals in the industry. As Shooter

Epic Illustrated editor Archie Good- himself explains, “Archie had a man-
win to edit a new line of books—Epic ner about him that you just couldn’t
Comics—that gave creators the free- not like him. While he was tough as
dom to present more mature mate- nails, and he was probably the best

59
that passed through this business, he
managed to do it without offending
anyone. He managed to be respected
and remain friends with everyone
and do his job” (Michael Thomas). Put
another way, there was perhaps no
better person than Archie Goodwin
to convince comic book professionals
to bring their creations to Epic who
would otherwise have nothing to do
with Marvel Comics as long as Jim
Shooter was in charge. Whether Good-
win could stem the tide of creators
taking their work to the new indepen-
dent publishers remained to be seen.
The first comic book published un-
der the Epic imprint was Jim Starlin’s
space opera, Dreadstar. The bi-month-
ly Epic series was the fourth chapter
of Starlin’s “Metamorphosis Odyssey”
with the previous chapters appearing
in 1980-1 issues of Epic Illustrated, the
1981 Eclipse graphic novel The Price,
and finally Marvel’s third graphic nov-
el of 1982, Dreadstar. The Epic series
features the super-powered Vanth
Dreadstar, whose desire to live a
peaceful existence is shattered when
a war between the Monarchy and the
Instrumentality wipes out most of the
population of his planet, including
his wife. Dreadstar dedicates himself
to ending the war with the aid of a
small—but formidable—crew of ad-
venturers.
Thanks to the launch of Epic Comics,
the new graphic novel line, Marvel
Fanfare, the Direct Market exclusive
reprint series, and even just the con-
tinued growth of new comic book
stores opening up around the United
States, twenty percent of Marvel Com-
ics’ total 1982 sales came from the Di-
rect Market (Rozanski).
Al Milgrom draws himself for Marvel Fanfare’s “Editori-Al.”
Marvel Fanfare TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Marvel Super-Heroes (Un)Limited
In 1982, Marvel finally began pub-
lishing mini-series that featured its
super-heroes. Marvel Super Hero Con-
test of Champions was the first comic
book to carry the “Marvel Comics
Limited Series” banner, and as its first
issue boasts, it features “every single
super hero on Earth” (or at least every
one that Marvel owned). As such, Con-
test of Champions became the precur-
sor of a new kind of “event” book that
in later years DC and Marvel would
both use religiously to promote their
individual publishing lines.
Ironic then that Marvel previously
aborted the Contest of Champions
story in 1980. Back then, Marvel pub-
lished an oversized Spider-Man/Hulk
Treasury book tied to the Winter
Olympics taking place in Lake Placid,
New York. A house ad in that Treasury
promised readers that a “Marvel Su-
per Heroes at the Summer Olympics”
book was “coming this summer.” But
when President Jimmy Carter boycot-
ted the United States’ participation in
the Summer Olympics—being held
that year in Moscow—because of the
Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghani-
stan, Marvel’s Olympics book became
a moot point and was appropriately
cancelled.
Living in South America at the time
and unaware of Marvel’s change of
plans, artist Pablo Marcos continued
inking John Romita Jr.’s pencils on
the Summer Olympics book. Since
no one had provided him a deadline,
Marcos inked at his leisure until one
day in 1981 he brought the complet-
ed pages to Marvel’s New York offices
and asked for the remaining pages so
he could finish the assignment. What
60
another editor might have seen as
wasted labor on Marcos’ part, then-
Assistant Editor Mark Gruenwald
saw an opportunity too good to pass
up. Gruenwald proposed to Shoot-
er that the story be revised—fore-
most by removing all 1980 Summer
Olympics references—and published
by Marvel as a three-issue limited
series. When Shooter agreed, Bill
Mantlo was tapped to revise the script
originally written by Gruenwald and
Steven Grant back in 1980 (Tandar-
ich 12). Many of Marvel’s characters
had undergone drastic changes in the
past couple of years (e.g., Ms. Marvel
had lost her powers, Yellowjacket and
Black Goliath were no longer super-
heroes, Captain Marvel died, et al.), so
Bob Layton was given the task of up-
dating the artwork. Layton is credited
in Contest of Champions #1 as provid-
ing “additional art.”
In Contest of Champions, every Mar-
vel super-hero is mysteriously trans-
ported to an arena in Earth’s orbit (no
longer Moscow’s Olympic Dome they
were intended to travel to in 1980). In-
cluded are international super-heroes
that were created specifically for the
1980 Summer Olympics book: Israel’s
Sabra, France’s Le Peregrine, Argen-
tina’s Defensor, Australia’s Talisman,
Ireland’s Shamrock, West Germany’s
Blitzkrieg, China’s Collective Man,
and Saudia Arabia’s Arabian Knight.
Enter Elder immortal The Grandmas-
ter and a hooded figure identified
as The Unknown. The Grandmaster
explains the stakes: while Earth has
been placed into a state of suspended
animation, its super-heroes will par-
take in a tournament. Two opposing
teams will hunt for four pieces of the
“gleaming globe of life,” hidden on
Earth. If the Grandmaster’s team col-
lects the most pieces, his deceased
brother—and fellow Elder immor-
tal—The Collector will be restored to
life. If the Unknown’s team wins, the
Grandmaster will “join his brother in
oblivion.” The Grandmaster’s threat
that Earth will be released from its
suspended animation only upon the
completion of the tournament co-
erces the super-heroes’ participation.
Then, like modern day fantasy sports
rotisserie owners, The Grandmaster
and the Unknown draft their teams,
which—given the story’s Olympic
roots—deliberately exhibit an inter-
national composition. The Grand-

Marvel’s super-heroes are gathered for the 1980 Summer Olympics a tournament arranged by the Grandmaster.
All depicted characters TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
master selects Captain America, Wol-
verine, Thing, Daredevil, She-Hulk,
Captain Britain, Darkstar, Talisman,
Defensor, Le Peregrine, Sasquatch,
and Blitzkrieg. The Unknown, on
the other hand, goes with Iron Man,
Invisible Girl, Storm, Iron Fist, Black
Panther, Angel, Sunfire, Arabian
Knight, Sabra, Vanguard, The Collec-
tive Man, and Shamrock.
Divided up into groups of three, the
super-heroes are scattered across
the Earth. They combat each other
as they hunt for the four pieces of
the globe. In the third issue, the fi-
nal piece gets collected by Shamrock.
The other pieces were secured by
Daredevil, Arabian Knight, and The
Thing. With that, The Grandmaster
is declared the winner of the contest,
but The Unknown—who is revealed
to be Death—discloses a final deceit:
in order to resurrect The Collector,
The Grandmaster must sacrifice his
61
own life. Not one to quit any game,
The Grandmaster forfeits his life. As
Death and an indignant Collector
vanish from the arena, Earth is re-
stored with its super-heroes returned
to it.
That would have been the end of the
story if not for the fact that a survey
of each team’s lineup reveals some-
one at Marvel goofed. Since The
Grandmaster collected two pieces
of the globe through Daredevil and
Thing, and Death collected two pieces
through Arabian Knight and Sham-
rock, The Grandmaster did not truly
win the match. It actually ended in a
tie. But no one at Marvel caught the
error as the final issue went to the
printer. The readers noticed though,
and many wrote to Marvel to point
out the gaffe. Tom DeFalco describes
what happened when he and Gruen-
wald were summoned to Jim Shoot-
er’s office:
Jim was holding all three is-
sues of Contest, and he wasn’t
smiling. Seems we screwed
up. The game was actually a
tie, and neither Mark nor I re-
alized it. Jim was not pleased.
He asked us what we were go-
ing to do about it. I, of course,
had no idea. Mark not only
did, but he immediately in-
formed Jim that the mistake
was put in deliberately to set
up a sequel. I don’t think Jim
ever fell for that line, but Con-
test had certainly sold well
enough to deserve a sequel
so he approved it on the spot.
(Tandarich 17)
The follow-up to Contest of Cham-
pions wouldn’t get published until
1987. And a few years before that,
Jim Shooter would recycle the heroes-
mysteriously-collected-into-an-oth-
erworldly-arena plot for one of the
most successful comic books of the
1980s. But until then, Marvel made
frequent use of the limited series for-
mat to showcase its second-tier char-
acters. In 1982, that included the Bob
Layton written and drawn Hercules:
Prince of Power, and the Bill Mantlo-
Rick Leonardi collaboration Vision
and Scarlet Witch, the fourth issue
of which revealed Magneto to be the
father of the sibling mutants Scarlet
Witch and Quicksilver.

The New Teen Titans and The X-Men introduce themselves in this splash page from the
Marvel and DC Present: The Uncanny X-Men and the New Teen Titans one-shot.
Teen Titans TM and © DC Comics. X-Men TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Marvel and DC Present…
For the Final Time
It was Marvel’s turn to produce the
next DC/Marvel cross-over, and on
August 10, 1982, Marvel released the
64 page Marvel and DC Present: The
Uncanny X-Men and The New Teen
Titans. According to Jim Shooter, the
original plan for the book was to pair
The X-Men with the Legion of Super-
Heroes, but DC swapped in the New
Teen Titans in order to feature the
characters of their current best-sell-
ing title (Broertjes 11). The original
plan also assigned Dave Cockrum to
draw the book, but he became too
busy handling the regular Uncanny
X-Men art chores. No replacement
had been named until one day artist
Walt Simonson walked into the of-
fice of his wife—X-Men editor Louise
Jones—and overheard her and Chris
Claremont discuss using Darkseid for
the cross-over. He told them, “If you
guys are using Darkseid, I’m drawing
the book” (Nolen-Weathington 42).
Together, the three of them fashioned
62
a plot in which Darkseid and Dark
Phoenix joined forces. DC, however,
overruled Darkseid’s usage on the
grounds that he isn’t a Teen Titans
villain. At a lunch conference, Marv
Wolfman produced the solution ac-
ceptable to all parties: New Teen Ti-
tans’ villain The Terminator (a.k.a.
Deathstroke) would serve as Darkse-
id’s agent (Nolen-Weathington 42-3).
Titled “Apokolips… Now,” the story
has Darkseid resurrecting Dark Phoe-
nix to use her power to turn Earth into
a new Apokolips. Eventually, the New
Teen Titans and the X-Men turn Dark
Phoenix against her evil ally. With
Darkseid in her fiery clutches, Dark
Phoenix traverses the cosmos and
fuses the Lord of Apokolips within the
Source Wall, ensuring his demise.
By the time the Uncanny X-Men and
New Teen Titans one-shot was pub-
lished, the next DC/Marvel cross-
over—this one teaming up the Justice
League of America with The Aveng-
ers—was already in the works. In fact,
in his “Meanwhile…” column printed
late in the year, DC Vice President
Dick Giordano not only announced
the summer 1983 release of the
JLA/Avengers team-up but also an-
nounced a second X-Men/Teen Titans
book would be out around Christmas.
What hardly anyone could have fore-
seen, though, was that despite Gior-
dano’s announcements, no other DC/
Marvel collaboration would be pub-
lished for the rest of the decade.
NeXt Gen
In 1981, Uncanny X-Men
was Marvel’s best-selling
title by a considerable
margin, so considerable
that a second X-Men title
seemed a logical business
decision. That’s at least
what Jim Shooter’s superi-
ors thought. However, in
an interview conducted
for American Comic Book
Chronicles, Shooter claimed
he had no desire in the early
1980s to dilute the success of
Uncanny X-Men with another X-
Men title. He instead preferred
the X-Men to appear—either
individually or as a group—
as guest-stars in other Marvel
titles (such as ROM, Micronauts,
Dazzler, and Marvel Team-Up) or
in their own limited series.
The first X-Men-related lim-
ited series featured one
of Marvel’s most popular
characters: Wolverine.
As Claremont detailed in
his 1987 introduction to
the Wolverine trade pa-
perback, he and Frank
Miller brainstormed
the limited series dur-
ing a shared six-hour car
ride on a California free-
way as they left the 1981
San Diego Comic Con. Nei-
ther had any interest in pre-
senting Wolverine as the “ber-
serker psycho-killer” (as he had
been commonly portrayed up to
that point). Claremont offered
to Miller that Wolverine was more
of a “failed samurai” than a maniac.
found in a Chris Claremont scripted
He was a man who failed his duty by
comic book of the 1980s. Wolverine
allowing his primal animalistic in-
seems closer in storytelling style to
stincts control his actions. That kind
Miller’s Daredevil than Claremont’s
of characterization brought Miller on
Uncanny X-Men, which could make
board the project. With Claremont
one assume that despite only being
writing, Miller drawing and Josef Ru-
listed as the book’s penciller, Miller
benstein finishing Miller’s pencils,
co-wrote Wolverine. That’s not so, ac-
Wolverine became a four-issue ex-
cording to Wolverine’s editor Louise
ploration of a fallen hero attempting
Simonson (nee Jones). In an interview
to redeem himself to the woman he
for American Comic Book Chronicles,
loves. The first issue opens with Wol-
Simonson stressed that Claremont tai-
verine’s soon-to-be-memorialized
lored Wolverine’s narrative to comple-
signature catch phrase: “I’m the best
ment Miller’s visuals.
there is at what I do. But what I do best
isn’t very nice.” Those lines open a nar- Claremont, however, resumed his
rative that’s heavy on first-person cap- usual method of storytelling for an X- The next group of X-Men, The New Mutants,
debuted in Marvel Comics’ fourth graphic novel in
tions but almost completely devoid Men spin-off published late in 1982. advance of their own ongoing series.
of the thought balloons one usually It was a book that Claremont and The New Mutants TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

63
Louise Jones had spent many months enough, Shooter also had publish- with David Anthony Kraft and Mike
formulating and fine tuning, keeping ing agreements Marvel’s licensing Vosburg as its assigned writer and
all of their planning to themselves executives made with toy companies artist. But the day before Team Amer-
as they waited for the right artist to foisted on him. Team America was a ica #1 was going to be shipped out to
become available. But their problem line of stunt vehicle toys, endorsed the color separators, Jim Shooter read
was that, despite Shooter’s disinclina- by famous daredevil Evel Knievel and the issue and came to a firm opinion
tion to publish a second X-Men book, produced by Ideal Toys, and Shoot- of it: “It was a train wreck. Pathetic.
other Marvel creators approached er became charged with turning it Lousy. Stupid beyond human imagin-
him to pitch one anyway. One such into a Marvel Comics property (sans ing. An embarrassment. Totally un-
proposal came in 1981 from Mark Knievel). The team of printable” (Aushenker 73). To meet
Gruenwald who wanted to collect the motocross heroes deadline, he had no choice but to
castaway members of the original X- first appeared in
Men (Angel, Iceman, Beast, Havok, Captain Amer-
and Polaris) and set them up on the ica #269 (May
West Coast as an “X-Men West” team. 1982). Their
Shooter brought Gruenwald’s idea to ongoing title
Jones and asked what she thought of was sched-
it. Fearing that Shooter wouldn’t au- uled to debut
thorize two X-Men spin-offs, Jones the fol-
told him that she and Claremont lowing
had already created a new team of month
mutants: a group of teenagers who
Professor Charles Xavier takes under
his wing to help master their newly
emergent powers (Sanderson 57).
The original X-Men reunion would
have to wait as Shooter opted for
Claremont and Jones’ proposal,
swayed perhaps by its bring-
ing the X-Men back to its
inaugural school concept,
something he quite ad-
mired (Broertjes 11). Thus,
The New Mutants head-
lined Marvel’s fourth graphic
novel, a 48-page story drawn
by Bob McLeod. The ongoing
monthly New Mutants title
would debut early in 1983,
and it would prove to be
not only one of Marvel’s
strongest sellers for the
remainder of the decade,
but also the first of a long
line of X-Men spin-off
titles.

A Real American Comic Book

One of the crosses that Shooter con-
tinued to bear was his superiors’ de-
mand that Marvel publish movie ad-
aptations. In 1982, the feature films
Annie, Blade Runner, Time Bandits,
and Conan the Barbarian were all giv-
en the “Marvel Movie Special” treat-
ment. However, the plans to adapt
the first two Rocky movies in advance
of the theatrical release of Rocky III
were shelved (“Marvel News: Sep-
tember” 3).
As if dealing with unwanted movie
Wolverine TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
adaptations wasn’t burdensome
64
rewrite the script himself and call
in some friends—particularly inker
Vinny Colletta and colorist Christie
“Max” Scheele—to redo the issue
overnight. The issue shipped on time,
but that inauspicious start became a
bad omen as Team America struggled
to find its readers—and its creative
team as no one seemed
eager to work on the
book—and was cancelled
in a year’s time.
Another toy property
Marvel converted into a
comic book series in 1982
also initially seemed des-
tined for failure, although
at least Marvel was the
beneficiary of the most
expensive television ad-
vertising campaign in
comic book history. In
1982, Marvel began a
long-lasting business re-
lationship with toy com-
pany Hasbro Industries,
who were re-launching
their military-themed G.I.
Joe line as 3-1/4” action
figures (similar in size
to the Star Wars action
figures that Kenner pro-
duced). Like every other
toy company, Hasbro was
hamstrung by the U.S.
Federal Communications
Commission’s restric-
tions on how toys could
be advertised on televi-
sion. Specifically, the FCC
restricted the amount
of animation a toy com-
mercial could use (under
the assumption that ani-
mation could fool a child
into believing that the
promoted toy could do
on its own the fantastic
deeds presented in the commercial).
Most toy commercials of that era re-
sorted to showing children handling
the toys, a rather dull approach but
the regulations ostensibly curbed
creativity. Hasbro’s advertising agen-
cy, Griffin Bacal, proposed a clever
sidestep of the regulations. The FCC
placed no restrictions on television
advertising of comic books, so if Mar-
vel were to publish a G.I. Joe comic
book based on the new action figure
line, Hasbro could produce fully ani-
mated commercials that solely pro-
moted the comic book along with
non-animated commercials that
solely promoted the action figures.
Since the action figure commercials
recycled some of the animation used
in the comic book commercials, the
two sets of commercials effectively
formed a cross-promotional gestalt.
G.I. Joe TM and © Hasbro
And Hasbro was willing to spend a
lot of money to make it all work, $3
million on the animated ads alone
(Miller 619).
It was too good an offer for Marvel
to turn down, so Jim Shooter, Archie
Goodwin, Tom DeFalco, and Larry
Hama took on the task of developing
the new G.I. Joe into a comic book se-
ries (and a prospective animated tele-
vision series) (DeFalco 206). With his
Vietnam War military service and ex-
pertise in firearms and martial arts,
Hama seemed the perfect fit for the
65
project. For G.I. Joe’s backstory and
characters, Hama returned to a comic
book proposal he previously worked
up for Marvel about a group of spe-
cialized S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives called
“Fury Force.” That pitch had been
shot down, but Hama salvaged many
of its concepts and characters for G.I.
Joe (like Snake Eyes, Scar-
lett, and Hawk). Goodwin
then conceived the Cobra
terrorist organization as
the Joe’s principal antago-
nist (Cronin). The result-
ing comic book expressed
the nationalistic zeit-
geist of “Reagan’s ’80s”:
G.I. Joe: A Real American
Hero. The first issue of
the monthly ongoing—
written by Hama with art
by Herb Trimpe and Bob
McLeod—debuted cover
date June 1982.
Despite the commercials,
the G.I. Joe comic book
wasn’t a runaway best-
seller out of the gate. In
fact, when Shooter in-
troduced the book at a
Direct Market distribu-
tors’ meeting, it was met
with such apathy that he
had to offer G.I. Joe #1 to
the Direct Market retail-
ers on a returnable ba-
sis, and even then, only
100,000 copies were pre-
sold (Irving). It wouldn’t
be until the airing of the
syndicated animated car-
toon—which launched as
a five-episode mini-series
in September 1983—be-
fore sales of G.I. Joe really
took off. Consequently,
some of the earliest G.I.
Joe comic books became
hot commodities on the secondary
market, even into the early 1990s.
Overstreet’s Comic Book Price Guide
#19, released in 1989, values a near
mint copy of G.I. Joe #2—which was
rarer than the first issue because of
its smaller print run—at $30. In the
1989 pages of Comics Buyer’s Guide,
various back issue retailers adver-
tised G.I. Joe #2 for $40.
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero would
prove to be one of Marvel’s most suc-
cessful titles. That success just wasn’t
evident in 1982.
The Fight Over A Duck
An evident success
in 1982 for FantaCo
Enterprises was their
Chronicles series, spot-
lighting various Mar-
vel Comics titles. Their
1981 X-Men Chronicles
sold out its 50,000 copy
print run, but it was
published without
Marvel’s permission.
Prior to its publication,
FantaCo editor Roger
Green approached
Jim Shooter and was
assured by him that
as long as The X-Men
Chronicles was a “jour-
nalistic piece,” there
was no need to obtain
a license from Mar-
vel. And then Shooter
matter-of-factly add-
ed, “If you violate our
copyright, we’ll just
sue” (Green). Marvel
turned out to be very
appreciative of Fanta-
Co’s spotlight on their
X-Men, so on Novem-
ber 18, 1981, Marvel’s
vice president Michael
Hobson approved a li-
cense for the produc-
tion of the next two
Chronicles editions.
This allowed FantaCo
to run a “Marvel Com-
ics Group” banner on
the covers to Fantastic
Four Chronicles and
Daredevil Chronicles, which respec-
tively received 70,000 and 80,000
copy print runs.
But in March 1982, when Jim Shoot-
er actually read the contents of The
Fantastic Four Chronicles, he erupted,
showering Mitchell Cohn—another
FantaCo editor—with profanity via
telephone (Green). Subsequently,
Marvel declined to license FantaCo’s
upcoming Avengers Chronicles and
Spider-Man Chronicles, a move which
actually didn’t hinder FantaCo from
publishing those books in the sum-
mer of 1982. The cause of Shooter’s
ire was an interview with Jack Kirby
in which the former Fantastic Four
co-creator made comments about
Marvel that one might be surprised
to read in one of its licensed pub-
lications. Specifically,
Kirby claimed he didn’t
know Marvel reused his
Depatie-Freleng Fantas-
tic Four cartoon story-
boards for the anniver-
sary Fantastic Four #236
(Nov. 1981) until after
the issue saw print. This
contradicted the decla-
ration within FF #236
that Kirby consented to
Marvel’s use of his sto-
ryboards. Kirby also said
he didn’t receive any
monetary compensa-
tion for the reuse.
More inflammatory was
Kirby’s steadfast com-
mitment to writer Steve
Gerber’s lawsuit against
Marvel with regards to
the ownership of the
Howard the Duck char-
acter. Created by Gerber
for a 1973 Man-Thing
story, Howard the Duck
had gained a cult fol-
lowing along with criti-
cal acclaim as he earned
his own title in 1976 and
even a syndicated news-
paper strip in 1977. But
when Jim Shooter re-
moved Gerber from the
strip in 1978 for chronic
lateness, Gerber felt his
contract had been vio-
lated and had his law-
yers threaten Marvel
with legal action. Mar-
vel volleyed that threat
with the termination of Gerber’s con-
tract. So Gerber found himself not
only removed from the Howard the
Duck newspaper strip but from the
Howard the Duck comic book as well.
Gerber made the next move: on Au-
gust 29, 1980 he sued Marvel for the
rights to Howard the Duck, a bold
act considering the prevailing pre-
sumption that comic book publishers
owned all the characters appearing
in their pages. Lawsuits, however, are
lengthy matters, and Gerber needed
money to maintain his. He hoped a
new comic book would raise some
necessary funds, so Gerber turned
to his friends and colleagues to help
Top: Proceeds from the publication of Destroyer Duck
helped fund Steve Gerber’s lawsuit against Marvel him out. Chief among them was Jack
Comics. Above: Photo of Jack Kirby at the 1982 San Kirby. The two creators were already
Diego Comic Con. Courtesy of Alan Light.
Destroyer Duck TM and © Steve Gerber and Jack Kirby estates. well acquainted: they collaborated
66
on both the Thundarr the Barbarian
cartoon and an unpublished adven-
ture comic book called Roxie’s Raiders.
When Gerber apprehensively asked
Kirby to draw a full comic book with-
out pay, Kirby immediately replied,
“Sure, sounds like fun” (Knowles 16).
Kirby had the utmost sympathy for
Gerber’s cause since he felt Marvel
had cheated him of due
compensation for all the
characters he created (or
co-created) in the 1960s
that were making Marvel
millions of dollars by that
time.
Together, Gerber and Kirby
created Destroyer Duck for
a ground-breaking comic
book offered exclusively to
the Direct Market in Janu-
ary 1982. Priced at $1.50
and published by Eclipse
Comics, Destroyer Duck #1
was blazoned with a “Spe-
cial Lawsuit Benefit Edi-
tion” banner. The story in-
troduces Duke “Destroyer”
Duck, whose only friend—
a fellow duck named “The
Little Guy”—gets trans-
ported to another space-
time continuum, where he
is exploited and held sub-
servient to the all-power-
ful GODcorp: “Grab It All,
Own It All, Drain It All.”
Eventually, The Little Guy
becomes too troublesome
for his worth so GODcorp
dissects him. He then ar-
rives back home to die on
the Duke’s floor. Destroyer
Duck travels “across the
expanse of Nega-Space” to
battle GODcorp and avenge
his friend. Kirby historian
Chris Knowles accurately
describes Destroyer Duck #1 as “a hi-
larious screed against the increasing
corporatization of Marvel Comics
and Reagan’s America” (Knowles 16).
The Little Guy serves as an analogue
to both Howard the Duck—the ex-
ploited fictional character—and its
creator, Steve Gerber—the figurative
“little guy” going up against the big
Marvel Comics corporation.
Along with its lead feature, Destroyer
Duck #1 also included shorter con-
tributions from Mark Evanier, Dan
Spiegle, Martin Pasko, Joe Staton, and
Scott Shaw. Sergio Aragonés’ Groo the tle more than 20% of his substantial
Wanderer—a Conan the Barbarian legal costs (Morrow 16A).
parody—made its debut in the issue. But Gerber didn’t let Destroyer Duck
And none of these creators got paid. serve just as a personal fundraiser.
Eclipse Comics—which previously The comic book also served notice
published Gerber’s Stewart The Rat that a new era was dawning in the
graphic novel in 1980—didn’t even comic book industry; Gerber told his
take any profit for publishing the is- readers, “Whatever the outcome of
sue. As Gerber details in the issue’s my lawsuit, the advent of
the direct sales market is
shifting the emphasis in
the industry from the com-
panies to the creators.”
Old Faces in New Places
By 1982, many long-estab-
lished comic book creators
had already staked their
professional future with
the new publishers ser-
vicing the Direct Market.
Don McGregor—who dis-
tinguished himself in the
1970s writing Killraven
and Black Panther stories
for Marvel—re-launched
his post-apocalyptic Sabre
as an ongoing Eclipse se-
ries. The first two issues re-
printed (and colorized) the
pioneering 38-page Sabre
“comic novel” that Eclipse
published in 1978.
Pacific Comics expanded
its publishing line by re-
cruiting an impressive
roster of veteran talent
with the same lure used to
hook Jack Kirby: full own-
ership of their creations
plus royalties. Writer/art-
ist Mike Grell had actu-
ally accepted Pacific’s of-
fer before Kirby had, but
Grell’s obligations to the
Tarzan newspaper strip
and Warlord comic book
Mike Grell originally created Starslayer in delayed the publication of
the late 1970s for DC Comics, but he was able to Starslayer: The Log of the Jolly Roger
buy back the rights and have Pacific Comics
publish it as a creator-owned series.
until cover date 1982. DC Comics orig-
Starslayer TM and © Mike Grell. inally planned to publish Starslayer
in the late 1970s as a counterpoint to
editorial page, all profits from the sale Warlord; Grell explains, “Instead of a
of Destroyer Duck #1 went to support modern man in a primitive society, I
his legal efforts against Marvel. Ger- decided to go the other way around
ber explained on a Los Angeles sci- and take a primitive man and put
ence fiction talk radio show in 1986 him into the middle of a very futuris-
that the 80,000 copies sold—along tic society and watch what happened
with the proceeds collected from the there” (Sanford). But Starslayer in-
sale of a 1982 “F.O.O.G.” (Friends Of ‘Ol stead became yet another casualty of
Gerber) Portfolio—helped cover a lit- the “DC Implosion.” Grell bought back
67
the rights from DC and
turned it into a creator-
owned series for Pacific.
Inadvertently, Starslayer
launched the career of an-
other comic book creator,
one soon to be regarded as
one of the best in the indus-
try: Dave Stevens. By 1982,
Stevens already had an im-
pressive résumé, having
inked Russ Manning’s pen-
cils on the Tarzan newspa-
per strip as well as drawing
storyboards for animated
shows like Super Friends
and movies like Raiders of
the Lost Ark. Stevens was
also familiar with Pacific
Comics’ co-owners, Bill
and Steve Schanes, as he
frequented their San Di-
ego comic book store. At
the 1981 San Diego Comic
Con, The Schanes brothers
approached Stevens with
a dilemma: the second
and third issues of Grell’s
Starslayer were going to be
short on pages and needed
a six page back-up fea-
ture to fill them out. They
asked Stevens to create
something they could use
(Cooke).
Stevens went home,
mulled it over and created
an homage to Commando
Cody and all the other movie serial
heroes of yesteryear: The Rocketeer.
In 1930s Los Angeles, pilot Cliff Sec-
ord discovers a rocket backpack and
uses it to become a high-flying adven-
turer dubbed The Rocketeer. By the
time the character made its second
appearance in Starslayer #3, readers
had flooded Pacific with fan mail.
Artist Michael Kaluta wrote a letter
that gushed, “Your Rocketeer stories
are, for me, the most fulfilling expe-
rience in years.” The Schanes broth-
ers knew they had something special
on their hands, even before Stevens’
beautifully evocative artwork won
him the Russ Manning award for
Most Promising Newcomer at the
1982 San Diego Comic Con. So Pacific
began producing Rocketeer postcard
sets, prints, and T-shirts, and hoped
Stevens would commit to an ongo-
ing title. But the artist already had a
well-paying, full-time job, and he had
Sabre TM and © Don McGregor.
no stomach for the comic book art-
ist’s life with its deadline pressures
and long hours at the drawing board
(Cooke). Instead, he agreed to have
The Rocketeer be the lead feature of
the publisher’s next new title, Pacific
Presents.
Sharing Pacific Presents was Steve
Ditko’s “Missing Man,” which was
previously introduced as a back-up
feature in Jack Kirby’s Captain Vic-
tory #6 (Sept. 1982). Earlier in the
year, Captain Victory #3 previewed
Neal Adams’ Ms. Mystic. Adams’ first
significant comic book work since
the publication of the Superman vs.
Muhammad Ali tabloid in 1978, Ms.
Mystic stars a witch burned at the
stake in the late 17th century whose
soul migrates to the late 20th century
where she is resurrected by a group
of environmentally-conscious sci-
entists. With her magic powers, she
resolves to rid the Earth of pollution.
68
Neal Adams’ considerable
fan following was all abuzz
about the publication of
Ms. Mystic #1 (Oct. 1982)…
but little did they know
they would be waiting a
long time for the publica-
tion of Ms. Mystic #2.
Rounding out Pacific Com-
ics’ 1982 slate was a reprint
of John Byrne’s 1970s Rog-
2000 work, Bruce Jones’
EC Comics-inspired an-
thologies Alien Worlds and
Twisted Tales, Scott Shaw’s
Wild Animals, and Sergio
Aragonés Groo The Wan-
derer. As stated earlier,
Groo debuted in Destroyer
Duck #1, but it almost be-
came part of Marvel’s Epic
Comics line. Prior to 1982,
Aragonés had asked Jim
Shooter if Marvel would
publish a comic book that
Aragonés would retain
ownership of. Shooter said
he would, but before he
could implement the Epic
Comics imprint, Aragonés
had accepted Pacific’s offer
to publish Groo the Wan-
derer (Michael Thomas).
Besides expanding its pub-
lishing line, Pacific Comics
also expanded its Direct
Market distribution op-
erations, adding an Illinois
warehouse to the ones it already
had in Los Angeles and Phoenix. By
September 1982, Pacific had already
grossed over $3.5 million for the year
and expected 1983 to be an even bet-
ter year (Sanford).
The First And The Next/
The Old And The New
In 1980, the comic book industry
seemed like an Old West ghost town
with little prospect of renewal. Two
years later, the direct sales market
turned the industry into a burgeon-
ing metropolis, with new comic book
publishers keen on taking residence.
In June 1982, former DC Comics public
relations director Mike Gold formally
introduced his Evanston, Illinois-
based First Comics. Gold had been
brewing First Comics since May 1981,
but it wasn’t until 1982 that Gold had
all the essential staff in place: him-
self as President and Managing Editor,
Rick Obadiah as Publisher, and Joe
Staton as Art Director, among others.
He also had assembled enough cre-
ators—including Howard Chaykin,
Mike Grell, and Frank Brunner—to
produce a small group of titles that
would distinguish itself in the comic
book market. Appreciating the spec-
tacular failure of Atlas in the mid-
1970s as a warning that a comic book
publisher’s reach shouldn’t exceed its
grasp, Gold stressed First’s publishing
line of five titles would be rolled out
slowly over the course of 1983 (Kim
Thompson 13). As far as how Gold
came up with name “First Comics,”
he explained years later that he was
evoking DC and Marvel’s penchant
for trumpeting premiere issues:
Above: Photo of the Pacific Comics booth at the 1982 San Diego Comic Con. Courtesy of Alan Light.
We called it “First Comics” be- Below: Two new titles Pacific Comics released in 1982: Groo The Wanderer and Ms. Mystic.
cause way back in 1982, pub- Groo TM and © Sergio Aragonés. Ms. Mystic TM and © Neal Adams.

lishers liked to put a big ol’

#1 on their covers wherever
they could. Sometimes it was
the third or fourth #1 on that
title; sometimes it wasn’t
the first issue but merely the
first from that publisher… As
far as I was concerned, every
time DC or Marvel would do
this, they were promoting
First Comics. (24)
Later in the summer, Archie Comics
announced its plans to revive its Red
Circle imprint, this time exclusively
for the Direct Market. Archie first
created Red Circle in the early 1970s
for a few short-lived, non-Riverdale
High titles. In its re-launch, Red Circle
would feature The Mighty Crusaders,
a super-hero team Archie published
during its mid-1960s “Mighty Com-
ics Group” days. John Carbonaro had
originally licensed the Mighty Cru-
saders from Archie to pair them with
his recently acquired T.H.U.N.D.E.R. line of books featuring all of the lishers had reneged on its license to
Agents in his own JC Comics line Mighty Comics Group super-heroes. Carbonaro and instead handed the
(which he hoped Archie would fund). But according to Buckler, Silberkleit reins to Rich Buckler. Carbonaro got
In an interview conducted for Ameri- and Goldwater knew nothing about the consolation prize of a freelance
can Comic Book Chronicles, artist Rich the Direct Market, and the artist had editing contract (Mougin 10). As
Buckler said it was with this license to educate them about the crucial dif- managing editor, Buckler planned
that Carbonaro approached him to ferences between publishing for the the Red Circle imprint to have six bi-
be involved in the Mighty Crusad- newsstand and publishing for the Di- monthly or quarterly books, all to be
ers revival. Carbonaro even set up a rect Market. In addition, it was clear launched during cover date 1983. At
meeting between Buckler and Archie to Buckler that Silberkleit and Gold- the time of the announcement, no
Comics’ publishers Michael Silberk- water had no faith in the profession- creative assignments had been firmly
leit and Richard Goldwater, who sub- ally-inexperienced Carbonaro. They set (other than, again, Buckler writ-
sequently hired Buckler to write and had much more confidence in Buck- ing and drawing the flagship Mighty
draw The Mighty Crusaders. It didn’t ler’s ability to get the job done. So Crusaders title). But Buckler did stress
take long though for the Archie pub- when the re-launch of the Red Circle to the fan press that he would rath-
lishers to contemplate an expanded line was announced, the Archie pub- er recruit “new talent” than steal

69
creators from other
publishers (“Red Circle
on the Move” 19).
However, some of the
new talent weren’t
interested in working
for other companies.
Some of them wanted
to start their own pub-
lishing enterprises
to bring their own
creations into the Di-
rect Market spotlight.
For instance, Gerry
Giovinco, Phil Lasor-
da, and Bill Cucinotta
were so eager to burst
onto the comic book
scene, they dropped
out of art school and
formed Comico. Their
inaugural title was a
black-and-white an-
thology called Primer,
whose first issue fea-
tured the soon-to-
be-forgotten Slaugh-
terman, Az, Mister
Justice, and Skrog.
Primer #2, though, in-
troduced the work of a
fellow art school drop-
out, someone who
would eventually be-
come one of the most
distinguished creators
of the 1980s and be-
yond: Matt Wagner.
Twenty-one years old
at the time Primer #2
was published, Wag-
ner presented artwork similar to his
fellow dropouts: mechanically flawed
and unrefined. But twenty-five years
after his debut, Wagner insists he
isn’t ashamed about it. At the begin-
ning, what Wagner lacked in profes-
sionalism, he more than made up for
in zeal and vision. He likens his earli-
est work to the early ’80s punk music
that stressed rebellious earnestness,
often times at the expense of finesse.
His creative approach was personal
and visceral: “I wanted to read (and
ultimately create) comics that spoke
to me on a gut level and not some-
thing that had to answer to years
and years of corporate ‘continuity.’ I
wanted to make my own myths and
not sponge off the diluted efforts of
those spawned in past generations”
(Wagner 1).
Rockets, created, writ-
ten, and drawn by
Southern Californian
siblings Jaime and Gil-
bert Hernandez (and
joined initially by their
older brother Mario).
Released in the sum-
mer of 1982 as a maga-
zine sized, 66-page col-
lection of interspersed,
black-and-white sto-
ries, Love and Rockets
#1 defies classification,
or even simple descrip-
tion. Summarizing
the plots of the stories
would misrepresent
the book’s raison d’etre
completely. Love and
Rockets is part high-
minded sequential art
experiment and part
profane farce, present-
ing characters with
names like Rand Race,
Penny Century, Har-
old Penis, and Cha Cha
Charlie. A homicidal
horror named Bem, re-
cently escaped from an
island prison, is pur-
sued by a super-detec-
tive named Castle Ra-
dium who mourns the
loss of Jayne, “a great
woman, a brilliant sci-
entist, a good mother,
a crack plumber.” Ra-
dium swears to end
Bem’s reign of terror “if
1982 advertisement promoting Comico’s only for the memory of Jayne’s great
upcoming titles, including Matt Wagner’s Grendel.
Comico TM and © Andrew Rev. Grendel TM and © Matt Wagner. curry.” In Love and Rockets, anything
went. The fantastic seemed mun-
What Wagner created in 1982 was dane, and the ridiculous seemed rea-
Grendel, a concept that cleverly in- sonable.
verted the traditional hero/villain
“Los Bros Hernandez” originally self-
trope in that the story’s hero wore vil-
published Love and Rockets in 1981
lain’s clothing and vice versa. Suave,
as a single issue fanzine, with an 800
sophisticated Hunter Rose was se-
copy print run. That’s when it got
cretly the ruthless, criminal master-
the attention—and admiration—of
mind Grendel, pursued by the feral
The Comics Journal’s executive edi-
yet noble monster named Argent.
tor Gary Groth who soon offered to
Together, Grendel and Argent cre-
publish the book as an ongoing series
ate a symbiotic opposition, their ha-
in his Fantagraphics line. Love and
tred for each other destined to bring
Rockets would go on to be recognized
about their mutual destruction. For
as one of the industry’s most avant
Matt Wagner, Grendel would prove
garde publications, and it—and its
to be but the first of many innovative
creators—would be nominated sev-
comic books he would go on to create.
eral times for an Eisner award in the
Yet arguably, no comic book of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
1980s was as innovative as Love and
70
Down and Out
The Direct Market served a feast of
comic book entrees bought to its table
by publishers large and small, new
and old, professional and amateur.
Some venerable publishers, though,
continued to eschew the Direct Mar-
ket for the traditional newsstand. Un-
fortunately for these publishers, they
now found themselves not only be-
hind the times, but also going out of
business. Harvey Comics suspended
its publishing operations in the au-
tumn of 1982, and Warren Publish-
ing followed suit in December. Mean-
while, Charlton Comics cancelled
Charlton Bullseye, its only title that
presented new material. Charlton’s
monthly offerings now consisted
solely of reprints, a publishing line
that had no chance of long term suc- Irjax’s warehouses and formed Dia-
cess—or even survival. mond Comic Distributors (Rozanski).
And in a development some of the All in all though, the industry had
Direct Market distributors prob- expanded considerably in 1982, but
ably found poetic, Irjax Distribut- there was room for more… as 1983
ing—whose 1978 anti-trust lawsuit would prove.
against the comic book publishers
instigated the remarkable growth of
the Direct Market—went out of busi-
ness. Irjax had used the settlement
money from its lawsuit to create a
chain of distribution warehouses
along the East Coast. It then offered
substantial discounts to retailers. The
plan was to undercut the competi-
tion, drive out the other distributors,
and then negotiate better terms with
the publishers. By 1982, Irjax only
succeeded in driving itself out. A Bal-
timore retailer, Steve Geppi, acquired
Above: head shots of characters appearing in one of
the most avant garde comic books in the history of the
medium: Los Bros. Hernandez’s Love and Rockets.
Love and Rockets TM and © Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez.
71
1983
Controversy
Over A Proposed New

Comics Code
In 1982, comic book publishers—both new and estab-
lished—provided the Direct Market consumer with inno-
vatively fresh material of varied genres: sci-fi epics like
Camelot 3000 and Dreadstar, adventure stories like “The
Rocketeer” and Starslayer, horror anthologies like Twisted
Tales, and even eclectic, experimental fare like Love and
Rockets. What’s more, every Direct Market-exclusive comic
book publisher was profiting, as First Comics’ Managing
Editor Mike Gold asserted at the time:
Comics are a boom industry right now. New comic
sales, comic stores and the like have never been
stronger. In an environment where the unemploy-
ment rate is more than 11 percent, the economy is
absolutely horrible, and people are starving and
freezing to death, comic book sales are going up.
(Johnson 51)
In 1983, even more new publishers introduced more new
titles to the Direct Market, but some industry profession-
als began to scrutinize all these new titles, and upon find-
ing provocative material in some of them, they grew con-
cerned. They had foreboding visions of outraged parents,
highly publicized litigation against retailers, congressio-
nal hearings and a new Dr. Fredric Wertham-like authority
figure taking center stage to vilify the comic book indus-
try. They argued that labeling comic books would prevent
troublesome attention from outside sources. Others dis-
agreed. Ultimately, the debate over the merits and flaws
of a new self-imposed ratings system would dominate the
comic book industry discourse of 1983.

First Impression
But that debate wouldn’t begin until the summer. Un-
til then, publishers kept rolling out their new offerings,
starting with First Comics. The very first First comic book
was Warp #1 (March 1983), a spin-off of a science fiction
stage play trilogy of the same name, originally performed
in 1971 by Chicago’s Organic Theater Company. The tril-
ogy—about a bank teller who discovers he is truly Lord
Cumulus, “avenger of the universe”—remained in produc-
tion since its inception and even had a Broadway run in
February 1973. Rick Obadiah served as the managing di-
rector of the Warp stage plays in 1980, when it performed
at—among other venues—Mike Gold’s Chicago Comicon.
In 1981, Gold and the Organic Theater Company co-pro-
duced a 16 page promotional comic book titled Weird Or-
ganic Tales, drawn by Joe Staton, reproducing scenes from
several of Organic’s plays, including Warp. After that, Oba-
diah and Gold discussed adapting Warp into an ongoing

CHAPTER FOUR
comic book, consequently becoming the impetus for the
formation of First Comics, with Obadiah as its publisher
and Gold as its managing editor (Johnson 52). Writer Pe-
ter B. Gillis and artist Frank Brunner were hired to col-
by Keith Dallas laborate on Warp’s twenty-page feature story while other
72
creators, principally writer John Ostrander, contributed to equation as a chest emblem.
the title’s eight-page back-up stories. For Frank Brunner, After purchasing the rights to E-Man from Charlton, First
it was a return to regular comic book work after a long transferred them to Staton, who repaid First’s expenses
hiatus. Brunner distinguished himself as a comic book via deductions in his page rate. Originally, Staton was to
artist in the mid-1970s—most notably on Marvel’s Doctor be paired with his E-Man co-creator, writer Nick Cuti, but
Strange—until he turned to other artistic endeavors, like Cuti’s editorial obligations with DC Comics made him un-
paperback novel cover illustration and fine art painting. available. Substituting for Cuti was Marty Pasko, whose
When he returned to the comic book industry, he made approach to E-Man was drastically different than that of
clear that he would never again work for the “House of his predecessor. With Cuti at the helm, Chalton Comics’ E-
Ideas.” In an open letter printed in the cover date March Man was a lighthearted, action-packed romp. With Pasko
1983 fanzines, Brunner condemned Marvel’s “medieval at the helm, First Comics’ E-Man was a no-holds-barred,
dictum” (a.k.a. its work-for-hire contract) which stipulated action-packed parody, taking vicious jabs at various tar-
creators relinquish their rights to anything they’ve writ- gets. After ridiculing Steven Spielberg in E-Man #1 (April
ten or drawn for Marvel. Brunner labeled Marvel a “fascist 1983), Pasko took aim at the most popular comic book of
organization” and even chastised fellow artists Jim Star- the 1980s. In the second and third issues of E-Man, Alec
lin and Barry Windsor-Smith for acquiescing to Marvel’s Tronn encounters a group of super-heroes calling them-
demands, thereby “allowing themselves to be exploited.” selves “The Unhappy F-Men”, led by its blind founder, Ford
Brunner disseminated his letter the same month that Fairmont. The allusions to The Uncanny X-Men and its
Marvel released Doctor Strange Special Edition #1 (March writer, Chris Claremont, were obvious. They were made
1983), a Direct Market-exclusive reprint of four 1974 Doc- even more obvious by the physical appearances of the F-
tor Strange issues by Steve Englehart and Brunner. Men closely resembling Marvel Comics’ best-selling mu-
It was also the same month that Warp #1 was released, tants, never mind the fact that The F-Men had names like
and initially, First Comics planned to publish Warp as its
first and only title. Business manager Rick Felber, though,
convinced Gold and Obadiah to publish a whole line of
comic books (Johnson 54). So in 1982, when Joe Staton was
hired as First’s art director, he was given the opportunity to
create his own comic book. At that time,
Staton was concerned he was being
pigeonholed as a “funny super-hero”
artist. To buck that stereotype, Staton
created a NASCAR-themed Southern/
Midwestern super-hero that he felt for-
mer Daredevil scribe Roger McKenzie
would be the perfect writer for be-
cause of his familiarity with South-
ern culture. Staton spent months
developing this new concept,
but just before he could figure out
an appropriate name for the char-
acter, Mike Gold rhetorically asked
why he was creating a new super-hero
when an existing one could be revived,
a character that Joe Staton’s fans were
already very familiar with (Read 38).
With that, First’s next title was put
on its 1983 schedule: a re-launch of
the funny super-hero published by
Charlton from 1973 to 1975, E-Man.
Created in a star gone nova, a glob
of sentient energy wanders through
space until arriving on Earth where
he turns himself into a human male.
The first person he meets, exotic danc-
er Nova Kane, christens him “Alec Tronn.”
With the ability to transform himself into
pure energy, alter his physical appearance
into any imaginable shape, and fire energy
bolts from his hands, Alec Tronn is inspired
by the reading of comic books to become the
super-hero E-Man, complete with an orange cos- First Comics revived Joe Staton’s
1970s creation, E-Man, for the 1980s.
tume emblazoned with Einstein’s famous “E=MC2” E-Man TM and © Joe Staton.

73
1983 TIMELINE May 19: The first issue of Batman
and the Outsiders – in which
Batman quits the Justice League
A compilation of the year’s notable comic book industry events alongside in order to form a new super-hero
team – goes on sale. June 13: The U.S. space
some of the year’s most significant popular cultural and historical events. probe Pioneer 10, launched
in 1972, becomes the first
January 28: 1970s Superman March 8: President Reagan labels April 18: 63 people die spacecraft to leave the
inker Frank Chiaramonte dies of the Soviet Union an “Evil Empire.” when the U.S. Embassy solar system.
cancer at the age of 40. in Beirut is attacked by a May 25: Return of the
suicide bomber. Jedi, the third Star
Wars film, opens in
April 25: Soviet Union movie theaters.
leader Yuri Andropov invites
Samantha Smith, a 10 year old
schoolgirl from Maine, to visit
June 17:
the USSR after reading her
Superman III,
letter in which she expresses
starring Christopher
fears about nuclear war.
Reeve and Richard
April 26: The Dow Jones Pryor, opens in
Industrial Average moves movie theaters.
past 1200 for the first time
in its history.

JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL M AY JUNE

June: The first issue of First

Comics’ American Flagg! –
written and drawn by Howard
Chaykin – goes on sale
exclusively at Direct Market
March 23: President Reagan stores.
proposes the “Strategic Defense
Initiative”: the development June 1: Synchronicity, the fifth
and deployment of technology and final album by rock band
to intercept incoming enemy The Police, is released and in-
missiles; the media dub the plan cludes the number one single
“Star Wars”. “Every Breath You Take.”

February 28: The last episode of April 28: Priced at

M*A*S*H, the award winning and popular $2.50, the first issue
television show about a “mobile army of Frank Miller’s Ronin
surgical hospital” operating in the Korean goes on sale exclusively
War, airs on CBS. at Direct Market stores.

Superman TM and © DC Comics. Ronin TM and © Frank Miller. Marvel Comics, Thor TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. Star Wars: Return of the Jedi TM and © Lucasfilm.

Snott Slummers, Ororeo, and Kitty perhaps irrevocably so. Fortunately

Porn. Not content just to send up for Staton, he didn’t have to wait long
the X-Men characters, Marty Pasko for a creative change to occur; with
also lampooned Claremont’s X-Men E-Man #9 (Dec. 1983), Pasko was no
narrative style, providing the F-Men longer the regular writer on the se-
with overwrought, verbose thought ries, allowing Staton and editor Rick
balloons, like this one for Ororeo as Oliver to restore E-Man to its former
she confronts E-Man’s partner: “By benign flippancy.
the positive role model! Nova is fan-
As mentioned earlier, Joe Staton
tastic—such power, such ability, such
served as First Comics’ art director.
beauty! I admire her, even as I know
In an interview for American Comic
I must bash her upside the head and
Book Chronicles, Staton explained the
kidnap her, though I am loathe to do
position was a misnomer; Staton re-
it.” E-Man #2 also featured unflat-
ally didn’t have the authority to edit
tering caricatures of Stan Lee, Jim
or “direct” artists, nor did he want
Shooter and John Byrne. To be sure,
that authority since the titles First
throughout 1983 E-Man sought to
was publishing were creator-owned.
give anyone and everyone a bloody
That is to say, Staton felt he didn’t
nose.
have—and didn’t want—the right to
But in an editorial printed in the 1989 impose himself on books that were
Comico revival of E-Man, Joe Staton very personal projects to the profes-
admitted that he didn’t appreciate sionals who created them.
First Comics using his creation for
A late 1983 house ad lists First Comics’ line-up. Case in point: Howard Chaykin’s
“heavy-handed put-downs and unin-
TM and © First Comics. American Flagg!. By the time Ameri-
telligible in-group jokes.” He felt his
can Flagg! arrived in Direct Market
E-Man property was being damaged,
stores in June 1983, Chaykin had been
74
 September 1: Korean Air Lines 747 is shot down
by a Soviet Union jet fighter when the commercial
July 15: The Nintendo aircraft enters Soviet airspace. All 269 on board
Entertainment System are killed.
goes on sale in Japan. October 1: Billy Joel’s
September 5: Tom Brokaw 1978 album 52nd Street
becomes lead anchor for NBC becomes the first compact
Nightly News. disc (CD) available for
purchase.
J U LY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER
September 19: The
Love Connection, a
Chuck Woolery-hosted
television game show
that sent its contestants
out on dates, begins
airing in syndication.
August 2: Thor #337 – introducing Beta Ray
September 17: Vanessa
Bill in the first issue of Walt Simonson’s new
Williams becomes the first
tenure on the title – goes on sale.
African-American to be
crowned Miss America.
a comic book professional for over ten First could be, Chakykin’s concerns
years, having written and drawn for were alleviated. He then formulated
Marvel, DC, Warren, Red Circle, Atlas, American Flagg! which the self-pro-
and Heavy Metal magazine. In 1977, fessed “patriotic liberal” would later
he became a star on the rise when describe as “the apotheosis of all the
he drew Marvel’s comic book adap- things he’d been reading, studying,
tation of Star Wars. But Chaykin had and learning since a teenager” (Sch-
no interest parlaying his Star Wars weier 3). It would also become one of
success into opportunities to work the 1980s’ most critically acclaimed
on any of the commercially popular comic books.
super-hero titles. Instead, Chaykin Written and drawn by Chaykin, Amer-
chose to tackle subject matter that ican Flagg! presents the planet Earth
engaged his personal interests, like in the year 2031 governed by the
graphic novel adaptations of Samuel corporate entity called “The Plex.” A
R. Delany’s Empire and Alfred Bester’s series of economic, political and envi-
The Stars My Destination. None of ronmental calamities in the late 20th
these works proved commercially century forced the United States gov-
successful though, so by the early ernment to relocate to Mars. Reuben
1980s, Chaykin found himself in con- Flagg, a famous actor, gets drafted to
siderable debt. Despite his financial
serve as a law enforcement “Plexus
situation, Chaykin’s experiences with Ranger” in the Chicago Plexmall. He
unproven, new comic book publish-
quickly learns the country’s status
ers (e.g., Atlas) made him reluctant quo consists of graft, rampant para-
to work with First. Once Mike Gold
military gang violence, and a popula-
detailed how profitable a creator- tion agitated by televised subliminal
owned comic book published by
messages. With bold audacity, Flagg
75
November 2: President Reagan approves the creation of
a federal holiday on the third Monday of every January to
honor Martin Luther King Jr.
November 3: The Reverend Jesse Jackson announces
his candidacy for the 1984 Democratic Party presidential
nomination.
November 9: Marvel Comics’ parent company, Cadence
Industries, becomes a private corporation.
November 20: The Day After, a television
movie dramatizing a fictitious nuclear
war between the United States and
Soviet Union, airs on ABC. Almost 100
million viewers tune in.
October 25: A military force, led by
1,800 U.S. Marines and Rangers,
invade Grenada, an island in the
Caribbean. President Reagan says
the action is intended to protect
American medical students in
Grenada.
October 23: 241 U.S. Marines
die and 80 others are injured
when a Muslim terrorist crashes
his explosive-filled truck into the December 2: The music video
Marine barracks near the Beirut for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”
International Airport in Lebanon. is broadcast for the first time.
acts to obliterate the status quo.
Just as bold and audacious as its
protagonist, American Flagg! was
a dystopian tale in which Chaykin
extrapolated a nightmarish future
from conditions that disconcerted
him in his present. Through Ameri-
can Flagg!—and its portrayal of an
America taken over by corporations,
consumerism, ideological zealotry,
and vulgar popular culture—Chaykin
expressed his viewpoint of “Reagan’s
80s” and what it would yield. Or
perhaps Mike Gold put it best, “If
Howard [Chaykin] was the creative
spirit doomed to always be ahead of
his time… then American Flagg! was
uncannily in its time” (Schweier 5).
American Flagg!’s content was en-
ergetic, satirically profane and of-
ten risqué, but the manner in which
Chaykin presented this content gar-
nered as much praise as the content
itself. For an unconventional comic
book, Chaykin used unconventional
storytelling techniques. He designed
jagged panel arrangements.
He dropped out borders
to cause elements of one
panel to spill into adjacent
panels. He had sound effect
lettering serve as visual ef-
fects. And perhaps most no-
ticeably, he created a grainy
shaded art style through the
use of Craftint artboard. For
American Comic Book Chron-
icles, Chaykin authority Bran-
non Costello explains Ameri-
can Flagg!’s significance:
American Flagg! was
a major contribution
not just to comics but
to the comic book. The
eye-popping formal
innovations, the po-
litical satire, the depth
of characterization,
the snappy dialogue—
American Flagg! was
proof that while com-
ics in their monthly se-
rial form tended to be
disposable and forget-
table, they didn’t have
to be. Chaykin showed that super-hero and fan-
the comic book didn’t need tasy titles as Superboy
to be “transcended” in order and the Legion of Super-
to be sophisticated, that the Heroes, Green Lantern/Green Arrow,
supposed limitations of the Warlord, and Starslayer, Grell pro-
comic book were really only duced a more down-to-earth comic
limitations of imagination, book for First. Using his military
dedication, and ambition. experience as inspiration, Grell cre-
ated Jon Sable, Freelance. The titular
American Flagg!’s brilliance was im- character is a New York City-based
mediately recognized by comic book costumed mercenary whose alter
readers on both sides of the Atlantic ego is a best-selling children’s book
Ocean as the comic book’s 1983 out- author. Written and illustrated by
put earned it—and its creator—ten Grell, Jon Sable was one part James
nominations for Great Britain’s pres- Bond, one part Mike Hammer, with
tigious Eagle Award (Favorite Pencil- no shortage of gunplay. In the series’
ler, Favorite Inker, Favorite Writer, first issue (June 1983), Sable saves
Favorite Comic, Favorite Character, President Reagan from an assassina-
Favorite Supporting Character, Favor- Top: An example of the innovative layouts
tion attempt. Howard Chaykin designed for American Flagg!
ite Story, Favorite New Comic Title, American Flagg! TM and © Howard Chaykin.
and twice for Favorite Comic Cover). First Comics’ inaugural lineup was
It ultimately won seven of those cat- consummated with another Mike Starslayer from the problems he saw
egories. Grell title, one that had already at Pacific, Grell had no time to devote
debuted with a different publisher. himself to the title. His hands were
A fellow Eagle Award nominee also With issue #7 (August 1983), Starslay- tied writing and drawing Jon Sable, so
became part of First Comics’ inaugu- er was no longer published by Pacific he left Starslayer after issue #8, pass-
ral roster of creative talent: writer/ Comics; its home was now First Com- ing the baton to writer John Ostrand-
artist Mike Grell. Having been ac- ics, where it would remain for the rest er and newcomer artist Lenin Delsol.
quainted with Mike Gold for years— of its volume. Grell partly brought
and with his tenure on the syndicat- To be expected, Bill and Steve
Starslayer over to First because of his
ed Tarzan newspaper strip ending in Schanes—Pacific Comics’ publish-
friendship with Mike Gold and part-
February 1983—Grell eagerly seized ers—weren’t happy with Grell’s de-
ly because he felt Pacific had insur-
the opportunity to create a title for parture. It was a public relations
mountable organizational problems
First. A fan favorite on such sci-fi, black eye that potentially threatened
(Sanford). Even though he removed
Pacific’s viability if other creators fol-
76

lowed Grell’s lead and took their proj-
ects elsewhere. Despite the defection,
all seemed profitable for Pacific in
1983. Besides the continued distribu-
tion of art portfolios and autograph
prints exclusively to the Direct Mar-
ket, Pacific also considerably expand-
ed its line of comic books. It included
Berni Wrightson: Master of the Ma-
cabre, Jeffrey Jones’ Ravens & Rain-
bows, and Jim Starlin’s Darklon the
Mystic, all of which reprinted 1970s
material. It also included the debut
Jon Sable, Freelance TM and © Mike Grell
of two anthologies—Bold Adventure
and Vanguard Illustrated—as well
as Roy Thomas, P. Craig Russell, and
Michael T. Gilbert’s adaptation of Mi-
chael Moorcock’s Elric fantasy nov-
els. Meanwhile, three Pacific Comics
mainstays—Jack Kirby, Neal Adams,
and Bruce Jones—all introduced new
titles for the publisher. Jack Kirby’s
next Pacific Comics project was a six-
issue adaptation of a screenplay he
tried to sell to Hollywood movie pro-
ducers in the mid-1970s: Silver Star.
77
With its focus on a group of super-he-
roes who are “Homo-Geneticus” and a
villain obsessed with the destruction
of all life, Silver Star (first issue, cov-
er date February 1983) evoked both
Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men and Kirby’s
previous work on The New Gods. Be-
sides now regularly working on three
comic books (Pacific’s Captain Victory
and Silver Star and Eclipse Comics’
Destroyer Duck), Kirby still managed
to produce a Captain Victory Special
for a summer release. Far less pro-
ductive than “The King,” Neal Adams
couldn’t finish the second issue of Ms.
Mystic for cover date 1983, but he did
find the time to write and draw the
roller-skating super-hero one-shot
Skateman. Bruce Jones, on the other
hand, collaborated with his wife
April to create both the crime noir
mystery Somerset Holmes—drawn by
Brent Anderson—and the futuristic,
racially themed Silverheels, with art-
ist Scott Hampton. Jones also contin-
ued to produce his Alien Worlds and
Twisted Tales anthologies. Twisted
Tales #5 (Oct. 1983) proved notable
for its controversial “Banjo Lessons”
story, which depicted the murder and
cannibalism of an African-American
at the hands of a group of white hunt-
ers. Many readers found the story
racially insensitive and gratuitously
gruesome, even for Twisted Tales’
standards.
Trouble, though, was headed Pacific
Comics’ way, and it had nothing to do
with the contents of its books. Boast-
ing one of the comic book industry’s
largest publishing line-ups (sur-
passed only by DC and Marvel), Pacif-
ic Comics’ prosperity was about to be
sabotaged by the other—equally con-
siderable—part of its enterprise: its
Direct Market distribution operation.
In 1984, The Schanes brothers would
learn that the manner in which they
distributed material to the Direct
Market retailers carried a high cost,
one which they couldn’t pay.
Archie’s Red Circle Revival Wreck
Archie Comics experienced a lot
of tribulations in 1983, all of them
self-produced. In 1982, Archie Com-
ics agreed to license its Mighty Cru-
saders characters to John Carbonaro
who had Rich Buckler on board as his
writer/artist. Archie quickly changed
its mind, however, and revoked Car-
bonaro’s license. The new exploits
of the 1960s super-hero team would
instead be published under Archie’s
revived Red Circle imprint with a
new line of Direct Market-exclusive
comic books. Archie Comics’ publish-
ers Michael Silberkleit and Rich-
ard Goldwater dismissed Carbonaro
from the endeavor and hired Buck-
ler as Red Circle’s Managing Editor.
In an interview for American Comic
Book Chronicles, Buckler stressed that
despite being ousted—and despite
being understandably bitter about
his ouster—Carbonaro continued to
help Buckler formulate the initial
concepts for the Red Circle books.
Carbonaro did so, Buckler believes,
because of his genuine affection for
the “Mighty Comics Group” super-he-
roes: The Shield, The Fly, Fly Girl, The
Black Hood, The Comet, The Web, and
The Jaguar.
Rick Buckler’s original pencil art for the wraparound cover to The Mighty Crusaders #2. Courtesy of Rich Buckler.
When Silberkleit and Goldwater
handed the Red Circle reins over to
Buckler, they asked him what he
needed to launch their new line of
comic books. A comic book profes-
sional since the late 1960s, with
many distinctions on his resumé, in-
cluding a long run on Fantastic Four
in the mid-1970s, Buckler had unsur-
passed knowledge of comic book pro-
duction and the professionals who
worked in the industry, so he told
the publishers, “Give me an office
and a telephone, and I’ll take things
from there!” (Buckler). After an initial
impulse to use the new writers and
artists that Carbonaro had recruited
from the fan ranks, Buckler ultimate-
ly decided to hire seasoned profes-
sionals to produce the new Red Circle
titles. Many of these creators were no
longer getting work from other comic
book publishers. Artists Gray Morrow,
The Mighty Crusaders TM and © Archie Comics.
78
Alex Toth, and Dan Spiegle contribut-
ed to the new Black Hood comic book
while Tony DeZuniga inked over Dick
Ayers’ pencils for Shield back-up sto-
ries. Former DC Comics editor Jack C.
Harris and former Superboy and the
Legion of Super-Heroes artist James
Sherman worked on The Fly. Produc-
ing the covers to the first two issues
of The Fly (May & July 1983) was Jim
Steranko, the legendary artist whose
pay rate Richard Goldwater felt was
too expensive for Archie. Buckler re-
members convincing Goldwater that
Steranko’s covers would give the Red
Circle imprint immediate credibil-
ity with the Direct Market retailers
and consumers. In addition, writer/
editor Bill DuBay was culled from the
now defunct Warren Publishing and
he brought artists Rudy Nebres and
Alex Niño with him. Robin Snyder,
formerly an assistant editor at DC
Comics, became Buckler’s assistant,
and Amazing Heroes contributor Da-
vid M. Singer was hired to write in-
troductory text pieces to familiarize
new readers to characters not pub-
lished in nearly twenty years. Besides
managing the production of the other
titles, Rich Buckler also handled the
task that brought him to Archie in
the first place: writing, drawing, and
editing The All New Adventures of The
Mighty Crusaders.
According to Buckler, The first issue
of that Red Circle flagship title (cover
date March 1983) sold over 100,000
copies, an impressive feat for a Direct
Market-exclusive title at that time.
Unfortunately for him (and Archie),
that debut would prove to be the ze-
nith of the Red Circle imprint. The
publishing venture went downhill
from there, and rather quickly too.
For one, despite a considerable lead
time as well as a bimonthly publi-
cation schedule for each of the new
titles, production delays were ram-
pant. Part of the problem was that, by
his own later admission, Buckler was
in over his head. Buckler had never
previously served as a comic book
editor, and keeping track of every-
thing associated with the production
of half a dozen titles proved more
than he could handle (Buckler). Also,
some creators received conflicting
deadlines. For instance, James Sher-
man was greatly looking forward to
drawing the new adventures of his
favorite super-hero, The Fly. Richard
Goldwater gave him a six-issue art as-
signment on The Fly and also told the
artist that he would have two months
to draw, letter and color each issue.
But a week after receiving the script
to Fly #1, Sherman was told by Buck-
ler he had seven days to finish the is-
sue. So two months suddenly became
two weeks. Annoyed but undeterred,
Sherman worked around the clock to
meet the deadline. When he submit-
ted his finished pages at the Archie
offices, Buckler informed Sherman
that he hired another artist to draw
The Fly #2. Rather than resume his
work on the title with Fly #3, a miffed
Sherman quit on the spot. As a result,
the story that ends with a cliffhanger
in Fly #1 gets resolved rather abrupt-
ly in Fly #2: a Buckler-drawn splash
page is followed by two Sherman
drawn pages, the last two pages that
Sherman handed in for Fly #1. And
then the story just ends. The next
page starts a Fly-Girl story. In the Fly
#2 letter column, Robin Snyder de-
clares, “A few of you will grumble and
gnash your teeth but it won’t do a bit
of good. Face it: James Sherman has
moved on.” Snyder then announces
Steve Ditko as The Fly’s regular artist.
Production on the Red Circle titles
was not only delayed, it was expen-
sive, at least by the publishers’ stan-
dards. Buckler insisted to the Archie
publishers that the writers and art-
ists he was hiring be paid the same
page rate they would receive at ei-
ther Marvel or DC Comics. Those page
rates were considerably higher than
what Silberkleit and Goldwater were
accustomed to paying for work on
Archie’s Riverdale High School books.
By Buckler’s estimation, a Red Circle
title cost two or three times more to
produce than one of Archie’s news-
stand titles. No doubt, Silberkleit and
Goldwater were in uncharted waters,
dealing with these kinds of budgets
as well as the kind of experienced
talent Buckler (and later, DuBay)
was hiring. An argument even oc-
curred between Goldwater and Car-
mine Infantino, who had been hired
to draw Red Circle’s six-issue Comet
mini-series. According to Infantino,
Goldwater was upset with the fact
that Infantino was keeping his Comet
original artwork. Legally entitled to
the artwork, Infantino wouldn’t give
it back free of charge, but he did of-
79
The Mighty Crusaders and Comet TM and © Archie Comics.
fer to sell it back to Goldwater. Ap-
parently, that offer rubbed Goldwater
the wrong way; he fired the artist and
swore Infantino would never work
for him again (Amash 141). Subse-
quently, Red Circle published only
two issues of Comet.
The Red Circle delays and costs quick-
ly made Silberkleit and Goldwater
question whether it was all worth it.
By May 1983—barely a year into Rich
Buckler’s editorial reign, and only
five months after Red Circle debuted
in stores—Silberkleit and Goldwa-
ter relieved Buckler of his managing
duties. Editing was now dispersed
amongst Buckler (still responsible
for The Mighty Crusaders), Bill DuBay
(handling The Black Hood as well
as his own writing on Comet), and
Robin Snyder (on The Fly, Shield, and
Blue Ribbon Comics). The demotion
disheartened Buckler. He had spent
months setting up a line of titles fo-
cused on super-heroes he had been
fond of since childhood, only to have
it taken away with an explanation
that made no sense to him:
Once DuBay came on board,
I was told by Richard Gold-
water and [Archie Production
Manager] Victor Gorelick that
all they ever wanted from me
was to draw their Mighty Cru-
saders flagship title. An obvi-
ous lie, since Goldwater and
Silberkleit hired me for much
more. Why was I set up as

Only had one issue of
The Fly, but Tommy
Troy was my all-time-
favorite character. I
read the comic book as
a kid, same age as Tom-
my, but he could defy
gravity, had a ring that
gave him an alter ego,
and a Buzz Gun allowed
him to shoot bad guys
without killing. I spent
that summer pretend-
ing to be Tommy/The
Fly defying gravity with
snorkel goggles under-
water in seaweed gar-
dens off a Long Island
beach. Had a toy ray
gun to shoot villainous
fish and occasional dog
sharks.
Years later, as if some
weird destiny at play,
Archie Comics’ Rich-
ard Goldwater offered
me the 6 issues of the
1983 relaunch of The
Fly with 2 months per
issue to pencil, letter,
ink, and color (guides).
His editor handed me a
30-page script for issue
one, written by Jack C.
Harris. I’d worked/talk-
ed with Jack at DC Com-
ics and was glad for the
team-up again.
Inspired by Jack’s script,
and my favorite comic
book, I went straight to work on the
story that day. Had so much fun, I’d
done a cover design sketch and rough
penciled the first 20 of the 30 pages
the first week. The editor called that
Friday; asked how much I had done.
I told him.
He announced, “I have somebody else
doing the cover, and the story has to
be split to fit the first 2 issues. I need
the first 18 pages penciled, inked, let-
tered, and colored by next Friday.”
CHRONICLES FLASHBACK: 1983
“A Fly On The Wall...”
James Sherman Reflects On --
hadn’t been enough
time for the contract
to show up in the mail,
and I was fairly certain
I could get the 18 pages
done. So, I spent the
second week lettering
dialog, inking pages, and
painting color guides.
That next Friday the con-
tract still hadn’t arrived.
I walked into the editor’s
office with all 20 pages
lettered and inked and
20 color guides. He stood
behind his desk turn-
ing through my finished
pages and color guides
and asked, “Where’s the
rest of the pages?”
Dumbfounded, I said,
“You asked for the first
18 by today. This is 20.”
He informed me,
“Doesn’t matter, I’ve got
another guy doing issue
2.”
At that moment I
stopped caring about the
assignment, told him,
“Get him to do 3 to 6.”
“You’re quitting?”
“You were an artist: how
can you treat people like
this?”
“Don’t be naïve.”
I walked out. Had other
Jim Steranko drawn cover for The Fly #1. work waiting.
The Fly TM and © Archie Comics.
When The Fly #1 appeared in print, I
I asked, “What, you’re reneging?” saw credits had changed, bits of dia-
log had been rewritten/relettered,
He interrupted, “Reneging on what?”
and some of Jack Kirby’s art had re-
“You said I’d have 2 months per---” placed some panels.
“There’s nothing I can do about it.
Wow. Where was a Buzz Gun when
You’ll have 3 months on the next.” needed?
“This’s a helluva lot of sudden pres-
– James Sherman
sure to p---”
“Just do it or I’ll find somebody else to
do the series.” He hung up.
Should have quit right then, but there
80
 official Managing Editor, giv-
en free reign and the power to
hire virtually all of the talent
necessary to launch their line
of super-hero books?
Privately, Buckler became convinced
Snyder and DuBay had schemed to
supplant him and hijack the Red Cir-
cle line for their own purposes. Since
DuBay was married to Buckler’s sis-
ter, the office politics were made even
more personal for Buckler.
The editorial maneuvering, however,
did nothing to improve Red Circle’s
fortunes. Sales continued to slide.
The production budgets got more ex-
pensive. The critical reception was
mostly uncomplimentary. And with
no coordination among the editors,
continuity among titles was non-ex-
istent. In November, Goldwater and
Silberkleit rebranded all the Red Cir-
cle titles as “Archie Adventure Series”
under the logic that an Archie banner
had more recognition and value than
a Red Circle one (Cobb). The price
point was dropped from a dollar to 75
cents, and the paper quality was re-
duced as well.
At the beginning of the year, Bob
Greenberger reviewed Mighty Cru-
saders #1 for The Comics Journal. He
unflatteringly described the issue as
“an average comic book story with
average comic book art” and also pre-
dicted that Red Circle would be the
first casualty of a glutted comic book
market (41-2). His forecast ended up
being both right and wrong. While
“Archie Adventure Series” wouldn’t
fold until 1985, it was already evident
by the end of 1983 that comic book
readers considered Archie’s superhe-
ro imprint an afterthought.
Thunderstruck
Even though John Carbonaro had
been excluded from Red Circle, his
publishing pursuits were nonethe-
less affected by the office politics be-
ing played out by Goldwater, Buckler,
Snyder, DuBay, and company. That’s
because the man who held the rights
to the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents property
remained linked to Archie through
an arrangement where Carbonaro
paid for the production and packag-
ing of a new T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents
title while Archie printed and distrib-
uted it (Sodaro).
Carbonaro considered himself ben-
One of the prevalent super-hero role playing games of the 1980s was Fantasy Games Unlimited’s
Villains and Vigilantes. Villains and Vigilantes TM and © respective copyright holder.
efiting from the arrangement since
it meant he wouldn’t have to foot the
entire publishing bill as he had pre-
viously for the one-shot black-and-
white magazines JCP Features in 1981
(starring the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents)
and Basically Strange in 1982. Nei-
ther of those magazines proved fi-
nancially successful, so Carbonaro
welcomed the funding that Archie
provided. Even with the printing
costs taken care of, Carbonaro still
couldn’t match the kind of produc-
tion budgets DC, Marvel, or even
Red Circle had for their comic books.
Therefore, he turned to creators who
worked on his 1981 magazine—
writer Chris Adames and artist Lou
Manna—as well as newcomer inker
Will Blyberg to produce his JC Comics’
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (May 1983)
which he trumpets with beaming
pride in the issue’s editorial page:
“Hey, we did it, new stories and art
for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents in a color
comic.”
In the same editorial, Carbonaro de-
clares T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2 would
arrive in stores in August. In actual-
ity, it wouldn’t come out until Octo-
ber, and it would be the final issue
printed and distributed by Archie. Ac-
cording to Carbonaro, Archie wanted
JC Comics to remain subordinate to
the larger Red Circle imprint, so an
eight-month lead time was imposed
on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, which prac-
tically halted production (Cooke 115).
The Archie publishers also believed
81
the JC Comics title that reprinted the
1960s Tower material—Hall of Fame
Featuring The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents—
would be more profitable than the
title presenting new stories (Cooke
116). Three issues of Hall of Fame
were published in 1983.
But Carbonaro found other oppor-
tunities to showcase his beloved
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. In 1983, he
loaned out the characters for Justice
Machine Annual #1, written by Wil-
liam Messner-Loebs, drawn by Bill
Reinhold, with a wrap around cover
by Michael Golden. The 64 page one-
shot was co-published by Noble Com-
ics—its final publication—and Hous-
ton-based newcomer Texas Comics.
While the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents/Jus-
tice Machine team-up may have been
the Annual’s main attraction, the
book’s back-up feature, written and
drawn by Bill Willingham, would
prove to have a more lasting legacy.
In the early 1980s, Willingham drew
for both the Dungeons & Dragons
and Villains And Vigilantes role play-
ing games, but in his own words he
“desperately wanted to draw comic
books,” preferably Marvel Comics
(Deppey 73). By 1982, Willingham
wasn’t able to secure any work as-
signments from any of Marvel’s
editors, so he decided to draw some
sample pages—featuring a set of ge-
neric characters he created solely for
the sample pages—to submit to the
independent publishers as demon-
strations of his artistic talent. One of
the publishers Willingham contacted
was Noble Comics, and they very
much liked what Willingham had
sent them. They asked Willingham to
relocate to Grand Rapids, Michigan—
their base of operations—and work
for them. Willingham accepted the
offer. But once he moved to Michigan,
he discovered that Noble didn’t hire
him to draw Justice Machine or Cobalt
Blue, their existing titles. Instead,
Noble hired him to draw a new comic
book featuring the characters in his
submitted sample pages, characters
Willingham had considered dispos-
able. In other words, with his
sample pages Willing-
ham didn’t
82
just pitch himself; he inadvertently
pitched a whole new comic book. And
now he had very little time to flesh
out the characters and create a story
for them. By his own admission, Will-
ingham went into “make it all up as I
go along” mode. He even looked back
at his recent Villains And Vigilantes
work and, for expediency sake, took
the super-villains from his “Death
Duel With The Destroyers” mod-
ule and used them as opponents
for his new super-hero team:
The Elementals (Deppey 75).
Magically risen from the dead,
Morningstar, Vortex, Mono-
lith and Fathom obtain super-
powers that correspond to the
four elements of nature: fire,
air, earth and water. Together,
they are the Elementals!
Noble Comics publisher Mike
Gustovich intended to add The
Elementals to his publishing
lineup, but by 1983, Gustovich
was being pulled in two differ-
ent directions: he was perform-
ing duties as an independent com-
ic book publisher, and he was inking
regularly for both Marvel and First
Comics. One of those pursuits had to
be relinquished, and Gustovich de-
cided it would be the publishing one.
He closed up Noble Comics.
Upon learning of this development,
the newly formed Texas Comics
quickly seized the opportunity to
license both Justice Machine and
Left: Michael Golden’s back cover to
Justice Machine Annual #1 (above) displays
Bill Willingham’s Elementals.
Justice Machine TM and © Mark Ellis.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents TM and © John Carbonaro estate.
The Elementals TM and © Andrew Rev.
Willingham’s Elementals.
The aforementioned Justice
Machine Annual #1 serves
not only as the first appear-
ance of The Elementals
but as the official passing
of Noble’s baton to Texas
Comics. A house ad in the
back inside cover of that is-
sue promotes the impend-
ing debut of Texas Comics’
two bi-monthly ongoing
titles: Justice Machine #1
would arrive in stores in
October while The Elemen-
tals #1 would come out in
November.
However, despite their
ambitions, Texas Comics
folded before they could re-
lease either of these issues.
In the course of publish-
ing Justice Machine Annual
#1, they ran out of money
(Deppey). This meant The
Elementals were back in
Willingham’s hands with-
out a home, but it wouldn’t
take long for another pub-
lisher to ask the creator
to bring his title into its
stable. For Bill Willingham
and his Elementals, 1984
would prove to be a break-
out year.
Fan Press Furor
By 1983, The Direct Market had been
deluged not only by new comic book
publishers, but also by new periodi-
cals focused on the comic book indus-
try. David Anthony Kraft—a comic
book writer since the mid-1970s,
working most notably on Marvel’s
Defenders and Savage She-Hulk ti-
tles—debuted his Comics Interview
magazine in February. Unlike other
comic book periodicals (i.e., The Com-
ics Journal, Amazing Heroes, Comics
Feature), Comics Interview eschewed
news and feature articles in order
to provide—as its title indicates—a
slew of interviews of comic book pro-
fessionals. While Comics Interview
would eventually be recognized as
one of the finest publications of its
kind, one of its initial readers—a well
known letter hack—wanted more
from the magazine. In a letter printed
in Comics Interview #3 (May 1983),
this reader made clear he enjoyed
the premiere issue but prodded the
more professional-look-
ing newspaper than what
Light had produced. While
Light’s Buyer’s Guide had
typewritten, pasted-up
columns (along with many
handwritten advertise-
ments), Krause’s CBG was
entirely typeset. Not every-
one applauded the change.
Some readers argued the
typeset was a poor substi-
tute for the charm of The
Buyer’s Guide’s pasted-up
layout. Cat Yronwode—au-
thor of The Buyer’s Guide’s
popular “Fit to Print” col-
umn—arguably had the
most reason to complain
about the change in own-
ership as she now had edi-
torial guidelines imposed
on her that restricted the
kind of commentary she
had been accustomed to
writing (Thompson 22).
Nonetheless, as co-edited
by longtime Buyer’s Guide
contributors, Don and
Maggie Thompson, CBG
would soon become one
of the standard bearers of
comic book news journal-
ism. The husband and wife
team would put the news-
paper on the road toward
A Texas Comics house ad promotes its two upcoming
titles: Justice Machine and The Elementals.
industry greatness.
Justice Machine TM and © Mark Ellis.
The Elementals TM and © Andrew Rev. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t
be said for Comics Scene. After the
editors to make the interviews more publication of its eleventh issue, the
in-depth. Kraft accepted the criticism bi-monthly comic book magazine
and invited the reader to be one of was cancelled by its publishers who
Comics Interview’s contributing edi- were unhappy with Comics Scene’s
tors. This reader, however, was too sales numbers. Before its cancellation
busy getting his own professional though, one of Comics Scene’s articles
career off to the right start as the started a debate that gained the at-
regular writer of Marvel’s Power Man tention of every comic book publish-
and Iron Fist title. His name was Kurt er, creator and distributor, as well as
Busiek. many of its retailers and readers.
A different comic book periodical In a guest editorial printed in Com-
with considerable industry standing ics Scene #10, comic book writer Jan
changed owners in 1983: Alan Light— Strnad foresaw a crisis for the comic
who founded The Buyer’s Guide to book industry, produced by two op-
Comics Fandom in 1971—sold his posing trends on a collision course:
weekly newspaper to Krause Publica- what Strnad described as “the re-
tions, a Wisconsin-based publisher laxed standards of the comic book in-
specializing in hobby magazines. dustry and the constricting standards
Light’s final issue was The Buyer’s of a conservative public” (Strnad 31).
Guide #481 (cover dated Feb. 4, 1983). To elaborate, Strnad took notice of
With issue #482, the newspaper was the sex, violence and profanity being
redubbed Comics Buyer’s Guide. As presented in many Direct Market-
published by Krause, CBG was a far exclusive comic books, material that
83

1983 subscription form for The Comics Buyer’s Guide newspaper.
The Comics Buyer’s Guide TM and © F+W Media, Inc.
couldn’t be found in newsstand-dis-
tributed comic books because of pub-
lishers’ adherence to the regulatory
Comics Code Authority (CCA). Comic
books that didn’t satisfy CCA’s stan-
dards weren’t provided to newsstand
dealers. The CCA’s jurisdiction, how-
ever, didn’t extend to the Direct Mar-
ket, so publishers could provide (and
Direct Market retailers could sell)
whatever material they cared to pro-
duce. Some of the new material in-
cluded gore, nudity, and various four
letter words that couldn’t be said on
primetime network television shows.
Material, in other words, that was
more appropriate for an adult than
a child. The problem, as Strnad saw
it, was that in the eyes of the Ameri-
can public, comic books were still
intended for children. Since comic
books weren’t being labeled as inap-
propriate for children, Strnad antici-
pated an inevitable chain of events: a
minor would purchase a comic book
intended for a more mature reader
and eventually the parent(s) of that
minor would peruse the comic book,
see the “inappropriate material,” and
subsequently raise hell. In the worst
case—yet plausible—scenario, the of-
fended parents would contact their
local authorities and demand the
comic book retailer be arrested and
prosecuted. Strnad warned that with
sufficient public outrage, not only
would many Direct Market retail-
ers be forced out of business but the
Federal Government could
mandate the creation of a
new external regulatory
agency that would police
all Direct Market-distribut-
ed material.
Before the industry had to
deal with this kind of di-
sastrous situation, Strnad
proposed a solution: comic
book publishers should im-
plement the same ratings
system used by the movie
industry. A comic book
rated “G” could be sold to
anyone while a comic book
rated “R” couldn’t be sold
to anyone under the age
of 16. (In letters printed in
The Comics Journal #88,
Kitchen Sink Press publish-
er Denis Kitchen and Pacif-
ic Comics’ editorial director
David Scroggy both point
out that the comic book
industry couldn’t use the same exact
ratings system as the movie indus-
try because of copyright issues, but
Strnad’s essential point remained that
comic book publishers could create a
rating system similar to the one used
by the movie industry.) With a rat-
ings system in place, Strnad believed
the industry would effectively shield
itself from any outside criticism.
With that, the debate began, one
that many comic book professionals
participated in throughout the year.
And to say there was little consensus
on the matter is an understatement.
What ensued wasn’t a simple mat-
ter of people advocating or oppos-
ing Strnad’s ratings system proposal.
Some appreciated Strnad’s concerns
yet still felt comic books didn’t need
to be rated. Others liked the idea of a
ratings system but for different rea-
sons than what Strnad articulated.
And even others couldn’t fathom
Strnad’s perspective at all.
For instance, in the same issue that
Strnad’s editorial appeared, Comics
Scene editor-in-chief Howard Zim-
merman argued that Strnad was
prescribing a cure for a non-existent
malady. “This is not the 1950s,” Zim-
merman cried (66). By that, Zimmer-
man meant there was no modern
counterpart to Fredric Wertham. No
one in the 1980s was preaching to
the American public that comic book
84
reading contributed to juvenile delin-
quency. In addition, the conservative
vanguards had bigger fish to fry. The
fledging cable television networks
surely presented itself as a more in-
viting (and appropriate) target than
the comic book industry.
Steve Geppi, the president of Dia-
mond Comics Distributors, didn’t
agree. Based on the complaints he
had received from his retail accounts,
he felt the industry had a legitimate
problem on its hands, caused—in his
view—by the publishers’ refusal to
provide advance notice of the explicit
content contained in their books. The
fact of the matter was that retail-
ers were pre-ordering comic books
in complete ignorance of the gore or
nudity presented within them. In a
letter sent to both publishers and re-
tailers in spring 1983, Geppi claimed
he previously conveyed his retail-
ers’ complaints to the publishers but
since nothing changed, the publish-
ers must not be taking the concerns
seriously. To show the publishers the
sincerity of Diamond’s concerns, Ge-
ppi issued them a warning:
If [publishers] do not clearly
identify the contents of their
books, specifically mention-
ing whether or not nudity, sex
or excessive violence appears
in them…, they can expect
Diamond to be returning the
copies that its retail accounts
are forced to eat because they
cannot risk violating leases
they may have that strictly
forbid the sale of pornograph-
ic material. (“The Ratings De-
bate—Part One” 73)
Dick Giordano—then DC Comics’
vice president-editorial director—
entered the fray with a guest edito-
rial printed in Comics Scene #11. He
found Strnad’s—and presumably
Geppi’s—concerns entirely valid. He
went on to argue, though, that an in-
dustry-wide ratings system could ac-
complish nothing or even exacerbate
the problem. The “R” rating—or “For
Adults Only” warning—could turn
comic books into enticing “forbidden
fruit” in young readers’ eyes. That is,
like adolescent boys coveting issues
of Playboy, young readers would seek
out comic books explicitly labeled as
inappropriate for them. Even in the
unlikely event that the publishers
came to a meeting of the minds and
formulated a set of ratings guide-
lines, Giordano believed it would all
be wasted effort as a ratings system
wouldn’t deter a group of outraged
citizens, determined to wage a cru-
sade. Rather than ex-
pect the creation of
an industry-wide set
of publishing stan-
dards, DC Comics in-
stead adopted an in-
ternal code, one that
wouldn’t allow for
“gratuitous use” of
violence, sex, or pro-
fanity. What’s more,
DC was utilizing three
distinct cover formats,
targeting three dis-
tinct age groups: one
for the youngest of
readers, the tradition-
al cover format for the
adolescent consumer,
and a third format
with higher produc-
tion values (and price
tag) that would appeal
to the mature reader
while simultaneously
repel the adolescent
one (Giordano 31).
How comic books were
presented, packaged,
and priced would help
consumers determine
which titles were ap-
propriate (and inap-
propriate) for them.
Marvel Comics’ editor-
in-chief Jim Shooter
found that kind of
marketing strategy untenable. In
July, at a Philadelphia comic book
convention panel devoted to the sub-
ject, Shooter said, “I don’t see that a
graphic novel is necessarily a more
adult package than a comic book.”
He then pointed out that the most
“adult” comic book Marvel had pub-
lished recently, The Life of Pope John
Paul II (a one-shot of supposed little
interest to an adolescent reader), was
printed on pulp paper to make it as
inexpensive as possible (“The Ratings
Debate—Part One” 76). Throughout
the panel, Shooter made clear he op-
posed any kind of ratings system for
several reasons, including the fact
that publishers can’t accurately an-
ticipate what readers—or their par-
ents—would find to be “objectionable possible for publishers—or a ratings
content.” Shooter claimed to receive board—to determine whether or not
letters from people who were offend- a comic book contains objection-
ed by Marvel’s use of euphemisms able material: “How am I going to
like “blast” (82). Given that, Shooter edit for twenty million community
stressed that the solution to any bur- standards?” (“The Ratings Debate—
Part Two” 87). First’s
publisher Rick Obadiah
then argued that a rat-
ings system would pro-
duce the exact opposite
situation than what Jan
Strnad prophesized; by
labeling some comic
books as inappropri-
ate or “adult,” a ratings
system would actu-
ally draw—rather than
avert—the attention of
conservative crusaders,
effectively situating the
comic book industry for
highly publicized con-
tempt from televange-
lists like Jerry Falwell
(93-4). By its end, the
Chicago Comicon pan-
el degenerated into a
scene where audience
members shouted out
comments while Jan
Strnad and Gary Groth
on one end traded barbs
with Gold and Obadi-
ah on the other end. It
was emblematic of the
industry-wide debate
as a whole: a cacopho-
ny of opinions with no
agreed upon consensus
anywhere in sight. But
the debate over comic
book ratings was far
The Comics Journal #88 provided transcripts of from over. In fact, it was only just be-
comic book convention panels that debated a new
labeling system for the comic book industry. ginning.
The Comics Journal TM and © Fantagraphics.
Direct Market Growth Spurt
geoning problem about the content Meanwhile, the Direct Market kept
of comic books is not a ratings system growing with more new publishers
but “open lines of communication” presenting more new Direct Market
among the retailers, distributors and retailers with more new titles. There
publishers. Publishers need to inform were new books like Megaton, featur-
the retailers of the kind of material ing artwork by Jackson “Butch” Guice
they’re providing to them, and the and Erik Larsen. Some existing pub-
retailers need to be vigilant about to lishers even expanded their catalog
whom they’re selling this material in these prosperous Direct Market
(77). days. Wendy and Richard Pini’s WaRP
The debate continued at a Chicago Graphics—which up to this point
Comicon panel on July 24 where First had only published Elfquest—intro-
Comics’ managing editor Mike Gold duced Colleen Doran’s A Distant Soil.
asserted that the differing standards Similarly, joining Dave Sim’s Cerebus
of taste across America made it im- in Aardvark-Vanaheim’s slate was
85
Arn Saba’s Neil the Horse and Wil-
liam Messner-Loeb’s Journey. Capital
Comics, on the other hand, not only
offered more new titles, it upgraded
its production values. With its new
volume, the previously black-and-
white Nexus switched to color and
a sturdier paper stock. Capital’s two
other new titles were also printed
in full color on superior paper: Mike
Baron’s new super-hero The Badger,
and Steven Grant’s female ninja book,
Whisper.
British publisher Eagle Comics pro-
vided color to stories previously
published in 2000 AD, the black-and-
white, weekly anthology that was
foreign—both literally and figura-
tively—to the majority of American
readers. Since the late 1970s, 2000 AD
had been made available
to American retailers,
but its pulp paper cov-
ers, weekly publication
frequency and anthol-
ogized format didn’t
translate from one side
of the Atlantic Ocean to
the other. It was just too
anomalous for the Ameri-
can market (Plowright 51).
Altering the packaging
to conform it to American
standards, Eagle bundled
chapters of 2000 AD’s
most popular feature into
a Direct Market-exclusive
monthly: Judge Dredd,
featuring the epony-
mous post-apocalyptic
lawman who—with the
power of judge, jury, and
executioner—patrolled
the crime-ridden Mega-
City One. The first issue
(Nov. 1983) reprinted
stories written by John
Wagner, drawn by Brian
Bolland (whose work
American readers were
now very familiar with
because of DC Comics’
Camelot 3000), and origi-
nally published in 1979-
80.
Almost simultaneously,
Kitchen Sink Press began
reprinting material much,
much older than that.
With the first issue of its Top and Above: Two 1983 house ads promoting new creator-owned series:
Steven Grant’s Whisper and Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty’s Ms. Tree.
new bi-monthly Spirit
comic book (Oct. 1983),
Kitchen Sink reprinted the post-
World War II years of Will Eisner’s
magnum opus in chronological order,
starting with its December 1945 in-
stallment. Eisner’s new work was be-
ing showcased in Kitchen Sink’s new
Will Eisner’s Quarterly.
Not that Kitchen Sink had a monop-
oly on Will Eisner material. Eclipse
Comics also offered an Eisner comic
book, one containing never-before-
published stories. In 1948, at the
height of The Spirit’s popularity, Eis-
ner attempted to expand his body of
work. Among other characters and
concepts, he created police detective
John Law with the plan to showcase
him in his own comic book. But when
two other new titles by Eisner failed
at the newsstand, John Law was
shelved, almost perma-
nently since Eisner de-
cided to use his John Law
stories for Spirit (mostly
by swapping out John
Law for Spirit). Thirty
four years later, Eisner’s
friend and Eclipse Com-
ics editor Cat Yronwode
discovered a set of stats
of three John Law stories
while scouring through
Eisner’s files (Gropper).
With Eisner’s blessing,
Eclipse then collected the
three stories into a 32-
page Baxter paper one-
shot titled Will Eisner’s
John Law Detective #1
(April 1983).
John Law wasn’t the
only detective character
published by Eclipse in
1983. Ms. Tree—the fe-
male detective created
by mystery novelist Max
Allan Collins and artist
Terry Beatty—received
her own ongoing series
after first appearing in
Eclipse Magazine the pre-
vious two years. Other
creator-owned titles de-
buted by Eclipse includ-
ed Steve Englehart and
Marshall Rogers’ Scorpio
Rose (appearing in sto-
ries Englehart originally
intended for DC Comics’
Madame Xanadu char-
Whisper TM and © Steven Grant. Ms. Tree TM and © Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty.
acter) and Mark Evanier
and Will Meugniot’s
86
genetically engineered super-hero
group, The DNAgents.
The (Very) Short-lived Return
of the Charlton Action Heroes
Meanwhile, Paragon Publications’
publisher—and principal artist—Bill
Black decided to ditch black-and-
white printing and jump on the full
color comic book bandwagon. He
found a printer in his home state of
Florida that could provide color at
an affordable price. What’s more,
Black’s business manager also con-
vinced him to target the Japanese
market since Japanese society in-
dulged in comic book reading and
was, in general, fixated on American
culture. The manager’s assumptions
were based entirely on anecdotal in-
formation passed on to him by his
wife and adopted son, both of whom
were Japanese. All Paragon needed to
do, this manager asserted, was cre-
ate a comic book about the rock band
Cheap Trick—enormously popular in
Japan—and change Paragon’s name
to something more indicative of the
United States (Offenberger). With all
this in mind, Bill Black renamed his
company Americomics (abbreviated
as AC Comics).
While Americomics’ business man-
ager dealt with Cheap Trick—and
while his wife traveled to Japan to
arrange overseas distribution—Bill
Black turned his attention to some-
thing else. Since 1980, Black had been
drawing for Charlton Comics, mostly
covers for their two Western reprint
books, Billy The Kid and Gunfighters.
For Charlton Bullseye #7 (May 1982),
though, Black wrote and drew a story
about Nightshade, one of the “Action
Heroes” Charlton introduced in the
1960s. Black then began inking some
Blue Beetle stories for subsequent
Bullseye issues, but before he could
finish, Charlton editor Bill Pearson in-
formed him that the comic book was
being cancelled, leaving 250 pages
of completed Bullseye work in limbo
(Borax 56). Black had a solution: he
offered to publish the abandoned
stories as part of his new color line.
Charlton subsequently gave him per-
mission to do so, which left the for-
mer Bullseye creators encouraged by
the prospect of their hard work see-
ing print after all. Charlton also gave
Black a one-year license to its super-
hero characters: Captain Atom, Blue
Beetle, Nightshade and
The Question (Offen-
berger).
So with Americomics #1
(April 1983) Black be-
gan printing material
originally created for
Bullseye. It wasn’t until
Americomics #3 (Aug.
1983) that he published
a story featuring one of
the Charlton-licensed
super-heroes. That
third issue stars both
the Dan Garrett and
Ted Kord versions of the
Blue Beetle in two sto-
ries by Rik Levins, Leo
Laney, and Bill Black.
The same month, AC
Comics released Ameri-
comics Special #1 pre-
senting a 25-page story
by Dan St. John and
Greg Guler that assem-
bles Captain Atom, Blue
Beetle, Nightshade, and
The Question as “The
Sentinels of Justice.” To-
gether, the heroes op-
pose villains last seen AC Comics’ brief possession of Charlton’s Action Heroes included
in Captain Atom and Americomics #3. Blue Beetle TM and © DC Comics.
Blue Beetle comic books
The Question, DC also acquired Peace-
from the 1960s: Iron-Arms, Fiery Icer,
maker, Judomaster, Sarge Steel, and
and The Madmen. The story ends
Son of Vulcan. Giordano admitted in
with a mysterious behind-the-scenes
his column, though, that DC’s plans
mastermind who vows to destroy the
for these characters were “tentative.”
Sentinels of Justice. Readers looking
Regardless, Bill Black’s one-year li-
forward to learning the identity of
cense of the Charlton characters came
the evil mastermind—or even look-
to a premature end. His Sentinels of
ing forward to new Charlton Action
Justice lived on but with completely
Heroes adventures—in subsequent
new super-heroes.
issues were greeted with an immedi-
ate disappointment: they were being Unfortunately for Black, his disap-
told that there would be no subse- pointments didn’t end with the loss of
quent issues. In a caption box beneath the Charlton license. Later that year,
the final panel of the issue, Bill Black his business manager’s wife returned
rhetorically asks (and answers), “Who from Japan without any distribution
is this shrouded figure who vows to arrangements in place. Apparently,
destroy the Sentinels? Alas, we will Japan wasn’t as fond of American
never know because the Charlton comic books as she remembered. She
characters have been sold to another also discovered that Americomics
publisher!” was late to the Cheap Trick party. Ja-
pan’s fascination with the rock band
That other publisher was DC Comics.
was spent. Instead of proving eager
The same month that Americomics
to buy a Cheap Trick comic book, the
Special #1 appeared in stores, Dick
Japanese market instead proposed
Giordano’s “Meanwhile…” column an-
to sell surplus Cheap Trick merchan-
nounced, “[DC] just completed nego-
dise to Americomics (Offenberger).
tiations with Charlton Comics which
Thus ended Americomics’ plans for a
gives us the rights to most of their
Cheap Trick comic book… as well as its
‘Action Heroes’!” Along with Captain
employment of its business manager.
Atom, Blue Beetle, Nightshade, and
87
The New DC Comics:
There’s No Stopping Them Now
While DC Comics had no immediate
plans for the Charlton Action Heroes,
they had plenty of changes in store
for their own super-heroes, starting
with their flagship characters. In Ac-
tion Comics #542 (April 1983), Super-
man tells Lois Lane that his responsi-
bilities—to Metropolis, to the world,
to the universe—prohibit him from
romantic commitments. Even though
Lois refuses to accept the explanation,
a rift develops between the two lov-
ers, effectively ending their relation-
A 1983 house ad highlights the changes in DC Comics’ Superman titles.
Superman TM and © DC Comics.
ship. This occurs a few months prior
to the June 17 theatrical release of
Superman III whose story—amongst
the Richard Pryor hijinks that rubbed
every faithful comic book reader
the wrong way—replaces Lois with
Smallville sweetheart Lana Lang
as Superman’s love interest. Then
in Action Comics #544 (June 1983)—
an issue celebrating the 45th anniver-
sary of Superman’s first appearance—
two long time nemeses of the Man
of Steel receive a makeover to help
them become more formidable
opponents: Lex Luthor dons a hi-tech
battlesuit while Brainiac evolves his
88
robotic form.
Meanwhile, over in Gotham City,
Bruce Wayne took on a new ward.
Batman #357 (March 1983) introduc-
es young circus trapeze artist, Jason
Todd. Like Dick Grayson before him,
Jason would lose his parents to a mob-
related murder, this time by gang boss
Killer Croc. Within the three months
that span Batman #357 and Detec-
tive Comics #526 (May 1983)—an is-
sue celebrating Batman’s 500th ap-
pearance on the title—Bruce Wayne
would adopt the now-orphaned boy
and begin training him to be his new
crime-fighting partner, thereby pav-
ing the road for the debut of a new
Robin.
That debut wouldn’t happen until
cover date 1984, and Batman still had
plenty to do in 1983, including quit-
ting the Justice League of America. It
occurred in the opening pages of Bat-
man and the Outsiders #1 (Aug. 1983),
written by Mike W. Barr and drawn
by Jim Aparo. During a business trip
to the small European nation of Mar-
kovia, Wayne Enterprises manager
Lucius Fox goes missing. Batman en-
lists the Justice League to help find
him but is told by Superman that the
United States government has asked
the Justice League to avoid enter-
ing Markovia for fear of escalating a
revolution going on in that country.
Furious, Batman resigns his member-
ship and goes to Markovia with Black
Lightning alongside him. Once there,
the two encounter Metamorpho
along with new heroes Katana, Halo
and Geo-Force, all of whom first ap-
pear in an insert preview in the final
issue of The Brave and the Bold, #200
(July 1983). Eventually, the six heroes
become The Outsiders.
As Barr explained in the first issue’s
editorial, Batman and the Outsiders
emerged from an idea Marv Wolfman
had about a new super-hero team
consisting of unaffiliated DC charac-
ters. With the decision to cancel the
low-selling The Brave and The Bold—
the Batman team-up book to which
Aparo had been long attached—Gior-
dano proposed Batman could serve as
that new team’s leader. Both Barr and
editor Len Wein felt that having Bat-
man as the leader of one team and a
member of another team was having
Batman on one too many teams. So it
was Barr who came up with Batman’s

motivation for leaving the Justice
League, and it was Barr who created
the three new super-heroes for Bat-
man to lead. Of the three, Barr was
particularly fond of Geo-Force, the
Prince of Markovia who can tap into
the Earth’s geomagnetic energies for
various powers. Barr was so proud of
his new creation that he described
him in minute detail to Marv Wolf-
man one night in the hallways of DC’s
offices. Wolfman listened to his col-
league’s exuberance, waited patiently
for an opening, and then informed
Barr that a nearly identical character
was about to be introduced in New
Teen Titans, a young girl named Ter-
ra. He even showed pages penciled
by George Pérez that featured Terra.
But rather than discard Geo-Force as
an unnecessary duplicate, Wolfman
proposed that Geo-Force and Terra
be siblings (or more specifically, half-
siblings). That solved the problem,
and by the end of the year, the two
writers—with their two new simi-
lar characters—teamed up for a New
Teen Titans/Batman and the Outsiders
cross-over (Dec. 1983).
While Batman quit the Justice League,
The Flash faced expulsion from the
team because he had been arrested
and charged with manslaughter. In
89
Left: A DC Comics house ad featuring the
new team Batman would lead after quitting
the Justice League of America.
All characters TM and © DC Comics.
Flash #324 (Aug. 1983), The Flash kills
his long-time nemesis The Reverse
Flash to order to prevent the death of
his bride-to-be Fiona Webb. The event
served as a prelude to the “Trial of The
Flash” story arc—which would end
up being far longer than either the
readers or the creators anticipated—
and was the brainchild of Flash editor
Ernie Colón (Greenberger 36). Colón
wanted to shake up a title whose sales
had been on the decline since 1980.
But Colón wouldn’t be around to see
if his gambit proved successful. After
serving a year as a DC editor on such
other titles as Green Lantern, Won-
der Woman, Arion, and Blackhawk,
Colón stepped down in order to work
as a freelance artist again, drawing
the syndicated Star Trek newspaper
strip as well as Amethyst, Princess of
Gemworld, a new DC maxi-series pre-
viewed in Legion of Super-Heroes #298
(April 1983).
Roy Thomas, on the other hand, re-
newed his DC contract, assuring he’d
be around for at least another three
years. With his renewal, he became
DC’s official “Earth-2” editor, in charge
of all the “Golden Age” characters un-
der DC’s control. The new contract
stipulated Thomas would write and
edit a new Justice Society or All-Star
Squadron-related mini-series every
year (“DC News” 3-4). That would at
least replace his assignment on Cap-
tain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew,
which was cancelled due to poor sales
with issue # 20 (Nov. 1983). Other DC
titles that met their demise in 1983
were House of Mystery, Weird War
Tales, the Adventure Comics digest,
and Marv Wolfman’s Night Force.
Wolfman’s highest profile title, New
Teen Titans, remained DC Comics’
best-selling comic book for the third
consecutive year. The second New
Teen Titans Annual introduced a new
Marv Wolfman-George Pérez creation
for 1983: The Vigilante. Adrian Chase
is a Manhattan district attorney de-
voted to ridding New York City of
organized crime, but when the mob
murders his family, he decides to take
the law into his own hands and be-
come the lethally armed Vigilante.
The end of the year saw the release
of the first issue of the character’s
eponymous Direct Market-exclusive
title, written by Wolfman and drawn
by Keith Pollard. In the second issue’s
letter column, Wolfman took pains
to explain to readers the distinction
between The Vigilante and other
similar gun-toting protagonists, like
Marvel’s The Punisher: “The char-
acter, his unique perspective of the
law—having once been a District
Attorney—and his method of op-
erations make him different from
virtually all the other characters
of this type in pulp novels or in
comics.” Nonetheless, with his new
character, Wolfman tapped into a
distinct zeitgeist of the early 1980s.
Like Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry”
movie Sudden Impact or the Michael
Douglas thriller Star Chamber—both
of which were released in 1983—The
Vigilante expressed prevalent Ameri-
can concerns about the nation’s ris-
ing crime rate and the belief that the
criminal justice system fails because
it lets guilty criminals go free due to
“legal technicalities.”
While The Vigilante may have pro-
vided Wolfman’s perspective on
America’s “War on Crime,” one of his
other works was being used for the
country’s “War on Drugs.” The United
States Customs Bureau approached
DC Comics to produce a public ser-
vice comic book that would inform—
and warn—pre-adolescents about
drug abuse. While the agency had
requested the use of Superman, Bat-
man, or Wonder Woman, DC Comics
instead recommended that super-
heroes closer in age to the intended
audience would be more effective role
models (Metzger 31). So included in
a kit co-produced by DC Comics and
the Keebler cookie company was a
28-page comic book written by Marv
Wolfman, penciled by George Pérez,
inked by Dick Giordano, and starring
The New Teen Titans. DC initially
printed a million copies of the
issue for the public school
system and then printed
another million to meet
the schools’ demand.
In July, DC offered
the comic book

Above: New Teen Titans Annual #2

introduces The Vigilante.
Right: The Teen Titans stand with their
“other” leader: The Protector.
All characters TM and © DC Comics.

90
as a Direct Market exclusive, priced
at one dollar with all profits being
donated to two drug prevention orga-
nizations: the Youth Rescue Fund and
the National Federation of Parents for
Drug-Free Youth (Metzger 32).
In order to make the story more ap-
propriate for a pre-adolescent reader,
Wolfman made it less violent than a
typical New Teen Titans
issue. For the same rea-
son, Pérez made Starfire’s
costume less provocative
and raised Wonder Girl’s
neckline. The most no-
ticeable change, howev-
er, was the substitution
of the New Teen Titans’
leader, Robin, for an en-
tirely new character, The
Protector. The reason
for the substitution was
the licensing of Robin
to Keebler’s competi-
tor, Nabisco. Because of
Keebler’s sponsorship of
the drug awareness spe-
cial issue, Robin couldn’t
be used. But this was
realized only after the
entire story had been
drawn with Robin in
it. Subsequently, editor
Dave Manak was tasked
with whiting-out Rob-
in’s costume throughout
the issue and replacing
it with a new costume
he designed (Mangels
47, 49). Thus, through
the magic of correction
fluid, Robin became The
Protector.
Aborted Team-Up
Manak’s alteration of his
artwork was the least of
Pérez’s problems in 1983.
By summer’s end, he
found himself abandon-
ing a project he dreamed of drawing
since before he became a profession-
al: JLA/Avengers. The inter-publisher
cross-over had been placed on DC’s
1983 publication schedule as early as
November 1981 with Gerry Conway
and Pérez attached as the book’s re-
spective writer and artist. Conway’s
original plot pitted the Justice League
against the Avengers in battles across
time, both teams unwitting pawns of
Kang the Conqueror and the Lord of
Time as the two villains sought to ob- and getting bogged down in details
tain a magical stone that would grant because the whole thing just doesn’t
them absolute power. As the book’s make sense” (9).
editor, Len Wein found the proposed In an interview conducted for Ameri-
plot acceptable and subsequently can Comic Book Chronicles, Shooter
forwarded it to Jim Shooter for his explained that the proposed story
approval on February 23, 1983. Two was so bad that he couldn’t believe
days later, Shooter read the proposal Conway—whose writing skills Shoot-
and rejected it. According to an anon- er admired—could have produced
it. Not only did Shooter
find the plot develop-
ments ludicrous, he also
could tell that Conway
hadn’t read recent issues
of The Avengers because
the writer’s depictions
of Marvel’s characters
were cripplingly out-
dated. Shooter didn’t
find Conway’s depic-
tions of DC’s characters
much better: “There was
a scene where Super-
man travels back in time
and finds himself on
Galactus’ ship. On one
of the ship’s walls Super-
man sees, essentially,
Galactus’ ‘menu’—all
the planets he’s going to
‘eat.’ Number one on the
menu is Krypton (not yet
destroyed because we’ve
traveled back in time).
So what does our ‘noble’
Superman do? He moves
Krypton down on the
menu! So someone else’s
world will get eaten
first! Now I was the Mar-
vel editor. I wasn’t sup-
posed to get upset over
Superman’s character
being violated, but I had
to wonder why someone
over at DC wasn’t upset.”
Dick Giordano wasn’t
upset because up to
that point, he had not
What could have been: The Avengers and
read the proposed plot.
the Justice League square off in this George Pérez
cover for Comics Interview #6. Shooter’s rejection prompted him to
The Justice League of America TM and © DC Comics.
The Avengers TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
do so and ultimately, he agreed the
story had problems. Even though
ymous article published in Marvel Shooter hadn’t specified his objec-
Age #19 (later revealed to be written tions, Giordano felt he understood
by Shooter), Shooter’s explanatory how the story failed and assured
response to DC was curt and decisive, Shooter it would be fixed. With Pérez’s
“I’m afraid that the first try at The help, Wein altered the plot and then
Avengers/JLA plot isn’t acceptable, or called Shooter to explain how it had
even close. The problems are many, been changed. When their conversa-
but there’s no point in listing them tion ended, Wein had the impression
that the revisions satisfied Shooter,
91
even though Shooter insisted a hard
copy of the updated plot be sent over
to him so he could formally approve
it. With the production of JLA/Aveng-
ers behind schedule, and with the
presumption that Shooter had no
qualms about the revised plot, Gior-
dano directed Pérez to start drawing.
The artist didn’t need to be told twice.
Pérez tackled his dream assignment
with relish. Within two weeks, he
had penciled 21 pages (Kraft 8).
But shortly thereafter, in May 1983,
Shooter informed Giordano that the
revised plot he received was still un-
acceptable. In fact, he considered it
fundamentally unchanged. He re-
fused to approve it, recommending
instead the creation of a completely
new story. DC now had a dilemma on
its hands: if JLA/Avengers was to be
completely rewritten, not only would
the book be published much later
than scheduled, it would also mean
George Pérez pencilled pages for the aborted JLA/Avengers cross-over.
The Justice League of America TM and © DC Comics. The Avengers TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
the 21 pages Pérez had drawn would card only one page and redraw a few
have to be discarded. But if JLA/ panels on some of the others. Thom-
Avengers wasn’t completely rewrit- as submitted his revision on July 28,
ten, it seemed unlikely that Shooter and Giordano immediately sent it on
would ever grant permission for it to to Shooter, hoping the Marvel editor-
be published. in-chief could read it by the time the
Giordano realized he had erred in tell- early August San Diego Comic Con
ing Pérez to get started before he had rolled around.
gotten Shooter’s official blessing. As Shooter, though, didn’t read Thomas’s
he detailed later in his “Meanwhile…” revision before the convention. He
column, Giordano apologized to didn’t get the chance to read it dur-
Shooter and asked him to compose ing the convention either. By conven-
a list of all his objections with the tion’s end, Giordano pressed Shooter
plot. A month later—by which time to get to it as soon as possible since
Gerry Conway was already off the the book was already woefully de-
project—Shooter presented his list. layed. But weeks passed, and still no
Giordano forwarded it—along with decision from Shooter. The clock kept
Pérez’s 21 pages and all the drafts of ticking, and Pérez found the wait un-
the plot—to Roy Thomas and asked acceptable. He privately suspected
him to revamp the plot so that it rec- Shooter of deliberately stalling in
onciled Shooter’s reservations with order to force the book’s cancella-
Perez’s progress. After poring over tion, tarnishing DC’s image amongst
the material, Thomas brainstormed readers and retailers. On August 22,
a revision that required Pérez to dis- Pérez issued an ultimatum: if Shooter
92
didn’t make a decision about Thom-
as’s revised plot by five o’clock that
afternoon, Pérez would remove him-
self from the book (Kraft 11). When
Shooter didn’t respond, Pérez made
good on his threat and walked away
from it all, but not without regret: “I
lived for waking up to get started on
those pages. It’s the most heartbreak-
ing decision I’ve ever had to make. I
regret making it, but I don’t trust Jim
Shooter. I just don’t think he wants
the project done” (Kraft 11).
According to the same Marvel Age
article referenced earlier, Shooter
steadfastly refutes Pérez’s presump-
tion. The article claims that Shooter
informed Giordano in mid-August
that he needed to pass Thomas’s revi-
sion on to Mark Gruenwald and Roger
Stern—the respective Avengers editor
and writer—to make sure the new
plot corresponded with the Aveng-
ers’ current continuity. From the time
he received Thomas’s revision in late
July, it took Shooter two months to
get back to Giordano with his deci-
sion—a turnaround which, accord-
ing to Shooter, was still quicker than
the four months it took DC to approve
Shooter’s Superman/Spider-Man plot
in 1981. On September 28, Shooter
notified Giordano by letter that he
approved Thomas’s plot as long as
“minor problems” were corrected
(e.g., Ant Man couldn’t be included in
the story since he wasn’t an Avenger,
Quicksilver shouldn’t race The Flash
since the Marvel speedster wasn’t re-
motely as fast as his DC counterpart,
et al.). Aware that Pérez had quit the
project, Shooter also stated in his let-
ter that he had no objections to DC’s
proposed replacement for Pérez—
Don Heck—but offered to discuss al-
ternatives if Giordano wanted to go
with someone else (11). The problem
with Heck was that he was an artist
respected by his peers but not a fan
favorite by any stretch of the imagi-
nation. After Heck replaced Gene
Colan on Wonder Woman half way
through 1983, the title suffered a
23% sales drop. Heck’s replacement
of Pérez—arguably the most popular
comic book artist at that time— un-
doubtedly would have meant greatly
diminished sales for JLA/Avengers.
For DC, that just simply wouldn’t do.
Giordano didn’t bother to respond to
Shooter’s letter, but in late October,
DC’s vice president of operations Paul
Levitz met with Mar-
vel vice president Mike
Hobson to try to resolve
the inter-publisher dif-
ferences and get JLA/
Avengers back on track.
The meeting produced
some promising agree-
ments between the two
men on how to move
forward, but over the
course of the ensuing
weeks—and despite
prodding on Levitz’s
part—nothing was act-
ed on. By the end of the
year then, JLA/Aveng-
ers was a dead project.
So too was the planned
X-Men / New Teen
Titans sequel. The
book’s demise meant
the loss of considerable
anticipated revenue for
both publishers, and
the back-and-forth re-
criminations further
widened the rift be-
tween DC and Marvel.
None of this stopped
fans from anticipating Another Pérez-pencilled JLA/Avengers page.
JLA/Avengers or pro- JLA TM and © DC Comics. The Avengers TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
fessionals from talk-
ing about it for years Giffen also was involved in the curi-
to come, but the fact of the matter ous case of Green Lantern #171 (Dec.
was that DC and Marvel wouldn’t col- 1983). The issue was co-plotted by
laborate on another project for the re- Giffen and Robin Snyder, but art-
mainder of the 1980s. ist Alex Toth—as was his wont—
changed the story as he drew it to
Giffen Burn Out suit his whims. The final result be-
came a radical departure from what
DC Comics’ busiest artist in 1983 was
was scripted, so radical that Snyder
Keith Giffen. Besides continuing to
and Giffen requested their names be
draw and co-plot Legion of Super-
removed from the issue’s credits. Joey
Heroes on a monthly basis, Giffen
Cavalieri was then tasked with re-
involved himself with several other
writing the dialogue to align it with
projects. He plotted and provided art
Toth’s changes, but once Cavalieri
breakdowns for DC Comics Presents
learned about Snyder and Giffen’s
#59 (July 1983) in which Superman
stance, he requested not to be listed
and the Legion of Substitute Heroes
in the credits as well. Subsequently,
corral Ambush Bug, a villain Giffen
the credited writer of Green Lantern
created for a previous DC Comics Pres-
#171 is “Noel Naïve.”
ents issue. Ambush Bug was more of
a troublesome pest than a megalo- Besides Levitz and Snyder, Giffen
maniacal menace, so Giffen deliber- also collaborated with writer Roger
ately constructed DC Comics Presents Slifer on a new title DC sold exclu-
#59 like “an old Warner Bros. Road sively through the Direct Market:
Runner cartoon” (Kraft 7). Goofy hi- The Omega Men. Created by Marv
jinks and pratfalls abound, and the Wolfman and Joe Staton for a 1981
story ultimately became a precursor Green Lantern issue, The Omega Men
to the kind of humorous material are a vast group of super-powered
Giffen would be associated with later freedom fighters opposing The Cita-
in the decade. del, tyrants of the Vegan star system.
93

The core members of the Omega Men include (from left to right)
Harpis, Kalista, Primus, Broot and Demonia.
Omega Men TM and © DC Comics.
Wolfman thought that after making
guest appearances in various issues
of Green Lantern, Action Comics and
New Teen Titans over the previous
two years, The Omega Men deserved
their own title. With his burdensome
workload though, he couldn’t take
on another writing assignment. In-
stead, Wolfman chose to edit the new
book, recruiting Slifer and Giffen as
its creative team. As a Direct Market
exclusive title, The Omega Men was
unfettered from the Comics Code Au-
thority restrictions, a freedom Slifer
The Legion of Super-Heroes poster that Keith Giffen drew in 1983 for a Direct Market release featured 275 characters.
and Giffen took advantage
of. While it didn’t present
the kind of gore found in
some of the independent
publishers’ titles (e.g.
Pacific Comics’ Twisted
Tales), The Omega Men
displayed brutally violent
acts—rape, dismember-
ment, wholesale slaugh-
ter—that one wouldn’t
expect to find in a DC pub-
lished comic book of its
time. Omega Men #3 (June
1983) even introduces a
villain who revels in tor-
ture and murder, a chalk-
colored force of wanton
violence who would go
on to become one of the
comic book industry’s
most popular characters
in the 1990s, a mercenary
named Lobo.
All things considered,
Keith Giffen found himself
in a very good spot at the
beginning of 1983. He was working
on two monthly comic books—one of
which was DC’s second best-selling
title—and he hoped to contribute to
several other projects as well. Not bad
for an artist who had made himself
an industry pariah by the late 1970s.
As he began his Omega Men run,
Giffen declared, “I’m satisfied. I’m not
going to leave The Legion and I don’t
want to leave Omega Men” (Kraft 8).
However, what Giffen didn’t want to
The Legion of Super-Heroes TM and © DC Comics.
94
do ended up being what Giffen had
to do. By taking on so much work, he
had badly overextended himself. It
didn’t take long before Giffen found
himself behind schedule on both Le-
gion and Omega Men. Something
had to give, and that give became
The Omega Men. After issue #6 (Sept.
1983), newcomer Tod Smith assumed
the title’s penciling duties.
Unfortunately, quitting The Omega
Men didn’t solve Giffen’s problems.
That’s because he continued work-
ing on a project that would prove to
be his undoing: a Legion of Super-He-
roes poster measuring 40 inches wide
by 15 inches high that featured every
hero, villain, and supporting charac-
ter in Legion history. That equated
to 275 overlapped characters, form-
ing a stunningly crowded mosaic. It
was the first poster DC produced to
sell to the Direct Market. And after
Giffen finished that poster, he was
cooked: “That poster came along and
blew me out of the water. Every line
was like sweating blood… I did that
Legion poster and fried myself. After
I was done with that poster I thought,
‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’ and
sort of wandered off” (Cadigan 143).
The Comic Reader #211 (June 1983)
announced Giffen would write and
draw a Creeper mini-series but ulti-
mately, that never happened.
By the end of 1983 then, Giffen was
spent. Figuring out how to reinvigo-
rate his creative energies was going
to take him a while.
Higher Prices on Better Paper Men, Camelot 3000, and Vigi-
lante—cost $1.25 and were
Late in the year, DC’s comic books
printed on Baxter paper. Of
began displaying both a cover date
course, the pricing model
month and a cover date year. The
had some exceptions. For
same month (cover date December
instance, each 48-page issue
1983) the price of a regular DC Comics
of Green Lantern/Green Ar-
title sold at the newsstand increased
row—which reprinted Denny
from 60 cents to 75 cents, and all ti-
O’Neil/Neal Adams stories
tles were switched to Mando paper.
from the early 1970s—cost
By comparison, titles sold exclusively
two dollars.
to the Direct Market—like Omega
And then there were the
64 page DC graphic novels
which retailed for $5.95. The
first DC Comics graphic novel,
appearing in Direct Market
stores in August, was Star
Raiders, written by Eliot S.
Maggin with art by José Luis
García-López. Atari originally
commissioned Star Raiders as a
series of inserts for its cartridges,
much like it had commissioned DC Above: 1983 DC Comics house ad promoting
to produce the Atari Force inserts in The Omega Men. Left: 1983 DC Comics
subscription form for Vigilante.
1982. But 1983 was a year of stark Omega Men and Vigilante TM and © DC Comics.
contrast for the comic book and
home video game industries. While DC to produce Star Raiders, but Gar-
the comic book industry experienced cía-López had already finished draw-
remarkable growth and success, the ing 40 pages when word of Atari’s
home video game industry crashed decision came down. Rather than
and burned. Atari, in particular, suf- waste García-López’s work, DC di-
fered as it produced lackluster games rected Maggin to reduce Star Raid-
that didn’t sell anywhere near expec- ers from a 120-page mini-series into
tations. Getting squeezed out by the a 64-page graphic novel that was
thriving personal home computer subsequently used to launch DC’s
market, Atari was reportedly losing graphic novel line (Cronin #278).
$10,000 a day in 1983. Consequently,
Atari cancelled its Frank Miller’s Big DC Experiment
deal with One publication received more fan-
fare in 1983 than any other that DC
published. It was the project that
lured Frank Miller away from Marvel
Comics. Back in 1982, Jenette Kahn—
DC Comics’ publisher and president—
met with Miller to see if she could
bring him into DC’s fold. He present-
ed her with a story he conceived
while doing martial arts research
for his acclaimed run on Dare-
devil. Miller’s proposed
story emerged from his
study of samurai ideol-
ogy and reading of Japa-
nese comic books, par-
ticularly Kozure Okami
(“A Wolf and His Cub”).
Kahn eagerly agreed to
publish it, and the two
of them—along with
Dick Giordano—worked
out publishing details
(Salicrup 7-9). The six-

95
issue series would be trademarked by
DC Comics but copyrighted by Miller.
Its title was Ronin.
Literally translated, ronin means
“wave man,” but the term is more
commonly understood as “master-
less samurai.” And while Ronin does
indeed feature a masterless samurai
as its protagonist, Miller used the
ronin concept as a metaphor for late
20th century Western civilization. He
told Comics Interview that the theme
of Ronin was disenfranchisement;
modern men were attached to noth-
ing, they believed in nothing, and
DC Comics house ad promoting the project that brought Frank Miller into DC’s fold.
Ronin TM DC Comics and © Frank Miller.
they committed to nothing (Salicrup
9).
With the promotional tagline “If you
intend to die, you can do anything,”
Ronin takes place approximately fifty
years in the future. Surrounded by an
economically devastated, anarchic
Manhattan, the Aquarius Corpora-
tion develops and markets biocir-
cuit technology with the aid of both
a sentient computer and a limbless
telekinetic boy named Billy Chal-
las. Billy though experiences visions
of a nameless ronin in Feudal Japan
who seeks to avenge his fallen master
96
against the demon Agat. By the end
of the first issue (July 1983), both the
ronin and Agat have seemingly been
transported to 21st century Manhat-
tan with the ronin possessing—and
transforming—Billy’s body. But all is
not what it seems in the dystopian,
cyberpunk, manga-inspired adven-
ture that is Ronin. Miller himself
described Ronin as “science fiction/
sword-and-sorcery/urban nightmare/
samurai drama” (Salicrup 7).
But no Frank Miller story can be re-
duced to a plot synopsis and a genre
categorization. To do so would ignore
the manner of Miller’s storytelling.
And how Miller tells a story is just
as compelling as what story Miller
tells. Readers who picked up Ronin
expecting to see the same kind of art
style and narrative techniques that
Miller used on Daredevil were in for
a surprise. Ronin was a radical depar-
ture from the work he produced for
Marvel, principally because it was a
more ambitious, personal endeavor
for Miller. He confessed at the time,
“This whole project is a very big ex-
periment for me” (Sanderson 46), one
that entailed meticulous construc-
tion of every image, every page lay-
out and even every panel shape. It
was an experiment that completely
relied on dialogue to execute its nar-
rative. Miller deliberately avoided the
use of thought balloons and captions
in order to force his readers to pro-
cess the dialogue and artwork more
precisely. Rather than being spoon-
fed exposition and interpretations,
the readers had to produce their own
understanding of the story. Addition-
ally, with its 60 lb. paper stock (even
better than the Baxter paper used
for the Direct Market exclusive titles)
Ronin allowed Miller to add more tex-
ture to his artwork than he previous-
ly had. As a result, Ronin features a
cross-hatched, impressionistic, Japa-
nese and French influenced art style,
blended with a finely attuned palette
by colorist Lynn Varley. It all made for
an extraordinary, sophisticated pub-
lication, which DC clearly marketed
as such, since every 48-page, Direct
Market-exclusive issue had no ads
(not even house ads) and retailed for
$2.50.
Unquestionably, Ronin was DC’s
boldest publication of 1983. Jenette
Kahn herself would later argue it
was a watershed publication of her
tenure: “Ronin was really the begin-
ning of a new era for [DC Comics]. It
showed we were committed to com-
ics as an art form and also showed
our tremendous respect for creators,
that we supported creators and sup-
ported sophisticated storytelling,
too” (Greenberger 19). Along with
Camelot 3000, Ronin ushered in, what
Kahn described as, “an Elizabethan
Age for DC Comics” (Greenberger 21).
It would include Miller’s next project,
something that would become one of
DC’s most celebrated publications in
all its history.

Marvel Comics Marches On

Frank Miller ended his nearly four-
year long tenure on Daredevil with a
flourish. The thirty-eight-page issue
#190 (Jan. 1983) presents the resur-
rection of the assassin Elektra, and
then in issue #191 (Feb. 1983) Dare-
devil plays Russian Roulette with the
paralyzed Bullseye in a self-contained
story that Miller considered the finest
of his Daredevil run (Salicrup 13). But
now Miller was “across the street,”
leaving a void at Daredevil’s writing
helm. It was soon filled by Miller’s for-
mer editor, Denny O’Neil, and despite
Miller’s absence, Daredevil would
remain one of Marvel’s best-selling
titles. In fact, its average sales during
1983 of 259,000 copies per issue was
surpassed only by Uncanny X-Men,
which averaged almost 337,000 cop-
ies per issue.
Short of providing the X-Men with
a second monthly title—a move Jim
Shooter still vehemently opposed—
Marvel showcased its most popular
characters in other ways. The X-Men
were the featured stars of Marvel’s
fifth graphic novel, “God Loves, Man
Kills,” in which the super-heroes
team up with their longtime foe, Fantastic Four #250 (Jan. 1983) featured this John Byrne drawn pin-up.
Magneto, to oppose a preacher on a Fantastic Four TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

holy mission to wipe out the mutant

race. Special Edition X-Men #1 (Feb.
1983) reprinted 1975’s Giant Size X-
Men #1, an issue skyrocketing in val-
ue on the secondary market. And the
X-Men even appeared in Alan Kup-
perberg’s campy one-shot Obnoxio
the Clown (Apr. 1983).
As the scribe for both Uncanny X-
Men and its spin-off, The New Mu-
tants, Chris Claremont was one of
comic book fandom’s most popular
creators. Comics Scene went so far as
to label him a “superstar” (Schutz 20).
That didn’t impress artist Paul Smith
enough to continue penciling the in-
dustry’s best-selling book. His year-
long tenure on Uncanny X-Men—
which includes the introduction of
both the Morlocks and Jean Grey-red
herring Madelyne Pryor—ended with
issue #175 (Nov. 1983). Amazing He-
roes reported Smith left due to “dis-
agreements” (presumably creative)
with Claremont (Thompson 18). Re-
placing Smith was long-time Amaz-
ing Spider-Man artist John Romita, Jr.
who would remain on the title for the
next three years.
John Byrne knew how Paul Smith
felt. Three years earlier, Byrne also
left X-Men because of creative dif-
ferences with Claremont. But since
then—and despite working on mutu-
ally exclusive titles—Claremont and
Byrne found ways to get under each
other’s skin. For starters, Byrne got ir-
ritated when Claremont used Doctor
Doom for an Uncanny X-Men story

97
(issues #145-7, May-July 1981) just
before Byrne started his run as the
writer/artist of Fantastic Four. Byrne
suspected Claremont of attempting
to sabotage his own plans for the vil-
lain. Byrne struck back by confiscat-
ing Claremont’s precious X-Men for a
Fantastic Four story… or so it seemed.
Fantastic Four #250 (Jan. 1983) reveals
that the featured X-Men are actually
disguised Skrulls. Then Fantastic Four
#259 (Oct. 1983) makes clear
that the Doctor Doom who
appeared in Claremont’s 1981
X-Men story wasn’t the “real”
Doctor Doom but one of his
robots. It was tit for tat be-
tween Claremont and Byrne,
and both creators brought
their complaints about each
other to Shooter, which only
made Shooter feel more like
a referee than an editor-in-
chief (Thomas).
As if dealing with bickering
creators wasn’t bad enough,
Shooter also had to contend
with Lucasfilm representa-
tives who had a bone to pick
with Marvel regarding two of
its comic book adaptations.
Marvel accidentally distrib-
uted its adaptation of the
third Star Wars film, Return of
the Jedi, three weeks prior to
the scheduled movie theater
opening of May 25. This error
allowed the New York Post to
obtain a copy of Marvel’s ad-
aptation and print a detailed
plot summary of the movie
on May 5. As part of damage
control, Marvel told the Di-
rect Market distributors to or-
der its retailers to remove all
copies of the adaptation from
its shelves and withhold sell-
ing the comic book until May 26.
Several months earlier, Lucasfilm
proved reluctant to grant Marvel a
license to produce an ongoing
Indiana Jones comic book because of
Marvel’s 1981 comic book adaptation
of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Bottom line:
Lucasfilm didn’t like the adaptation.
To get Lucasfilm to acquiesce, Shooter
had to provide assurances that one of
Marvel’s most popular creators would
produce the new book. That creator
turned out to be John Byrne, who had
petitioned for the assignment. Byrne
wrote the script and provided the
layouts for The Further Adventures of
Indiana Jones #1 (Jan. 1983), but after
he layed out the second issue, Byrne
quit the series. He found Lucasfilm’s
licensing personnel impossible to
deal with, mostly because they didn’t
seem to understand the nature of
comic book production. At one point
Lucasfilm requested an issue’s plot—
one that Lucasfilm had previously
approved—be revised after the issue
Marvel Age #2 promotes John Byrne’s new series
for 1983, Alpha Flight.
Alpha Flight TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
was already fully drawn. That request
prompted Byrne to move on to his
next project (Cronin #246).
Byrne’s next project though didn’t
prove any less frustrating. In 1983,
Marvel launched a new ongoing title
featuring its established Canadian
super-hero team, Alpha Flight. After
first appearing in 1979 as X-Men an-
tagonists, Alpha Flight guest-starred
in various issues of Machine Man,
Marvel Two-In-One, Contest of Cham-
98
pions, Incredible Hulk, and once again
in Uncanny X-Men. Given the positive
reader reaction to the characters, the
time seemed ripe in 1983 to give Al-
pha Flight its own comic book. And
what better person to write and draw
the exploits of a Canadian super-hero
team than the person who not only
created the team but also grew up in
Canada? That was Marvel’s thinking
at least. And that’s how John Byrne
became the writer/artist of
Alpha Flight.
But for Byrne, Alpha Flight
was an uninspiring project
foisted upon him. Years later,
he summarized his creative
struggles on the title: “Alpha
Flight was never much fun.
The characters were creat-
ed merely to survive a fight
with the X-Men, and I never
thought about them having
their own title. When Marvel
finally cajoled me into doing
Alpha Flight, I realized how
incredibly two-dimensional
they were, and spent some
twenty-eight issues trying to
find ways to correct this fault.
Nothing really sang for me.
If I have any regrets, it would
probably be that I did the
book at all! It was not a good
time for me” (Thomas).
Despite his aversion to the
characters, Byrne produced
one of the decade’s most
fondly remembered Marvel
comic books. Consider the
sentiment of Scott Kolins, a
professional comic book cre-
ator who in 2007 drew the
Alpha Flight-inspired Omega
Flight mini-series. For Ameri-
can Comic Book Chronicles,
Kolins described his affec-
tion for Alpha Flight when he first en-
countered it as a young reader: “John
Byrne’s Alpha Flight really excited
me. Byrne’s artwork was still great,
and his stories had a great mixture of
boundless imagination and heroics
shrouded by hints of complex char-
acters and dark secrets. Alpha Flight
still holds a magic place in my heart
that I would love to visit someday.”
Alpha Flight was different than the
other super-hero team books of that
time, and not just because its stories
took place in Canada. In many ways,
Alpha Flight defied the
conventions of the super-
hero team genre. Most
noticeably, during Byrne’s
run on the book, the entire
team rarely assembles. In-
stead, most stories involve
only one or two members.
And then there’s the fact
that readers didn’t know
what to expect from one
issue to the next. New Al-
pha Flight member Mar-
rina is introduced in Alpha
Flight #1 (Aug. 1983) and
suddenly leaves the team
three issues later. By the
end of the title’s first year,
the most unlikely of Al-
pha Flight members dies
in unexpected, spectacular
fashion. It was an event
that dropped readers’ jaws
and, again, solidified Al-
pha Flight as one of Mar-
vel’s—and John Byrne’s—
most memorable titles.
All in all, John Byrne’s
1983 workload was very
demanding. Besides writ-
ing and drawing Fantastic
Four and Alpha Flight, By-
rne also scripted the new
Thing series (with Ron
Wilson penciling). To avoid
the kind of burnout that
Keith Giffen suffered, By-
the impending death of an Alpha Flight member.
rne streamlined his artistic process;
he stopped doing full pencils. After
Marvel Age and Alpha Flight are TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
breaking down a page, Byrne would
move on to inking it. He described it
as “penciling with ink” (O’Neill 10).
A Fanzine and Encyclopedia All Its Own
Thing replaced the cancelled Marvel
Two-In-One—which had also starred
The Thing—in Marvel’s lineup. Other
Marvel titles cancelled in 1983 in-
cluded Ghost Rider, Master of Kung
Fu, Spider-Woman, and Team Amer-
ica. Marvel’s video game magazine
Blip and highway trucker comic book
U.S. 1 had the unenviable distinc-
tion of being both launched and can-
celled during the year, yet both titles
demonstrate Marvel’s continued at-
tempts to branch out into non-super-
hero territory. In fact, in 1983 Marvel
sought to acquire characters from
the recently defunct Harvey Comics
(i.e., Richie Rich, Casper the Friendly
Ghost, among others) for the purpose
of creating a line of books
aimed at pre-adolescent
children. Ultimately, Har-
vey and Marvel couldn’t
reach an agreement, but
that didn’t deter Marvel
from continuing to de-
velop its youth-orient im-
print, one that would see
print in 1985.
Seeing print in 1983 were
three Marvel Comics re-
source books. Published
first was The Official
Handbook of the Marvel
Universe, a twelve-issue
series that its editor Mark
Gruenwald described in
the first issue’s editorial
as “[Marvel’s] first attempt
to catalog the wonderful
and multifarious inhabit-
ants and phenomena that
exist within the Marvel
Universe.” The impetus for
the Handbook originat-
ed with 1981’s Amazing
Spider-Man Annual #15
and its three-page section
that ranked the strengths
of Marvel’s super-heroes.
Unexpectedly, that rank-
ing generated significant
reader interest; Marvel re-
ceived twice the amount of
fan mail for that ranking
Above: Marvel Comics house ad announces than an issue of Uncanny
Below: John Byrne uses Fantastic Four #1 as the X-Men normally received (Sanderson
inspiration for his cover to Marvel Age #14. 13). Then one day in 1982, while pe-
rusing a Manhattan Barnes & Noble,
Shooter came across Jane’s Fighting
Ships, a book that provided detailed
“spec sheets” on various battleships.
Remembering the readers’ reac-
tion to the previous year’s Amazing
Spider-Man Annual feature, Shooter
believed Marvel could produce some-
thing similar to Jane’s Fighting Ships,
a “Super Specs” book for Marvel’s fic-
tional universe (Shooter). The Hand-
book then served as Marvel’s official
encyclopedia with entries on every
notable Marvel fictional character,
team, alien race, organization, and
landmark, ordered alphabetically.
With painstaking detail, the entries
document the characters’ physical
attributes and summarize their per-
sonal histories. What’s more, super-
powers are explained with all the
technical panache of an engineer-
ing manual. For instance, according
99

1983 subscription form to Marvel’s very own news comic: Marvel Age. Marvel Age TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
to Handbook #5 (May 1983), Iceman
triggers his cold-based powers when
he mentally over-rides his hypothala-
mus. He can also lower his body tem-
perature to -105.7 degree Fahrenheit
“within the span of a few tenths of a
second.” The Handbook would prove
popular enough for Marvel to issue
an updated volume in a couple of
years.
The next Marvel Comics resource
book published in 1983 gave its
readers the opportunity to become
professional Marvel creators. The
brainchild of Jim Shooter, The Of-
ficial Marvel Comics Try-Out Book
provided 11” x 17” artboard pages
from an unfinished Spider-Man story
as well as explanations on the roles
the writer, penciler, inker, colorist,
and letterer have in the comic book
production process. Readers were in-
vited to fulfill one of the production
roles, complete the Spider-Man story
and submit their work to Marvel. The
best sample from each production
category would win a paid Marvel
Comics’ assignment. The winners in-
cluded Mark Bagley (penciler), Doug
Hazlewood (inker), and Robin Riggs
(letterer). All three would go on to
have productive careers in the comic
book industry, particularly Bagley,
who became one of the most popu-
lar Spider-Man artists in the 1990s.
Ironic then that Bagley initially had
no interest in Marvel’s Try-Out Book:
I thought [the Try-Out Book]
was a gimmick… something
Jim Shooter came up with,
and I didn’t buy it. Luck-
ily, Cliff Biggers, the guy who
publishes Comic Shop News,
was a friend of mine. He
owned the comic book store
that I went to at the time. He
told me, “If you don’t do this,
you’ll hate yourself.” So, he
gave it to me. And I won first
place. (Allred)
The third resource book Marvel pub-
lished in 1983 was its own fan mag-
azine, Marvel Age. Priced at $0.25,
each issue of Marvel Age presented
previews of Marvel’s upcoming pub-
lications, interviews with its creators,
news of future projects, and editorials.
In other words, Marvel Age presented
the same kind of material found in
industry publications like The Comics
Journal, Amazing Heroes and Comics
Buyers’ Guide, except without the oc-
casional unfavorable commentary (or
in Comics Journal’s case, constant un-
favorable commentary). With Marvel
Age, Marvel essentially expanded its
Bullpen Bulletin column into a full is-
sue, and it took promotional matters
into its own hands, rather than solely
relying on the fan press.
With Marvel Age, Marvel also got
even with the fan press. One of the
first news items posted in Marvel Age
1983 Marvel Comics house ad for The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
100
#1 (April 1983) is an admission that
Marvel perpetuated a hoax the previ-
ous year. At a fan press conference in
September 1982, editor Tom DeFalco
announced that the cover date April
1983 issue of Amazing Spider-Man
(issue #239) would be printed back-
wards in order to promote a newly
released Spider-Man hand mirror.
The idea was that the issue needed
to be read by holding it up to the mir-
ror and seeing the reflection. DeFalco
perpetuated the hoax further during
the October 1982 fan press confer-
ence after outlets like The Buyer’s
Guide and The Comic Reader, among
others, reported the “Mirror Image
Spider-Man story” as a genuine up-
coming Marvel publication. Marvel
Age #1 insinuated that the fan press
had only themselves to blame for be-
lieving the bogus story as during the
press conferences DeFalco provided
several hints that he was pulling a
prank (for instance, at one point De-
Falco alluded to April Fool’s Day). The
Comic Reader though surmised that
the hoax was in retaliation for the
fan press’s coverage of Jim Shooter’s
supposed “Big Bang” destruction of
the Marvel Universe (Tiefenbacher 9).
While Amazing Spider-Man #239
wasn’t printed backwards, it did
feature the webslinger’s first battle
with new nemesis, The Hobgoblin.
Introduced in Amazing Spider-Man
#238 (March 1983) and created by the
title’s writer Roger Stern, The Hob-
goblin wore a costume reminiscent
of the Green Goblin. He even flew
around on his own “Goblin Glider.”
The design was deliberately evoca-
tive as Stern sought to fuse two dis-
parate desires: “[The readers] wanted
the Goblin back. I wanted to create a

new villain… so I decided to do a vil-
lain who is sort of a new Green Gob-
lin” (Ringgenberg 13). Stern even took
a page out of Stan Lee’s Green Goblin
playbook by not letting readers ini-
tially see whose face hid behind the
mask of his new villain. Readers only
knew that the Hobgoblin was an al-
ready established Spider-Man sup-
porting character, and Stern rolled
out further clues over the course of
the year. Everyone would be guessing
about Hobgoblin’s true identity for
years to come…, everyone including
Marvel’s editors.
Walt Simonson’s Thor Ballad
Several Marvel titles had their status
quo shaken-up in 1983. With Iron
Man #170 (May 1983), struggling al-
coholic Tony Stark relinquishes his
armor and his role as a super-hero
to his pilot, Jim Rhodes. Meanwhile,
in Defenders #125 (Nov. 1983) Hulk,
Dr. Strange, Namor, and Silver Surfer
relinquish their collective role as The
Defenders to a different group of
heroes, one which includes three
members of the original X-Men:
101
Left: Beta Ray Bill symbolically smashes the Thor logo.
Above: Comics Interview #9 focuses on
Walter Simonson’s work on Thor.
Beta Ray Bill and Thor are TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Beast, Iceman, and Angel.
But no Marvel title received more of
an overhaul than Thor. Sales on the
series had been on the decline since
1979, and Marvel even considered
cancelling it until editor Marc Gru-
enwald offered the title to Walter
Simonson with the creative freedom
to do as he pleased. Simonson previ-
ously drew Thor in 1978, and since
the God of Thunder was his favorite
super-hero, he accepted the assign-
ment (Harris 24). Not only did Simon-
son end up saving Thor from cancel-
lation, he would go on to produce one
of the most celebrated runs on the
title, second only to Stan Lee and Jack
Kirby’s legendary collaboration dur-
ing the 1960s. Just as Daredevil be-
came synonymous with Frank Miller,
and Fantastic Four became synony-
mous with John Byrne, Thor became
synonymous with Walter Simonson.
To understand the grandeur of Si-
monson’s Thor, one need only look
at the first caption from Simonson’s
first Thor issue (#337, Nov. 1983): “Far
beyond the fields we know, the core
of an ancient galaxy… explodes!” The
caption begins with an invocation to
Lord Dunsany’s fantasy writings and
then concludes with the description
of a cataclysmic cosmic event. In this
sense, Simonson redefined Thor by
integrating science fiction and soap

Stu Potts provides his take on Steve Englehart and Steve Gerber’s return to Marvel Comics in
this editorial cartoon printed in The Comics Journal #89.
opera elements to the book’s existing
super-heroic and mythological un-
derpinnings.
It begins with the introduction of
Beta Ray Bill, a bio-engineered war-
rior guarding the lives of an alien
civilization seeking a new home
after the destruction of their home
galaxy. Beta Ray Bill proves himself
worthy of holding the fabled Norse
war hammer, Mjolnir—a surpris-
ing development since that privilege
had previously been limited to Thor
alone—and after winning a round of
unarmed combat against Thor, Beta
Ray Bill earns from Odin his own
enchanted hammer, Stormbreaker,
which he subsequently uses in battle
against the fire demon Surtur. The
four-issue story would eventually
be known as “The Ballad of Beta Ray
Bill,” and it was like nothing Thor
fans had ever read before.
This makes the cover to Simonson’s
first Thor issue symbolic. It shows
Beta Ray Bill smashing Mjolnir
through the Thor logo—a logo that
served as the character’s banner since
his Journey Into Mystery appearances
in 1964. Thor #338 (Dec. 1983) dis-
plays a new title logo, so the destruc-
tion of the old logo both foreshadows
Beta Ray Bill’s victory over the God of
Thunder and signifies the beginning
of a new era for the comic book.
Prodigal Sons Return
A new era for Marvel Comics began
on November 9, 1983 when its par-
ent company, Cadence Industries,
became a private corporation. The
majority of shareholders of the for-
merly public Cadence voted in favor
of privatization, but perhaps the most
interesting comic book industry news
gleaned from the ensuing press con-
ference was that Marvel had reached
an out-of-court settlement with writ-
er Steve Gerber regarding the owner-
ship of Howard the Duck. The agree-
ment between the two parties had
Gerber—whose Destroyer Duck comic
book helped fund his lawsuit—re-
signing all rights to the character he
created in 1973 to Marvel (Spiewak
1). In return, Marvel would provide
Gerber with new writing opportuni-
ties, including the development of
the screenplay for a Howard the Duck
movie, already optioned by Universal
Studios for production by George Lu-
cas. Years later, Gerber explained his
reasons for not pursuing his litiga-
tion further:
We were prepared to go into
court, and at the last moment
we were able to reach a settle-
ment which I thought was fair
and equitable, and in many
ways less chancy than going
to court with something like
this. A decision against me,
102
which was possible, would’ve
done a great deal of harm
not only to me, but to other
people who might have to
sue another comics publisher
or the same publisher on the
same basis. I didn’t want to
take that risk. (Morrow 16A)
Five years after Marvel terminated
his contract, Gerber was back at the
House of Ideas. Also returning was
Steve Englehart who quit Marvel in
1976 when then editor-in-chief Ger-
ry Conway relieved Englehart from
his Avengers writing assignment.
Now Englehart brought Coyote—his
creator-owned series which Eclipse
Comics launched in 1981—to Marvel
to become the second title under the
Epic Comics’ banner. In the front in-
side cover of Coyote #1 (April 1983),
Englehart remarked about his return
to Marvel, “It will suffice to say that
the Marvel of ’76 is no more, that all
the rights which could never be had
then are had now through Epic, and
that bygones are bygones.”
Not everyone agreed with that senti-
ment. Some critics argued that given
their publicized ideological stances,
Gerber and Englehart effectively
obliterated their status as anti-es-
tablishment mavericks by reunit-
ing with Marvel. The Comics Journal
printed a particularly scathing car-
toon that branded the two writers as
Marvel lapdogs.
Jim Shooter had more on his mind
than the fan press commentary.
One of his foremost concerns was
how well Marvel’s titles sold, and by
year’s end, Marvel’s sales had dipped
slightly, down nearly 5.5% from its
1982 numbers (Tolworthy). The per-
formance didn’t presage a downward
trend, however, as Marvel would re-
bound in a big way, and late in 1983,
Marvel teased its readers about what
was coming their way in 1984. First
shown in Comics Buyer’s Guide #523
(Nov. 25, 1983) was a model sheet of
Spider-Man.
He’s wearing a black costume.
 CHRONICLES FLASHBACK: 1983

“I Can’t Read Your Thoughts...”

Dialogue and Absent Narrators
By 1983, writers like Frank Miller and
Howard Chaykin were producing a
sea change in how mainstream comic
books were narrated. They eschewed
traditional storytelling devices to cre-
ate more sophisticated comic book
stories. Information was no longer
being spoon-fed to the readers via
thought balloons and third-person
omniscient narrators. Frank Miller,
in particular, challenged his readers
to “participate” in a story’s compre-
hension. There’s no better example of
this than his Ronin mini-series. Ronin
is executed solely through dialogue.
There are no thought balloons, and
there are no captions, not even cap-
tions to mark time or location. This
places the onus on the reader to pro-
cess Miller’s sequence of visual im-
ages into an understandable story.
In 1983, Miller explained his artistic
intentions to Amazing Heroes’ Pe-
ter Sanderson: “I think Ronin is very
likely to throw readers. I don’t think
it’s going to make them particularly
comfortable or be particularly relax-
ing. But I don’t know if readers nec-
essarily want to be comfortable or
relaxed… There’s no real life equiva-
lent to a thought balloon. I can’t read
Sequence from 1983’s Ronin #2.
your thoughts. In stories I like to imi- Ronin TM DC Comics and copyright Frank Miller.
tate real life in this way. When I get
to know someone, generally it takes
a while. You learn who people are cent consumers replaced the teenag- creators, either because they became
through their actions mostly, and ers who “outgrew” their comic book inspired by groundbreaking comic
sometimes through their speech” habit—comic book readers of the books and wanted to produce similar
(50). Throughout Ronin then, charac- 1980s tended to stay with the medi- works or because they perceived an
ters’ facial expressions and actions um as they aged. And the comic book older comic book readership demand-
are presented without explanatory market provided them with publi- ed a more unobtrusive narrative.
commentary. This forces Ronin read- cations that suited their maturing Whatever the case, the comic book
ers to make interpretations. tastes. industry entered an era of bold narra-
Clearly, Miller and other like-minded Yet despite the impact of books like tive innovation, and some of the most
creators, like Chaykin, were targeting Ronin and American Flagg!, comic nuanced comic book stories in the
a more mature readership with their book narration wasn’t totally over- history of the medium would be pro-
stories. In doing so, they accurately hauled in the 1980s. Thought bal- duced by the end of the 1980s.
anticipated a demographic trend: the loons and third-person omniscient
average age of comic book readers in- narrators were put to good use for
creased as the 1980s progressed. Un- years to come. (One need only look at
like previous decades—when comic Chris Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men or
book readership was expected to turn Paul Levitz’s Legion of Super-Heroes
over every few years as new adoles- for proof.) But those devices would
fall out of favor among comic book

103
1984
The Teenage Turtle
Takeover
From Jim Shooter’s point of view, Marvel Comics’ state of af-
fairs had completely turned around from the time he be-
came the company’s editor-in-chief in 1978. In the early
1980s, not only had Marvel become a more profitable pub-
lisher, its operations and staff morale improved consider-
ably as well:
We were in comfy new offices. We had gotten more
or less on time, relieving, to some extent, the grind-
ing oppression of the schedule. The books were
selling like Popsicles in Death Valley. The business
was expanding so there was plenty of work to go
around. Rates had escalated dramatically. There
were creator-owned opportunities, incentive
plans, benefits and royalties. People were making
money—some, a lot of money. Funny how when
people are making good money, a lot of the stress
drains away. (Shooter, “More Strange Tales: War at
Marvel”)
Apparently, enough stress drained away that Shooter let
Marvel’s cover date January 1984 slate go goofy for an
event dubbed “Assistant Editors’ Month.”
The pretense of Marvel’s “Assistant Editors’ Month” was
that Shooter left the assistant editors in charge while he and
the editors traveled west—attending San Diego Comic Con
and then meetings in Los Angeles. With the bosses away,
the assistant editors—led by Mike Carlin—ran amok. Aunt
May became a herald of Galactus in Marvel Team-Up #137.
Comics humorist Fred Hembeck drew Spectacular Spider-
Man #86. In Avengers #239, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes ap-
peared on the Late Night With David Letterman television
show. The covers to Mike Carlin’s books displayed DC Com-
ics’ 1960s-era “Go-Go checks” (with an “MC” bullet logo).
Other covers paraphrased the U.S. Surgeon General’s warn-
ing about smoking: “Warning: Surgeons Have Generally
Determined That Assistant Editors’ Month Is Dangerous to
Your Health.” Across Marvel’s line, either in the stories or in
the letter pages, hilarity ensued, all because without Jim
Shooter keeping them in line, the assistant editors couldn’t
help but indulge themselves.
That was the pretense at least. The reality was something
else as Danny Fingeroth—Marvel’s Spider-Man line editor
at the time—explains, “it was the most carefully planned,
plotted, and strategized stunt that we had probably ever
done, up to that point” (Fingeroth 33). While the assistant
editors did indeed take over Marvel’s helm for a month,
they did so under the direct supervision of not only the
senior editors but also Jim Shooter who brainstormed the
stunt as an opportunity to give Marvel’s readers a change
of pace. Since the cover date January 1984 books were con-
ceived and approved—and in some cases completed—well

CHAPTER FIVE
by Keith Dallas
in advance of the editors’ West Coast trip, the assistant
editors had their bosses sitting right next to them as they
worked on the comic books.

104
Carlin recollects the whimsically irreverent stunt didn’t sell of the characters in their care. If David Michelinie were
particularly well, possibly becoming Marvel’s worst selling assigned to write Secret Wars, Shooter knew Chris Clare-
month ever, according to one legend he heard (Fingeroth mont would throw a fit over Michelinie handling “his” X-
33). Given the flourishing mid-1980s comic book market- Men. Likewise, if Shooter tapped Claremont, John Byrne
place and the high volume of titles Marvel was producing wouldn’t let Shooter hear the end of how he didn’t want
at that time, this most assuredly could not have been the Claremont touching “his” Fantastic
case. In fact, Assistant Editors’ Month was a sales failure Four. In Shooter’s own assessment, “al-
only if judged against the performance of the next Marvel lowing any one of the writers to handle
event that began four months later. pretty much everyone else’s characters
in Secret Wars… would have led to blood-
Secret War Profiteering
For years, Jim Shooter received fan mail begging Marvel
to publish a story that starred all of its prominent super-
heroes and super-villains. A request from a toy manu-
facturer created the opportunity for Marvel to do just
that. Despite already producing the popular Masters
of the Universe action figures, Mattel didn’t want
to make the same mistake it made eight years
earlier when it passed on George Lucas’ offer
to have Mattel produce Star Wars action
figures (Levisohn). The Star Wars licens-
ing rights fell in Kenner’s lap, allowing
Mattel’s competitor to sell millions of
toys based on the movie series, start-
ing in 1977. In 1984, Kenner was set
to unveil its DC Comics-themed
Super Powers action figure line.
On the chance that super-hero
action figures would become
the next toy sensation, Mat-
tel approached Marvel Com-
ics, seeking to license Marvel’s
characters for a similar toy
line. To cement the licensing
agreement, Mattel required
from Marvel a special comic
book that the action figure line
could tie into. Shooter suggested
Marvel produce the star-studded
story many of its readers have
been clamoring for, which he had
tentatively titled “Cosmic Champi-
ons” (Kraft 17). Mattel, though, recom-
mended a title that included the words
“wars” and “secret” after focus group
tests indicated that young boys react-
ed positively to those words (Shooter,
“Secrets of the Secret Wars”). So the
title of the event was changed to
Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. It
would become Marvel’s best-selling
comic book of the decade.
The twelve-issue limited series featured
far more super-heroes and super-villains
than Mattel’s action figure line which only
offered eight Marvel characters (Spider-Man,
Captain America, Iron Man, Wolverine, Dr. Doom,
Dr. Octopus, Magneto, and Kang). Shooter lured pen-
Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s
ciller Mike Zeck and inker John Beatty away from their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would
two-year run on Captain America to handle art duties. have a surprisingly transformative
impact on the comic book industry.
Assigning a writer to the series wasn’t going to be as easy. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The problem was that Marvel’s writers were possessive TM and © Viacom International Inc.

105
1984 TIMELINE
June 1: Star Trek III: The Search for
Spock opens in movie theaters.

June 4: Ghostbusters – starring

A compilation of the year’s notable comic book industry events alongside Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Harold
some of the year’s most significant popular cultural and historical events. Ramis and Ernie Hudson – opens
April 1: Soul singer Marvin in movie theaters.
January 1: The court-ordered reorganization of AT&T into seven Gaye is shot to death during an
March 7: Carl Burgos altercation with his father. June 4: Former vice president of
independent regional telephone companies takes place. – creator of The Human Marvel Comics Sol Brodsky dies
Torch that first appeared in after a brief illness at the age of
January 10: A Wendy’s restaurant television commercial Marvel Comics #1 – dies at 61. Brodsky became Marvel’s
asks, “Where’s the Beef?” The question would soon the age of 67. April 3: Motorola introduces production manager in 1964.
become part of the American lexicon. a brick-sized cell phone, Stan Lee described Brodsky as
costing $3,995. his “right hand man.”

May 23: Directed by Steven

January 31: Spider-Man’s new black costume Spielberg, produced by George
is introduced in Amazing Spider-Man #252. Lucas, and starring Harrison
Ford, Indiana Jones and the
February 8: The Winter Temple of Doom opens in
Olympics open in Sarajevo, movie theaters.
Yugoslavia.

JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL M AY JUNE

May 1: The first issue of Kevin Eastman and

Peter Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
goes on sale. The initial 3000-copy print run
immediately sells out.

June 18: Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA album

February 28: First Comics files a federal lands on the Billboard Top Ten; it will remain there for
lawsuit against Marvel Comics and World Color 84 weeks.
January 24: Apple Computers Press claiming the two separately engaged in
unveils its Macintosh personal anti-trust and anti-competitive activities since June 28: Artist Pete Costanza dies at the age of 71. He
computer. November 1982. illustrated dozens of Captain Marvel stories for Fawcett
during the 1940s and then drew for DC Comics in the
January 24: The first issue of the 1960s mostly on Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen.
12-issue limited series Marvel February 9: At the age of 69, Yuri Andropov
Super Heroes Secret Wars – dies, less than 15 months after succeeding
which would become Marvel’s Leonid Brezhnev as the Soviet Union’s Gen- June 29: Conan the Destroyer – with a story by
best-selling comic book of the eral Secretary. He is succeeded by Konstantin Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas and with Arnold
decade – goes on sale. U. Chernenko. Schwarzenegger reprising his role as Robert E.
Howard’s famous hero – opens in movie theaters.
Marvel Age, Secret Wars, Spider-Man, and Human Torch TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TM and © Viacom International Inc. Justice
League of America TM and © DC Comics. Void Indigo TM and © Steve Gerber estate and Val Mayerik. Transformers TM and © Hasbro.

SECRET WARS SCORE CARD shed in the hallowed halls” (Shooter,

“Secrets of the Secret Wars”). To avoid
Super-Heroes Super-Villains this, Shooter had to select a writer
Spider-Man Dr. Doom
who (1) was experienced at writing
stories with a large cast of characters,
Hulk Galactus
(2) was up to date on the goings-on
Captain America Dr. Octopus of all of Marvel’s titles, and (3) could
Iron Man The Lizard withstand being hated by the rest
Thor Ultron of Marvel’s writers. Given that crite-
Wasp Kang ria, Shooter felt only one person was
Hawkeye Absorbing Man qualified to write Secret Wars: Jim
Captain Marvel Enchantress Shooter. Assigning himself to the task
She-Hulk Molecule Man didn’t stop the other writers from ar-
guing with Shooter about how he was
Mister Fantastic The Wrecker
misusing “their” characters, but they
The Thing Thunderball all knew that Shooter always had the
Human Torch Piledriver last word as editor-in-chief, and that
Cyclops Bulldozer eliminated the prospect of any pro-
Wolverine tracted arguments.
Storm In advance of Secret Wars’ launch,
Colossus Marvel Age #12 (March 1984)
Nightcrawler unabashedly declared it “the most
Rogue cataclysmic development in the
Mike Zeck and John Beatty’s cover to the first issue Professor Xavier Marvel Universe since the origin of
of Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars.
TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. Magneto the Fantastic Four!” (Lerer 9). The fol-
lowing month, several Marvel titles

106
 July 18: Oliver Huberty, an unemployed security guard, enters a September 16: Miami Vice – a New Wave police procedural November 6: Ronald Reagan is
McDonald’s in San Ysidro, CA and opens fire with a rifle, shotgun drama produced by Michael Mann and starring Don Johnson and elected for a second term as President
and pistol, killing 20 and wounding 16 before he is killed by Philip Michael Thomas – premieres on the NBC television network. of the United States, defeating December 3: In Bhopal
police sharpshooters. Democratic nominee Walter Mondale India, gas leakage from a
September 20: The Cosby Show, a Union Carbide pesticide plant
sitcom starring Bill Cosby, debuts on the with a record 525 electoral votes.
July 19: “Justice League Detroit” – causes the deaths of more
NBC television network. than 2,000 people and injures
composed of Aquaman, Martian Manhunter,
Elongated Man, Zatanna, and new mem- September 24: Canadian customs more than 500,000 others,
bers Vixen, Steel, Vibe and Gypsy – debuts officials seize a copy of the Void Indigo some of whom will later die
in Justice League of America Annual #2. graphic novel – written by Steve Gerber November 11: The from their injuries.
and drawn by Val Mayerik – on the Transformers cartoon
suspicion it violated the country’s show debuts on
July 23: Vanessa Williams becomes pornography standards. syndicated television. December 19: British
the first Miss America to resign her Prime Minister Margaret
title. Nude photographs of her had been Thatcher guarantees
published in Penthouse magazine. the return of Hong Kong
to Chinese sovereignty
October 31: Indian in 1997, when Great
July 28: The 23rd Summer Olympics
Prime Minister Indira Britain’s 99-year lease
opens in Los Angeles. It is boycotted
Gandhi is assassinated on the territory expires.
by the Soviet Union and other Com-
by two Sikh security
munist countries like Cuba, Vietnam,
guards. In the ensuing
North Korea, and the Eastern Bloc as
riots, some 2,700
well as by Iran and Libya. The United
Sikhs are killed.
States would go on to win 83 gold
medals.

J U LY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER

July 30: Prince’s album Purple Rain becomes November 29: “Band Aid” – a
the best-selling album in the nation and will collection of British musicians
August 30: Pacific Comics ceases
continue to be for the next six months. brought together by Bob
its publishing operations.
Geldof that includes Phil
July 12: Democratic Presidential nominee Collins, Duran Duran, U2,
Walter Mondale selects New York Congress- Sting, George Michael, David
woman Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate. August 21: Comic book distributor Bowie, and Paul McCartney –
Ferraro becomes the first woman to be placed and convention organizer Phil Seuling – releases the single “Do They
on a presidential ticket. credited for creating the comic book Know It’s Christmas?” in order
industry’s Direct Market distribution to raise money for famine
July 12: Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” system in 1972 – dies at the age of 50. relief in Ethiopia.
video premieres on MTV.
November 21: Supergirl – starring
August 19: Comic book Helen Slater as Superman’s cousin –
artist Don Newton – best opens in movie theaters.
October 26: The Terminator –
known for his work on
directed by James Cameron and
DC’s Comics Batman and December 22: While riding on the
starring Arnold Schwarzenegger
Detective Comics – dies New York City subway, Bernhard Goetz
as a homicidal cyborg from the
of a heart attack at the shoots four black youths, who he
future – opens in movie theaters.
age of 49. claims were about to rob him.

(Amazing Spider-Man #251, Aveng- villains battle each other. Many, many
ers #242, Incredible Hulk #294, and times. Over and over again.
Uncanny X-Men #180, among others) While the first melee on Battleworld
show their protagonists investigat- gets under way at the end of Secret
ing an enormous alien construct that Wars #1, that very same month other
mysteriously appeared in Manhat- Marvel titles show its heroes return-
tan’s Central Park. The heroes all feel ing from the conclusion of the con-
compelled to enter, and when they flict. Readers would have to wait elev-
do, they vanish in a flash of light. Mar- en more months before they had the
vel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1 (May chance to buy the final Secret Wars
1984) reveals where they all went: issue, but revealed to them imme-
“the distant reaches of the universe, diately were the changes ultimately
far, far from planet Earth.” Floating wrought by the event. Instead of re-
in space are two alien constructs: one turning to Earth with his colleagues,
holds 20 super-heroes, the other holds the Thing chose to remain on Battle-
13 super-villains. After they all wit- world. She-Hulk took his place on the
ness the destruction of a galaxy and Fantastic Four roster. The X-Men had
the construction of a new planet— a determined new combat leader in
later dubbed “Battleworld”—a light Professor X as well as an emotion-
shines from the void of space, and a ally devastated Colossus who ended
voice declares, “I am from Beyond! his romantic relationship with Kitty
Slay your enemies and all you desire Pryde. The most significant Secret
shall be yours.” They’re all then trans- Wars development, however, was
ported down to Battleworld where Spider-Man’s new black costume. Secret Wars #8 explains how Spider-Man
the conflict begins. Over the course obtained his black costume.
of twelve issues, the heroes and the Spider-Man TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

107
The (Spider-)Man
in Black
In 1982, a comic
book fan named
Randy Schuel-
ler contacted
Jim Shooter
and pitched him
a story in which
Spider-Man donned a black
costume that would let the hero
blend into the night and better cling
to walls. Shooter paid Schueller $220
for the proposal and assigned then-
Spider-Man editor Tom DeFalco to
help Schueller shape the idea into
a publishable story (Cronin). After
months spent guiding and tutoring
the would-be professional writer,
DeFalco threw in the towel; Schuel-
ler just wasn’t up to the task of craft-
ing a professional-quality story. So
the black costume idea got discarded
sometime before DeFalco got promot-
ed to executive editor and handed the
Spider-Man editorial reins to Danny
Fingeroth in 1983. But as Mattel and
Marvel began coordinating their
Secret Wars plans, Shooter remem-
bered the black costume idea and
decided to incorporate it into the
event (Johnson 48). Shooter’s
decision mostly affected two
people: the Secret Wars editor
and the Amazing-Spider-Man
writer. In 1984, one person
held both those positions,
and as fate would have
it, it was the same person
Shooter assigned to deal
with the black costume con-
cept in the first place: Tom
DeFalco.
Shooter’s decision also obviously af-
fected the artists drawing the comic
books featuring Spider-Man. At the
start of 1984, Ron Frenz had the art
duties on Amazing Spider-Man. When
Frenz received the plot for Amazing
Spider-Man #252 (May 1984)—the
second issue of Frenz’s nearly three
year long tenure on the title—it in-
cluded design sketches by Mike Zeck
of Spider-Man’s new black costume.
Having been given no forewarning
about the costume change, Frenz at
first thought a new Spider-Man vil-
lain was being introduced. When he
was finally informed of the develop-
ment, Frenz had one reaction: “You’ve
got to be kidding me! I waited all my
Spider-Man’s black costume makes its debut
in Amazing Spider-Man #252.
Spider-Man TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
life, since the age of eight, to draw
Spider-Man, and now he’s got a new
suit!” (Johnson 48).
The initial fan reaction to Spider-
Man’s black costume was equally
vociferous. Before issue #252 even
arrived in stores, outraged readers
flooded Marvel with letters demand-
ing the character return to wearing
his traditional red and blue costume.
Even Marvel’s own licensing person-
nel were unhappy with the change.
They were concerned that the new
108
costume would confuse the Spider-
Man brand among licensees. Given
the clamor that came both internally
and externally, Shooter decided to re-
turn matters to the previous status
quo. He told DeFalco, “The costume is
introduced in [Amazing Spider-Man]
#252. Get rid of it in #253” (Johnson
49). DeFalco, however, felt that re-
versing course
would un-
dermine the
Secret Wars
event, which
at some point
would have to
introduce the
black costume,
months after it was ditched for good
in Amazing Spider-Man. After some
passionate arguing, DeFalco per-
suaded Shooter to let the black cos-
tume stay, at least until it made its
appearance in Secret Wars.
When Amazing Spider-Man
#252 reached the news-
stands and Direct Market
stores, the unexpected
happened: suddenly
the mainstream me-
dia wanted to report
on Spider-Man’s cos-
tume change. Major
national newspapers
and news outlets
contacted Marvel
for interviews
about the new
costume. Sub-
sequently, sales
of Amazing Spi-
der-Man—already one of Marvel’s
best-sellers—skyrocketed. Issue #252
sold nearly double the number of cop-
ies the preceding issue sold (Shooter,
“Something Groovy”). The issue also
instantly became a hot commodity
on the secondary market, selling for
$50 in some areas mere days after its
release (Johnson 50).
Six months later, Amazing Spider-
Man #258 revealed that the black
costume is actually a sentient alien
parasite seeking to graft itself perma-
nently onto its host. With the help of
Mr. Fantastic, Spider-Man separates
himself from the parasite, which is
then isolated in a sealed chamber. The
following month the cover to Amazing
Spider-Man #259 (Dec. 1984) featured
Spider-Man in his familiar red and
blue costume with the declaration,
“The original is back!” That same
month Secret Wars #8 shows how
the black costume was created via
an alien machine Spider-Man found
on Battleworld. This would hardly be
the last time readers would see the
black costume, or the alien parasite,
for that matter. Both would prove to
have much longer publication histo-
ries than anyone at Marvel originally
anticipated.
As well as Amazing Spider-Man sold,
Secret Wars sold substantially better,
averaging nearly 700,000 copies per
issue (Schmuckler 31). That meant
considerable royalty payments for Jim
Shooter, Mike Zeck and John Beatty.
When production of Secret Wars was
finished, Shooter sent Zeck and Beatty
each a bottle of Dom Perignon with a
card that read “The War is Over.” Zeck
drank the entire bottle of champagne
as soon as he got it. He couldn’t have
been happier Secret Wars was over
because while financially rewarding,
the project was a creatively frustrat-
ing experience for him. The frustra-
tions began right from the start when
Zeck learned that Shooter had a very
rigid vision of what Secret Wars’ aes-
thetic should be. Whenever Zeck devi-
ated from that vision, he found him-
self, at best, being told to redraw his
artwork, and at worst, seeing his art
substituted by the work of another
artist, like Butch Guice. That led not
only to a reduction of Zeck’s creative
input on the book but also an inten- Mike Zeck’s design sheet for Spider-Man’s black costume.
sification of deadline pressures. To Spider-Man TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

publish the issues on time, other art-
ists had to be called upon to help out.
Bob Layton penciled Secret Wars #4
and #5, while Jack Abel, Mike Esposito,
and newcomer Art Adams pitched in
to ink parts of other issues. All in all,
Zeck didn’t find Secret Wars to be a
“definitive example” of his art style
(Witterstaetter 27-29). He would have
to wait for another year and another
Marvel project to reclaim it.
New Styles, New Characters,
New Captain America?
On the other hand, a new monthly
assignment provoked Bill Sienkie-
wicz to redefine his art style. He re-
placed Sal Buscema as the artist on
The New Mutants with issue #18 (Aug.
1984). Already moving away from the
Neal Adams-influenced realism that
made him such a popular artist on
Moon Knight, Sienkiewicz became
influenced by conversations about
animation with Marvel assistant edi-
tor Peter Sanderson (Zimmerman 44).
With Chris Claremont supplying him
with stories that featured mystical
demon bears, techno-organic aliens
and bizarre mindscapes, Sienkiewicz
began developing an unorthodox art
style that fused the representational
and the abstract. He juxtaposed ink
blotches with intricately fine lines.
He exaggerated light sources and
shadows and perspectives. For a su-
per-hero comic book, the art style was
untraditional, so much so that it po-
larized the readership. Some found it
bizarre and unappealing while others
found it original and invigorating. By
Sienkiewicz’s estimation, The New
Mutants lost as many readers as it
gained during his run on the book.
The mixed reaction to his new style
didn’t bother the artist though. In
109
fact, it suited Sienkiewicz just fine
because he considered the creation
of something controversial and dis-
tinctive a more worthy endeavor
than the duplication of past successes
(Thomas).
While Bill Sienkiewicz was evolving
his artwork, Louise Simonson was ad-
justing to her new career in the comic
book industry. Since 1980, Simonson
had been serving as a Marvel Com-
ics editor, most notably on Uncanny
X-Men. Her editorial duties left her
with no free time to write, so at the
end of 1983 she resigned her posi-
tion. The first project she created as
a freelance writer was Power Pack.
Co-created and drawn by newcomer
June Brigman, Power Pack stars four
pre-adolescent siblings who are given
super-powers—and a sentient space-
ship—by a dying alien attempting to
save the Earth from destruction. Not

only did the new series garner criti-
cal acclaim—deemed one of the best
ten comic books of 1984 by Amazing
Heroes—its characters were featured,
along with Spider-Man, in a giveaway
comic book produced for the National
Committee for Prevention of Child
Abuse. With Power Pack, Louise Si-
monson began a long, productive and
distinguished comic book writing ca-
reer, exclusively with Marvel Comics
until the end of the decade and then
with other publishers beyond that.
J.M. DeMatteis was already several
years into his long, productive, and
distinguished comic book writing
career. In 1984, DeMatteis’ tenure on
Captain America—which began in
1981—came to an end with the shield
slinger’s final battle with the Red
Skull in issue #300 (Dec. 1984). Not
that DeMatteis originally wanted to
leave the title after that issue. On the
contrary, for the aftermath of issue
#300, DeMatteis proposed a year-long
story arc that would culminate in an
event that Doug Moench claimed Jim
Shooter wanted to do back in 1982: the
death of Captain America. DeMatteis
intended on having Captain America
110
Above: 1984 house ad featuring Bill Sienkiewicz
artwork. Left: Sienkiewicz’s tenure on New Mutants
began with issue #18.
The New Mutants TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
experience a profound epiphany af-
ter Red Skull’s demise. The character
would come to the revelation that his
violent means of upholding American
ideals were doing nothing other than
perpetuating more violence. Steve
Rogers would then use his standing as
a super-hero to advocate nonviolent
methods of changing the world. The
world, however, would turn a deaf ear
to Rogers’ new pacifist mantra, and
America itself would label its former
champion a traitor. Ultimately, Cap-
tain America’s partner, Nomad, would
be manipulated by Cap’s enemies into
assassinating Rogers. A new Captain
America would then wield the shield:
a Native American super-hero named
Black Crow who DeMatteis previously
introduced in Captain America #292
(April 1984). Captain America’s editor
Mark Gruenwald approved DeMat-
teis’s proposal, and the writer began
plotting the story arc.
Prior to the publication of Captain
America #300, however, Jim Shooter
got wind of DeMatteis’ plans and,
without any hesitation, nixed them.
Shooter deemed it all an arbitrary
manipulation of the character. That is
to say, given Captain America’s estab-
lished history, Shooter felt Steve Rog-
ers’ pacifistic change of heart wouldn’t
be true to his character. In an inter-
view for American Comic Book Chron-
icles, DeMatteis explained that he

With artist June Brigman, writer
Louise Simonson created Power Pack.
Power Pack TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
eventually came to understand—and
respect—Jim Shooter’s point of view;
as the custodian of the Marvel fiction-
al universe, Shooter was obligated to
protect the integrity of the characters
as he saw fit. DeMatteis’s proposal
was indeed radical, especially when
placed within the context of the re-
newed nationalistic pride America
was experiencing in the mid-1980s.
Also, a comic book whose protagonist
denounces super-hero tropes risked
undermining Marvel’s entire line of
super-hero titles. In 1984, though,
DeMatteis was extremely upset by
Shooter’s veto of his story, so much so
that he quit the title. In order to abort
DeMatteis’ plans, Shooter had Cap-
tain America #300 rewritten, a task
handled by Gruenwald. The revision
didn’t satisfy DeMatteis, and he asked
his name be removed from the issue’s
credits (DeMatteis). Gruenwald pre-
ferred not having DeMatteis’ name
removed from the issue altogether,
so the two men worked out a compro-
mise: the issue would list DeMatteis
as its plotter and the fictitious, Monty
Python-inspired “Michael Ellis” as its
scripter. Though he was upset, De-
Matteis didn’t quit writing for Marvel
Comics altogether. At the time that he
left Captain America, DeMatteis had
begun scripting a few Marvel mini-
series as well as an Epic Comics series
that would debut in 1985.
In 1984, though, Epic Comics was Marvel’s Near Miss at the Man of Steel?
responsible for the return of two au-
DC Comics had increased the price
thors whose relationships with Mar-
point of its newsstand-distributed
vel were strained (to put it mildly).
comic books to 75 cents starting with
Doug Moench—the writer who quit
cover date December 1983. Marvel,
Marvel in 1982 when he could no
on the other hand, maintained the
longer tolerate Jim Shooter’s editorial
60 cent price point throughout 1984,
decisions—co-created the suspense-
with the exception of its limited se-
ful sci-fi mini-series Six from Sirius
ries whose price point was raised to
with artist Paul Gulacy. The series had
75 cents beginning with cover date
been in works for several years, and
September 1984. In his “Bullpen Bul-
Moench had no qualms about it be-
letins” column, Jim Shooter explained
ing published under the Epic imprint,
to Marvel’s readers that the price in-
which was guided by editor Archie
crease for limited series was less due
Goodwin, far away from Jim Shooter’s
to the increased cost of the sturdier,
reach in Moench’s mind. On the other
whiter Mando Roto paper—which
hand, Steve Gerber—the man who
was only slightly more expensive
sued Marvel over the rights to How-
than newsprint—and more due to
ard the Duck and ultimately reached
the attempt to keep the rest of Mar-
an out-of-court settlement in late
vel’s newsstand line at 60 cents. Mar-
1983—produced the mythic Void In-
vel didn’t increase its price point until
digo with Val Mayerik. Debuting as an
cover date April 1985 when the retail
Epic Comics graphic novel and then
cost became 65 cents.
continuing as an Epic comics mini-
Maintaining a lower price point gave
series, Void Indigo starred an alien
who comes to Earth to avenge him- Marvel a competitive advantage
self against seven demons that killed over all other comic book publishers.
him in his previous life. Readers were Combined with the boost given to
immediately struck by the book’s ex- the comic books that featured char-
plicit scenes of slaughter, torture, and acters simultaneously appearing in
sex. In perhaps the understatement Secret Wars (i.e., Amazing Spider-Man,
of the year, Gerber told Marvel Age Avengers, Captain America, Fantastic
magazine that “Void Indigo is not for Four, Thor, and Uncanny X-Men), the
everybody” (Zimmerman 11). Canada price advantage meant many Mar-
wondered if Void Indigo was appro- vel titles had their average monthly
priate for anyone within its borders. sales improve over the previous year.
On September 14, 1984 Canadian cus-
toms officials seized a copy of the Void
Indigo graphic novel on the suspicion
it violated the country’s pornography
standards. While the Canadian gov-
ernment deliberated over whether
or not to deem Void Indigo an accept-
able publication, the United States
Direct Market most assuredly decided
it wasn’t. Many distributors, retail-
ers and commentators alike judged
the comic book as disgustingly grue-
some. One distributor expressed dis-
may that Marvel wouldn’t allow the
comic book to be returned for credit:
“Marvel feels [retailers and distribu-
tors] were sufficiently warned about
the book’s contents, but they didn’t
tell us it was going to be grotesque”
(Heintjes 13). The marketplace reject-
ed Void Indigo so much that orders for
the second mini-series issue dropped
below 40,000 copies. After discuss-
ing the matter with Gerber, Goodwin
cancelled the six-issue series after the Marvel Age #21 featured Steve Gerber
second issue (Heintjes 11). and Val Mayerik’s Void Indigo.
Void Indigo TM and © Steve Gerber estate and Val Mayerik.
111
The end result was
Marvel’s sales—in
terms of number of
copies sold during
the year—increased
by 17% from 1983
to 1984. With DC’s
sales decreasing by
10% in that same
period, Marvel sold
more than twice the
number of comic
books DC did in
1984, a feat Marvel
had never before
accomplished (Tol-
worthy).
The way Jim Shooter
saw it in early 1984,
the time couldn’t
be more ripe for a
bold move. In an in-
teroffice memo to
Marvel’s executive vice president of
business affairs, Joe Calamari, Shoot-
er wrote, “I think we should consid-
er making an offer for DC Comics”
(Shooter, “Superman—First Marvel Is-
sue!”). Shooter proposed that Marvel
license DC’s characters for comic book
publication in exactly the same way
that they licensed other properties,
like the Star Wars characters: an up-
front advance supplemented by roy-
alty payments with DC keeping the
licensing and merchandising rights.
According to the interoffice memo,
this wasn’t the first time Marvel at-
tempted to pry DC’s characters away
from them. Marvel tried a few years
earlier, but given DC Comics’ declin-
ing sales, Shooter felt this time DC’s
parent company, Warner Communi-
cations, would jump at the chance to
eliminate the significant overhead
costs incurred by DC Comics’ opera-
tions. Marvel’s President Jim Galton
wasn’t impressed. He didn’t see the
point of wasting effort and resources
on a group of characters that were—
as far as Galton could tell—unpopu-
lar. But once Shooter argued that DC’s
characters had great publishing po-
tential, and once Marvel’s circulation
department told Galton they antici-
pated a license with DC would gener-
ate more than $7 million of profit for
Marvel, Galton moved forward with
Shooter’s plan. He met with Warner
Communications chairman Bill Sar-
noff to negotiate a licensing agree-
ment.
Meanwhile, Jim Shooter claims John
Byrne somehow got wind of the pos-
sibility Marvel could soon be publish-
ing comic books starring DC’s super-
heroes. Without anyone directing
him to do so, Byrne provided Shooter
with a cover and plot synopsis for the
first Marvel Comics issue of Super-
man (Shooter, “Superman—First Mar-
vel Issue—Byrne’s Plot”). By doing so,
he made clear what assignment he
expected Shooter to give him if a deal
went through. Byrne, however, as-
serts that he drew no such cover and
that the first issue plot he wrote was
unrelated to any rumor that Marvel
was attempting to license DC Comics’
characters. Instead, Byrne’s plot syn-
opsis was merely “one of countless
little fantasy exercises in which I have
indulged over the years” (Byrne).
Regardless, Byrne would have to wait
a couple of years before getting the op-
portunity to write and draw the icon-
ic Man of Steel. Marvel and DC never
agreed to a licensing arrangement,
and whether or not DC seriously en-
tertained Marvel’s proposal is up for
debate. From Shooter’s point of view,
though, the only reason why a deal
didn’t happen is because of unrelated
litigation. On February 28, 1984, First
Comics filed a federal lawsuit against
Marvel Comics and World Color Press
claiming the two separately engaged
in anti-trust and anti-competitive
activities since November 1982. First
Comics principally contended two
transgressions: (1) that World Color
112
Press charged First
All characters TM and © DC Comics.
Comics a higher rate
for printing than
it did for Marvel or
DC Comics, and (2)
that Marvel flooded
the Direct Market
with product with
the intention of
driving new comic
book publishers out
of business (Freitag
8). In 1982, Mar-
vel published 414
comic book issues.
Marvel increased its
comic book produc-
tion to 456 issues in
1983 and increased
it again to 496 issues
in 1984 (Stevenson).
First Comics argued
this kind of ampli-
fied output had a predatory effect on
the comic book marketplace. Other
comic book publishers agreed. In an
editorial printed in Nexus #5 (cover
date January 1984), Capital Comics’
editor Richard Bruning lamented:
Marvel… has decided that if
they released enough mate-
rial every week, the average
comic buyer would spend all
their money on them first
and forego the “competition.”
It’s definitely had its effect.
Whether anyone likes to ad-
mit it or not, everyone’s sales
are down, including DC’s.
Some of the smaller pub-
lishers are gone and others
will be soon. Marvel’s ploy is
working.
By 1984, Marvel’s market share ap-
proached 70%. Acquiring a license
from DC would have only increased
Marvel’s market share further, which
would have been problematic for
Marvel since it would lend credence
to First Comics’ claim that Marvel
was seeking to monopolize the comic
book industry.
First’s lawsuit wouldn’t be resolved for
years to come. In the meantime, Mar-
vel became embroiled in other legal
matters. In 1984, Marvel told British
publisher Quality Communications to
cease using the name “Marvelman”
in its comic books on the grounds it
infringed on Marvel’s trademarked
name. This came despite the fact that
the Marvelman character predated
the Marvel Comics moniker. In the
early 1950s British publisher Len Mill-
er released a weekly comic book titled
Marvelman that reprinted Fawcett
Comics’ Captain Marvel stories. In or-
der to settle National Periodical Publi-
cation’s lawsuit that asserted Captain
Marvel was an illegal imitation of
Superman, Fawcett agreed to discon-
tinue publishing comics in 1953, ef-
fectively exhausting Miller’s supply of
material to reprint. So in 1954 Miller
directed writer/artist Mick Anglo to
create a surrogate Captain
Marvel to continue the Mar-
velman title. Anglo copied
the Captain Marvel mythos
and used the title of Miller’s
comic book as the name of
his new super-hero: Mar-
velman. Miller published
Marvelman comics until
1963, two years after Atlas
Comics changed its name
to Marvel Comics. Quality
Communications acquired
the copyright to Marvelman
in 1982 and began publish-
ing new Alan Moore-writ-
ten exploits in its Warrior
anthology. It wasn’t until
May 1984 when Quality
published Marvelman Spe-
cial #1—a 52-page maga-
zine reprinting Marvelman
stories from the 1950s and
’60s—that Marvel Comics
balked. Marvel Comics Lim-
ited—Marvel’s British divi-
sion—looked upon a comic
book titled “Marvelman”
as a deceptive attempt to
associate Quality Communications
with Marvel Comics. Quality’s man-
aging director Dez Skinn, however,
saw Marvel’s threat of litigation as an
attempt to bully a smaller publisher,
and Skinn vowed not to capitulate to
Marvel’s demands (Heintjes 13-14).
Declining sales forced Warrior’s can-
cellation by the end of the year, ef-
fectively ending both Quality’s plans
for Marvelman and Marvel’s dispute
with Quality. But the legal wrangling
over Marvelman would carry over
into 1985 to involve a comic book pub-
lisher on Marvel’s side of the Atlantic
Ocean.
A different matter that would carry
over into 1985—and beyond—was
Marvel’s decision to return its back-
stock of original art to its creators.
Marvel had instituted the policy of
returning original art to its pencilers
and inkers in 1976, but original art
produced prior to that year was kept
by Marvel in storage, much to the cha-
grin of those who argued that original
art belonged to the artists, not the
publishers. From all accounts, Mar-
vel would have had great difficulty
returning its backstock of original art
if only because its storage room was
a disorganized, cluttered mess. Sepa-
rating and cataloging the original
Marvelman appeared in the British anthology
Warrior from 1982 to 1984.
art from the 1960s and early 1970s
became an onerous, time consuming
task. Marvel’s lawyers were also con-
cerned that the return of original art
could weaken the publisher’s copy-
right ownership of characters cre-
ated in the 1960s. When the original
art from that era had been organized,
and when Marvel’s lawyers worked
out the legalities, Marvel announced
in late 1984 that it would send back
pre-1976 original art pages to the art-
ists who produced them. All Marvel
needed in return was the artists’ sig-
nature on a release form.
And therein lied the rub. Besides de-
fining the delivery of the original art
113
to the artist as a “gift” from Marvel,
the release form also officially clas-
sified the original art as “work made
for hire,” thereby cementing Marvel
as the exclusive copyright owner of
any and all material appearing in the
artwork. Upon signing the release
form then, the artists would effective-
ly—and irrevocably—relinquish any
claim of ownership to the characters
and concepts they created for Mar-
vel. When he learned of the release
form and its stipulations, artist Neal
Adams—an outspoken advocate of
creators’ rights—made this
assessment: “Anyone who
signs that form is crazy.”
His recommended course
of action to his fellow art-
ists was unequivocal: “Do
not sign that piece of pa-
per—do not sign it! At least
take it to a lawyer, so he
can tell you what a mistake
you’re making” (Heintjes 9).
Marvel, though, made clear
that original art wouldn’t
be released to any artist
who didn’t sign the release
form. As a result, and in
spite of Adams’ exhorta-
tions, many of Marvel’s
most prolific artists during
the 1960s—including Dick
Ayers, John Buscema, Steve
Ditko, John Romita Sr., Don
Heck, Vinnie Colletta and
Joe Sinnott—chose to sign
the release form. Heck was
troubled by the release
form’s language and con-
sidered modifying it but
ultimately decided “it’s not
worth the trouble” (Heintjes 9).
For one artist, fighting the stipula-
tions of the release form was worth
the trouble. After all, unlike the other
artists who drew for Marvel during
the 1960s, Jack Kirby co-created most
of the properties that remained pop-
ular—and lucrative—in the 1980s.
Therefore, Jack Kirby had the most to
lose if he agreed to define his work for
Marvel as made for hire. The time was
approaching when Kirby could at-
tempt to sue for at least partial own-
ership of the characters and concepts
he co-created. The Fantastic Four,
for instance, was due for copyright
renewal in 1989, and Kirby could
challenge that renewal—and sub-
sequent other renewals—in court.
Recognizing the unique legal
matters between them, Marvel
didn’t send Jack Kirby the same
one page release form the other
artists received. Instead, Marvel
sent Kirby a four-page form.
Whereas the one-page
form declared Marvel
was delivering “as a
gift to the Artist the origi-
nal physical Artwork,”
the four-page form fur-
ther specified that Kirby
was receiving—again, as
a gift—the “physical cus-
tody” of the original art-
work. Similar to the one-
page form, the four-page
form defined the art itself
as work made for hire, but
it also further stated that
Kirby “shall never contest
or dispute, or assist others
in contesting or disputing,
Marvel’s complete, ex-
clusive, and unrestricted
ownership of the copy-
right in the Artwork.” Fur-
thermore, Kirby’s original
art couldn’t be publicly
displayed or sold, and if
it was given to another
person, that person was
obligated to sign and de-
liver to Marvel the four-
page release form as well.
Finally, Marvel could, “with reason-
able advance notice,” regain access to
the original art for copying purposes
(Dean).
When Kirby scrutinized the release
form drafted specially for him, he be-
came enraged by its terms (Ro 223).
He refused to sign it and his subse-
quent attempts to negotiate a com-
promise proved futile. As Marvel
stood firm to its demands, it became
clear this was a dispute that wouldn’t
be settled in 1984. In fact, Kirby’s fight
to get Marvel to return his artwork to
him wouldn’t be resolved for years to
come. For Marvel, the matter would
become a public relations debacle.
Direct Market Volatility
While Marvel had the beginning of
a protracted fight on its hands, other
comic book publishers came to the
end of their fight to remain in busi-
ness. Whitman Comics—the Western
Publishing imprint that had been re-
branded from Gold Key Comics, one
and second, several distribu-
tors were tardy in paying
Capital’s invoices (Freitag 8).
Consequently, suitors were
courted to publish Capital’s
three titles: Steven Grant’s
Whisper and two Mike
Baron scripted books,
Nexus and Badger. Ne-
gotiations with other
publishers involved
both the series’ creators
and Capital, which co-
owned the three titles.
Marvel and Pacific Com-
ics expressed interest
in publishing the criti-
cally acclaimed Nexus,
but Capital sought an
arrangement where
all three titles would
be transferred to the
same publisher. While
DC Comics and Eclipse
were willing to do so,
the three titles were
eventually all adopted
by First Comics. Nexus
and Badger were added
to a 1984 First Comics
slate that also débuted
Jerry Bingham’s Beowulf
graphic novel and two
other new ongoing se-
ries: John Ostrander and
Tim Truman’s Grimjack
1984 Marvel Comics house ad drawn by Michael Golden. and Marc Hempel and Mark Wheat-
All characters TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
ley’s Mars. At the 1984 Chicago Comic
Con, First Comics also announced an
of the 1960s most prominent comic agreement with DC Comics to pro-
book producers—had attempted to duce annual cross-over specials that
capitalize on the burgeoning comic
would team-up DC and First charac-
book market by soliciting its Walt Dis- ters, much like the defunct DC/Mar-
ney licensed titles to the Direct Mar-
vel collaborations. The inaugural DC/
ket distributors in the early 1980s. First special was slated for summer
However, when Mattel sold its West-
1985 (“First Comics News” 26). How-
ern Publishing subsidiary to investor ever, no such crossover ever appeared.
Richard Bernstein in December 1983,
his auditors frowned upon Whit- Capital, meanwhile, continued operat-
man’s unprofitable bottom line. The ing as a Direct Market distributor and
decision was then made to shut down later in 1984, it even acquired a new
the comic book imprint, and by April warehouse courtesy of the collapse
1984, Whitman had printed its last of a competitor: Pacific Comics. As
comic books. the year began, Pacific had increased
its comic book line up to over a dozen
A month earlier, Capital Comics an- titles, including new ones from artists
nounced the suspension of its pub- Arthur Suydam (Demon Dreams) and
lishing operations. According to its
Pat Broderick (Sun Runners). From all
editor and art director, Rich Bruning, indications, Pacific remained a pillar
Capital had been publishing at a loss
of the independent comic book mar-
since the autumn of 1983, mostly be- ket. By the summer, however, the pil-
cause of two factors. First, the glut of
lar was crumbling, and quite rapidly
titles released to the Direct Market at that. Despite some notable flops
reduced orders for Capital’s comics,
114
like Three Dimensional Alien Worlds
and Neal Adams’ Skateman, Pacific’s
woes didn’t result from its publishing
endeavors. Instead, how Pacific con-
ducted business as a Direct Market
distributor got itself into the kind of
financial trouble it couldn’t get itself
out of. For one, retail accounts began
abandoning Pacific for other distribu-
tors. Many retailers opened a new ac-
count with another distributor just to
avoid paying what they owed Pacific
for months of sales orders. What’s
more, many of these competing dis-
tributors were getting their books via
Pacific and they too disregarded Pa-
cific’s invoices (Sanford). Events were
conspiring against Pacific, and by the
time the attempt was made to rectify
the problem, it was too late. The San
Diego-based company had accumu-
lated nearly $750,000 worth of debt
and was catastrophically short on
cash. Co-publisher Steve Schanes ex-
plains:
The reason Pacific Com-
ics failed can be summed
up very simply. We had two
lines of activity: publishing
and distribution. Most of our
comic books still made mon-
ey hand over fist, but there
was a big problem in distribu-
tion. We extended too much
credit to retailers who didn’t
pay us on a timely basis, and
we were already working on
a minuscule profit margin,
maybe 5 percent to 8 percent.
We didn’t push hard enough
to get the money from receiv-
ables, who owed us hundreds
of thousands of dollars. If you
had to boil down the single
biggest reason we blew it,
that would be our poor cash
management on the distribu-
tion side. (Sanford)
On August 30, 1984, Pacific shut down
its publishing efforts. A month lat-
er, on September 22, Steve Schanes
turned his corporation over to the San
Diego Wholesale Credit Association
for liquidation. Rather than declare
bankruptcy, Schanes chose to liqui-
date Pacific in order to avoid court,
lawyer and accounting costs (Heintjes
10). Liquidation, though, obliterated
any chance that Pacific Comics could
resurrect itself through reorganiza-
tion or restructuring. A mere three
years after its birth then, Pacific Com-
ics, once the exemplar of Direct Mar-
ket-exclusive publishing, was now
dead.
To be expected, Pacific’s loss was
other comic book distributors’ gain.
After acquiring both Pacific’s Los An-
geles warehouse as well as over 150
of its former accounts, Direct Market
distributor Bud Plant essentially con-
trolled the Southern California comic
book market. Similarly, Capital ob-
tained over 200 accounts as well as
the warehouse Pacific had in Steel-
eville, Illinois.
Of course, creators who owned the
titles being published by Pacific now
had to find new homes for their work.
Neal Adams, who had an agreement
with Pacific to distribute his upcom-
ing Continuity Publishing titles, sim-
ply chose to carry on as his own pub-
lisher. Continuity Comics released
the science-fiction themed Zero Patrol
#1 late in the year. Bruce Jones’ situ-
ation, on the other hand, wasn’t as
simple. As the writer/editor/copy-
right owner of the Pacific antholo-
gies Alien Worlds, Twisted Tales and
Pathways to Fantasy, Jones was in a
predicament; each anthology utilized
several artists, and Jones now had
completed stories from these artists
but no means to publish what they
produced. Jones described the painful
solution to his dilemma:
Early 1984 house ad promoting
First Comics’ slate of titles.
115
When [Pacific Comics] went
belly-up and stopped with
the paychecks, including
mine, I was left holding the
bag with the other creators to
the tune of several thousand
dollars. I wanted everyone I’d
used on my books to get paid
for what they did, even if it
wasn’t going to be published,
so I did that by emptying my
own bank account... There’s a
price to pay for creative free-
dom, sometimes quite a high
one. (Sanford)
Fortunately for Jones, Twisted Tales
and Alien Worlds as well as the crime
noir Somerset Holmes were picked
up by Eclipse Comics, which allowed
Jones to continue all three series.
Eclipse Comics became the eager re-
cipient of several other former Pacific
comic books as well, including Sergio
Aragonés’ Groo and Dave Stevens’
Rocketeer along with titles that Pacific
intended to introduce in 1984, like
Siegel and Shuster: Dateline 1930s.
Also transferred to Eclipse were Pa-
cific’s plans to reprint stories origi-
nally published in the British Warrior
magazine, specifically the aforemen-
tioned “Marvelman” as well as “Axel
Pressbutton,” the story of a homicidal
cyborg assassin with a hatred of plant
life as written by Steve Moore (under
the pseudonym “Pedro Henry”) and
the unrelated Alan Moore with art-
work by Steve Dillon and Brian Bol-
land.
In 1984, Eclipse inherited Pacific’s role
as the industry’s foremost indepen-
dent publisher, not only by continu-
ing many of Pacific’s books but also
by adding many other new titles like
Doug Moench’s time travel adventure
Aztec Ace and the DNAgents spin-off
books Crossfire and Surge. And then
there was the new series that would
become one of the most beloved com-
ic books of the entire decade: Zot!, cre-
ated by then 24-year-old writer/artist
Scott McCloud.
The cover to Comics Interview #18
(Dec. 1984) bills Scott McCloud as a
“rising star” of the comic book indus-
try, but unlike almost all of his con-
temporaries, McCloud wasn’t a life-
long comic book reader. In fact, it was
Kurt Busiek who first turned Scott
McCloud onto the medium by loan-
ing him a complete run of the original
Right: opening page
to the first issue of
Scott McCloud’s Zot!
Zot! TM and © Scott McCloud.
X-Men in the summer of 1974 (Salicrup
21). Two years later, McCloud had a
set career goal: he wanted to become
a professional comic book artist. He
and Busiek—now fellow students at
Lexington High School in Massachu-
setts—even produced a 60-page comic
book titled “The Battle of Lexington,”
which featured various Marvel Com-
ics characters battling each other.
Upon graduating Syracuse University,
McCloud was hired by Bob Rozakis
to work in DC’s production depart-
ment. By that point, McCloud’s comic
book interests had shifted to Japanese
manga, particularly the work of As-
tro Boy creator Osama Tezuku, which
would have a tremendous influence
not only on McCloud’s own artistic
style but also in his understanding of
comic book storytelling.
After eighteen months, McCloud felt
he learned all he could at DC. It was
time to fulfill his boyhood dream. So
McCloud created Zot! He pitched it
to six publishers: First, Eclipse, WaRP,
Pacific, Marvel’s Epic imprint, and
DC. While Epic passed, the others all
reacted positively to Zot!, and WaRP
and Eclipse both offered to publish it.
McCloud went with the company he
felt provided him with the best cre-
ator ownership terms and was best
equipped to publish a color comic
book. For McCloud, that was Eclipse
(Salicrup 32-3).
The first issue was published in
116
March 1984. It shows dejected teen-
ager Jenny Weaver being transport-
ed—along with her bully of an older
brother, Butch—to the world of the
rocket-boot-flying, ray gun-wielding
adventurer named Zot. It’s an alter-
nate Earth that McCloud character-
izes in the first issue’s introductory
page as “an earth of futures”: “these
are the bright and sunny tomorrows
that didn’t quite pan out in the long
run; worlds foretold in books and
dramatic works of years gone by that
seem so far-fetched and innocent
next to what we actually got.” This
retro-futuristic setting—combined
with McCloud’s manga-influenced art
style—made Zot! both a unique comic
book and irrepressibly charming to
many readers.
Zot! would win the Jack Kirby award
for Best New Series before garner-
ing numerous Eisner award nomi-
nations in later years. But McCloud
wasn’t just interested in producing
award winning comic books. He was
also an earnest advocate of the comic
book medium, illuminating its poten-
tial sophistication to the unenlight-
ened. For instance, in a June 1984
New Yorker piece written by William
McKibben (another Lexington High
School alumnus), McCloud asserted,
“The basic misconception most peo-
ple share is that comics are a genre.
They’re not—they’re a medium.
When people say ‘comic books,’ they
mean either Donald Duck or superhe-
roes. But comic books can encompass
anything; it’s a form of literature—se-
quential literature” (32-3). McCloud
wasn’t alone in his thinking. In 1985,
Will Eisner would author a book titled
Comics and Sequential Art in which
he breaks down comic book storytell-
ing and explains how the juxta-
position of static images form
a visual narrative. McCloud
would soon expand on Eis-
ner’s groundbreaking work
and prove himself the fore-
most scholar of “sequential
literature.”
with churning out Marvel and DC
books. Other printers didn’t offer
newsprint for the kind of low print
runs Comico requested. Instead, these
printers used sturdier, more expen-
sive paper stock. So Comico took the
plunge, cancelling its black-and-white
titles in order to launch a full-color,
Baxter paper line with higher print
runs (Giovinco “The Comic Company:
True Colors—Part 1”). That meant the
end to Comico’s Primer anthology as
well as such short-lived comic books
as Az, Skrog, Slaughterman, and even
Matt Wagner’s Grendel. They were
replaced with four new titles, each
of which took full advantage of new
color separation techniques. First
came Evangeline, a book featuring a
vigilante nun created by newcomer
writer Chuck Dixon and his then-wife
artist Judith Hunt.
That same month Comico
released the first issue
of Matt Wagner’s
Mage: The Hero Discovered, starring
Kevin Matchstick as an everyman
who discovers he possesses superhu-
man abilities. Wagner described the
book’s protagonist (who wears a black
Captain Marvel T-shirt and physically
resembles Wagner) as “the essence
of the Eternal Hero”: “I’m working
on the idea that throughout history,
there’s always been one hero—the
same essence popping up in differ-
ent people throughout eter-
nity, and it’s that heart that
pushes the Hero on and on”
(Chadwick 41). With its Arthu-
rian overtones and its refined
hand painted artwork, Mage ex-
emplified how far Wagner had
progressed as a comic book cre-
ator in a little over a year since
his professional debut.
Mage, though, didn’t
sell as well as Com-
ico had hoped.

Comico Starts Over

One title Eclipse would
no longer be publishing
was Max Allan Collins
and Terry Beatty’s female
detective series Ms. Tree,
which moved in mid-1984
to Aardvark-Vanaheim, the
home of Dave Sim’s Cerebus,
Arn Saba’s Neil the Horse, and Wil-
liam Messner-Loeb’s Journey. Early
in the year, Aardvark-Vanaheim also
added to its slate Jim Valentino’s spoof
series normalman and Bob Burden’s
surreal super-hero parody Flaming
Carrot Comics. (Evidently, super-hero
parodies were all the rage in 1984 as
Kitchen Sink Press began publishing
Don Simpson’s Megaton Man that
year as well.)
Meanwhile, Comico decided it was
time for an upgrade. Like every other
independent comic book publisher,
Comico had difficulty getting onto
World Color Press’s schedule because
the printer seemed forever occupied
Front cover to Bill Willingham’s Elementals #1. The Elementals TM and © Andrew Rev.

117

1984 house ad promoting Comico’s three titles.
Since large print runs of each issue
had to be secured in order to mini-
mize unit costs, Comico was left with
significant Mage overstock. Rather
than write off these unsold copies as
a loss, Comico devised a way to reuse
them. The Mage overstock was stored
in a warehouse until the fourth issue
was published. Comico then bound
undistributed copies together within
a new cover to form the first Comico
trade paperback. Essentially, Mage-
book was a collected edition of Mage
#1-4 without Comico having to pay
for a new print run (Giovinco, “The
Comic Company: Origins of a Graphic
Novel”).
Comico’s other new color offerings
for 1984 were Robotech: The Macross
Saga (an adaptation of a popular Jap-
anese animation series and the first
of many licensed properties Comico
would publish over the next few
years) and Bill Willingham’s Elemen-
tals. When Texas Comics folded in
1983 after publishing all of one issue
(Justice Machine Annual #1), Willing-
ham got new work penciling back-up
stories for First Comics’ Warp and DC
Comics’ Batman and the Outsiders.
While doing this, he continued to look
for a new home for his super-hero
group, and Comico soon offered to be
its publisher (Deppey 75). Elementals
#1 (Aug. 1984) continues the story
begun in Justice Machine Annual: the
Seattle-based Elementals—composed
of four super-heroes whose powers
correspond to the four elements of
nature: fire, air, earth and water—are
attacked by The Destroyers, a super-
villain group that serves a mysteri-
ous patron. That patron turns out to
be Saker, a millennia old wizard who
has divined a way to tap into the dark
energies of a demonic dimension.
Saker’s rise to power threatens the
natural order of the universe, so in re-
action, the Lords of the Natural Order
create the Elementals to act as their
agents against him.
Elementals was a super-hero comic
book unlike any offered by DC or
Marvel at the time. As historian Bri-
an K. Morris explains, “Writer/artist
Willingham’s stories didn’t shy from
shining the spotlight on televange-
listic hypocrisy, transgenderism, the
rewards and penalties of celebrity,
contemplated suicide, and other is-
sues that would still resonate with
today’s reader” (81). Since Fathom,
Monolith, Morningstar, and Vortex
all died before being resurrected as
the Elementals, death was a preva-
lent theme of the title. And to em-
phasize that theme, Elementals didn’t
hold back when it came to depicting
violence. Many scenes are downright
gory. Undoubtedly, it was one of the
most violent super-hero comic books
of its time, so violent that the Nation-
al Committee for Prevention of Child
Abuse declined Comico’s invitation to
be associated with Elementals Special
#1, a one-shot whose explicit purpose
was to raise awareness of child abuse.
In 1984, Bill Willingham was a genu-
ine talent on the rise, and Elementals
was one of the industry’s biggest sur-
prise hits of the year. Its first issue
sold out its print run, and before long,
some retailers were selling it for as
much as $9.
That sum pales in comparison to
what another 1984 comic book debut
would eventually sell for on the sec-
ondary market.
Teenage Turtle Takeover
As 1984 began, comic book artists
Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird had
received enough rejection letters from
independent comic book companies
that they had decided to take matters
into their own hands. They formed
Mirage Studios to self-publish their
118
next creation: a Cerebus-like anthro-
pomorphic parody of Frank Miller’s
Daredevil and Ronin, starring four
young radioactively mutated, ninja-
trained turtles. Named after famous
Renaissance painters, Leonardo,
Donatello, Michaelangelo, and
Raphael are the Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles.
To pay printing costs for the inaugural
40-page, black-and-white issue, the
New Hampshire housemates not only
had to empty their bank accounts and
use all of Eastman’s income tax re-
fund, they also had to borrow money
from one of Eastman’s uncles. They
agreed to order a 3000-copy print run
for a May 1 release date, but only af-
ter much argument as the monetary
outlay greatly concerned Eastman:
“Peter’s like, ‘Let’s do five thousand
[copies]!’ and I’m like, ‘This is my
money and I borrowed money from
my family to do it. Let’s do a thousand
and hope.’ I figured that if we could
sell five hundred books and make our
money back, and just keep the rest to
give to friends or whatever, then we
were doing good” (Waldron 31-2). Suf-
fice to say, they weren’t going to have
any unsold copies of Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles #1 to give away.
Eastman and Laird petitioned the Di-
rect Market distributors to carry their
comic book and disseminated a four-
page press release to publications like
The Comics Journal and Comics Buyer’s
Guide. Evidently, the free press did its
job as distributors bought 1,500 cop-
ies before the issue was even printed.
By the time Eastman and Laird had
the physical product in hand, the
other half of the print run had been
sold as well. The two creators then
ordered an additional 6,000 copies for
a second printing. That, too, sold out.
That’s when the two creators knew
they had created something special.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wasn’t
just going to be a one-shot, as Eastman
and Laird originally intended. They
quickly got to work on a second issue,
to be published five months after the
first. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
#2 (Oct. 1984) had an initial print run
of 15,000 copies, but even that didn’t
prove to be enough to meet demand
as a second print run for 30,000 copies
had to be ordered (Waldron 35). By the
end of the year then, Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles had become one of the
best-selling independently published
comic books in the industry.
Pinpointing the exact reason why
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles be-
came so popular is an elusive task.
Even the creators were hard pressed
to explain it. Eastman declared at the
time, “I’d love to say, ‘Oh, they love
our artwork,’ but a lot of people say
it’s just the need for something differ-
ent. They really enjoy it because it’s
different” (Waldron 32). As described
earlier, several comic book parodies
were being published in 1984. What
may have set Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles apart from the rest of the field,
though, was that its parodic elements
didn’t ridicule or lampoon the source
material. Instead, they venerated it.
The first issue’s artwork betrays the
kind of flaws and inconsistency one
would expect from unseasoned tal-
ent, but it was still distinctive. Finally,
while the story itself is derivative—
the Turtles avenge the murder of a
ninja master—it is presented with
energy and earnestness.
One can also make the case that inter-
est in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
was driven by how expensive the first
issue became on the secondary mar-
ket. A year after the first issue’s re-
lease, the Price Guide section in Com-
ics Collector #8 (Summer 1985) valued
a near-mint first printing copy at $40.
A note declared, “The price on Teen-
age Mutant Ninja Turtles, however,
is still going up.” No truer statement
Left: page from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TM and © Viacom International Inc.
119
has been told. By 1986, Virginia-based
retailer American Comics was selling
the issue for $125. It didn’t stop there.
In fact, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
#1 became something of a holy grail
for back issue collectors, more coveted
and cherished than even the New
X-Men’s first appearance in Giant Size
X-Men #1. Twenty years after its ini-
tial publication, The Comics Buyer’s
Guide valued the debut issue at $300
(Miller 1366).
In short order, Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles had become a phenomenon,
and its impact on the comic book in-
dustry cannot be overstated. Its suc-
cess encouraged the proliferation of
scores of new comic book publishers,
almost all of them producing black-
Above: photo of Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman
that first appeared in Comics Interview #27.
and-white titles. In fact, many of
these new companies tried to capi-
talize on TMNT’s success by offering
their own pre-adult/mutant/martial
arts/animal book. In other words,
Eastman and Laird’s parody was itself
parodied, countless times. Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles became a sub-
genre onto itself.
A black-and-white comic book boom
ensued. Enabling it were the Direct
Market retailers who ordered any-
thing and everything to satisfy the
growing number of speculators who
hoped to acquire the next comic book
with a skyrocketing second-
ary market value. At first, ev-
eryone profited: publishers,
retailers and distributors
alike. Eventually though, the
black-and-white boom be-
came an industry bane.
David Singer’s
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents
In 1984, Kevin Eastman and
Peter Laird produced a comic
book they hoped would sell
well enough to cover their
expenses; they ended up as
arguably the decade’s great-
est comic book success sto-
ry. David M. Singer, on the
other hand, had grand ambi-
tions in 1984, but within two
years, he ultimately found
himself an industry pariah.
With his law degree, Singer
had already occupied several
comic book industry roles
during the early 1980s. He
co-founded two trade maga-
zines: The Comic Times and
Comics Spotlight. He was one
of the original staff writers
for Amazing Heroes, and he
served as a research editor
for Archie’s Red Circle im-
print. Eager to jump into
the inviting Direct Market
waters, Singer next pursued
comic book publishing.
Singer’s research revealed only one
genre was lucrative as far as comic
book publishing was concerned: su-
per-heroes. But getting readers inter-
ested in new super-heroes was a crap-
shoot. A book like Elementals was the
rare exception to the norm. Better to
go with a known quantity, and Singer
knew of one: T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.
His friend John Carbonaro had a li- as Carbonaro would soon learn, that
censing agreement with Dorchester didn’t stop Singer from moving for-
Publishing as a prelude to purchas- ward with T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.
ing T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents outright. So On June 19, Carbonaro met with Ar-
Singer offered to buy the characters chie Goodwin to discuss licensing out
from Carbonaro once his purchase T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents for use in Marvel
from Dorchester Publishing was final- Comics’ Epic line. Goodwin informed
ized. Carbonaro wasn’t interested. In- him that Singer had stopped by four
stead, he proposed that Singer license days earlier looking to strike a similar
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents for $65,000. deal. Singer told Goodwin he owned
Singer negotiated the fee down to the rights to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and
$50,000 and a 3% royalty on sales. he used his letter of agreement with
Carbonaro accepted (Heintjes 9). Carbonaro as proof of ownership.
By May 22, two months after Carbona- Goodwin informed both men that
ro and Singer came to their agreement, Epic had no interest in the property
until the ownership matter
was clarified (Heintjes 9).
That clinched it for Carbon-
aro. He forbade Singer from
associating himself in any
way with the T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents. As far as Carbonaro
was concerned, he was done
dealing with Singer.
Likewise, Singer was done
dealing with Carbonaro.
He concluded he didn’t
even need Carbonaro’s
permission to publish a
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents com-
ic book. That’s because,
according to Singer, the
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents were
in public domain. In 1965,
when Wally Wood first cre-
ated the characters, Tower
Publishing failed to print
the appropriate copyright
notices beyond the title’s
first issue. To protect their
rights to a creative property,
publishers must print copy-
right notices in every issue.
Since Tower had failed to do
so, it allowed its characters
to fall into public domain.
The argument goes, then,
that Tower didn’t have the
legal right to sell—or even
l i c e n s e — T. H . U. N . D. E . R .
Agents to John Carbonaro,
or anyone for that mat-
George Perez drawn cover for Wally Wood’s ter. Marvel Comics, in fact,
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1, published by
backed out of a deal to purchase the
David M. Singer’s Deluxe Comics.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents TM and © John Carbonaro estate. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents in 1978 when
Tower couldn’t provide any legal doc-
Carbonaro paid Dorchester what uments to prove it owned the charac-
he owed and as such, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. ters (Cooke 147). Singer himself per-
Agents now belonged solely to him. formed a search of trademark records
Carbonaro still hadn’t received any and found no registered mark of the
money from Singer, though, so he told characters. Carbonaro copyrighted
Singer he was voiding their deal. But T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents with the U.S.
120
Copyright office on September 13,
1984, but as one attorney pointed out
to the fan press at the time, characters
already in the public domain can’t be
copyrighted: “It’s not up to [the Copy-
right office] to judge whether the
matter’s legal or not” (Heintjes 8).
Singer issued a press release to an-
nounce his plan to publish his own
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents title through his
newly created Deluxe Comics. “How
can we publish the T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents?,” the release rhetorically
asked. “We have the rights to publish
them. You have the rights to publish
them. All God’s Chillun’ got the rights
to publish them!!!” (Heintjes 9). While
Singer avowed anyone could pub-
lish the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, he still
needed to distinguish his version of
the characters from John Carbonaro’s
version. To that end, Singer received
permission from Bill Pearson, the ex-
ecutor of Wally Wood’s estate, to use
the artists’ name as part of the comic
book’s title. By the end of the year,
then, Singer released Wally Wood’s
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (Nov. 1984),
a 48-page anthology with a cover
price of two dollars.
As expensive as that cost might have
seemed to some 1984 comic book
readers, it was nothing compared to
what it cost Singer to produce the is-
sue. After convincing unnamed Wall
Street investors to provide him with
financial backing ($250,000 accord-
ing to letterer John Workman) (Cooke
144), Singer went about publishing
one of the best-looking comic books
by hiring the industry’s best artists to
draw it: Dave Cockrum, Jerry Ordway,
Steve Ditko, and Keith Giffen. With-
out a doubt, the pièce de résistance
was the cover by George Pérez, who
also drew one of the interior stories.
Singer secured the services of these
creators by offering them double their
usual page rate. Even more money
was promised to some others. Writer
Doug Moench informed The Comics
Journal that Singer offered him a page
rate of $125, which Moench described
as nearly triple the industry standard.
While severely tempted, Moench ulti-
mately turned Singer down because
of his personal preference to work
only on characters he owned when
writing for independent publishers
(Heintjes 11). Some of the WWTA cre-
ators claimed Singer’s recruitment
Blue Ribbon Comics #12 was the final
Archie Comics issue presenting John Carbonaro’s
version of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents TM and © John Carbonaro estate.
of them involved expensive gifts. For
instance, Dann Thomas, who would
write Raven stories for WWTA, once
disclosed that Singer took her and her
husband, Roy Thomas, to dinner in
New York City’s Chinatown and then
offered the couple tickets to a Barry
Manilow concert. She described Sing-
er as “very generous” and her own
involvement with WWTA as “fun and
lucrative” (Cooke 143). George Pérez,
though, viewed Singer with a suspi-
cious eye: “Dave did try to create a
humble, personal relationship, but
I felt that the personal relationship
was based on him getting on my good
side so he could get work from me. He
reminded me more of a used car sales-
man than a lawyer” (Cooke 136).
Like any good salesman, Singer un-
derstood the power of association.
Comic book fans recognized Pérez as
an artist who only drew for DC Com-
ics. Indeed, Pérez agreed to work for
Singer during a brief gap between
his DC Comics-exclusive contracts. If
Pérez’s participation in WWTA made
some fans mistakenly think Deluxe
Comics was a DC imprint (complete
with duplicated initials), Singer
wasn’t going to complain. Similarly,
after Roy Thomas informed Singer he
couldn’t work for him because of his
DC Comics’ exclusivity, Singer hired
121
the other Thomas, Dann, whose pro-
fessional experience, at that point,
only involved co-written work with
her husband. Assuredly, upon seeing
Dann’s name in the WWTA credits,
some readers assumed Roy Thomas
also somehow contributed to the
comic book (Cooke 143).
Singer intended Wally Wood’s
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents to be the launch-
ing point of a larger publishing en-
terprise, one whose market share he
hoped would eventually be on par
with the likes of DC and Marvel Com-
ics. High aspirations, no doubt, but at-
tainable ones from Singer’s perspec-
tive at the time: “It probably sounds
completely preposterous to talk in
terms of wanting to catch DC or Mar-
vel. But this isn’t an operation by a
couple of kids out of a garage. We feel
that if the fans like what we’re doing,
and we’re around long enough and
given the time to grow, these are rea-
sonable goals” (Zimmerman 61). By
year’s end, Singer already had other
works in the pipeline, foremost Dave
Cockrum’s ongoing Futurians comic
book, the rights to which Singer out-
bid Marvel Comics for. Also planned
were a Keith Giffen project and a sec-
ond T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents book to be
titled Tales of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Other pro-
fessionals also contacted Singer in the
hope that he would agree to publish
their creator-owned projects (Zim-
merman 61).
Meanwhile, two comic books featur-
ing John Carbonaro’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents were released during cover
date 1984. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2
(Jan. 1984) continued into Archie
Comics’ Blue Ribbon Comics #12 (Sept.
1984), and that would be the final
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents issue that Ar-
chie Comics would publish.
In December 1984, just after the pub-
lication of Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents #1, Carbonaro initiated a law-
suit against Singer for copyright in-
fringement, seeking $450,000 in dam-
ages. The equivalent of an Old West
duel ensued. The comic book indus-
try wasn’t big enough for both Car-
bonaro and Singer, and the two were
now meeting in the center of town
for a High Noon showdown. When
the dust cleared from their shootout,
many would be surprised to see who
was left standing.
DC Comics: Happy, Healthy and Profitable
As Jim Shooter observed, DC Comics’
market share trailed Marvel Comics’
share by a sizeable margin. Nearly
every 1984 DC title sold less than
100,000 copies a month on average.
The exceptions were Justice League of
America, Legion of Super-Heroes, New
Teen Titans, Superman, and Warlord,
and even those titles sold fewer copies
in 1984 than they had in 1983. These
facts didn’t stop then-Vice President
Paul Levitz from describing DC Com-
ics as a “happy, healthy, profitable lit-
tle company” (Salicrup 23). He wasn’t
sugar-coating the matter. Truth be
told, DC’s cover price increase from
60 cents to 75 cents meant many DC
titles generated more revenue even
though they sold fewer copies. That
was also true of DC’s Baxter paper
books (e.g. Camelot 3000, The Omega
Men, Thriller, and Vigilante) which
retailed for $1.25 and were sold exclu-
sively to the Direct Market. Given this,
DC decided its best course of action
going forward was publishing even
more Direct Market-exclusive titles. In
1984, DC did so with books like:
• Nathaniel Dusk, a four-issue
private detective mini-series
written by Don McGregor
with art reproduced directly
from Gene Colan’s pencil
work;
Roy Thomas’s next Earth-2 creation for DC Comics,
Infinity Inc., was offered exclusively to the Direct Market.
Infinity, Inc. TM and © DC Comics.
• Infinity Inc., starring the
next generation of Earth-2 su-
per-heroes as written by Roy
Thomas and drawn by Jerry
Ordway;
• Sun Devils, a twelve-issue
sci-fi adventure maxi-series
written by Gerry Conway
with art by Dan Jurgens.
DC believed the Direct Market was
well on its way toward becoming the
principal comic book sales venue, and
nothing indicated that belief more
than DC’s decision to re-launch its
two best-selling titles as Direct Mar-
ket-exclusives. Starting with cover
date August 1984, DC was publishing
two Teen Titans comic books and two
Legion of Super-Heroes comic books.
New volumes of New Teen Titans
and Legion of Super-Heroes debuted
as Baxter paper titles that could only
be purchased at specialty comic book
stores. The books that previously had
those titles were renamed Tales of the
Teen Titans and Tales of the Legion of
Super-Heroes. They could be bought
at both Direct Market stores and the
newsstand, and they continued the
numbering where the previous Ti-
tans and Legion volumes left off. (New
Teen Titans was actually rebranded as
Tales of the Teen Titans four months
before the publication of the new Ti-
tans book.) DC planned to have both
Tales books present new stories for
one year, at which point they would
begin reprinting the stories published
in the Direct Market-exclusive titles.
DC called this the “hardcover/soft-
cover” plan. Like the book publishing
industry, the idea was that a book
would be published first in the more
expensive format and a year later in
the less expensive format. This would
ensure that readers who don’t fre-
quent comic shops still had access to
every new Titans and Legion story.
Therefore, Tales of the Legion of Super-
Heroes #326 (Aug. 1985) reprinted Le-
gion of Super-Heroes #1 (Aug. 1984),
and Tales of the New Teen Titans #60
(Dec. 1985) reprinted New Teen Titans
#1 (Aug. 1984).
Despite DC’s attempt to appease both
its newsstand and Direct Market
consumers, the plan bothered some.
Comics Feature magazine, for one,
predicted considerable frustration for
consumers who only purchased com-
ics at the newsstand, which in 1984
122
was still a significant portion of the
overall readership. If a major plot or
character development occurred in
the Direct Market title, any reference
to it in the newsstand title will be lost
on those who don’t frequent comic
book stores (Harris 6).
But if some Titans and Legion fans
had problems with the new pub-
lishing arrangement, they soon had
worse news to be concerned about.
In 1984, their favorite titles lost two
of their longstanding (and arguably
irreplaceable) creators: George Pérez
and Keith Giffen. After burning him-
self out in 1983 on the creation of a
poster that displayed 275 Legion of
Super-Heroes members, villains, and
supporting characters, Giffen trudged
along on Legion, even changing his art
style to maintain his own interest (Ca-
digan 143). When Legion re-launched
as a Direct Market title, Giffen re-
mained attached as its co-plotter and
penciller… but not for long. Legion of
Super-Heroes #3 (Oct. 1984) was pen-
ciled by Steve Lightle, an artist who
began working for DC Comics only six
months earlier with New Talent Show-
case #4 (April 1984). Lightle wouldn’t
be formally introduced to Legion
readers until issue #4, when Paul Lev-
itz announced in the letter column:
“A belated welcome to Steve
Lightle, who joined our reg-
ular LSH team last month.
Steve is penciling the Le-
gion over rough breakdowns
by plotter/storyteller Keith
Giffen, whose energies have
worn thin after three years of
constant service to our Thir-
tieth-Century superstars…
Keith will continue to be part
of the LSH team, but Steve
will be playing a more and
more important role in the
months to come.”
While the plan may have been for
Giffen to continue working on Legion,
in reality he stopped contributing
after just one more month. Legion of
Super-Heroes #5 (Dec. 1984) conclud-
ed a story arc that featured the death
of longtime Legion member Karate
Kid. Since becoming the Legion artist
in 1982, Keith Giffen made no bones
about how much he despised Karate
Kid. At comic book conventions and in
fanzine interviews, Giffen expressed
his contempt as often as he could, and
 In 1984, DC Comics re-launched its best-selling New Teen Titans and Legion of Super-Heroes as
Direct Market-exclusive titles. New Teen Titans and Legion of Super-Heroes TM and © DC Comics.
he seemed eager to depict the char-
acter’s demise (Cadigan 144). Fate,
however, would stop Giffen from car-
rying out that satisfaction. Karate Kid
perished in issue #4, two issues after
Giffen stopped drawing the title.
Giffen’s association with the Legion
of Super-Heroes was far from over,
though. In fact, not only would he
soon become involved in Legion cross-
over books like the Legion of Substi-
tute Heroes Special one-shot (July
1985) and the Legionnaires 3 mini-
series (1986), but by the late 1980s,
he would return full-time to Legion
for its most controversial run. George
Pérez, on the other hand, wasn’t expe-
riencing the burnout Giffen was suf-
fering. Instead, after signing a new
three-year exclusive contract with DC
Comics, Pérez stopped drawing New
Teen Titans because he was being
shifted over to a new project, one that
wouldn’t be published until 1985 but
that would forever alter DC’s status-
quo.
Cancelled Comics Cavalcade Weekly
While Pérez focused on his new as-
signment, Giffen dispersed his cre-
ative energies among several projects,
like Ambush Bug, various fill-in jobs
for DC Comics and work for the afore-
mentioned David Singer.
Giffen also became attached to an
ambitious new DC series that was
announced to the comic fan press in
late 1984. Blockbuster Weekly was
conceived by Dick Giordano as the
first American weekly
comic book. Each issue
would not only reprint a
week’s worth of Super-
man newspaper strip in-
stallments but also offer
several new two- to four-
page stories starring the
former Charlton Action
Heroes that DC acquired
in 1983. Development of Blockbuster
Weekly progressed so far that char-
acters had been provided with spe-
cific creative teams. Judomaster and
Peter Cannon—Thunderbolt were
back in the hands of their respective
creators, Frank McLaughlin and Pete
Morisi. Writer Steve Englehart and
artists Dave Ross and Alex Niño were
handling Blue Beetle while Keith
Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming col-
laborated on Peacemaker (with Gary
Martin inking Giffen’s pencils). When
his executive responsibilities became
too burdensome, Giordano passed
the editorial baton of the project to
new DC editor Bob Greenberger who
renamed the book Comics Cavalcade
Weekly (Delano). Greenberger also
finalized the book’s creative assign-
ments: Mike W. Barr, Stan Woch and
Rick Magyar on The Question; Andy
Helfer, Trevor Von Eeden and Dick
Giordano on Sarge Steel; and Paul
Kupperberg and newcomer artist Paul
Chadwick on Captain Atom. (Denys
Cowan promptly replaced Chadwick
when the latter proved too slow in
producing artwork.)
With a Brian Bolland-drawn cover,
123
a mock-up copy of the first issue of
Comics Cavalcade Weekly was pre-
sented to Jenette Kahn and Paul Lev-
itz. Unfortunately, the work didn’t
meet the executives’ approval. Kahn
and Levitz assessed the contents of
the issue as being particularly weak,
and they were also hesitant to publish
a weekly comic book that featured lit-
tle-known characters. Thus, the proj-
ect was aborted (Eury 117). DC’s foray
into publishing a weekly comic book
would have to wait for another year.
The DC debut of the Charlton Action
Heroes, on the other hand, was immi-
nent.
Also announced in 1984 was a new
line of DC titles targeting pre-adoles-
cent readers. Initially, DC wanted this
new line to feature Warner Bros.’ Loo-
ney Tunes animals (e.g. Bugs Bunny,
Daffy Duck, et al), but Whitman Com-
ics still held the license to those char-
acters. So DC instead tapped one of its
oldest—and most celebrated—humor
comics as the flagship title of this new
kids line: Sugar and Spike, to be writ-
ten and drawn by Sheldon Mayer, the
legendary creator who began work-
ing for DC Comics (or National Allied
Publications as it was known then)

Super Powers was a multi-faceted merchandising
program that involved not only comic books and
action figures but television cartoons, video cassettes,
and dozens of other products as well.
All characters TM and © DC Comics.
shortly after it was founded in 1935.
Sugar and Spike starred two toddlers
who communicated via “baby talk”
that adults couldn’t understand.
The comic already en-
joyed a very success-
ful publication run,
from 1956 to 1971,
and new Sugar
and Spike stories
even appeared as
recently as 1983
in The Best of DC
digest #41. Joining
Sugar and Spike in
DC’s new line would
be three new concepts:
powers! (starring an Ar-
chie Comics-inspired
team of super-powered
teenagers co-creat-
ed by Roy Thomas
and Stan Goldberg),
Thudd and Blunder
(about a bumbling
sorcerer’s appren-
tice and his barbar-
ian companion as
co-created by Roy
Thomas, written by
Jim Engel, and drawn
by John Costanza), and
an unnamed John Costanza
project that Dick Giordano de-
scribed in his “Meanwhile…” column
as “a loveable bunch of kids whose
funny adventures begin as their com-
puter-controlled spaceship blasts off
from their treehouse” (Wells 47).
Despite considerable work on the cre-
ators’ part (some issues were even ful-
ly completed), DC’s new kids line was
called off. Its plug got pulled just as
Marvel Comics prepared to roll out its
own kids line of comic books in 1985.
The only work to see print was Funny
Stuff Stocking Stuffer, a Christmas-
themed one-shot that was published
in early December 1984.
Super Powered Jack Kirby
DC’s line-up changed plenty in 1984.
Cancelled were Amethyst, Princess of
Gemworld with issue #12, New Adven-
tures of Superboy with #54, Supergirl
with #23, Blackhawk with #273, and
Thriller with #12. In their stead came
new titles like New Talent Showcase
(which, as its title indicated, featured
work by novice creators), Atari Force
(written by Gerry Conway with art by
José Luis García-López), Star Trek (new
124
adventures of the starship Enterprise
crew by writer Mike W. Barr), and Blue
Devil (starring a new super-hero cre-
ated by writers Gary Cohn and Dan
Mishkin and artist Paris Cullins).
And then there was Super Powers, a
five-issue mini-series that pitted DC’s
most iconic super-heroes (Superman,
Wonder Woman, Batman, Robin,
Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, and
Hawkman) against Darkseid in an
out-of-continuity story. The comic
book was one component of an am-
bitious, multi-faceted merchandising
campaign that was chiefly centered
on a DC Comics action figure line pro-
duced by toy manufacturer Kenner.
Super Powers action figures outsold
Mattel’s comparable Secret Wars ac-
tion figure line by a two-to-one mar-
gin, but more than that, Paul Levitz
was encouraged by the prospect of
Super Powers merchandise introduc-
ing new, young readers to comic
books (Salicrup 23, 25).
The Super Powers action figure line
included several “Fourth World” char-
acters, chief among them Darkseid,
Mr. Miracle, and Orion. Jack Kirby
created these characters for DC in the
early 1970s, a time when comic book
publishers owned everything appear-
ing in their pages. For Super Powers
though, DC gave Kirby a contract that
paid him a percentage of licensing
revenues (Knowles 20). At the time,
Levitz boasted, “One of the proudest
statements I can make is that Jack’s
going to make more money from
Darkseid and the New Gods than he
did from the whole cast of characters
he created for Marvel… We expect to
hand him some extraordinarily large-
sized checks in the next couple of
years” (Salicrup 25). Kirby redesigned
some of his Fourth World characters
for Kenner, and he also plotted the
Super Powers mini-series which has
Darkseid providing Lex Luthor, Brai-
niac, Joker, and the Penguin with new
powers. Scripting Kirby’s plots was
Joey Cavalieri while Adrian Gonzales
and Pablo Marcos performed art du-
ties. Besides drawing all the covers for
the series, Kirby also penciled the fifth
and final issue.
With his Pacific Comics titles prema-
turely ended because of the publish-
er’s dissolution, Kirby now had plenty
of time for the other project DC of-
fered him: a return to his New Gods.
Back in 1972, DC had cancelled The writer. His work for Marvel UK, 2000 Holland. Instead, Swamp Thing was
New Gods (and its companion Fourth AD, and Warrior earned him the re- a plant elemental who only thought
World title, The Forever People) in or- spect and attention of many American he had once been Alec Holland. It
der to have Kirby create more com- comic book professionals. DC Comics had absorbed Holland’s conscious-
mercially promising properties: Ka- editor Len Wein was one of them. He ness by digesting the research scien-
mandi, The Last Boy on Earth and The called Moore directly to offer him the tist’s swamp-decomposed remains.
Demon. New Gods ended without Kir- writing assignment on Saga of the By the end of issue #21, Swamp Thing
by providing a conclusion to the epic Swamp Thing (Khoury 83). Moore ac- had become aware of its true nature.
struggle between Darkseid and his cepted, and he would become one of With that, the character was forever
son, Orion. Twelve years later, DC gave the most important hires in DC Com- altered, and the series had an invigo-
Kirby the opportunity to present that ics’ history. rating new direction.
ending. DC started by reprinting all Unfamiliar with the Swamp Thing ti-
the 1970s New Gods issues in a Baxter tle or its protagonist, Moore nonethe-
paper series with new covers by Kir- less felt the opportunity suited him as
by. The final issue of that series, New he explained years later: “One of my
Gods #6 (Nov. 1984), includes a new strengths [as a writer] was that I could
48-page story, written and drawn by take almost any idea thrown at me
Kirby, that wraps up the New Gods and do something interesting with
saga. it” (Khoury 83). After reading every
But Kirby’s initial draft of that wrap- Swamp Thing issue up to that point,
up story—one in which most of the Moore recognized the series had a
characters die—was rejected. Simply self-crippling premise: “It was obvi-
put, the editors didn’t feel the story ous to even the slowest reader that
was a satisfying conclusion, prompt- Alec Holland—the Swamp Thing—
ing Kirby to protest, “What do you was never going to find some way to
mean you don’t like it?” (Knowles 22). turn himself back to Alec Holland be-
Kirby ended up crafting a completely cause the moment he did, that would
different ending while the rejected be the end of the se-
version was salvaged as the Hunger ries” (Khoury 85). So
Dogs graphic novel that was pub- the challenge facing
lished in early 1985. Unfortunately, Moore was figuring
neither New Gods project resonated out how to revamp
with the comic book readership. Part the driving premise
of the problem was that Kirby was of the Swamp Thing
being asked to revisit his past work, series without disre-
and as his close friend Mark Evanier garding its existing
described it, “Jack was not good at go- continuity.
ing backwards. Jack had left [the New Succeeding Martin
Gods] behind and was no longer in- Pasko, Alan Moore
terested in that particular story or the began his tenure on
emotional underpinnings of those Saga of the Swamp
characters” (Knowles 22). The other Thing with issue #20
problem, though, seemed to be that, at (Jan. 1984). Moore
the age of 67, Kirby’s hand-eye coordi- used that issue—ap-
nation had severely deteriorated. His propriately titled
work was marred by glaring flaws: in- “Loose Ends”—to
consistent anatomy, awkward poses, wrap up Pasko’s story
and unappealing perspectives. Kirby threads. Then, with
would end up drawing a follow-up Su- issue #21, Moore de-
per Powers mini-series in 1985 where finitively took cre-
the drop-off in artistic quality was ative possession of
even more evident. By the mid-1980s, the title. He estab-
then, a sad fact had become clear to lished that Swamp
both publishers and readers alike: the Thing wasn’t who
Kirby Age was over. everyone—includ-
ing Swamp Thing
Alan Moore Comes to Our Shores himself—thought he
While the career of one comic book was. He wasn’t Alec
legend was coming to an end, anoth- Holland mutated
er’s was just beginning. In a very short into a plant organ-
time, Alan Moore established himself ism. In fact, Swamp Opening page to Saga of the Swamp Thing #21, the issue in which Alan Moore
established that Swamp Thing isn’t who he—or the readers—think he is.
as Britain’s most prolific comic book Thing was never Alec Swamp Thing TM and © DC Comics.

125

The former Boy Wonder becomes Nightwing in
Tales of the New Teen Titans #43.
Nightwing TM and © DC Comics.
Along with artists Stephen Bissette and
John Totleben, Moore transformed DC’s
“misunderstood monster” into a super-
natural super-hero, so much so that he
steadily incorporated DC’s neglected
supernatural characters into his nar-
rative. The Demon, The Spectre, The
Phantom Stranger, and The House of
Secrets’ Cain and Abel all made appear-
ances. Swamp Thing Annual #2 maps
out the supernatural realms of the DC
universe while simultaneously cement-
ing the romance be-
tween Swamp Thing
and a character intro-
duced during Len Wein
and Bernie Wrightson’s
original Swamp Thing run:
Abby Cable. Swamp Thing’s re-
lationship with Abby would
become the driving impetus
of the series.
With Alan Moore at its
helm, Saga of the Swamp
Thing became one of the
most unconventional publi-
cations in DC Comics history.
It was certainly one of the most
mature—and most literate—
comic books DC ever published.
As of issue #31 (Dec. 1984),
the newsstand-distributed
title no longer carried the
Comics Code Authority’s
stamp of approval. In-
stead, Swamp Thing
covers displayed the
descriptive banner “So-
phisticated Suspense”
which indicated not only
the comic book’s genre
but also its intended au-
dience. This was no ado-
lescent fare.
Additionally, Swamp
Thing made clear that Alan
Moore was an unparalleled word-
smith. In issue after issue, the comic
book showcased elegantly poetic nar-
ration. Consider the opening to Saga
of the Swamp Thing #21: “It’s raining
in Washington tonight. Plump, warm
summer rain that covers the side-
walks with leopard spots. Downtown,
elderly ladies carry their houseplants
out to set them on the fire-escapes,
as if they were infirm relatives or boy
kings.”
Probably because of its sophistication,
Swamp Thing didn’t sell well in a com-
ic book market that was still dominat-
ed by teen-aged consumers. But the
title did go on to receive the highest
possible accolades from the fan press,
including four Eagle Awards in 1986
and six Jack Kirby Awards between
1985 and 1987. Moore’s groundbreak-
ing work on Swamp Thing foreshad-
owed other comic books he would
write for the remainder of the decade
for DC, works that would be regarded
as some of the most exceptional com-
ic books in the history of the medium.
126
Robin Grows Up,
The Justice League Goes To Ground
While Alan Moore was revamping
Swamp Thing, changes to other DC
characters garnered more notice.
None were more significant than
what happened in Batman #368 (Feb.
1984) when Dick Grayson passed the
costume—and role—of Robin over
to Bruce Wayne’s new young ward,
Jason Todd. A new Boy Wonder was
born, but readers would have to wait
four more months before seeing what
new costumed identity Grayson as-
sumed. He re-establishes himself as
Nightwing in Tales of the New Teen
Titans #43 (June 1984).
The change was monumental: one
of DC Comics’ founding super-heroes
had been radically transformed. Pop
culture’s most famous kid sidekick
now had an autonomous identity, one
that was completely divorced from his
mentor. No longer would Dick Gray-
son’s role in the DC fictional universe
be defined in association with Bat-
man. He had been allowed to grow
up, and as such, he no longer had to
be the static character that Robin had
been as a corporate icon. As George
Pérez told Amazing Heroes in 1984,
“we’re going to have fun with [Dick
Grayson] now. He’s definitely become
a character independent and mature”
(Hopkins 45). A new dynamic formed
between Batman and his former pro-
tégé. In many ways, Nightwing tran-
scended his previous role as Batman’s
sidekick to become Batman’s foil. He
became a character whose disposition
and outlook opposed what the famed
Caped Crusader exhibited.
Nightwing makes his grand entrance
during the second chapter of “The Ju-
das Contract.” In that soon-to-be cel-
ebrated story arc, the Titans have to
contend with a traitor in their midst.
Their newest member, Terra, has
been secretly working for Titans ad-
versary, Deathstroke the Terminator.
The tables are turned in the heroes’
favor with the help of Deathstroke’s
son, Jericho. As the conflict concludes
in Tales of the New Teen Titans An-
nual #3, Terra is killed. Despite Ter-
ra’s treachery, the Titans mourn her
death. Jericho then takes her place on
the team roster.
But the Titans’ membership chang-
es paled in comparison to what
happened to the Justice League of
America in 1984. Thanks to writer
Gerry Conway, the JLA’s lineup was
almost completely overhauled. Sales
of Justice League had been steadily
decreasing every year since the begin-
ning of the decade and years later, Con-
way explained his dilemma, “There
was pressure to make [Justice League]
more like New Teen Titans. And since
nobody quite knew what that meant
except to say that Marv Wolfman
knew what he was doing with New
Teen Titans. So the question be-
came, how do you accomplish
that?” (Browning 51). Conway
came to recognize that one of
principal attractions of the New
Teen Titans was its exclusive
roster. The Teen Titans only ap-
peared in New Teen Titans. That
allowed Marv Wolfman to de-
velop his characters’ personal
lives and relationships to each
other without having to worry
about how another writer was
handling them in a different
DC comic book.
By way of emulation then, Con-
way extracted from the Justice
League all the super-heroes who
had their own titles: Superman,
Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash
and the Green Lantern. This left
Conway with Aquaman, Green
Arrow, Black Canary, the Atom,
Hawkman, Hawkwoman, Za-
tanna, the Red Tornado, Elon-
gated Man and Firestorm to
serve as the “World’s Greatest
Super-Heroes.” It was a group of
characters no other DC writer
was handling, giving Conway
the freedom to do whatever he
wanted with them. But Conway
wanted to alter the roster fur-
ther by skewing it younger (Browning
51). With that, a new course was set
for the Justice League.
To implement it, Conway first had
the Earth-orbiting satellite the Jus-
tice League had been using as a head-
quarters since 1970 damaged beyond
repair in JLA #230 (Sept. 1984). Then
in Justice League of America Annual
#2, Aquaman publicly disbands the
team. “The old League is finished,”
he declares. Aquaman then chal-
lenges his former teammates to make
the commitment to help him form
a new Justice League, one that can
better serve the public by living and
training together. Only Zatanna,
Elongated Man and the Martian Man-
hunter accept Aquaman’s challenge.
They are soon joined by two Conway-
created characters, Vixen and Steel.
DC intended on introducing Vixen in
her own title in 1978, but the infa-
mous “DC Implosion” caused the can-
cellation of her series before it could
even be published. She ended up
debuting in a 1981 issue of Action
Comics and then reappearing in DC
Justice League of America Annual #2 presented a
radical change to the team roster. This incarnation
would soon become known as “Justice League Detroit.”
Justice League of America TM and © DC Comics.
Comics Presents #68 (April 1984). Steel,
on the other hand, is the grandson
of the super-hero of the same name
whose 1978 series only lasted five is-
sues (another victim of the DC Implo-
sion).
The teen-aged Steel offers the use of
his Detroit warehouse-bunker as the
new JLA training facility and head-
quarters. Conway explains his deci-
sion to relocate the Justice League to
Detroit: “I wanted to do something
127
I hadn’t seen at DC, which was a
ground-level superhero team that was
rooted in a neighborhood…. I wanted
to make these superheroes feel like
they were part of the neighborhood,
and my thought was to plunk them
down in the middle of a city that was
in deep, deep crap, a city that needs
heroes” (Browning 50). Once in De-
troit, the JLA finds its final two new
members: Vibe, a Puerto Rican gang
member fond of break dancing (con-
tinuing the long established comic
book tradition of characters be-
ing linked to pop culture fads
that wouldn’t last; see Dazzler),
and Gypsy, a young girl with a
mysterious past.
“Justice League Detroit”—as
readers would soon call the
team—was less powerful than
previous JLA incarnations. As
such, they dealt with more
down-to-earth villains. Both
were deliberate moves on Con-
way’s part to make this Justice
League different from previ-
ous versions. But unfortunately
for Conway, “different” didn’t
mean “more popular.” The
new direction didn’t rekindle
reader interest in Justice League
of America as sales of the title
didn’t improve. In fact, they only
got worse. As a result, “Justice
League Detroit” had a relatively
short publishing life and would
be remembered as one of the
most ignominious versions of
the JLA.
Ultimately though, all the
changes made to individual
titles during the year were
trumped by what DC was about
to do in 1985. Its entire fictional
universe was about to reformatted,
and that would impact every DC comic
book. Writer-editor Cary Bates learned
firsthand what was in store when he
was told his poorly-selling Flash title
was being cleared from DC’s lineup. In
reaction, Bates decided to extend his
“Trial of the Flash” story arc to the end
of the series. In his mind, there was no
point in starting a new story arc right
before the comic book’s cancellation
(Scott 80).
Bates learned something else about
DC’s plan for the Flash: The “Fastest
Man Alive” wasn’t going to be alive
for much longer.
1985
Crisis and Creation
DC Comics celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 1985 with the
release of a special publication titled Fifty Who Made DC
Great. The comic-sized, 58-page book profiled fifty individ-
uals and companies who contributed to DC Comics’ suc-
cess. This included company co-founders M.C. Gaines and
Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, Superman co-creators
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Batman co-creators Bob Kane
and Bill Finger, actors who portrayed DC Comics’ charac-
ters in television and film (George Reeves, Adam West,
Burt Ward, Christopher Reeve, Lynda Carter, Helen Slater)
as well as such contemporaneous comic book creators as
Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, and Frank Miller. The book
also featured short comments by a diverse group of promi-
nent men and woman like United States Senator Daniel
Patrick Moynihan, science fiction author Ray Bradbury,
horror novelist Stephen King, musician Gene Simmons,
Marvel Comics publisher Stan Lee, actress Whoopi Gold-
berg and social activist Gloria Steinem.
As DC’s anniversary began, though, not everything at
the venerable company was festive. While profitable, DC
still dealt with a troubling status quo: despite possessing
some of comic books’ most recognizable characters, DC’s
sales were much lower than Marvel’s, particularly in the
burgeoning Direct Market. Thanks to Marvel’s blockbuster
Secret Wars, the sales gap between the two publishers had
widened even further. Comic book fans in 1984 were buzz-
ing about Spider-Man’s black costume and the presence of
She-Hulk on the Fantastic Four rather than about the latest
adventures of Superman or Infinity Inc. According to one
Phoenix, Arizona-area dealer, Marvel outsold DC ten-to-
one in the Direct Market in 1984 (Webb 17).
Fueling this sales disparity was the widespread reader per-
ception that much of the DC Universe was too stodgy. DC’s
most famous characters were in titles that were written
and illustrated by veterans who no longer commanded fan
devotion (like Curt Swan on Superman, Carmine Infantino
on The Flash, and Don Heck on Wonder Woman). Parts of
DC’s line were truly moribund. Sales on The Flash, for in-
stance, had dropped from a monthly average of 102,297
copies in 1980 to 67,881 copies in 1985, a disastrous 33%
decline in five years, and a shocking 80% drop from the
title’s late 1960s high (Webb 14).
Add to this the concern that the DC Universe had grown
too complex over the years. The idea of multiple parallel
dimensions had been intriguing and exciting when Infan-
tino and Gardner Fox collaborated on 1961’s classic “Flash
of Two Worlds!” in Flash #123. But over twenty years later,
DC had created so many alternate universes that it became
near impossible for the casual fan to keep them all straight.
Each major DC character had two (or more) iterations. One
Superman was married, one Wonder Woman had a daugh-

CHAPTER SIX ter, and one Batman was dead!

Long established was the idea that the super-heroes that
DC introduced during the late 1950s/early 1960s “Silver
by Jason Sacks Age” inhabited Earth-1 while their Golden Age predecessors
128
hailed from Earth-2. Earth-3, on the other hand, positioned
DC’s familiar super-heroes as villains. The Fawcett Uni-
verse characters (headed by the Captain Marvel family) re-
sided on Earth-S while Earth-C was where Captain Carrot
and His Amazing Zoo Crew lived. It didn’t stop there. DC’s
whole complex universe was an alphabet soup of letters
and concepts that required readers to keep an encyclope-
dic amount of information in their heads. Unfortunately,
DC’s line of titles was perceived as too boring to inspire
such fanaticism in many fans. It was clear to some that DC
needed to take the radical step of simplifying its universe.
And thus was born Crisis on Infinite Earths.
The idea to reduce the number of parallel Earths was one
that writer/editor Marv Wolfman had carried around
since at least 1982. He had been discussing the prospect
of simplifying the DC Universe with his lifelong friend Len
Wein and with other DC editors and executives, including
DC publisher Jenette Kahn and executive editor Dick Gior-
dano. Wolfman takes credit for presenting Crisis to DC’s
management:
Because of a letter I printed in Green Lantern say-
ing, “You really should fix up DC continuity,” to
which I answered, “Yes, we should,” I began seri-
George Pérez’s wraparound cover for Crisis on Infinite Earths #1. All characters TM and © DC Comics.
129
ously thinking about it again, and started talking
this old project over with Len Wein and some other
people as a special series at DC. They loved it, be-
cause they saw it as a way of getting around all
the convoluted, confusing series of universes and
Earths and futures and pasts. (Waid 24)
Giordano added, “I’m happy to relate that at a mass out-of-
office meeting attended by all the in-house editors, Jenette
Kahn, Paul Levitz, and myself, a lively exchange of ideas
gave us confidence that all parties would, at least outward-
ly, participate. There were no threats and Jenette, Paul, and
myself were there to contribute creatively, not as manag-
ers” (Eury 35).
DC played the long game with Crisis, and the series was
the result of several years of diligent planning. In 1982, DC
brought in Peter Sanderson as staff researcher, and he was
assigned to read and take notes on every DC comic pub-
lished since 1935. The reams of paper that Sanderson filled
with his research helped create the back-story and panel
margins of not only Crisis but also its companion book,
Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe.
Once DC’s executives gave Wolfman the formal green light
for Crisis, he started planting seeds for the event through-
1985 TIMELINE
A compilation of the year’s notable comic book industry events alongside
some of the year’s most significant popular cultural and historical events.
January 3: The first issue of DC Comics’ ultimate
status-quo altering maxi-series, Crisis on Infinite
March 11: The day after
Earths, goes on sale. the death of Konstantin
Chernenko, Mikhail
Gorbachev is chosen to
succeed him as General
Secretary of the Soviet
Union’s Communist Party.
JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL M AY JUNE
February 26: Tina Turner’s
“What’s Love Got to Do With It”
wins Grammy Awards for Re-
cord and Song of the year. Cyndi
Lauper wins Grammy Award for
Best New Artist.
March 3: Moonlighting, a romantic
comedy/private investigator television
show starring Cybill Shepard and
Bruce Willis, premieres on the ABC
television network.
Crisis on Infinite Earths and Supergirl TM and © DC Comics. Alpha Flight, Hulk, Secret Wars and the X-Men TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Dick Tracy TM and © Tribune Media Services. Calvin and Hobbes TM and © Bill Watterson.
out various DC titles starting with
1982’s New Teen Titans #21. In that
issue, the cosmic being called The
Monitor makes his debut. In 1984,
the Monitor unleashed villains in the
pages of Green Lantern and Flash and
then began observing such heroes as
the Justice League, the All-Star Squad-
ron, and Swamp Thing.
Just as the Monitor’s appearances
became more frequent and involved
more DC titles, fan-favorite artist
George Pérez was assigned to illus-
trate Crisis on Infinite Earths. As Pérez
explained, he was called to duty “for
the sense of grandeur that [Crisis]
required, and because I’m capable of
juggling as many characters as it took
to tell the story.” Pérez also admitted
that he was excited to take a little
bit of vengeance on Marvel Comics:
“It was to get revenge for not being
able to do the JLA-Avengers book, as
well as a way of getting back at Secret
DC Comics house ad that teases the impact Wars, which did phenomenally well
of Crisis on Infinite Earths. with a minimum of effort” (Waid 55-
TM and © DC Comics.
130
April 16: Four months after the final May 27: Starring Roger Moore in
the final time he will play British
issue of Secret Wars is published,
the first issue of its sequel, Secret super-spy James Bond, A View To A
Kill opens in movie theaters.
Wars II, goes on sale.
June 14: A TWA jet carrying
139 passengers is hijacked
by Lebanese extremists
shortly after takeoff from
Athens, Greece. A 17-day
intercontinental ordeal ensues
that includes the murder of a
U.S. Naval officer.
May 11: Chester Gould –
creator of the comic strip
detective Dick Tracy – dies at
the age of 84.
56). Since their tremendous success
with New Teen Titans had made Wolf-
man and Pérez DC’s team supreme, it
was only fitting that they collaborate
on DC’s most important project in de-
cades.
Crisis on Infinite Earths #1 hit the
stands at the beginning of Janu-
ary 1985 (cover dated April). Pérez’s
spectacular wraparound cover fea-
tures an array of heroes juxtaposed
against a countless array of Earths.
Astute readers recognized Firestorm,
The Teen Titans’ Cyborg, The Outsid-
ers’ Geo-Force, and the John Stewart
Green Lantern on the cover, but they
had to be surprised at seeing former
Charlton hero Blue Beetle, a character
never previously seen in a DC comic
book (despite DC acquiring him and
most of the other Charlton Action
Heroes in 1983). The cover to Crisis
#1 also presented the Earth-2 Super-
man (complete with white hair in his
temples) and two other unidentified
characters.

July 4: Crisis on Infinite
Earths #7 – featuring the
death of Supergirl – goes
on sale.
July 13: Live Aid, a Bob
Geldof-organized dual-
venue concert in London
and Philadelphia featuring
dozens of popular musical
artists, raises money to
relieve famine in Ethiopia.
J U LY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER
July 7: Starring Michael
J. Fox as a time-travelling
teenager, Back to the Future
opens in movie theaters. It
would become the highest
grossing film of the year.
The issue opens with a universe-
spanning spectacle unlike any other:
the Big Bang. That display transitions
to an Earth that is quickly being con-
sumed by antimatter. On that world
is a mysterious cloaked man who
desperately tries to stop the utter de-
struction of an entire universe. Clear-
ly the stakes of this series were high
and getting higher. A turn of the page
reveals an equally intense battle on
Earth-3, where slightly familiar char-
acters like Ultraman, Power Ring, and
Superwoman try in vain to stop the
flood of antimatter from destroying
their world. One by one, the heroes of
that alternate Earth attempt to save
their world, only to be destroyed by
all-powerful cosmic forces.
The rest of that issue spans both time
and space, from the 30th century fu-
ture of the Legion of Super-Heroes to
the distant past of Arion, Lord of At-
lantis, and from Gorilla City, African
home of the infamous Gorilla Grodd,
to Manhattan, Firestorm’s base of op-
September 1: The wreckage of the
Titanic, which sunk in 1915, was located
by a U.S.-French expedition over 500
miles from Newfoundland, Canada.
December 6: The San
September 3: Heroes for Hope Starring Francisco Chronicle
the X-Men – the Ethiopian famine relief describes a “super cocaine”
comic book with contributions from that is being sold on the
over 100 creators, including Stephen streets. It soon becomes
King – goes on sale. known as “crack” or “rock”
cocaine.
December 16: Organized
crime boss Paul Castellano
is shot to death outside a
September 22: FarmAid, a concert organized by Willie Nelson, John New York City restaurant.
Mellencamp, and Neil Young and performed by rock and country music The hit was ordered by
artists, takes place in Champaign, Illinois and raises over $9 million for John Gotti who uses Castel-
struggling American farmers. lano’s death to seize power
in the Mafia.
September 27: Hurricane Gloria makes landfall in North Carolina
and moves northward, eventually causing over $900 million in
damage.
October 16: Intel
introduces its 32-bit
80386 computer November 18: Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson’s
chip. comic strip about a six year old boy and his stuffed
toy tiger, makes its first appearance in newspapers
October 7: The Italian cruise across the country.
ship Achille Lauro is hijacked
in the Mediterranean Sea by
four PLF (Palestinian Liberation
Front) gunmen who demand
Israel release 50 Palestinian
September 10: The prisoners. After two days, the
creative teams of Alpha hijackers surrender to Egyptian
Flight and Incredible Hulk authorities and are turned over
August 1: Three weeks after titles trade places. John to Italy.
the final issue of his own series Byrne assumes control of
October 2: Film star Rock Hudson dies
is published, The Flash dies in Hulk with issue #314. His
of AIDS complications at the age of 59.
Crisis on Infinite Earths #8. run would end five issues
later.
erations. A ragtag group of heroes are took me off the book was the flexo-
gathered. Ultimately, in a majestic fi- graph printing on issue #1. I threat-
nal page, the person responsible for ened to quit the book on the spot if
bringing them together is revealed in issue #2 was as bad as the first one”
all his glory: The Monitor. (Waid 58). But thankfully for comic
The opening chapter of this cosmic fans, DC abandoned the flexograph
story was epic in scope and surpris- process and the printing quality
ingly intimate in its details. The promptly improved. Pérez remained
worlds that were destroyed were on the series.
populated by empathetic heroes who And Pérez’s involvement was essen-
were instantly relatable and almost tial because few other artists had
as instantly killed. The quick pace of the ability (or stamina) to draw the
Wolfman’s script, combined with the enormous collections of DC heroes
meticulous details of Pérez’s artwork, and villains that the series show-
made this first issue immediately in- cased. The artist had a boundless
triguing for new readers and kicked enthusiasm for depicting characters
the twelve-issue maxi-series off in both famous and obscure. Crisis on
great style. Infinite Earths #5, for instance, has
pages that feature literally dozens of
Just about the only thing that marred
the first issue was its horrible print- characters in incredibly dense shots.
ing via the flexographic press, which The spread on pages 7 and 8 includes
produced blurry, off-register pages. a mind-bogglingly huge group of
The printing process caused Pérez’s nearly 180 heroes. Undaunted by
artwork to lose much of its definition. what the series tasked him to do,
After completing the series, Pérez Pérez took great pride in what he pro-
confessed, “The one thing that almost duced: “It was a lot of work, but the
131
 Spread page from Crisis on Infinite Earths #5 that features almost 180 different characters. All characters TM and © DC Comics.
reaction has been very gratifying. The
incredible amount of characters to be
drawn, and trying to make a coherent
storyline with a cast of hundreds, was
a true challenge” (Waid 58).
Dick Giordano inked Pérez’s pencil
work for the first three issues. Despite
a desire to complete the series, execu-
tive duties impeded Giordano from
continuing beyond the third issue.
DC Editorial Coordinator Pat Basti-
enne unceremoniously removed her
close friend from the job rather than
force him to work all nighters to com-
plete his inking assignments. After
Mike DeCarlo inked Crisis #4, Jerry
Ordway took over the inking chores
with issue #5. Ordway was originally
scheduled to start with issue #6, but
as he explains it: “there was a dead-
line problem and [DC] sent the pages
to issue #5… all but pages 7 and 8, the
massive 178-character double page
spread. Those were the last two pages
of the book that I got. I guess they fig-
ured that if I took them too early on,
they’d have to look for someone else
to do the book. This way, they figured
by waiting, they’d at least get one
complete issue out of me” (Waid 59).
Ordway would ink the remainder of
the series.
As Crisis on Infinite Earths progressed,
it involved virtually every hero and
villain ever seen in the DC Universe.
They become united to battle the hor-
rible threat of the Anti-Monitor, a
soulless destroyer bent on annihilat-
ing all life across the infinite univers-
es through the use of his antimatter
devices. As the heroes traverse space
and time to protect cosmic tuning
forks that will prevent the merger of
the various universes, they end up in
epic battles against the Anti-Moni-
tor’s deadly shadow warriors.
And as one might expect from epic
battles, casualties occur.
A Super Farewell
Along with streamlining the DC Uni-
verse, Crisis needed to clear out some
dead wood and do it in a way that
132
would grab fans’ attention. In an
interview conducted for American
Comic Book Chronicles, Bob Green-
berger—who served as a DC Comics
editor in 1985—claimed that as Crisis
was being put together, a “death list”
of characters that would be killed in
the series was circulated around DC’s
offices. Though the list went through
several iterations, two names were al-
ways on it: The Flash and Supergirl.
Both characters starred in lackluster
eponymous series for many years. Su-
pergirl, in particular, had been an ir-
relevant character for a long time. She
had wandered from one solo series to
the next for over a decade, never sell-
ing many copies of whatever book
she starred in. The Supergirl series
that launched in 1982 as The Daring
New Adventures of Supergirl, was can-
celled in 1984 as one of DC’s lowest-
selling comics. Furthermore, Super-
girl had appeared in a 1984 feature
film that was a major flop. While the
box office bust didn’t put Supergirl on
the proverbial chopping block, it did,
according to Greenberger, prevent and takes
Jenette Kahn and Dick Giordano from strength in her
ultimately giving the “Maid of Might” struggle.
a stay of execution. The Anti-Mon-
Besides, Kahn and Giordano both itor’s power
wanted to use Crisis to reboot Super- soon grows
man, Batman, and Wonder Woman, to a level that
along with their respective “families” can ravage the
of supporting characters. Pruning the entire multi-
Superman mythos—which had ac- verse. Super-
cumulated an enormous collection girl, though,
of characters over the preceding de- will not yield.
cades—was particularly important. With a fierce
In 1985, Supergirl was at her absolute intensity that
lowest ebb in terms of her merchan- readers had
dising worth, her popularity among seldom seen in
comic book readers, and her impor- her before, she
tance to the future of the DC line. fights. Pérez
Those facts added up to making Su- masterfully il-
perman’s cousin expendable. lustrated the
But Pérez and Wolfman didn’t treat strength of Ka-
Supergirl as an unpopular character ra’s will, and
who needed to be discarded like so readers see
much flotsam. With Crisis on Infinite an emotional
Earths #7 (Oct. 1985), the two cre- power that be-
ators actually made their readers care lied the char-
about a character they hadn’t paid at- acter’s lack of
tention to in years. With what would direction in
be recognized as one of the most icon- recent years.
ic covers of the 1980s, the death of Su- Through hor-
pergirl in Crisis #7 was an immediate rific pain, Su-
classic. pergirl finally
destroys the
In this issue, the female Kryptonian Anti-Monitor’s
is transported, along with a group body as she sacrifices her life for her
of a dozen heroes from six Earths, to friends’ survival.
the antimatter fortress of the Weap-
oners of Qward. In that seemingly In a heartbreaking denouement, Su-
impregnable fortress, the band of pergirl greets her final fate with class
heroes fights a frantic battle to pre- and equanimity as she tells Super-
vent the nefarious plans of the Anti- man, “Y-you’re crying. Please don’t.
Monitor from coming to fruition. As You taught me to be brave… and I
the battle rages on, it seems more and was…. I… I love you so much for what
more likely that the Anti-Monitor you are. For how… good you are.” And
will succeed in destroying the entire with those final words, Kara Zor-El
multiverse with his antimatter can- passes from the multiverse. It was
nons. Rather than give in to despair, one of the most classy and most mov-
Supergirl marshals her heroism. Kara ing character deaths that ever ap-
reminds herself of the inner strength peared in any comic, and it instantly
of Superman: “I may never be as good made Supergirl a character that fans
as he is, but Kal always taught me to actually missed instead of one they
do my best. Nothing else matters. Be were apathetic to.
true to yourself. Be the best that you Wolfman gave much of the credit for
are able to. Don’t ever give anything the success of Crisis #7 to Pérez: “The
but your best. I’ve lived with his ideal, thing I want to make clear to every-
and heaven knows I’ve tried my hard- one is that George’s work on the Su-
est to live up to it. And I think for the pergirl issue, specifically more than
most part I have.” The Anti-Monitor any other issue, really made the story
Top: Page from Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 that dis-
proves mightier than Supergirl, but work. The way he set scenes up is just plays the death of Supergirl. Above: one of the
the Kryptonian heroine refuses to so great” (Waid 55). most iconic comic book covers of the 1980s.
succumb. She takes horrifying dam- All characters TM and © DC Comics.

age, but she battles through her pain

133

Top: The Flash runs his final race in these panels
from Crisis on Infinite Earths #8.
The Flash TM and © DC Comics.
A Fast Farewell
Much like Supergirl, The Flash had hit
hard times by 1985. The “Fastest Man
Alive” had become mired in “The Trial
of the Flash,” a storyline that began in
1983 when the Flash killed his long-
time nemesis, Professor Zoom, to stop
him from murdering his bride-to-be,
Fiona Webb. Unfortunately, that story
failed to hook comic book readers. In
fact, it only succeeded in driving away
longtime fans
and alienating
potential new
ones. By 1985, as
“The Trial of the
Flash” continued
unabated, sales
of The Flash had
dropped precipi-
tously. It was all
a sign, perhaps,
that not only the
Flash’s alter ego,
Barry Allen, but
also his long-
time creative
team, artist Car-
mine Infantino
and writer Cary
Bates, had be-
come stale, dull,
and behind the
times.
These circum-
stances made
the Flash an ideal fatality candidate
for Crisis on Infinite Earths. Consid-
ering that the Flash was one of DC’s
most iconic characters as well as the
super-hero whose revival in 1956
launched the Silver Age of comic
books, his death in Crisis would allow
DC to make an important symbolic
statement about the commitment
they had to changing their status
quo. If a character as important as the
Flash could be killed, fans had to be-
lieve that any DC super-hero could die
next. And if the Flash symbolically
passed his red suit to the next genera-
tion, it was an important comment
about how DC would now refresh it-
self.
But when the Flash’s name first
showed up on the master list of char-
acters to be killed in Crisis on Infinite
Earths, Wolfman balked. He felt that
many of the problems with the Flash
had been self-inflicted and that there
was no reason why the character
couldn’t be made popular once again.
Jenette Kahn, however, disagreed, so
much so that Wolfman soon realized
there was no point arguing the mat-
ter. Flash’s fate had been sealed. Ac-
quiescing to the decision, Wolfman
determined to give the Flash a death
worthy of his standing in comic book
history (Dallas 109).
Crisis was so tightly plotted, though,
that the Flash couldn’t play a central
134
role in the story (Dallas 110). Instead,
the character continually lingers in
the background of the series as a kind
of harbinger of impending doom.
When the Flash first appears in Crisis
(in issue #2), he’s like a ghost, warn-
ing Batman that “the world is dying”
before mysteriously disintegrating.
Then Crisis #3 shows Barry in the far
future confronting the Anti-Moni-
tor’s wall of antimatter. He leaves his
idyllic life in order to journey back to
the past and warn his friends of the
evil destructive force that they will
soon face. It’s the Flash’s ability to
travel through time and across di-
mensions that marks him as danger-
ous in the Anti-Monitor’s eyes, so in
Crisis #5 (Aug. 1985) the villain cap-
tures the Fastest Man Alive and puts
him under the emotional thrall of the
Psycho-Pirate.
Two months later, DC published the
final issue of The Flash. Issue #350
(Oct. 1985) concludes the “Trial of the
Flash” story with the Scarlet Speed-
ster traveling to the 30th century to
be reunited with his wife, Iris. The
cover image shows the Flash and Iris
walking off into the sunset hand-in-
hand, and the issue ends with the
narrative caption, “And they lived
happily ever after… for a while.” Un-
fortunately for the romantic couple, it
wouldn’t be much of a “while” as the
events of this final issue of The Flash
occur before the start of Crisis. What-
ever happiness Barry and Iris enjoy
together is short-lived.
The following month Crisis on Infinite
Earths #8 (Nov. 1985) opens with the
Flash still a captive of the Anti-Mon-
itor and the Psycho-Pirate serving as
his jailer. When the Psycho-Pirate be-
comes paranoid about what the Anti-
Monitor will ultimately do with him,
The Flash takes advantage, breaking
the bonds that were holding him in
place and pummeling the Psycho-Pi-
rate for all the emotional torture the
villain inflicted upon him.
But then the Flash discovers the anti-
matter cannon that the Anti-Monitor
uses to destroy universes. Barry de-
termines he must destroy the weap-
on, no matter the risk to his own life.
As he speeds around the cannon, the
Flash feels his energy being drained,
but the hero keeps running. With the
Anti-Monitor’s weapon crumbling to
rubble, Barry Allen begins to age and
wither. He feels himself go-
ing back through time, and
then he speaks his final no-
ble words: “Th-there’s hope…
there is always hope. Time
to save the world! Time…
back in time… do what you
have to... we must save the
world… we must save the
world…” And with that, the
first hero of the Silver Age is
gone. All that remains is his
costume and ring.
Flash’s death stunned read-
ers, especially since it hap-
pened only one issue after
Supergirl died in dramatic
fashion. As Wolfman ex-
plained years later, he want-
ed to keep readers shocked
and off-balance:
My feeling was that
having two major char-
acters die in consecutive
issues would really sur-
prise people. Remem-
ber, Crisis was published
before the Internet and
before detailed solicita-
tions for advance issues,
so we were actually able
to surprise people and
do this ‘one-two punch’
that I thought was really solid
for the story and showed the
readers that DC was a new
company in many ways. (Dal-
las 110)
But even as Wolfman went to great
lengths to provide the Flash with the
kind of noble death he felt the charac-
ter deserved, he also planted a “secret
plot device” (as he called it) to bring
Barry back (Wolfman). Again, from
the start, Wolfman opposed having
the Flash die in Crisis. He insisted that
all Barry Allen needed was a more
compelling characterization to make
him fit into the 1980s as much as he
once fit into the 1960s. On the chance
that DC’s executives would change
their minds about the Flash and re-
quest that he be revived, Wolfman
fashioned a new approach for the
character:
I came up with the idea that
as Barry was racing back
through time just prior to his
death, he would get plucked
out of the time stream and
thrown back into the world.
This cover to ICG’s Official Crisis on Infinite Earths
Index depicts all the heroes who perished in the event.
All characters TM and © DC Comics.
Barry would realize then
that he was living on “bor-
rowed time” since at any mo-
ment the time stream could
reclaim Barry and send him
back to the point of his im-
pending death. This situation
could make him more ag-
gressive in helping others be-
cause he would never know
when his time would be up.
He would become a driven
hero, haunted by the knowl-
edge of his inevitable fate.
(Dallas 111)
Wolfman proposed this idea to sev-
eral editors after Crisis wrapped up,
but none of them accepted it. After
five or six years of attempts, Wolf-
man stopped pitching the idea (Dal-
las 111).
Instead, the former Kid Flash, Wally
West, assumed the mantle of the
Flash at the end of Crisis #12. Wolf-
man had previously reduced Wally’s
powers from Barry’s multiverse-span-
135
ning abilities, but the young
hero didn’t let that fact stop
him from donning his mentor’s
red suit and ring, triumphantly
declaring, “I am no longer Kid
Flash. From this day forth – the
Flash lives again!”
Along with the deaths of the
Flash and Supergirl, the Crisis
also accomplished its goals of
removing dozens of other char-
acters from the DC Universe. A
1986 issue of Amazing Heroes
lists some 40 heroes who were
killed in the Crisis, including
Aquagirl, Earth-2 heroine the
Huntress, the Earth-2 Robin and
the pacifist super-hero Dove.
Their deaths added dramatic
weight to the maxi-series, but
Wolfman expressed regrets
about showing so many casu-
alties: “In retrospect I probably
would not have had so many
on-stage deaths; I probably
would have kept it down and
just said the others died off-
panel or something. I feel that
we gave short-shrift to some
characters, and as we moved on
in the series, it got a little worse.
Flash and Supergirl, though, I
stand by completely” (Waid 23).
Roy Thomas’s Crisis with Crisis
As Crisis on Infinite Earths was be-
ing published, DC promoted it across
nearly its entire line of comic books,
primarily by designating certain is-
sues as “Special Crisis Cross-Overs.”
While some of these issues added
depth to the overall Crisis story, most
of them related to the event only in
superficial ways. Often the only com-
mon denominator between Crisis
and one of its cross-over issues were
the bizarre “red skies” that the Crisis
event brought to the DC Universe.
Wolfman recommended publishing
cross-over issues as a way to compen-
sate the writers and artists of other
DC titles: “I came up with the concept
of doing the crossovers as a way for
them to make some money with Cri-
sis as well. It’s a mercenary thing, and
one of the many compromises that
had to be made on the book” (Waid
55). Money aside, many writers were
excited to be part of the Crisis, none
more so than Dan Mishkin, the writer
of Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld
and Blue Devil. Mishkin offered a
tremendous amount of feedback
on the event and on his charac-
ters’ involvement in the story-
line (Waid 26).
One DC writer, however,
had no choice but to im-
merse his titles in Crisis,
and that’s because Roy
Thomas was DC’s offi-
cial Earth-2 editor, the
custodian of the Justice
Society’s universe. Unfor-
tunately for Thomas, the
aftermath of Crisis made
those designations irrele-
vant. With the epic defeat
of the Anti-Monitor in Cri-
sis #12, the DC Universe
had become a radically
different place. The mul-
tiple Earth paradigm was
gone. Earths 1, 2, 3, S, C,
etc., were no more. In their
place was a single Earth
with a completely reboot-
ed continuity. No longer
were there multiple versions of Bat-
man or Superman or Wonder Woman.
Now there was only one version of
each character, and as far as the new
continuity was concerned, there al-
ways had only been one of each.
Ultimately, Thomas felt betrayed by
these changes. As Crisis got under-
way, he had been assured that the
World War II-era versions of Super-
man, Batman, and Wonder Woman
would remain available for his use in
All-Star Squadron. When Crisis ended,
that no longer proved to be the case.
DC’s plans changed, and most galling-
ly for Thomas, they changed without
him being consulted or even properly
notified by DC’s editorial staff. Thom-
as learned the news at a 1985 com-
ics convention in London (ironically
enough, it was a convention he hadn’t
originally planned to attend). He was
told there that he wouldn’t be able to
use the World War II-era versions of
Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman
(and even other characters like Green
Arrow, Aquaman and Robin) because
DC’s new continuity established that
none of these heroes were around
during World War II.
The lack of communication result-
ed in a tremendous break of trust
between Thomas and DC Comics.
Years later, Thomas described it as,
other title, Infinity Inc. illogi-
cal. That series had always
been intimately involved
with the continuity of
Earth-2, a continuity that
no longer existed. The
backstories of several In-
finity Inc. members, there-
fore, had been pulled
out from under them.
The super-heroine
Fury, for example,
had been established
as the daughter of the
Earth-2 Wonder Woman
and Steve Trevor. Neither
of those characters existed
anymore.
Thomas was forced to
retcon Fury’s lineage,
and he hoped to establish
EC Comics heroine Moon
Girl as Fury’s mother. Moon
Girl and Wonder Woman
shared several attributes, so
Thomas reasoned the former
would be an appropriate substi-
tute for the latter. He requested
that Dick Giordano arrange for him
to use Moon Girl as a replacement
for Wonder Woman. Months went by
without Thomas hearing back from
Giordano about his request. While
appreciating Giordano’s demanding
workload, Thomas still felt like he
had been waiting for too long a time
for a response. Ultimately, Giordano
forgot about Thomas’s request, which
forced Thomas to install Quality Com-
ics character Miss America as Fury’s
mother instead (Amash 41).
Essentially, Roy Thomas’s calam-
ity was that his creative interests and
DC’s post-Crisis plans weren’t com-
patible. All-Star Squadron and Infin-
ity Inc. were, in part, celebrations of
DC Comics’ history. Crisis on Infinite
Earths, however, broke DC Comics
Top: As a result of Crisis, the members of
Infinity, Inc. were no longer based on Earth-2. away from its history. Crisis set a new
Above: House ad for the America vs. the Justice Soci- course for DC’s future. It rebooted DC’s
ety mini-series, written by Roy and Dann Thomas.
Justice Society of America and Infinity, Inc. TM and © DC Comics.
fictional universe in order to attract
new readers and regain some equal
“another nail in the coffin of my rela- footing with Marvel Comics.
tionship with DC” (Amash 25, 38). In
Truth be told, though, DC didn’t close
the wake of Crisis, Thomas’s enthusi-
the sales revenue gap between itself
asm for All-Star Squadron evaporated.
and Marvel. In fact, in the short term,
Thomas declared in 1986, “I had no in-
the gap actually widened. In 1985,
terest in continuing All-Star Squadron
the sales on some of DC’s mid-range
as it is” (Mangels 62).
titles—like Blue Devil and All-Star
If Crisis gutted the cast of All-Star Squadron—dropped between 10 and
Squadron, it made Roy Thomas’s 20 percent from their pre-Crisis levels
136

The Batman/Superman team-up book,
World’s Finest, ended with issue #323.
Batman and Superman TM and © DC Comics.
(Amash 39). Evaluating Crisis solely
on DC’s 1985 sales performance, how-
ever, would be truly shortsighted.
Without a doubt, Crisis succeeded in
rejuvenating a moribund line of titles
and re-energizing DC’s creators. DC’s
fan base seemed satisfied, too. Crisis
was the talk of the industry. It won
the 1985 Eagle and Kirby awards for
Favorite Limited Series, while Pérez
won the 1985 Eagle for Favorite Artist.
The Beginning Creates an Ending
Considering the radical changes
wrought by Crisis, it should be no
surprise that several of DC’s longest-
running series concluded while the
maxi-series was appearing on news-
stands.
Besides the aforementioned Flash,
DC also wrapped up the long-last-
ing Superman/Batman team-up
title, World’s Finest Comics, with
issue #323 (Jan. 1986) after a run that
began in 1941. World’s Finest was
never a fan-favorite series, and in
its final years it featured an ever-
changing roster of often very inex-
perienced creative talent, but the
devoted DC Comics fan had to at
least shed a small tear at the cancel-
lation of one of the company’s most
esteemed titles.
The other long-running series
that ended because of Crisis was
Wonder Woman. The title’s sales
figures had plummeted in recent
years, but DC was unwilling to can-
cel Wonder Woman because of a con-
tract with the estate of the character’s
creator, William Moulton Marston,
which stipulated the reversion of
publication rights going back to the
Marston family if Wonder Woman
didn’t appear in her own DC Comic
for an extended period of time. The
Amazon’s solo series wrapped up
with issue #329 (Feb. 1986), but DC
had grand plans for Wonder Woman
that would include one of the Crisis
creators.
Crisis also brought about the cancel-
lation of other DC titles, even ones
that didn’t feature super-heroes.
With August 1985’s Jonah Hex #92,
DC cancelled its only western comic.
In that issue, the scar-faced cowboy
has a showdown against several op-
ponents in the 1880s. A second after
the confrontation begins, however,
the hero finds himself transported
to the far future. At that point, the
issue—and the series—ends. One
month later, Jonah’s new series,
Hex, reveals that a mysterious white
energy has brought DC’s infamous
gunslinger to the mid-21st centu-
ry where he battles for survival in
a post-nuclear dystopian world remi-
niscent of Mel Gibson’s Road Warrior
films. Documenting this strange,
dramatic change for DC’s final west-
ern comics stalwart were writer
Michael Fleisher and artist Mark
Texeira. Unfortunately for DC, the
new series became a notorious laugh-
ingstock among Jonah’s fans and
ended up cancelled after 18 issues.
A series that ended in 1985 that had
no connection to Crisis was Mike W.
Barr and Brian Bolland’s epic maxi-
series Camelot 3000. Issue #12 of
that series finally appeared in April
1985 after an unprecedented nine-
month delay from the publication of
the previous issue. No series released
by a mainstream publisher had ever
been delayed for three-quarters of a
year, but Bolland’s meticulous work
demanded more time than DC had
allocated for him. The fact that DC
permitted this kind of delay showed
just how much the company was
willing to stand by its creators and
allow them to produce the best
possible work. Struck by DC’s
patience, Bolland developed a loyal-
ty to the company, which paid off a
137
few years later as he delivered for DC
one of the best remembered comics
of the decade.
Perhaps the most important new
DC character to appear in 1985 was
John Constantine. First appearing
in Swamp Thing #37 (June 1985),
Constantine was a chain-smoking,
working-class mystic whose physi-
cal appearance was based on then-
popular musician Sting. Alan Moore
was intrigued by the idea of creating
a working-class magician and using
him as a mentor for Swamp Thing
(Millidge 117). Constantine became
such a popular supporting character
that DC decided to give him his own
series later in the decade.
A DC character who was introduced
in 1984 reappeared in 1985: the 1930s
detective Nathaniel Dusk returned
for a second mini-series written by
Don McGregor and printed from
Gene Colan’s penciled pages. “Apple
Peddlers Die at Noon” told a gritty
mystery tale torn out of the pages of
vintage newspapers and full of in-
tense action scenes. The first Dusk
mini-series had also been printed
from Colan’s pencil work, but that
work appeared washed out and drea-
ry. For Nathaniel Dusk II, however,
DC’s production department solved
the problem of printing from Colan’s
pencils, and presented some of the
most beautiful work of Gene Colan’s
House ad for Hex in which old west gunfighter
Jonah Hex time travels to a post-apocalyptic future.
Jonah Hex TM and © DC Comics.
long career. In 1985, McGregor and
Colan also collaborated on Eclipse’s
one-shot Ragamuffins. Like Nathaniel
Dusk, Ragamuffins’ art was shot di-
rectly from Colan’s pencil work.
Figuring Out Who’s Who
DC’s other major maxi-series of 1985
was Who’s Who: The Definitive Direc-
tory of the DC Universe, a 26-issue cat-
alog of nearly all the characters that
have appeared in DC Comics in its 50
years of existence. To give Len Wein
some much needed help on Who’s Who
(as well as Crisis), Dick Giordano hired
Bob Greenberger away from Starlog
magazine and handed him two three-
ring binders filled with the research
Peter Sanderson conducted on the DC
Universe. Greenberger found Sander-
son’s handwritten work invaluable…
when it was legible. The problem was
that many of Sanderson’s notes proved
difficult to collate. Clearly, Who’s Who
George Pérez’s wraparound cover for the first issue of Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe. All characters TM and © DC Comics.
was going to be no easy task.
Len Wein realized this early on. He
knew the project was so massive that
it would require all of his attention.
Subsequently, Wein moved away
from his developmental editing on
Crisis to devote himself full-time to
the DC character directory. Inargu-
ably, that was for the best as traffic
management for Who’s Who proved
so complicated that it required some-
one of Wein’s experience and skill.
Take, for instance, all the artists who
were needed to draw character pin-
ups for the series. Wein determined
early on for Who's Who that if the
inaugural artist of a particular char-
acter was still alive, he should get
first claim on drawing that charac-
ter. Because of that edict, Who’s Who
provides a Carmine Infantino-drawn
Silver Age Flash, a Gil Kane-drawn
Silver Age Atom, a Joe Kubert-drawn
Enemy Ace, and Jack Kirby illustra-
138
tions of many of the New Gods char-
acters. Wein and Greenberger then
contacted DC’s mainstay artists of
the time and asked them all what
character(s) they wanted to draw for
Who’s Who. As a result, the directory
received contributions from Jim Apa-
ro (drawing the Outsiders), Joe Staton
(Green Lantern), and Jerry Ordway
(members of Infinity, Inc.), among
many other DC artists. Finally, Wein
dictated that every Who’s Who issue
feature at least one artist who had
never worked for DC before. Green-
berger helped recruit artists like Dave
Stevens (who provided pin-ups of
Catwoman, Dolphin, and Phantom
Lady), Jaime Hernandez (Shrinking
Violet), Peter Laird (Flash villain The
Turtle), and William Messner-Loebs
(Human Bomb) to do their first DC
work on Who's Who.
Unlike Marvel’s engineering manual-
like Official Handbook of the Marvel
Universe, DC’s Who’s Who just
supplied basic information
about the DC Universe charac-
ters. Providing the book’s de-
sign was Neal Pozner. Accord-
ing to an interview conducted
with Peter Sanderson for Amer-
ican Comic Book Chronicles,
not only did Posner create the
Who’s Who logo, he also chose
a font that was easily available
from local typesetters and de-
vised the page design that clev-
erly incorporated DC’s famous
1960s-era black-and-white go-
go checks.
One War After Another
Marvel Comics countered DC’s
major cross-over event with
one of its own: Secret Wars II.
Fandom couldn’t have reacted
to the two competing story arcs
more differently. While Crisis
on Infinite Earths garnered nu-
merous awards and positive
fan press reviews, Secret Wars
II didn’t.
The first Secret Wars series was
a runaway best-seller in 1984.
Indeed, it sold more copies
than any other comic book in
the previous 25 years (Hart 21). That
kind of success would have convinced
anyone to green light a follow-up se-
ries, but Jim Shooter had been plan-
ning on a sequel even before the first
Secret Wars got published. He sug-
gested Secret Wars II simultaneously
to proposing the original mini-series
with the important caveat that there
would be no sequel if the first Secret
Wars series became a financial failure
(Zimmerman10).
The first Secret Wars series was an
unqualified financial boon… and
an equally unqualified critical bust.
By the time the series ended, it was
widely mocked as uninspiring, ju-
venile fare. It was so reviled, in fact,
that at a 1984 comic book retailer
summit in Baltimore, when Marvel’s
Direct Sales Manager, Carol Kalish,
announced the plan to produce Secret
Wars II, she was loudly booed (Gold).
Undeterred, Kalish quickly respond-
ed, “Let’s be honest. Secret Wars was
crap, right? But did it sell?” With the
crowd assenting, Kalish continued,
“Well, get ready for Secret Wars series
two!” The meeting room then erupt-
Top: John Byrne-drawn cover to the first issue of
Secret Wars II. Above: Marvel Comics house ad listing
all the titles tying into Secret Wars II that month.
TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
ed into cheers (Howley).
As Kalish assured, Secret Wars II be-
came 1985’s bestselling comic book.
With a first issue published in April
(July 1985 cover date), the sequel in-
verted the plot of the first Secret Wars
series. In the original Secret Wars, the
unseen, godlike Beyonder transport-
ed various super-heroes and super-
villains into the far reaches of space
in order to pit them against each
139
other. Secret Wars II brought
the Beyonder to Earth as he
became firmly human in an at-
tempt to understand mankind.
The Beyonder literally could
do anything he wanted, but he
became obsessed with figuring
out why humans demonstrated
so much free will.
As Secret Wars II progresses, the
Beyonder tries to learn about
normal human life. He prac-
tices sleeping, eating, going to
the bathroom, among other ba-
sic human activities. He slowly
becomes more and more in-
volved in America’s consumer
culture of the 1980s. In the
nine-issue series, he rides a Cui-
sinart-equipped Lamborghini,
acquaints himself with hook-
ers and mobsters, and even kid-
naps X-Men member Dazzler
and mutant Boom Boom to try
to seduce them. And unsurpris-
ingly, the Beyonder fights virtu-
ally every hero in the Marvel
Universe.
Secret War II’s list of guest-stars
reads like a 1985 who’s who in
Marvel Comics. The Avengers,
Spider-Man (still wearing his
black costume from the original Se-
cret Wars), the Fantastic Four, Power
Pack, Alpha Flight, and many other
characters all appear in SW II. In ad-
dition, several of Marvel’s cosmic-
themed characters—like Eternity, the
Celestials, Death, and the demon Me-
phisto—do battle against their cos-
mic-powered opponent from beyond.
As he did with the original Secret
Wars, Jim Shooter assigned him-
self the task of writing Secret Wars
II despite his crushing workload as
Marvel’s editor-in-chief. Shooter ini-
tially assigned veteran artist Sal Bus-
cema to illustrate the series. Buscema
wasn’t thrilled about having to draw
a comic book that involved so many
characters, but Shooter convinced
him that the royalty payments that
Buscema would be receiving would
justify the amount of work the artist
would have to do. So Buscema acqui-
esced and drew the first issue. When
his art pages arrived at Marvel’s of-
fices, though, Shooter wasn’t satis-
fied with the work. Rather than force
Buscema to revise artwork for a comic
book that he wasn’t enthused about

Uncanny X-Men #200 presented “The Trial of Magneto,” a story that would end with Professor Xavier
putting Magneto in charge of his mutant school. X-Men TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
drawing, Shooter instead had the is-
sue completely redrawn by then-ed-
itor Al Milgrom. Inking duties were
given to Steve Leialoha (Cronin). Mil-
grom and Leialoha would illustrate
the entire nine-issue core series.
Like DC did with Crisis on Infinite
Earths, Marvel promoted Secret Wars
II by crossing it over into nearly its
entire line of existing titles. The origi-
nal Secret Wars was pretty much a
self-contained story, but its sequel
crossed over with 22 separate titles
for a total of 33 other issues. Every
month over the course of SW II’s nine-
issue run, several titles presented
side stories of the Beyonder’s time on
Earth. Series as varied as ROM, Doctor
Strange, Daredevil, and Fantastic Four
each displayed a triangle on the top
right corner of their covers that boldly
declared “Secret Wars II continues in
this issue!” For the first time in the
history of Marvel Comics, someone
who wanted to read an entire story
140
had to purchase not just all the is-
sues of one title but all the ancillary
issues as well. When all was said and
done, that reader would have spent
more than $30 to possess the entire
Secret Wars II saga. Evidently, that cost
didn’t discourage most Marvel Com-
ics consumers as the cross-over issues
sold extraordinarily well. Avengers
#261 (Nov. 1985), for example, was
the best-selling single Avengers com-
ic of the 1980s, with sales of 277,400
copies, which included 151,900 copies
sold to Direct Market stores (Miller).
While many of the cross-over stories
read well, there was tremendous ten-
sion behind the scenes to produce
them. Shooter was often tardy in
writing the Secret Wars II scripts and
his lateness necessitated changes in
the cross-over issues. Shooter even
removed the writers of some of the
cross-over comics and ended up writ-
ing the issues himself. This happened
with writer Denny O'Neil on the
Daredevil cross-over issue (#223, Oct.
1985). Doctor Strange scripter Peter
Gillis later claimed, “Every crossover
got redone about three times because
Jim just didn’t like it.” Along with the
relentless script revisions, costumes
were also changed without sufficient
warning. Those changes meant that
much of Avengers #261 needed to be
redrawn at the last moment, which
caused much stress in the Marvel of-
fices (Howe 280-1).
Secret Wars II became one of the most
despised comics of the year, at least
as far as the fan press was concerned.
The series wound up on most “worst
comics of the year” lists and was the
subject of many negative reviews in
the fan press. Despite many fans’ ha-
tred of the mini-series and the chaos
that the comic’s production wreaked
behind the scenes, the series sold phe-
nomenally well. The first issue sold
around a half-million copies with
each Direct Market store ordering on
average over 300 copies (Christie). The
third issue sold 300,000 copies. This
all meant that while Secret Wars II
wasn’t a runaway blockbuster hit like
its predecessor, the sequel could hard-
ly be called a sales failure.
The Fate of Magneto and Professor X
The industry’s second most popu-
lar comic book of 1985 was Un-
canny X-Men. In the summer, the
series reached a major milestone as
Uncanny X-Men hit issue #200 under
the guidance of writer Chris Clare-
mont, penciller John Romita Jr., inker
Dan Green, and editor Ann Nocenti.
The anniversary issue presented “The
Trial of Magneto,” a major turning
point in the Marvel Universe and the
culmination of years of hard work
that Claremont had invested in mak-
ing the X-Men’s nemesis more three-
dimensional.
Leading up to the anniversary issue,
Magneto had been arrested in Eu-
rope by the Freedom Force. In issue
#200, he is placed on trial in Paris at
the International Court of Justice for
alleged crimes against humanity. The
trial is a flashpoint for rioting by both
anti-mutant and pro-mutant activ-
ists around the world. Some activists
embrace the mutant cause, others de-
spise it, but the most important figure
in the trial is an ailing Professor X.
Nearly dead from saving innocent ci-
vilian humans who were attacked by
mutant terrorists, Professor Xavier is
desperate to keep the cause of mutant
rights alive. The founder of the X-Men
ultimately passes control of his school
over to Magneto, simultaneously his
friend and lifelong nemesis, resulting
in a major change in the status quo for
the world’s greatest group of mutants.
Will the great villain find redemption
as a hero? As Professor X says, “[Mag-
neto’s] fate—and the X-Men’s—is
now before the court of public opin-
ion. The people of the world will de-
termine their innocence or guilt—and
whether their story has a truly happy
ending.”
Claremont, Romita Jr., and Nocenti
spent May 1985 on a combined re-
search and promotional tour through
France, Holland, Spain, and England.
The trip had the dual purpose of pro-
moting the X-Men titles abroad and
allowing the creative team to prepare
to set the anniversary issue in Paris
and The Hague. The trip gave Clare-
mont and Romita, Jr. a strong sense
of the locations in which they set the
story and gave the anniversary issue
a sense of verisimilitude that was un-
usual for a Marvel Comic of the time.
With its grand operatic story of death
and growth, change, and horror, and
with a subplot focused on the threat
of terrorism (not to mention a final
page showing Cyclops’s wife, Mad-
eline Pryor, going into labor with the
couple’s first child), X-Men #200 was
a massive crowd pleaser. The anniver-
sary issue was the month’s top seller
at Capital City Distributors, breaking
the stronghold on the top spot that
Secret Wars II had enjoyed. All told, X-
Men #200 sold 410,300 copies, includ-
ing 237,300 copies through the Direct
Market (Miller).
With Secret Wars II and Uncanny X-
Men leading the way, Marvel’s sales
were by far the highest in the com-
ics industry throughout 1985. Every
newsstand distributed Marvel title
sold over 100,000 copies per issue. De-
spite that success, Marvel Comics’ ex-
ecutives still pressured Jim Shooter to
cancel the line’s lowest-selling series
(Shooter, “An Answer to a Comment”).
In 1985, that meant titles like Power
Man and Iron Fist, Dazzler, ROM, Mi-
cronauts: The New Voyages, The Thing,
and The New Defenders were all on
the chopping block, and as fate would Above: Marvel Team-Up ended with issue #150.
Below: A second Avengers ongoing series,
have it, none of those series would West Coast Avengers, launched in 1985.
survive past 1986. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
One had to wonder if those cancel-
lations would be joined by another
long-running Marvel title: Captain
America. By 1983, sales of the shield
slinger’s comic book had plummeted
to under 140,000 copies per issue,
and 1984 had shown only a slight
improvement to that average. After
writer J.M. DeMatteis left Captain
America with his plans for the se-
ries unfulfilled, the title fell into a
few issues of drift. At the time Cap-
tain America editor Mark Gruenwald
claimed that he had no knowledge
that the star-spangled Avenger’s title
was being considered for cancella-
tion, and Jim Shooter assured the fan
press, “We’d never cancel someone
like Captain America – that would
be like cancelling the Constitution”
(Heintjes 17). Fears were put to rest
when Captain America’s sales im-
proved to a final 1985 average of al-
most 170,000 copies per issue. During Man co-star title, ended its 13-year
the year, Gruenwald and Mike Car- run with issue #150 (Feb. 1985), a
lin switched roles on the title. With giant-sized team-up with the X-Men.
Captain America #307 (July 1985), Two months later, the new Web of
Gruenwald was now its writer and Spider-Man appeared on newsstands,
Carlin its editor. Gruenwald wouldn’t giving the webslinger his third ongo-
relinquish the writing chores on the ing solo title. Marvel’s staff felt that
series for over a decade until Septem- idea of Marvel Team-Up had become
ber 1995’s issue #443. too convoluted and that the book was
One cancellation Marvel made in too formularized, so that series was
1985 was purely strategic. Marvel cancelled in favor of a new title that
Team-Up, the long-running Spider- would focus on Peter Parker’s travels
as a photographer for Now Magazine.
141
Of course, Marvel would never have
considered reducing the number of
Spider-Man titles on the stands. As
editor Jim Owsley said, “there are a
lot of Spider-Man fans out there,
and we feel we can sell [Web of
Spider-Man]” (Sodaro 135). With
an inaugural creative team of
writer Louise Simonson and
artist Greg LaRocque, the series
ran for over a decade. The first
issue of Web served as a minor
epilogue to the first Secret Wars
series. In Web of Spider-Man #1,
the black costume from Secret
Wars attempts to re-bond with
Peter Parker. The alien symbiote
is defeated through the ringing of
church bells.
Besides Web of Spider-Man, Mar-
vel introduced some other new
titles in 1985. The longest lasting
was West Coast Avengers, which
received a full series after a pi-
lot mini-series was published
the year before. Scripting this
new series was someone who
already had a fabled run with
Earth’s Mightiest Heroes during
the 1970s: Steve Englehart. Joining
him were Al Milgrom and Joe Sinnott
who handled the series’ art chores.
After a long run as a Direct-only title,
Moon Knight returned to newsstands
with the new Moon Knight: Fist of
Khonshu by Alan Zelenetz and Chris
Warner. And Cloak and Dagger finally My Canadians
received their own ongoing bi-month- for Your Hulk
ly series with a creative team of Bill Bill Mantlo was involved
Mantlo and Rick Leonardi. And then in one of the odder Marvel
there was the six-issue mini-series events of 1985 when he and
Longshot, which introduced a charac- John Byrne traded titles. By-
ter with the power to alter his “luck.” rne decided to give up writing and
Longshot puts his power to good use drawing Alpha Flight, a title that he
to escape an alien dimension called had created and for which he had
Mojoverse, but the comic book’s real written and drawn the first 28 issues.
star wasn’t its eponymous protago- He had become increasingly bored
nist; Longshot’s real star was its co- with his Canadian super-hero team
creator/artist, Art Adams. While not and increasingly frustrated by Alpha With the Longshot mini-series, artist Art Adams
representing his first professional arrived on the comic book scene in spectacular fashion.
Flight’s declining sales. Meanwhile, Longshot TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
work, Longshot put Adams on the Mantlo—who had been writing Hulk
comic book industry map in spectacu- for the past six years—felt he had Incredible Hulk #313 (both cover dated
lar fashion. Adams had a sleek, tight done all he could with the character Nov. 1985) as Marvel’s Green Goliath
art style that evoked the work of both and desired a new challenge (Sand- battles the Canadian super-group,
Michael Golden and Walt Simonson erson 23-24). So one day Byrne called and then the book’s creative teams
but remained distinctive nonetheless. Mantlo, and after the two creators (including the editors) switched plac-
Adams’ work would soon inspire a shared their frustrations, they de- es. With Incredible Hulk #314, Byrne
new generation of comic book artists cided to swap titles. Jim Shooter ap- took the title character back to his ba-
who would become some of the most proved the exchange after some rea- sics, as in all the way back to Stan Lee’s
influential professionals in the indus- sonable consideration. original 1962 conception of the char-
try by the end of the decade. acter. Bill Mantlo, on the other hand,
Alpha Flight #28 continues into took Alpha Flight in a new direction.
142

During his run on Alpha Flight, Byrne
rarely had the entire cast assembled
at the same time, preferring instead
to present stories that featured only
one or two characters. Mantlo im-
mediately made Alpha Flight more
conventional, bringing the characters
together to fight as a team.
Byrne and Mantlo’s creativity may
have been revitalized by their new
assignments. The same couldn’t be
said for artist Mike Mignola. His hor-
ror and fantasy-inspired art style was
perfectly suited for a monster book
like Incredible Hulk (or even the sci-fi
mini-series Rocket Raccoon which he
drew earlier in the year). But now Mi-
gnola was stuck on a conventional su-
per-hero book, and it was an assign-
ment he couldn’t tolerate. Mignola
drew only three issues of Alpha Flight
before departing.
Ironically, John Byrne’s tenure on In-
credible Hulk didn’t last much longer
than that.
The Alpha Flight and Incredible Hulk creative teams traded places in 1985.
Alpha Flight and Hulk TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Baby, I’m a Star
With sales boom-
ing throughout its
line, Marvel de-
cided to diversify
by targeting the
younger brothers
and sisters of its
existing reader-
ship. The time was
particularly ripe
since three years
earlier, children’s
publisher Harvey
Comics had gone
into hiatus and
no other publisher had stepped for-
ward to fill the void. Not that Marvel
didn’t immediately try. Shortly after
Harvey Comics suspended its opera-
tions in late 1982, Marvel offered to
acquire Harvey’s intellectual proper-
ties for $3.2 million. When that offer
was declined, Marvel opted to create
its own kids comics (Heintjes 23-4). So
in 1985, Marvel launched Star Comics
as a new line of comic books featur-
ing characters for younger readers.
The brainchild of Marvel’s vice presi-
dent of publishing Mike Hobson, the
Star Comics line was two years in the
making as overseen by Marvel execu-
tive editor Tom DeFalco and veteran
Harvey Comics editor, Sid Jacobson.
In turn, Jacobson recruited his long-
time Harvey associates Lennie Her-
man and Warren Kremer to create
and manage new characters for the
line (Massara 23). Jacobson, Herman,
and Kremer had spent much of their
professional careers chronicling the
143
Harvey Comics adventures of Richie
Rich, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and
Little Lotta. The experience and pro-
fessionalism of these Harvey veter-
ans were to be the hallmarks of the
Star Comics line.
The creation of Star Comics, though,
was a rocky ride, with many ideas
thrown around the editors and cre-
ators. Star suffered a major early set-
back in its development when Lennie
Herman unexpectedly passed away.
Herman was to be the principal cre-
ator on one of the new series, and
his death set the project back sev-
eral months. The prolific creator had
only written a handful of Star Comics
scripts before his passing, forcing a
reconsideration of the core of the line
(Massara 23).
The most successful Star titles show-
cased licensed characters. The initial
wave of Star Comics had such kid-
proven characters as The Muppets,
Fraggle Rock, Heathcliff the cat, as
well as the Ewoks from the Star Wars
movies. But Star Comics was com-
mitted to original material as well.
Legendary Little Archie writer/artist
Bob Bolling created Wally the Wizard,
the adventures of a medieval-era ap-
prentice wizard. Herman and Kremer
came up with two other titles for the
line: the sci fi space adventure Planet
Terry, and a book about an incredibly
rich boy named Royal Roy.
Star premiered six titles during cover
date April 1985 (Fraggle Rock, Heath-
cliff, Planet Terry, Wally the Wizard,
Top Dog, and Strawberry Shortcake)
and five more titles during May

Marvel Comics house ad promoting
its new line of Star Comics.
Star Comics TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
(Ewoks, Get Along Gang, Muppet Ba-
bies, Royal Roy, and Peter Porker, the
Spectacular Spider-Ham), with three
more titles following by the end of
the year (Care Bears in November, and
Misty and Thundercats in December).
Unfortunately, one of Star’s new
characters seemed too familiar—in
both appearance and concept—to a
longtime Harvey Comics property.
The accusation was made that Star’s
Royal Roy was a blatant copy of Har-
vey’s Richie Rich. Because two of
Richie Rich’s longtime contributors
had created Royal Roy, the similarity
between the two characters seemed
more than a mere coincidence. In
late 1984, Marvel shared preliminary
sketches of their Star characters with
Harvey Comics’ managers. Upon por-
ing over the work, Harvey concluded
that Star Comics did indeed copy its
creative properties, so Harvey initi-
ated a copyright infringement law-
suit against Marvel claiming that
three Star characters were too simi-
lar to three of Harvey’s: Tog Dog was
argued to be too much like Harvey’s
Dollar the Dog; Planet Terry was
analogous to Harvey’s Timmy Time;
and most egregiously, Royal Roy, “a
Prince of a Boy,” had an appearance
and nickname too similar to Harvey’s
Richie Rich.
The situation was exacerbated by of Marvel’s nascent Epic Comics im-
the fact that the Star characters were print featuring creator-owned titles.
licensed to appear on boxes of Gen- But Aragonés didn’t believe Shooter’s
eral Mills cereals, an ideal way to cap- (or even Shooter’s superior Mike Hob-
ture the attention of young children. son’s) assurances, so the cartoonist
When Harvey’s attorney heard about made a deal with Pacific Comics in-
the cereal deal, however, he wrote stead (Shooter, “EPIC Interference”).
General Mills and persuaded the ce- Aragonés and his collaborator Mark
real maker to scuttle its arrangement Evanier produced eight increasingly
with Marvel (Heintjes 23-24). Marvel madcap issues of Groo for Pacific Com-
then countersued. The legal matter ics, as well as one additional issue
ended when Harvey dropped its law- for Eclipse after Pacific’s dissolution.
suit after Marvel cancelled Royal Roy Aragonés and Evanier’s efforts were
with its sixth issue. creatively and financially rewarding
The Star Comics line would continue but the duo became dissatisfied with
into early 1988, at which point all the the distribution limitations placed
titles got rebranded as Marvel books on Groo as a Direct Market-exclusive
in order to secure better newsstand title. Evanier felt that the comic could
distribution (DeFalco 220). Care Bears, thrive on the newsstand market. He
for instance, was published under the conversed with a number of different
Marvel banner for a year. publishers before contacting Carol
Kalish. That bore fruit as after other
Groo Wanders Over To Marvel individuals were brought in, Marvel
Marvel published another new series agreed to publish Groo. Aragonés and
in 1985 that had a young reader ap- Evanier negotiated a deal with Mar-
peal. It starred the bumbling barbar- vel’s lawyers that allowed the creators
ian created by Sergio Aragonés called to retain their copyrights on the char-
Groo the Wanderer. After first ap- acters and pay them a good royalty on
the series (Evanier). Indeed, if there
pearing as a four-page strip in Steve
was any question as to who owned
Gerber’s benefit comic Destroyer Duck
Groo, readers needed only look at the
#1, Groo became a staple series at Pa-
title of Marvel’s new comic book for
cific Comics from 1982 to 1984. Prior
the answer: Sergio Aragonés Groo the
to that, though, Aragonés had pitched
Wanderer.
his creation to Marvel. He met with
Jim Shooter and Mike Hobson to dis- Evanier persuaded Marvel to do
cuss whether Marvel would publish two things with Groo: first, set the
Groo as an ongoing series but allow
Aragonés to retain some rights to the
character. According to Aragonés, he
couldn’t get the guarantees he want-
ed:
“I would go there and they
would say, ‘There is no way
that we can ever give any
rights to anybody.’ They
would take books out to prove
to me that it was impossible.
And every time that I talked
to the tall fellow at Marvel, he
said it was impossible. And I
didn’t have any contacts at
Marvel, so there was no way
they were going to do it.”
(Thompson 78)
Shooter, however, remembers their
discussion much differently. He re-
calls proposing Marvel publish Groo
under a “normal, real publishing
agreement” with Aragonés retaining
Star Comics Royal Roy prompted a lawsuit by
all rights to his creation. Shooter’s in- Harvey Comics who claimed the character was a
tention was for Groo to become part copy of their own Richie Rich.
Royal Roy TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
144
comic’s cover price at Marvel’s stan-
dard 75¢ and second, arrange dis-
tribution to the newsstand market.
The latter made Groo available at the
same venues in which readers could
find Aragonés’ famous marginal illus-
trations in MAD Magazine. Marvel’s
first issue of Groo was cover-dated
March 1985 and displayed both a
Comics Code seal and an Epic Comics
logo—the first time a comic from the
previously Direct Market-only Epic
line appeared on newsstands.
For the first Epic released issue, Ara-
gonés drew himself on an introduc-
tory page that explained how Groo
became a Marvel comic book. On that
page, Aragonés states, “I wanted to
tell the tales of Groo for years—but
all the comic companies insisted that
they had to own him! I, of course, said
no!” In the same issue, Mark Evanier
wrote a text page titled “50 Important
Facts About Sergio Aragonés.” One fact
stated, “For years [Aragonés] wanted
to do a comic book chronicling the ex-
ploits of Groo the Wanderer but was
unable to find a publisher he trusted.”
Jim Shooter wasn’t in the habit of
inspecting Epic Comics before they
were shipped to the printer. He had
The Day Jim Shooter
Attended a Jack Kirby Panel
Sometime afterward the
publication of Groo #1,
Shooter confronted Ara-
gonés at a comic conven-
tion in British Columbia,
demanding an explana-
tion for the cartoonist’s
claims in that first issue
introductory page. Ara-
gonés, however, evaded
Shooter’s questions, so
much so that Shooter
suspected that someone
else was responsible for
the introductory page.
Someone who either was
ignorant of the earlier ne-
gotiations Aragonés had
with Marvel or had per-
sonal reasons for making
Marvel look bad. From
Jim Shooter’s perspective,
it was the person who
wrote Groo #1’s text page:
Mark Evanier.
Evanier was a close per-
sonal friend of Jack Kirby,
and in 1985, Kirby had Marvel Comics house ad promoting Sergio Aragonés Groo The Wanderer.
become utterly frustrated
Groo TM and © Sergio Aragonés.

enough faith in that line’s editor, Ar- with Marvel’s treatment

chie Goodwin, to get the job done
right without his supervision. There-
fore, Shooter didn’t see Groo #1 until
after it had been printed, and when
Shooter read Aragonés’ introductory
page, he was livid. As far as Shooter
saw it, Aragonés was lying to his
readers. What made it worse was that
the lie had been printed in a Marvel
comic book. Shooter stormed into
Goodwin’s office and lambasted him
for allowing the introductory page to
be published. By Shooter’s account,
it was the only time he lost his tem-
per with his mild-mannered editor
(Shooter, “EPIC Interference”).
As a Marvel comic book, Groo had an
impressive 120-issue run, plus spe-
cials and collections. Groo’s success
at the newsstand led Marvel to offer
two other previously-Direct Market-
exclusive titles to the newsstand: Elf-
quest (licensed from Wendy and Rich-
ard Pini) and a reprint series of the
first six issues of Jim Starlin’s Dread-
star. Evidently, there was a place for
creator-owned material at the news-
stand.
of him. Unlike DC Comics—which
was now providing Kirby with roy-
alty payments for his Fourth World
creations—Marvel offered Kirby no
monetary compensation for his work
in building the Marvel Universe and
its increasingly popular characters.
Despite the fact that many of the Se-
cret Wars action figures were based
on characters that Kirby had a hand
in creating, the artist received no
money from the sales of those toys
(Evanier 200, 202).
Above and beyond that grievance,
Kirby continued to fight Marvel in
another, more public battle: the re-
turn of thousands of original art pag- sponsible for the situation, the lion’s
es that he produced for the company
during the 1960s. Starting in 1984,
Marvel began returning some Silver
Age-era original art to the artists who or unfairly, Jim Shooter became the
drew them.
Before it would return any art, Marvel
stipulated each artist sign a release
form. Kirby, however, wasn’t sent the
same release form provided to every
other Marvel artist from the 1960s.
Instead, Kirby received a much lon-
ger release form drafted specifically
145
for him. By signing the form, Kirby
would acknowledge that the work he
produced for Marvel during the 1960s
was “made for hire,” thereby relin-
quishing his rights to it forever. For
many reasons, Kirby refused to sign,
and he brought the news of Marvel’s
treatment of him to the public. His
situation quickly became a cause cé-
lèbre of the entire comic book indus-
try. Both the fan press and industry
professionals stepped forward to
support Kirby and attack Marvel for
what was perceived as reprehensible
treatment of the man whose art had
shaped the fortunes of the company.
Even though Jim Shooter wasn’t re-
share of industry outrage was di-
rected at him, simply because he was
Marvel’s most visible executive. Fairly
symbolic figurehead of an inflexible,
callous corporation. The 67-year-old
Kirby, on the other hand, presented
an extremely sympathetic figure to
his colleagues and fans, especially
because of his health problems and
especially when he made statements
like, “It’s not as if we’re selfish, or

Above: Cover to the program guide for the
1985 San Diego Comic Con. Below: In its 1985
comic books, Comico reprinted a Comics Journal
form petitioning Marvel Comics to return
original art to Jack Kirby.
want the art for ourselves. They’re
robbing our grandchildren” (Heintjes
15).
Comic companies such as Comico and
Eclipse published full-page ads back-
ing the Kirby family, and DC execu-
tives wrote an open letter of support
of Kirby. Gary Groth, publisher of
The Comics Journal and Amazing He-
roes, seized every opportunity within
his power to push Marvel to return
Kirby’s art. Groth wrote several edi-
torials in the Journal and encouraged
news coverage in his magazines to be
devoted to Kirby’s plight. But Groth
didn’t have to encourage his writers
very much. He was joined in his an-
ger by some of the most prominent
comic book creators of the day. Frank
Miller, for instance, started a petition
drive for the unconditional return of
Kirby’s artwork. Signing that petition
were Marv Wolfman, Steve Gerber,
Roy Thomas, Don Heck, Superman
co-creator Jerry Siegel, cartoonist
Matt Groening, Harvey Kurtzman,
Harlan Ellison, Jules Feiffer, Art Spie-
gelman, and over 150 other creative
professionals. They all agreed to the
petition’s declaration that “Marvel
Comics should place no conditions
on the return of Jack Kirby’s original
artwork.”
The controversy reached a high point
on August 3, 1986, during that year’s
San Diego Comic-Con. A special
panel featured comic book luminar-
ies Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Marv
Wolfman, and Gary Groth testifying
to Kirby’s influence on the comics in-
dustry. Jim Shooter sat in the back of
the panel room as each of the indus-
try stars spoke about their respect for
Kirby and their outrage at Marvel’s
treatment of the great creator.
After about 45 minutes of listening,
Shooter spoke up at the panel. He
told the audience that he “very, very
much” admired Jack Kirby and that
he wanted the original art to be re-
turned to him. Shooter assured every-
one that he, Marvel, and Kirby would
come to a mutually satisfying resolu-
tion, but he also described the con-
vention panel as a “kangaroo court”
and responded to their criticism of
Marvel’s work-made-for-hire con-
tract: “You’re sitting there in moral
outrage about the people who choose
to work for Marvel Comics, and who
allow Marvel to be the author of the
work, but this includes a lot of people
with six-figure incomes” (Heintjes 9).
After Frank Miller confirmed that he
enjoyed working for Marvel and that
he was satisfied with the money he
made doing work for Marvel, Shooter
continued the point:
A lot of people presume that
there’s something about
owning your characters that
makes you better off. Once
in a while, your characters
will become Star Wars, and
you’ll become George Lucas,
but I think that 999 times
146
out of 1000, you’re better off
working for hire at huge page
rates, big royalties, making
lots of bucks, getting your in-
surance paid, having all your
work materials paid for, as
opposed to owning Potato-
Man lock, stock, and barrel.
(Heintjes 10)
At that point, Jack Kirby’s wife, Roz,
who had been sitting four rows in
front of Shooter, stood up, turned
around and said, “Mr. Shooter, excuse
me but I’d rather own Captain Amer-
ica, and you can keep your medical
plan” (Heintjes 10). The audience ap-
plauded.
Shooter went on to relate how when
he was writing for DC Comics as a
teenager in the 1960s he created char-
acters that went on to attain some
popularity. Shooter was later advised
by a lawyer that he could sue DC
Comics for ownership of those char-
acters, but he chose not to because at
the time he created them, he knew
he was working for hire and that he
knew DC would own everything he
created. Again, Roz Kirby spoke up: “I
hate to interrupt you, but during the
whole thing, we’ve never tried to get
the copyrights back from Marvel. It’s
you people who keep bringing it up.
Marvel seems to be worried about
something, and I don’t know why you
people worry. All these years we’ve
been fighting—not just lately, it’s
been going on for years—just for the
artwork” (Heintjes 11).
The panel ended with Shooter assert-
ing, again, that he wanted Kirby to re-
ceive all his original art back but also
contending that the matter needs to
be resolved privately between Marvel
and Kirby. Unfortunately for every-
one involved, that resolution didn’t
happen anytime soon.
They Are The World
The evening news of the mid-1980s
brought reports of horrible tragedy in
Africa. A horrific famine in Ethiopia
was killing hundreds of thousands
of people. Musicians and other cre-
ative professionals from all around
the world formed charitable causes
to raise money to alleviate the crisis.
Band Aid, USA for Africa, and Live Aid
became the most famous relief orga-
nizations, but there were also causes
like Car Aid, Sports Aid, and a slew
of other charities arranged by jazz,
heavy metal, and gospel singers.
Watching the news, Bernie Wright-
son and Jim Starlin decided that the
comic book industry should do its
part to help with famine relief. Star-
lin called Jim Shooter at
home and proposed the
idea of Marvel publish-
ing a “jam comic” bene-
fit. Shooter immediately
approved and brought
the idea to his superiors,
Mike Hobson and Jim
Galton, who likewise in-
stantly signed off on it.
All three Marvel execu-
tives agreed that if the
creators involved with
the comic would donate
their services, Marvel
would in turn donate
all the profits from the
book to an appropriate
charitable organization.
Thus was born Heroes
for Hope Starring the X-
Men.
Chris Claremont recruit-
ed the writers for the
project while Wrightson
and Starlin recruited the
artists, leaving editor
Ann Nocenti to coordi-
nate it all. Together, over
100 creators worked on
the jam comic, including
luminaries from outside
the comic book indus-
try like Stephen King,
Edward Bryant, Harlan
Ellison, and George R. R.
Martin. They joined an
all-star list of the most
popular comic creators
of the day: Stan Lee,
Frank Miller, John Byrne,
Howard Chaykin, Alan
Moore (paired with Richard Corben),
Charles Vess, Steve Rude, and John
Romita, Jr. There were so many vol-
unteers that the organizers even had
to decline some creators who wanted
to be part of this project. Each writer/
artist team was given two to three
pages to tell their section of the story.
The seasoned comic book profession-
als handled their assignments with-
out any problems, but the writers
who weren’t experienced at scripting
comic books needed help. Stephen
King, for instance, submitted a script
that was so overwritten that it would some spectacular and heartfelt art
have been impossible to fit all his dia- and writing.
logue and captions onto three comic Released in early September 1985, the
book pages. Claremont, Nocenti, and 48-page Heroes for Hope had a cover
Shooter collectively whittled down price of $1.50. Marvel Comics’ Pub-
King’s work to a manageable length lic Relations Director Pam Rutt had
arranged for all pro-
ceeds to be donated to
the non-profit Oxfam
America organization,
but Oxfam stipulated it
needed to see Heroes for
Hope before it would
agree to accept any do-
nation. In advance of
printing, Marvel sent
Oxfam a mock-up copy
of the comic book. After
reviewing Heroes for
Hope, Oxfam refused
to be associated with it.
To them, the contents
of the comic book were
repugnant. They con-
sidered the manner in
which the comic book
depicted women was
sexist and the manner
it portrayed Africans
was racist. One Oxfam
executive even accused
the artists of attempt-
ing to capitalize on Mi-
chael Jackson’s fame by
making all the Africans
in the comic book look
like the world famous
pop singer. This same
Oxfam executive per-
sonally told Shooter
and Galton that Mar-
vel would face a public
relations calamity if it
went ahead and pub-
lished Heroes for Hope.
He urged Marvel to can-
cel the book (Shooter).
Needless to say, Shooter
Marvel Comics’ Heroes for Hope—with
contributions from dozens of writers and artists— and Galton dismissed Oxfam’s advice
raised money for African famine relief. and instead directed Pam Rutt to find
X-Men TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
a different organization to donate to.
(Shooter, “Heroes for Hope and Why I She found American Friends Service
Don’t Like Oxfam America”). Committee whose African relief ef-
forts were directed not only at Ethio-
The one-shot fundraiser told the story pia but at other impoverished areas as
of the X-Men battling a horrific su- well. AFSC enthusiastically agreed to
pernatural creature that feeds on de- accept the Heroes for Hope proceeds,
spair, thereby creating a zone of ter- which Shooter calculates was in ex-
rible desperation in Africa. While the cess of $500,000 (Shooter).
plot wasn’t particularly original, it
worked well as a small framework to Jim Starlin and Bernie Wrightson’s re-
lief efforts didn’t stop with Heroes for
hang a loose jam story that contained
147
Hope. They also helped coor-
dinate the DC Comics benefit
book that was released the
following year, in late May
1986. Heroes Against Hun-
ger was a 48-page one-shot
retailing for $1.50. Similar
to Heroes for Hope, the DC
book was a “jam story” fea-
turing work by over 100 cre-
ators, including famed horror
writer Robert Bloch, along
with comic book industry
greats such as Jack Kirby,
Barry Windsor-Smith, Joe
Kubert, Carmine Infantino,
Steve Englehart, Marv Wolf-
man, George Pérez, and How-
ard Chaykin. Heroes Against
Hunger had Superman and
Batman battling an extrater-
restrial creature called The
Master, who was hindering
the effects of famine relief.
Both the fan press and the
mainstream media saluted
the efforts of these two ben-
efit books. That doesn’t mean
there weren’t critics, though.
More than one commentator
noted that no African-Amer-
ican creators were involved
with Marvel’s comic, despite
the fact that the comic was
specifically about Africans. More
importantly, as noted commentator
Leonard Rifas remarked at the time,
the two comics were a shallow at-
tempt at providing help for the people
of the Horn of Africa without under-
standing the deeper reasons why the
famine was created or what could re-
ally be done to prevent similar future
tragedies. By treating the famine as
an extra-dimensional force that was
imposed on the Ethiopian people, the
comic books failed to address the fam-
ine’s complicated—and sometimes
conflicting—origins. The Ethiopian
crisis had been growing organically
for some time, not that anyone would
have grasped that from reading the
benefit comic books (Rifas 26-29).
Alan Moore’s Marvelman Miracleman
One writer who contributed to Heroes
for Hope was Alan Moore. In 1985,
Moore was a rising star in the comics
industry, thanks principally to his wa-
tershed run on Swamp Thing. Moore’s
poetic narrative and dark plot twists
helped make Swamp Thing one of the
House ad promoting DC Comics’ African famine
relief benefit comic book, Heroes Against Hunger.
TM and © DC Comics.
most highly regarded comic books of
the decade.
DC kept Moore busy with other as-
signments, such as stand-alone pieces
in Green Lantern, Omega Men, The
Vigilante, Detective Comics, and DC
Comics Presents. That workload didn’t
stop Moore from writing for other
publishers, though. In 1985, he also
produced material for seven consecu-
tive issues of First Comics’ American
Flagg!
Eclipse Comics hit upon a different
way to get Moore into its fold: it li-
censed Moore’s revival of a classic Brit-
ish super-hero. Created by Mick Anglo
in 1954, Marvelman was a deliberate
imitation of the Fawcett character
Captain Marvel. By saying the word
“Kimota” (or “atomik” backwards),
Mickey Moran transformed himself
into the super-powered Marvelman.
The character’s initial adventures
lasted until 1963. In 1982, British pub-
lisher Dez Skinn acquired the rights
to Marvelman and made him one of
148
the ongoing features of his
anthology magazine Warrior.
Alan Moore wrote the new
Marvelman stories, initially
with artist Garry Leach and
later with artist Alan Davis.
By late 1984, however, Dez
Skinn had to cancel Warrior
due to declining sales. Prior
to the cancellation, he tried
selling the magazine’s fea-
tures to American publish-
ers, including DC and Marvel
Comics. DC was intrigued by
some of the Warrior char-
acters, but Marvelman was
not one of them. DC had no
interest acquiring a charac-
ter with a name that mim-
icked its biggest competitor.
For its part, Marvel declined
to acquire Marvelman be-
cause of concerns that read-
ers would mistakenly view
Marvelman as its flagship
character. Besides, Marvel-
man was just too offbeat for
the House of Ideas’ taste. In
fact, prior to Warrior’s cancel-
lation, Marvel disapproved
of Marvelman so much that
it sent Skinn several letters
demanding the character’s
name be changed (Heintjes
13-14).
Rebuffed by the two biggest American
comic book publishers, Skinn realized
none of the independent companies
would risk Marvel’s wrath by acquir-
ing a character named Marvelman.
Skinn had no choice but to rename
the property in order to sell it. In an
interview for American Comic Book
Chronicles, longtime comic book cre-
ator and editor Dave Elliott revealed
that Alan Moore tried to persuade
Skinn to leave Marvelman’s name un-
changed but instead have the comic
book starring the character adopt the
title of his first Marvelman chapter,
“A Dream of Flying.” Similarly, Garry
Leach proposed a comic book title of
“MM,” the character’s chest symbol.
In the end, though, Skinn just didn’t
like the prospect of trying to convince
a publisher to purchase a charac-
ter named Marvelman. So Skinn re-
named the character Miracleman.
Skinn pitched Miracleman to Pacif-
ic Comics and the San Diego-based
publisher purchased it… and then
Pacific Comics shut down its opera-
tions before it could even schedule a
Miracleman comic book, never mind
publish it. During Pacific’s liquida-
tion sale, Eclipse acquired several for-
mer Pacific series as well as the rights
to Miracleman. So from Dez Skinn
through Pacific Comics, Miracleman
became a new Eclipse comic book.
The first issue of Miracleman reached
comic shops in July 1985 at the low
retail price of 75¢. That cost rivaled
most Marvel Comics’ titles and was
significantly cheaper than the $1.75
cover price of most Eclipse comics. In
its house ads, Eclipse proudly adver-
tised that its comics broke the “Buck
Barrier.” Three other titles in Eclipse’s
“bargain line” followed shortly
afterwards: New Wave, Airboy, and
The New DNAgents.
The first six issues of Miracleman re-
printed stories originally published in
Warrior. American readers unfamiliar
with the material became captivated
by Alan Moore’s vision of a grown-up
Captain Marvel who rises from a deep
sleep to embrace his freedom.
Miracleman starts as a fairly
traditional character reviv-
al. While the earliest issues
display his usual dark plot
twists, Moore would eventu-
ally use Miracleman to push
the boundaries of super-hero
narratives, generating tre-
mendous controversy while
doing so.
But as it reprinted Warrior’s
original Marvelman stories,
Eclipse neglected to secure
the permission of one of its
artists. Alan Davis contend-
ed that no publisher had the
right to re-publish his Mar-
velman work, since he had
given Dez Skinn permission
to publish only the first Eng-
lish language printing. Any
subsequent reprinting had
to be renegotiated with him.
Therefore, Eclipse’s reprints
of the work illustrated by Da-
vis were legally unauthorized.
Davis also claimed ownership
to several characters he co-
created for Marvelman. Con-
vinced it acquired the rights to
the Marvelman stories from
Dez Skinn via Pacific Comics,
Eclipse never felt the need to
contact Davis. From Davis’s point of
view though, the fact of the matter
was very simple: “What Eclipse re-
printed they stole” (Davis). As Dave El-
liott elaborates, Davis and Moore had
a falling-out over the Captain Britain
series that the pair had co-created for
Marvel UK in 1981. In disgust, Davis
assigned his rights to Marvelman over
to Garry Leach, which made Leach the
controller of the largest portion of
the rights to the character. In 1985,
Davis and Leach chose not to pursue
1985 house ads promoting Eclipse Comics’ Miracleman.
Miracleman TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
149
legal action against Eclipse after find-
ing it impossible to get the fan press
to listen to their side of the story.
The artists felt the deck was stacked
against them. But even without Da-
vis and Leach pressing the matter,
Miracleman wasn’t free of legal wran-
gling. Years later, the property would
become the subject of a contentious
ownership battle that wouldn’t be re-
solved for many years.
Along with Miracleman, Eclipse pre-
miered two other notable series in
1985. Tim Truman ended his popu-
lar run on Grimjack to create his own
Scout, a post-nuclear holocaust action
adventure comic that features a gun-
toting Native American in an almost
mythical land. Michael T. Gilbert’s
Mr. Monster was Scout’s opposite: a
madcap, tongue in cheek heroes vs.
monsters yarn that was never quite
on solid ground.
One independent comic that led the
way towards the future was Mike
Saenz’s Shatter. The first commer-
cially published all-digital comic,
Shatter told the adventures of a
hardboiled detective in the fu-
ture—a kind of Blade Runner in
comics form. The series was cre-
ated on a first generation Apple
Macintosh using MacPaint and
other applications, and printed
on a dot matrix Apple Image-
Writer printer. Saenz’s creation
process was laborious and gru-
eling. Among other problems,
Saenz couldn’t see the whole
page when he was drawing it,
and it took Saenz six months of
testing in order to feel confident
enough to be able to produce
pages that could be published in
comics.
The art pages were printed out
in black-and-white and then
colored in the traditional hand-
done method of the times. Shat-
ter appeared first as a back-up
feature in First Comics’ Jon Sable
Freelance series (and simultane-
ously in the British computer
magazine Big K) before emerg-
ing into its own series in Decem-
ber. While the comic is a mere
footnote today for many comics
fans, it is important as the very
first comic that included com-
puters as a major part of its pro-
duction process (Meyerson 13).

David Singer’s (Short-Lived) Victory
After David M. Singer published
the first issue of Wally Wood’s
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents in late 1984,
John Carbonaro sued him for copy-
right infringement, claiming the
characters belonged solely to him
and were not, as Singer claimed, in
the public domain. Included in this
lawsuit were three Direct Market dis-
tributors: Glenwood, Capital City, and
Top: George Pérez-drawn cover for
Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #3.
Comics Unlimited.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents TM and © John Carbonaro estate.
But Carbonaro’s litigiousness didn’t
150
stop with Singer or some of the Direct
Market distributors that carried Sing-
er’s comic book. Carbonaro also threat-
ened to sue just about anyone who
dared help David Singer promote his
version of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.
For instance, Carbonaro personally
telephoned Comics Buyer’s Guide edi-
tor Don Thompson to tell him that
CBG would be sued for libel for print-
ing Singer’s press release. Similarly,
after CBG writer David Campiti con-
ducted an interview with Singer, Car-
bonaro informed the writer that if
the interview got published, Campiti
would be held responsible for what
Carbonaro characterized as Singer’s
libelous statements. Carbonaro also
targeted one of the creators work-
ing for David Singer. Dave Cockrum
was contacted by one of Carbonaro’s
friends who told the artist that Car-
bonaro would sue Cockrum if he con-
tinued to draw Singer’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents (Heintjes 9).
It was a threat that Cockrum didn’t
take seriously, and ultimately, Car-
bonaro limited his litigation just to
Singer. In 1985, the three Direct Mar-
ket distributors were released from
the lawsuit in a partial settlement.
Carbonaro told The Comics Journal
that he knew they weren’t at fault, “I
had to bring the distributors into the
suit to let Singer know that I was seri-
ous, but I don’t have anything against
the distributors” (Heintjes 13). None
of the three distributors carried the
January-published Wally Wood’s
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2, and Singer’s
revenues from the issue were signifi-
cantly reduced. This would prove a
harbinger of things to come.
Singer put Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents on hold until the lawsuit’s
resolution. He made five different
settlement offers, but Carbonaro
turned them all down (Heintjes 7).
The suit was headed to court. In an
effort to distance himself from his
legal problems, Singer formed a new
comic book company: Lodestone Pub-
lishing. Through Lodestone, Singer
released Codename: Danger—by Rich
Buckler, Keith Giffen, and Robert Lo-
ren Fleming—as well as Dave Cock-
rum’s Futurians.
But several months after Singer
started up Lodestone, he scored a le-
gal victory: the court ruled in Singer’s
favor. The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents were
indeed in public domain, as far as the
court was concerned (Heintjes 13).
After the verdict was handed down,
Singer immediately ran a full-page
ad in CBG promoting Wally Wood’s
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #3. The ad had
a big lettered banner that read, “WE
WON!” The issue was published in
November 1985 and featured stories
by Dave Cockrum, Keith Giffen, and
Steve Ditko.
But if David Singer thought his legal
woes were finally behind him, he was
in for a big surprise. Carbonaro ap-
pealed the court’s decision, and the
fight for control of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents carried on.

Direct Market Livelihood/

Newsstand Fatality
The Direct Market’s relentless expan-
sion continued in 1985, as more new
publishers rushed into the field. They
included Strawberry Jam Comics, 1985 house ads promoting Blackthorne Publishing’s Sheena 3-D Special and Continuity Comics’ Armor.
Armor and Continuity Comics TM and © Neal Adams
Fishwrap, Independent Comics, and
Blackthorne Comics, which emerged
creator-owned and licensed titles. audience. The Charlton line averaged
from the ashes of Pacific’s liquidation.
The black-and-white comic book abysmal sales of 22,900 copies per
Steve Schanes explains:
boom arose from the unparalleled comic issue, but the company had
After we closed down Pacific to sell an average of 24,000 copies to
success of Teenage Mutant Ninja
and laid everyone off, it took break even financially.
Turtles. It was so successful that it
Bill and me about six or eight
assured the emergence of a slew of In Charlton’s final months, its own-
months to work everything
other single creator publishers, all ers negotiated with both the holders
out with the bankruptcy at-
of whom released their publications of the Harvey Comics properties and
torneys, the liquidators, and
solely to the Direct Sales market. with Marvel. The initial plan to li-
all the grueling stuff that
There was perhaps no better indica- cense characters such as Richie Rich
entailed. That takes a lot out
tor of the comic book industry’s shift and Casper the Friendly Ghost from
of you, but one has to make
away from the newsstand and toward Harvey went nowhere, so Charlton’s
a living. I decided that with
specialty comic book stores than owners then turned to Marvel as a
what I now knew about pub-
the news that one longtime news- friendly partner. The two publishers
lishing, and since I still had
stand comic book company closed its negotiated for a time, with Charlton
a lot of creator contacts, and
doors in 1985. The Connecticut-based proposing that its line of comics be re-
since I now needed a job, my
Charlton Comics, which had been named Whiz-Bang Comics in order to
wife and I would form our
in business since 1946, released its differentiate itself from its old corpo-
own comic-book company.
final comic book, Professor Coffin #21, rate name. However, a deal was never
We needed to create a corpo-
in October 1985. Over the years, the struck between the two companies
ration quickly, so we set up a
venerable company had published (Heintjes 10-11). With that, Charlton’s
company headquarters in our
comics by such industry greats as demise was assured.
two-story house and took the
name of the street that we Neal Adams, John Buscema, Steve Going forward, if a comic book
lived on, Blackthorne Avenue, Ditko, Dick Giordano, Joe Staton, John publisher didn’t have a strong Direct
and called it Blackthorne Pub- Byrne, Tom Sutton, and dozens of oth- Market presence, it had no chance of
lishing. (Sanford) er creators. But since 1982, Charlton survival, never mind success.
released only reprinted material and
Blackthorne focused on the new rage
unpublished backstock, and it was
in the industry: black-and-white
all out of step with the times. While
comic books. Blackthorne’s first pub-
comic book readers embraced such in-
lication was Sheena, Queen of the
dependent comics as American Flagg!
Jungle, a one-shot of reprinted mate-
and Nexus, the Charlton-produced
rial with a new cover by Dave Stevens.
Timmy the Timid Ghost, Dr. Graves,
The company gradually expanded,
The Private War of Willy Schultz,
first with more reprints (such as Dick
and Atomic Mouse failed to find an
Tracy) and later with a small line of
151
1986
Watchmen and
the Watchers of the
Comics Industry
By 1986, Marvel was beginning to be seen by the showbiz
industry as a major entertainment company rather than
just a comic book publisher. The September 17, 1986 issue
of Variety ran a story headlined “Marvel Now $100-Million
A Year Hulk.” In that story, writer Dan Gilroy reported that
“Marvel publishes some 350 comic book titles per year,
selling roughly 7,000,000 copies per month. Rounding out
Marvel’s publishing line are limited-run books and special
editions, which have been tied in with the release of fea-
ture films” (81).
The article emphasized the diversity of Marvel’s titles,
quoting Marvel President James Galton as he discussed
how the comics group had progressed over the years:
“Marvel was a one-product company in 1975. It published
comic books, for boys primarily, and had a very narrow de-
mographic. I decided to take the core business and build
from that.” The article notes that Marvel had expanded to
an adult line, Epic Comics; a children’s line, Star Comics;
into graphic novels, into coloring books, and into licensing
and animation, which, according to Galton, was “all part
of an ongoing process, and that is to keep Marvel charac-
ters in the forefront of the American consciousness” (Gil-
roy 92).

Marvel’s New Universe Is a Big Bang

June 1986 marked 25 years since Fantastic Four #1 ap-
peared on the newsstands, and hence the 25th anniver-
sary of the beginning of the “Marvel Age” of comics. This
was to be a big event, and the planning began early for it.
Jim Shooter reports, “Eighteen months or so before Mar-
vel’s 25th anniversary, there was a meeting called by Gal-
ton to discuss how to ‘celebrate’ the anniversary – that is,
how to capitalize on it and make money on it” (Johnson
21). At that meeting, Shooter proposed a radical break
from the past: “I proposed that we do a Big Bang – that
is, bring the Marvel Universe to an end, with every single
title concluding – forever – in dramatic fashion in May of
1986 and in June begin relaunching the entire universe.
We’d start each title again from #1” (Johnson 21). It was
the same kind of reboot of Marvel’s fictional universe that
Doug Moench claims Shooter wanted to do back in 1982.
Shooter now had the political capital inside Marvel to ex-
ecute the idea as part of the discussion of the company’s
25th Anniversary celebration.
Marvel’s executives at the time, however, feared loss of the
company’s market share—nearly 70% of the entire Ameri-
can comics market in 1986—and so shot down Shooter’s

CHAPTER SEVEN
grand idea. In doing so, they might have been consider-
ing the declining sales of Marvel’s “Distinguished Com-
petition.” After DC Comics rebooted its line in the wake
of the historic Crisis on Infinite Earths, its group-wide
by Jason Sacks sales dropped by over 20% between 1985 and ’86, and its
152
market share dropped by five percentage points in two like our ‘real world’ until yesterday when the White Event
years (Tolworthy). occurred. Then things got a bit stranger, but not so much
Rebuffed in his first proposal, Shooter offered a slightly that you would notice it every day” (Johnson 22).
less radical idea: “Since they wouldn’t let me do Plan A, In his “Universe News” column in the first issue of the first
I proposed Plan B—celebrate the 25th anniversary of month of the New Universe comics Shooter summed up
one universe by creating another one—a New Universe. the approach of the line this way:
That flew. I was given a budget of $120,000—big money During the summer of 1986, Archie Goodwin, Tom
in those days—to develop eight new titles with which to DeFalco, a number of other people at Marvel Com-
launch the New Universe and promised a massive adver- ics and I created the New Universe. Or, more cor-
tising, promotional and PR campaign as well as other sup- rectly, we simply decided to use a universe hitherto
port—staff, bonus money to insure that we’d be able to get unused in comics. Our own. The one we live in. Real
top-drawer creators” (Johnson 23). pipes. Real people. Real bathrooms. No mer-peo-
However, as quickly as that large budget was committed, ple. No repulsors. No unstable molecules. In fact,
it was pulled away. Marvel’s parent company, Cadence In- no fantasy or fantastic elements at all except for
dustries, was preparing to sell Marvel Comics and pocket the very few we introduce. Carefully. Does it make
some major profits. To prepare for the sale, Marvel’s ex- sense? You bet. As much as the universe outside
penses were cut to the bone. Among those expenses was your window does. A universe where time passes
the budget for the New Universe. The Cadence executives and things change, and… well, you know. You live
allowed Shooter to go ahead with his plans for the New in it. Startling.
Universe but determined that no extra expense would be It was a “ground-level”
spent on the new line. Shooter had pushed to promote the universe that delib-
line outside of the comics industry, advocating for TV ads erately and strongly
and magazine placements, but the best that Marvel man- contrasted with the
agement at the time would muster were some point-of- fantasy-filled universe
sale store displays for comic shops. of the Marvel super-
The financial aspects of the pending sale also affected the heroes, a universe that
creative teams on the New Universe series. In early promo- was intended to provide
tional materials and conversations about the line, Shooter a new brand for Marvel.
noted that he hoped to get some of the most popular cre- The New U. was to be
ators in comics to work on the New Universe titles; how- based more on real-
ever, due to the tightness of the budget, books were mainly ity than the great
filled with standard rank-and-file Marvel writers and art- leaps of imagi-
ists. This approach decreased the fan buzz about the New nation that the
Universe, since the creative teams didn’t seem all that dif- standard Mar-
ferent to fans from the creative teams working on many vel Universe
ordinary Marvel titles. required.
After some initial work on the New Universe line, in which Four titles
series such as Speedball and Strikeforce: Morituri were con- in the New
sidered for inclusion, the founding editors made a major Universe line
decision about the direction of the New Universe titles. premiered in
Shooter and his editorial staff decided the New Universe July 1986:
would represent what would happen to “the world
outside your window” if suddenly people gained
super powers. As editor/writer Mark Gruenwald
put it in a memo during the planning stages of
the New Universe, “The world was absolutely

To celebrate its 25th Anniversary,

Marvel Comics unveiled a “New Universe” of titles.
TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

153
1986 TIMELINE
A compilation of the year’s notable comic book industry events alongside
some of the year’s most significant popular cultural and historical events.
January 28: A rocket booster failure
causes NASA’s Space Shuttle Challenger
to explode 73 seconds after launch. All
seven crew members are killed. Space
shuttle flights are suspended until 1988.
February 7: Haitian President
Jean-Claude Duvalier is ousted
from power. He flees to France
as Henri Namphy becomes the
new leader of Haiti.
February 9: Halley’s
Comet reaches its
closest approach to the
Sun during its visit to the
solar system which
occurs every 75 years.
JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL M AY JUNE
Batman, Legends, Superman, Watchmen and Wonder Woman TM and © DC Comics. Fantastic Four, Star Brand and X-Men TM and © Marvel Characters,
Inc. Maus TM and © Art Spiegelman.
1986 house ad announcing
Marvel Comics’ New Universe.
TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
April 2: Garry Sher, the owner of Garry’s Comic June 5: The first issue of DC
Stop in Edgebrook, Illinois, is cited with selling Comics’ 12-issue Watchmen
harmful material to a minor. The charges will series – written by Alan Moore
eventually be dismissed, but not before Sher with art by Dave Gibbons –
chooses to close his store. arrives in stores.
April 26: The world’s worst
nuclear accident occurs in the
Ukraine as one of the reactors at June 26: Julius Schwartz’s
tenure as DC Comics’
the Chernobyl atomic power plant
Superman editor comes to
explodes, killing 31 people and
an end with the publication
exposing thousands of others to
of Action Comics #583, a
near lethal amounts of radiation.
special send-off issue writ-
Parts of the Ukraine and Belarus
become uninhabitable. ten by Alan Moore, penciled
by Curt Swan, and inked by
Kurt Schaffenbeger.
February 25: Corazone Aquino, wife
of murdered senator Benigno Corazon,
becomes the 11th president of the
Philippines after the People Power
Revolution opposes Ferdinand Marcos’
fraudulent re-election. Marco and his
wife Imelda go into exile in Hawaii.
April 15: President
Reagan orders air
May 25: At least 5,000,000 people
strikes against Libya in
participate in “Hands Across America”
retaliation for the April
by forming a human chain that ex-
5 West Berlin discote-
tends from New York City to Long
que bombing that killed
Beach, California for the purpose of
three U.S. servicemen.
raising money to fight hunger and
The airstrikes cause
homelessness.
the deaths of at least
15 Libyans and injure
May 16: Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise,
at least 100 more.
opens in movie theaters. It will gross more
March 20: DC Comics publishes the first money at the box office than any other
issue of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, movie that year.
written and penciled by Frank Miller with inks
May 13: Marvel Comics publishes Fantastic
by Klaus Janson and colors by Lynn Varley.
Four #293 – the final issue of John Byrne’s
five-year run on the title.
Mark Hazzard: Merc by Peter David Justice by Archie Goodwin and Geof
and Gray Morrow, telling the story of Isherwood, about a man whom
a soldier of fortune; aliens appoint as a violent peace-
Nightmask by Archie Goodwin, Tony keeper;
Salmons and Bret Blevins, about a Kickers, Inc. by Tom DeFalco, Ron
hero who can enter and manipulate Frenz, and Sal Buscema, telling the
dreams; story of a super-powered football
Spitfire and the Troubleshooters team;
by Eliot Brown and Herb Trimpe, and Psi-Force by Steve Perry, Mark
featuring a woman trying to Texiera, and Kyle Baker, featuring
prevent the armor that her fam- another set of paranormal teens on
ily created from being taken by the the run, who can combine together to
government; create the powerful Psi-Hawk.
and Star Brand by Jim Shooter, John The creative teams quickly shifted
Romita, Jr., and Al Williamson, star- on most of the New Universe titles
ring a regular guy who suddenly is soon after their release. DeFalco and
granted powers from space but isn’t Frenz left Kickers, Inc. after issue #2,
quite sure how to use them. and Brown left Spitfire after plotting
In August, the final four titles issue #1 (he was fired as a Marvel edi-
appeared: tor in July). Goodwin also only took
part in the earliest issues of his titles,
D.P. 7 by Mark Gruenwald, Paul Ryan, leaving Nightmask after issue #2 and
and Romeo Tanghal, about young only scripting Justice #1. Gruenwald
paranormal people coming to grips and Shooter stayed with their series,
with their powers; however, and those ended up being
154
 November: New World Pictures December 10: Michael Correa,
September 8: Oprah Winfrey begins her purchases Marvel Comics from the manager of Friendly Frank’s
July 8: The “Mutant Mas- syndicated TV talk show. Cadence Industries for $45.5 Comics in Lansing, Illinois is ar-
sacre” begins with Uncanny million in cash. rested for intent to disseminate
X-Men #210, an 11-issue obscene material. Publishers
story arc that will involve five September 15: The first episode of L.A. Law November 25: The Iran-Contra Denis Kitchen of Kitchen
different Marvel titles (Uncanny airs on NBC network television. scandal begins as President Sink Press and Ron Turner of
X-Men, X-Factor, New Mutants, Reagan and Attorney General Last Gasp Publishing donate
Thor, Power Pack) over four September 15: Art Spiegelman’s graphic Edwin Meese reveal that profits money to aid in the store’s
consecutive months. novel Maus: A Survivor’s Tale arrives in book from secret arms sales to Iran legal defense. These donations
stores. The work will earn Spiegelman a have been diverted to Nicara- initiate the Comic Book Legal
July 15: Marvel special Pulitzer Prize in 1992. guan rebels. National Security Defense Fund.
Comics’ New Council member Oliver North
Universe launches December 19:
and his secretary, Fawn Hall,
with the publication Written and
begin shredding incriminating
of Jim Shooter and directed by
documents.
John Romita, Jr.’s Oliver Stone,
Star Brand #1. and starring Tom
Berenger, Willem
Dafoe and Charlie
Sheen, the Viet-
nam War movie
Platoon opens in
theaters.
July 16: Directed by James Cameron
and starring Sigourney Weaver, the sci-fi
action movie Aliens opens in theaters.

J U LY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER

November 26: The fourth
Star Trek movie, The Voyage
Home, opens in theaters.
November 13: Batman #404, presenting the first
October 12: After two part of “Batman: Year One” by writer Frank Miller
days of discussion in and artist David Mazzucchelli, goes on sale.
Reykjavik, Iceland, U.S.
President Ronald Reagan
and Soviet leader Mikhail
S. Gorbachev fail to reach
an agreement about
nuclear arms reduction. December 24: At the age of
75, comic book writer Gardner
Fox dies. Having written
November 6: Wonder Woman #1 – thousands of stories since the
August 26: Written by Len Wein and John written by Greg Potter and plotted comic book industry’s “Golden
July 10: Courtesy of writer/artist John Byrne,
Ostrander with art by John Byrne and and penciled by George Pérez – Age,” Fox is perhaps most
Superman is revamped with the publication
Karl Kesel, the first issue of DC Comics’ goes on sale. The issue redefines famous for creating both the
of the first issue of Man of Steel, a six-issue
Legends mini-series is published. the Amazonian Princess for DC’s Justice Society of America and
mini-series released bi-weekly.
post-Crisis continuity. the Justice League of America.

the best-selling New Universe books. dropped 42 per cent” (Fryer 14). consensus was that the series had a
Despite all the hype around the new Retailers’ complaints were perhaps strong launch. Gruenwald’s D.P. 7 also
line, the New Universe failed to gen- best explained by Richard Finn of Sec- proved to be popular, achieving a
erate huge sales from the start. An ar- ond Genesis in Portland, Oregon who consistent level of quality that many
ticle published in The Comics Journal said, “I didn’t like [Marvel’s] market- of the other New Universe comics
#111 (Sept. 1986) surveyed a num- ing techniques. Eight new titles in lacked.
ber of comic shop owners about the the space of one month is way too
New Universe’s sales performance. much at one time to expect collectors A New World for Marvel
Reports were that at its premiere the to buy. [Marvel] were way too con- The biggest news for Marvel in 1986
line sold mediocre numbers at best; servative in publicity. They kept [the was that the company was sold from
sales then trailed off as additional is- New Universe] under wraps too long. Cadence Industries to New World Pic-
sues of each series were released. On They sent out lots of promotions too tures in November. Cadence had been
average, New Universe books sold like late” (Fryer 14). looking to sell Marvel for some time,
mid-range Marvel titles. Star Brand, positioning the company’s financial
Star Brand ended up being perhaps
the best-seller, sold as well as an av- statements and comics line to make
the most critically acclaimed title
erage issue of Amazing Spider-Man, it attractive for sale. After initial nib-
in the New Universe line, garner-
while Kickers, Inc., the worst-seller, bles from American Greetings and
ing strong reviews from R.A. Jones
sold as well as an issue of Incredible Western Publishing, an agreement
and Gerard Jones in Amazing Heroes
Hulk. The article notes that “Capital was reached with New World, whose
for the obvious passion that Shooter
City’s Comic Dealer’s Newsletter for executives agreed to buy Marvel from
put in his writing and for the book’s
August listed drops in orders for five Cadence Industries for $45.5 million
realistic atmosphere. While some
New Universe titles; in two issues in cash. Cadence’s shareholders re-
critics faulted Shooter for appropri-
D.P. 7 dropped 27 per cent; Psi Force ceived $17 per share, less than half of
ating aspects of Green Lantern’s ori-
dropped 33 per cent; Justice dropped the stock’s actual value at that time.
gin—specifically that the title’s pro-
32 per cent; and Merc dropped 40 per tagonist received his powers via an The sale netted large profits for
cent; and in three issues Star Brand artifact given to him by an alien—the Cadence’s executives but also cost
155
many of Marvel’s rank-and-file
employees significant amounts of
money. The executives cleaned out
the pension fund, diminished health
coverage, and even threatened to re-
duce the company’s generous and
revolutionary royalties plan – all in
an attempt to decrease the compa-
ny’s costs and increase their personal
wealth. Marvel was extremely profit-
able in the mid-1980s, dramatically
increasing its already huge market
share and expanding the merchan-
dising of its characters. However, the
conditions around the sale to New
World contributed to a general
sense of malaise for the company’s
employees. There was a sense that
upper management didn’t care about
the company’s ordinary staffers and
that the staffers had little or no say
in the future direction of the com-
pany for which they worked. Further-
more, Stan Lee and Jim Shooter had
to spend much of their time working
as liaisons for the sale and transfer of
assets, which distracted them from
the comics line and other important
comic related matters.
Shooter claims that he was a whis-
tleblower for corrupt aspects of the
transaction: “I wrote a letter to Bob
Rehme, our new, New World CEO,
telling him of some of the totally
corrupt, self serving, potentially il-
legal things that Marvel’s top brass
had done/were engaged in” (Shooter
“Even More Questions and Answers”).
That status as a whistleblower, along
with the relative financial failure of
the New Universe, Shooter’s continu-
ing tensions with some staffers and
his unpopularity in the fan press—
which blamed him for the ongoing
controversy about the return of Jack
Kirby’s art, among other things—
proved to be writing on the wall for
major changes in Shooter’s career in
1987.
Make Love, Not War
While Marvel journeyed into a New
Universe, the company also an-
nounced plans to return to an old
standby of its comics group: Ro-
mance comics. Marvel’s last romance
books had been cancelled by the
mid-1970s, but Marvel Age #40 (July
1986) announced the creation of a
new line of Marvel Comics called
“Tender Hearts.” The four new series
were to be developed in collaboration
In the same year that film audiences would see
Oliver Stone’s Platoon, Marvel released its own
Vietnam War comic book: The ’Nam.
The ’Nam TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
with the always-popular Harlequin
Romance books.
The first of the series was slated to
be released in the summer of 1986.
Tender Hearts would have consisted
of black-and-white, 116-page pa-
perback-sized books presented with
two or three panels per page. The
books were aimed to be part of the
then-thriving young adult/teenager
romance genre, through Harlequin’s
Silhouette series. Line editor Bob Bu-
diansky described Tender Hearts as
“somewhere between a comic book
and a paperback story in that there’s
a lot of narration” (Busiek 13). Each
book in the line was intended to have
a woman’s point of view with a tight
focus on the main character of each
story as well as a very contemporary
feel with its fashion, slang and atti-
tudes. The books were to be sold ev-
erywhere paperback romances were
sold, including bookstores, supermar-
kets, bus stations, and drugstores.
Four books were announced as ini-
tial releases: Blue Ribbon Summer by
Danny Fingeroth, Jackson Guice, and
Vince Colletta; Love at First Sight by
J. M. DeMatteis, Mary Wilshire, and
Vince Colletta; Blue Jay of Happiness
by Louise Simonson, Mary Wilshire,
and Bob Wiacek; and Discoveries by
Don Kraar, June Brigman, and Ray
Richardson. John Romita, Sr. and
Joe Sinnott respectively laid out and
156
inked the covers for all the books.
None of the Tender Hearts books ever
appeared on newsstands or in comic
shops.
Make War, Not Love
Joined together by editor Larry
Hama, writer Doug Murray and art-
ist Michael Golden had built a rap-
port while collaborating on the series
“Fifth to the 1st” for Marvel’s Savage
Tales magazine. While short-lived,
the “Fifth to the 1st” feature gener-
ated significant fan response, which
encouraged Hama to pitch to Shooter
a revival of another neglected comic
book genre: the war comic. Shooter
approved, and Murray, a Vietnam War
veteran, conceived this new series as
an important look into the brutality
of war, as a way of cutting through
all the propaganda about the moral-
ity of war. The threat of a nuclear and
traditional war between the United
States and the Soviet Union was very
strong in the mid-1980s, and Murray
was inspired by that threat to create a
new series that portrayed warfare as
authentically as a comic book would
allow.
As a result, in September of 1986, one
of the most unique comic books Mar-
vel published during the decade made
its debut: The ’Nam. The series was a
portrait of the Vietnam War through
the perspective of an American in-
fantryman. The ’Nam begins with Pri-
vate First Class Ed Marks as he leaves
his civilian life and gets deployed to
Vietnam to be part of the 4/23 In-
fantry (Mechanized) Division. Over
the course of the first twelve issues,
PFC Marks lives the typical American
G.I. life: the tedium and the terrors,
the camaraderie and the corruption.
With many of the comic book’s events
mirroring Murray’s own combat ex-
periences, The ’Nam focused on the
human side of war, not Rambo-style
action. That approach gave The ’Nam
a strong sense of verisimilitude, em-
phasized further by Murray’s deliber-
ately sparse dialogue, Golden’s obses-
sive attention to detail in his art, and
a glossary printed at the end of each
issue that defined all the jargon and
slang being spoken by the characters.
The ’Nam was an existential explo-
ration of modern warfare, presented
in a realistic and compelling style.
The creators were very aware of the
power of the comic page to educate it made him fantastic money. Shoot-
those who picked up the series. They er claimed at a San Diego Comicon
sought to change the outlook of young panel that Byrne made $325,000 in
people toward war. As Murray states 1985 (Heintjes 9). Years later, Shooter
in the introduction to the The ’Nam’s also claimed that “John was making
third trade paperback collection, “The a bloody fortune at Marvel…. One
’Nam is an attempt to teach some of time I handed John a $30,000 royalty
the lessons of the Vietnam War to the check for one issue of one title. That
most important audience of all—the was by far not the record, by the way”
people that’ll end up fighting in the (Shooter, “Another Question, Another
next little brush war our ignorance Answer”).
thrusts us into… We’ve got to remem-
Nevertheless, Byrne got caught up
ber Vietnam. Remember that it was a
dirty, badly-led and ultimately futile
war, and, with that memory, stop it
from ever happening again.”
The ’Nam’s narrative unfolded in
a unique manner: each issue fol-
lowed the previous in “real time.”
The monthly publication schedule of
the series meant that each issue of
The ’Nam moved the story ahead by
one month. By the beginning of The
’Nam #13—one year after the first is-
sue had been published—Ed Marks
had been in Vietnam for a full year.
Murray intended the comic book to
be, essentially, an eight-year limited
series; he wanted to produce one is-
sue for every month the United States
had been in Vietnam. Unfortunately,
Murray didn’t get to follow through
on his plan: The ’Nam only lasted 84
issues, one year short of eight years,
and Murray left the series after issue
#51 (January 1990).
Maybe most intriguingly, the first is-
sue of The ’Nam was released three
months before Oliver Stone’s Platoon,
a movie about the Vietnam War that
would go on to win the Academy
Award for Best Picture of the Year.
Clearly, by 1986’s close, the attention
of media consumers was on Vietnam,
and The ’Nam essentially anticipated
the popularity of Vietnam War nar-
ratives—including movies such as
Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill,
and Casualties of War, and television
shows such as Tour of Duty and China
Beach—that lasted until the end of
the decade.

A Fantastic Farewell
Even while working to diversify its
line, Marvel was still concerned most
about its best-selling mainstream
super-hero titles. John Byrne argu-
ably remained Marvel’s biggest star
in early ’86. His Fantastic Four was Top: With issue #293, John Byrne’s five year run on Fantastic Four came to an end.
one of Marvel’s bestselling books, and Above: John Byrne drawn cover to FantaCo’s Fantastic Four Chronicles.
Fantastic Four TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

157
 later, Al Milgrom found the rejected Byrne also wrapped up his short six-
book in a drawer and brought it to issue run on Incredible Hulk with is-
me. He liked it. So did I. I thought it sue #319 (May 1986), which featured
was great” (Shooter, “Another Ques- the wedding of Bruce Banner to his
tion, Another Answer”). longtime love Betty Ross. The couple
The all-splash page issue was had been dating off and on since the
planned to be published as Incredible Hulk’s very earliest stories scripted by
Hulk #320 (cover date June 1986) and Stan Lee. Though Byrne didn’t expect
would eventually see print as Marvel to leave Hulk so quickly, his final issue
Fanfare #29 (cover date November provided a nice capstone to his short
1986). Byrne remembers the events run on the title.
differently from Shooter. As he re- Byrne left Marvel as perhaps the
counts in an interview years later, most popular creator in their popu-
Byrne left the Hulk and Fantastic Four lar comics group. The series he had
because of personal politics between already agreed to take on next—even
him and Shooter: “I took on the Hulk before his departure from Marvel—
after a discussion with Shooter, would make him even more popular
in which I mentioned some of the and more controversial among com-
things I would like to do with that ics readers.
character, given the chance. He told
me to do whatever was necessary to Dare to Change
get on the book, he liked my ideas so Frank Miller also left Marvel in 1986,
much. I did, and once installed he im- a decision brought on by the depar-
in a bit of Marvel office politics that mediately changed his mind – ‘You
drove him off of not only Fantastic ture of his collaborator David Maz-
can’t do this!’ Six issues was as much zucchelli from Daredevil after issue
Four, but away from Marvel altogeth- as I could take” (Thomas).
er. After 10 years at Marvel, John By- #233 (August 1986), the final chap-
rne was just not happy working un- The argument would lead to Byrne ter of the team’s classic “Born Again”
der Jim Shooter. He felt impacted by ending his very popular five-year run storyline.
what he perceived as a negative work on Fantastic Four effective with issue Miller had rejoined Daredevil after a
environment. So when a better offer #293 (August 1986). He was replaced three-year absence with issue #227
came along, Byrne bolted (Thomas). on the book by the team of Roger
Stern, Jerry Ordway,
The precipitating event happened and Al Gordon.
when Byrne turned in an issue of
his short-lived run on Hulk that was
composed entirely of splash pages.
Denny O’Neil, the editor of the Hulk
at the time, didn’t object to such an
experimental storytelling approach
but ultimately felt in this case that
the approach didn’t work (Heintjes
11). What’s more, O’Neil believed
Shooter wouldn’t approve Byrne’s
story either. Without getting confir-
mation from Shooter that this was
indeed the case, O’Neil simply told
Byrne that Shooter had rejected the
story. Byrne became furious at the
perceived interference from Shooter
in his work, and then quit Marvel
entirely (Shooter, “Another Question,
Another Answer”). In Byrne’s mind,
the Hulk story was the metaphori-
cal straw that broke the camel’s back,
stating “I just reached my threshold
on everything” (Heintjes 11).
Ironically, Shooter states, “I never
even saw the rejected book! I assumed
that Denny had given it back to John.
I didn’t even know why Denny had
Top Left: page from Byrne’s all-splash-page Hulk story.
rejected it, only that he did. I didn’t Above: John Byrne drawn cover to Comics Interview #25.
know it was all splash pages. Months TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

158
(cover date January 1986). At that
time, he paired up with Mazzuc-
chelli, who was then the resident art-
ist on the book, and the two creators
pushed Matt Murdock through an ex-
istential and physical journey unlike
any that had faced any hero before.
Miller wondered how a good man
might react when all of his worldly
trappings were stripped away and
forced Daredevil to live through that
gauntlet in “Born Again.”
In the first issue of Miller’s new run,
Daredevil’s world is systematically
destroyed by his arch-nemesis, the
Kingpin. By laying waste to Murdock’s
career, his friendships, his invest-
ments, and even his house, the King-
pin turns Daredevil into a man with
literally nothing left in his life. Mur-
dock is emotionally devastated by
those losses, but after reuniting with
his former girlfriend, Karen Page,
who had similarly lost everything, he
is able to begin a new life. The story
reveals that Matt Murdock’s mother
was a nun working in a homeless
shelter, and through his mother’s
tender ministrations, our hero is born
again as a different man: happier,
calmer and more at peace with him-
self and the world around him.
The “Born Again” storyline was high-
ly acclaimed, and drove a massive in-
crease in the sales of that venerable
comic series. Daredevil #227 won the
1986 Jack Kirby Award for Best Single
Issue, and Miller and Mazzucchelli
won the Kirby for Best Writer/Artist
team.
Miller had originally planned to
write two more issues of Daredevil
after the conclusion of “Born Again,”
to be illustrated by Walter Simonson,
after Miller’s original choice for the
story, John Buscema, proved to be
too busy to work on the project. In
fact, Miller did write the first part of
the two-part story, titled “The Devil’s
Own,” which dealt with Satanism
and would have featured Doctor
Strange. The Miller/Simonson col-
laboration was to be a dark psycho-
logical horror story, a supernatural
adventure that mixed sex and terror
in a grisly and dark way. However,
Simonson never took pencil to paper
to illustrate either issue. The Miller/
Simonson Daredevil was originally
put on hold for several months, but
as often happens in comics, a sto-
ry put on hold is never completed
(Mithra). Simonson moved on to a
different Marvel project while Miller
left Marvel altogether to wrap up
work on a different blockbuster se-
ries.
One of the reasons that Miller and Si-
monson didn’t complete their issues
was because of pressure from new
Daredevil writer Steve Englehart,
who wanted his first issue on the run
to come out at the beginning of the
summer, traditionally the best sales
period of the year (Mithra). Ironi-
cally, the only issue of Daredevil that
Englehart scripted was issue #237, an
issue that doesn’t even credit him as
the writer. He was slated to take over
the title full-time, and issue #237 was
hyped in Marvel Age #44 as begin-
ning the work of “an exciting new
creative team.” Marvel Age Annual
#2, published in June 1986, featured
a blurb about Englehart’s surpris- Frank Miller returned to Daredevil in 1986 for a
soon-to-be celebrated story arc titled “Born Again.”
ing new direction for Daredevil. He Daredevil TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
planned to have Murdock move to
San Francisco as a way to get himself
away from all the temptations that
would have dragged him back to his
old dissolute life. Daredevil and the
Black Widow would then have joined
the West Coast Avengers (whose title
was scripted by Englehart), and the
writer would have created a romantic
triangle between Murdock, the Black
Widow and Karen Page.
Amazing Heroes Preview Special #3,
also published in the summer of
1986, presented a long preview of
Englehart’s plans for Daredevil, but
it was one that conflicted with the
plans printed in Marvel Age Annual
#2. According to the Amazing He-
roes Preview Special, Daredevil would
have teamed with the Black Widow
as a pair of international crime fight-
ers, traveling around the world from
their base in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen
to fight drug wars at the places where
the drugs come from. Englehart was With that decision, Englehart was
excited to take the newly cleaned- out and Nocenti was in. Englehart did
up Daredevil and use the character’s write Daredevil #237 but refused to
openness to help move him closer to have his name credited: “since all the
his high adventure roots. plotlines I set up went to waste, I put
Regardless of whatever his true plans my ‘John Harkness’ pseudonym on it”
were, Englehart only ended up writ- (Englehart). Ann Nocenti remained
ing one issue of Daredevil. As Engle- the writer on Daredevil for almost
hart explains it, sometime after he five years, keeping Daredevil in the
began plotting his run on the book, ed- Hell’s Kitchen setting that Miller es-
itor Ann Nocenti decided she wanted tablished, and having Daredevil fight
to write Daredevil herself (Englehart). street-level crime.
159

Elektra’s
Crazy World
Miller’s other
comic for Marvel in 1986 was the bi-
zarre eight-issue Epic Comics series
Elektra: Assassin, created in collabo-
ration with artist Bill Sienkiewicz.
The first issue of the mini-series ar-
rived in Direct Market stores in July
1986. Sienkiewicz brought his usual
intensely surreal style to bear on the
series, presenting a dreamlike tale
in which Elektra and her paramour,
After some initial grumblings
and protests, Epic line edi-
tor Archie Goodwin acceded
to Shooter’s request, which
meant not only that Miller
and Sienkiewicz would now
receive enhanced royalties
for their Elektra work, they
had the green light to create
a book that was entirely un-
like anything on the stands at
the time (Shooter, “EPIC Inter-
ference”).
As an adventure story in which Elek-
tra fights to save her identity, Elektra:
Assassin presents helicopter chases
and high tension battles along with
large slivers of humor, romance, espi-
onage thrills, and political commen-
tary. Miller took advantage of Sien-
kiewicz’s well-known impressionistic
style to present a narrative through
Elektra’s subjective and emotionally
shattered eyes. The book had a com-
plex visual palette that was unique
in comics of that time. Sienkiewicz
notably painted the comic—one of
the first painted series ever released
from Marvel—which required some The Elektra: Assassin mini-series featured painted
sophisticated technical work from artwork by Bill Sienkiewicz.
Marvel’s production department. Elektra TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

sleazy S.H.I.E.L.D. agent John Garrett,

fight to keep an evil monster from tak-
ing office as the next President of the
United States. Miller and Sienkiewicz
had brought their idea to Jim Shooter
and asked their editor-in-chief to give
them the chance to create a much
edgier version of Elektra than could
be shown in standard comics. Despite
the fact that Elektra wasn’t a creator-
owned character, Shooter proposed
that the series be published under
the Epic Comics banner. His reason-
ing was based on the fact that Epic’s
sales were flat and needed to improve
in order to stave off Jim Galton’s pro-
posed cancellation of the imprint.
Because of its strangeness, Elektra:
Assassin treaded the thin line be-
tween surrealism and comprehen-
sibility. The story is told in a linear
way, but that linear story is told in
an unconventional manner. For ex-
ample, in issue #3, Garrett is stitched
up after an operation with a sewing
machine. And issue #1 depicts Elek-
tra’s mother’s belly and the sight of
Elektra in utero. Miller often comple-
ments the unorthodox artwork with
surreal writing, making for a bizarre
comics experience.
As a series, Elektra: Assassin sold over
two million copies (Shooter, “EPIC
Interference”). It finished fifth in the
160
1986 Comics Buyers Guide fan awards
for Favorite Limited Comic Book Se-
ries, but it would also prove to be the
final material that Miller would pro-
duce for Marvel until 1993. Elektra’s
success took Epic Comics off of the
executive chopping block and finally
gave that line a runaway best-seller.
Even as it was enjoying Elektra’s ac-
complishments, Epic lost one of its
most popular titles. In a then-unprec-
edented move, Jim Starlin moved
his science fiction adventure series
Dreadstar from Epic to First Comics.
The numbering of the series contin-
ued with #27 (cover date November
1986). This was the first
comic book of any type
that was moved away
from Marvel’s auspices.
At the time Starlin said,
“I can’t work with Mar-
vel anymore. I’ve had a
lot of trouble getting paid
anywhere near on time.
Sometimes I’ve had to
wait as long as three or
four months on checks.
I’m of the opinion at this
point, though people up
at Marvel deny it, that
Marvel is less than enthu-
siastic about continuing
creator-owned characters
and wouldn’t be sad to see
them all go” (Smay 30).
At the same time as Mar-
vel lost one science fiction
adventure comic book in
Dreadstar, it gained an-
other in the form of Strike-
force: Morituri. Writer
Peter Gillis landed his
pet series at Marvel after
shopping it around to sev-
eral different companies.
Gillis had been writing
Doctor Strange at Marvel
under the auspices of edi-
tor Carl Potts, who would
become Strikeforce’s editor
as well. Potts suggested
that Brent Anderson be as-
signed as the artist on the
series that told the tale of an alien
invasion of Earth that was defended
by an ever-changing group of super-
human fighters whose powers would
kill them.
Strikeforce: Morituri was actually
slated to be the first series in the New
Universe line before Shooter changed
the direction of the New Universe
slightly. Originally, the New Universe
was to have a more expansive feel,
before Shooter changed it to reflect
his concept of “the world outside
your window.” The title was moved
from the New Universe to “Marvel
central,” though the stories in this se-
ries did not have specific call-outs to
the Marvel Universe (Potts).
Mutants Resurrected and Massacred
For years, various creators pitched a
new Marvel comic book that would
reunite the original X-Men, but Jim
Uncanny X-Men #210 presented the first
chapter of the “Mutant Massacre” story arc.
X-Men TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Shooter was ever fearful of diluting
the popularity of the X-Men brand.
The best Shooter allowed was letting
three of the original X-Men (Beast,
Angel and Iceman) form the core of
the “new” Defenders in 1983. Two
years later though, the presence of
those three former X-Men did noth-
ing to improve sales of Defenders, so
Shooter approved an original X-Men
pitch from Bob Layton.
Defenders was subsequently can-
celled, which meant Beast, Angel,
and Iceman were now available—
along with deposed X-Men leader,
Cyclops—to form a new super-hero
team called X-Factor. Reluctant to
limit X-Factor’s roster to four men,
Layton felt the group needed a fe-
male super-hero. As all devoted Mar-
vel readers knew, the fifth original
X-Man, Jean Grey a.k.a. Marvel Girl,
161
wasn’t available because
she had killed herself in
order to save the universe
from the all powerful
threat of the Phoenix in
the now famous Uncanny
X-Men #137 (Sept. 1980).
In Jean Grey’s stead,
Layton chose the light-
manipulating mutant
Dazzler to round out X-
Factor’s roster (Layton). In
Dazzler #42 (March 1986),
the series’ final issue,
Beast even recommends
Dazzler join X-Factor.
She never would, howev-
er. That’s because some-
one figured out how to
resurrect Jean Grey and
actually figured it out sev-
eral years earlier. Back in
1980, when the death of
Phoenix was being leaked
to the comic book fan
base, Carol Kalish, Richard
Howell and Kurt Busiek—
all of whom would short-
ly become comic book
professionals—collective-
ly conceived Jean Grey’s
resurrection, one that
honored Jim Shooter’s
stipulation that the char-
acter couldn’t come back
if she remained linked to
the genocidal crimes com-
mitted by Dark Phoenix.
Amongst themselves, Kalish, Howell
and Busiek postulated that the Phoe-
nix force had not truly possessed
Jean Grey back in X-Men #101 (Oct.
1976). Instead, the Phoenix had cre-
ated a duplicate of Jean Grey’s body,
one that it could occupy. The “real”
Jean Grey was at the bottom of New
York’s Jamaica Bay where she recu-
perated from her near fatal injuries in
a state of suspended animation. The
idea remained a figment of the three
comic book fans’ imagination until
1983, when Busiek—now a profes-
sional comic book writer—casually
mentioned it to Roger Stern at a comic
convention. Stern subsequently re-
layed it to John Byrne. Two years lat-
er, upon learning the original X-Men
would be reunited for X-Factor, Byrne
approached Layton and recommend-
ed the idea that had been forwarded
to him as a means to resurrect the
final original X-Man (Cronin 29).

Above: Image originally printed in Marvel Age #33
that teased readers about the identity of the fifth
member of X-Factor.
X-Factor TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Layton eagerly appropriated the idea,
and Shooter had no problem with it
since it effectively divorced Jean Grey
from the Dark Phoenix’s sins. One
person who did have a problem with
it, though, was Chris Claremont. Irate
at the news of Jean Grey’s impending
return, Claremont felt it cheapened
the character’s original demise, as if
a fast one was being pulled on the
readers: “What was the point of the
death of Phoenix?... what do you say
to all the readers who were moved by
that?” (Irving). Claremont also saw
the character’s return as simply re-
storing old story directions (most spe-
cifically between Jean and her former
lover, Cyclops) that have already been
played out. Claremont presented
Shooter with an alternative: instead
of resurrecting Jean Grey, her previ-
ously introduced sister, Sara, could
manifest mutant powers and as such,
join the team. With Sara part of X-
Factor, a new romantic interest could
be created for one (or more) of the
male characters, and Cyclops would
have to deal with Sara constantly re-
minding him of his dead lover. Shoot-
er admired Claremont’s proposal but
ultimately decided the return of Jean
Grey was a more compelling hook for
readers to buy the series.
Marvel gave X-Factor a huge mar-
keting push that included a feature
in Marvel Age #33 (Dec. 1985) that
teased the identity of the fifth mem-
ber. Readers were encouraged to mail
their guesses on who the fifth mem-
ber could be to Marvel’s offices. The
following month in Avengers #263
(Jan. 1986), Earth’s Mightiest Heroes
discover an energy-emitting cocoon
on Jamaica Bay’s floor. They bring it
back to Avengers Mansion. The sto-
ry continues in Fantastic Four #286
(also Jan. 1986) where Mr. Fantastic
examines the cocoon and manages
162
to release its content: a young
red-haired woman who they
eventually recognize as Mar-
vel Girl. Jean Grey is sub-
sequently reunited with
her original teammates
in X-Factor #1 (Feb. 1986).
With the help of Angel’s
seemingly limitless funds,
the original X-Men hatch
a plan to use the public’s
growing anti-mutant hys-
teria against itself: they
will pose as a private inves-
tigation agency that can be
called upon, Ghostbusters-
style, to apprehend sus-
pected mutants. In actuali-
ty, they are taking mutants
out of harm’s way, back to
X-Factor’s headquarters
where the mutants can
be taught how to control
their powers and better assimi-
late themselves within a soci-
ety that hates and fears them.
Mutants are saved from the mutant-
haters, and the mutant-haters them-
selves get the satisfaction of having
their lives rid of mutants, so every-
one’s happy.
Well, everyone, that is, except Jim
Shooter. When the first issue was fin-
ished and presented to Shooter for
his approval, he judged it unaccept-
able. It was so unacceptable to him
that he stipulated it be completely re-
written and re-drawn. The dilemma
was that the issue was double-sized
(42 story pages) and was due at the
printer in a few weeks. Unless Shoot-
er was willing to reconsider, Layton
and artist Jackson “Butch” Guice were
destined for marathon pencil and
ink sessions just to meet the printer
deadline. Shooter didn’t reconsider,
so in mid-September 1985, the two
men—joined by inker Josef Ruben-
stein—holed up in a Manhattan ho-
tel and worked around the clock. As
they hunkered down, Hurricane Glo-
ria came barreling up the east coast
of the United States. Dubbed “The
Storm of the Century” by then Na-
tional Hurricane Center Director Neil
Frank, Gloria was forecast by many
meteorologists to head right into
New York Harbor. That prediction
caused many Manhattan residents
to evacuate the city. But the X-Factor
creators didn’t join them. Concerned
more about their impending deadline
disaster than the natural one headed
their way, they remained hunched
over their drawing tables in their
hotel room. Upon learning this, the
hotel concierge came to their room
and handed Guice a roll of masking
tape so that the windows in the room
could be taped up in preparation for
the coming storm. After wishing the
gentlemen good luck, the concierge
then evacuated the city too (Cronin
204).
Fortunately for the comic book cre-
ators, Gloria didn’t land in Manhat-
tan. Instead, it landed east of New
York City on Long Island.
Guice describes the day after
Gloria passed through, “the
next day [dawned] bright
and clear like a scene from
the movie, The Omega Man.
For several hours we could
ill afford to lose, Bob [Layton]
and I wandered the deserted
streets of downtown New
York looking for any open deli
or restaurant in order to eat.
It was a very unique experi-
ence” (Cronin 204). After Lay-
ton, Guice, and Rubenstein
finished penciling and ink-
ing the issue, their pages got
rushed to Marvel’s bullpen
for coloring. With only hours
to spare, the completely re-
written, re-drawn, re-colored,
and re-lettered version of
X-Factor #1 was sent to the
printer.
It was a good thing for Mar-
vel, too, as the issue became
the month’s best-selling Mar-
vel title at the Direct Market.
Some critics, however, ar-
gued that it would have been
better if X-Factor hadn’t been
printed at all. Comic Buyer’s
Guide’s editor Don Thomp-
son’s reaction typified those
who had a problem with X-
Factor’s premise. His com-
plaint was that the team’s method
of operation overtly encourages the
very bigotry it claims to be combat-
ing. As such, the comic book sends
the wrong message about how to
confront prejudice and intolerance.
To illustrate, Thompson rhetorically
asked,
What’s next? A comic book in
which B’nai B’rith takes out
ads offering to clear Jews out
of the neighborhood, then
rounds them up and teaches
them to pass for Christians?
Or one with the NAACP offer-
ing to purify neighborhoods
terrorized by the presence of
blacks, then rounding them
up and teaching them how
to pass for white? There is
no difference that I can see
between those two obvious
evil premises and the one
on which this comic book is
based. (Don Thompson 41)
The original X-Men reunite as X-Factor.
X-Factor TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Six months after Thompson’s review
was published, similarly outraged
CBG columnist Robert M. Ingersoll
labeled X-Factor “offensive” and then
detailed how the characters commit-
ted a variety of felonies (including
abduction, extortion, and fraud) all in
the name of “saving” mutants. Inger-
163
soll concludes his commentary with
“I’ve been told by a reliable source
that X-Factor is about to undergo
some radical changes, which may
undo many of my complaints about
it. Such changes could not possibly
come too soon” (Ingersoll 46).
Indeed, a note printed at the end of
issue #5 succinctly announces “cre-
ator/writer Bob Layton takes leave
of X-Factor.” No explanation for his
departure was given. (Butch Guice’s
tenure on X-Factor didn’t last much
longer, ending after issue #7.) Lay-
ton’s final issue presents a new group
of X-Factor adversaries: the
Alliance of Evil, and the final
page of X-Factor #5 introduc-
es that group’s leader, some-
one destined to become one
of the greatest villains in X-
Men history: Apocalypse. But
even though Bob Layton is
credited as the issue’s writer,
he had no part in the creation
of Apocalypse. In fact, in his
original script the master-
mind revealed at the end of
the issue was long time Dare-
devil villain, The Owl. Layton
planned on augmenting the
Owl into a more formidable
foe but left the series before
he could do so. Layton’s suc-
cessor, Louise Simonson, re-
placed the Owl with her own
creation, Apocalypse, and to
compensate for the switch,
X-Factor editor Bob Harras
ordered revisions to the final
page of X-Factor #5 (Calla-
han).
Simonson would remain at
the X-Factor’s helm for the
next five years. Like New Mu-
tants, X-Factor became yet
another best-selling X-Men
spin-off series, and it was
joined later in the year by
Classic X-Men. Each issue of
Classic X-Men had three com-
ponents: a reprint of an early story of
the New X-Men, a bonus continuity
implant story in the back of the issue,
and several pages of new story and
art stuck in the middle of the reprint
as a means of supplementing the
lead story.
Much like George Lucas would later
do with the Star Wars films, the lead
reprint in Classic X-Men contains two
pages of continuity added to the origi-
nal story. These short segments add
bits of characterization or context to
scenes that Claremont wanted to flesh
out in the original comics. The back-up
stories, by the team of Chris Claremont
and his former Black Dragon collabora-
tor, British artist John Bolton, explore
important moments in the lives of the
X-Men. For instance, issue #2 shows
the growing friendship between Jean
Grey and Ororo. Classic X-Men #3 pres-
ents Thunderbird’s funeral, and issue
#8 revises the origin of Phoenix in
light of her later transformation to the
planet-killing Dark Phoenix.
To no one’s surprise, Marvel’s best-
selling comic continued to be Un-
canny X-Men, with average monthly
sales of 417,000 copies. July 1986 be-
gan the “Mutant Massacre” storyline
that crossed over several titles, specif-
ically Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, New
Mutants, Thor, and Power Pack.
In this storyline, a nasty new group
of villains, the Marauders, are as-
signed by an unknown benefactor
to exterminate the Morlocks, the
sewer-dwelling mutant outcasts. The
X-Men and X-Factor are able to stop
the Marauders, but only after hun-
The “Mutant Massacre” story arc established Wolverine and Sabretooth as mortal enemies.
Wolverine and Sabretooth TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
dreds of Morlocks are wiped out by
the evil-doers—one of the most hor-
rific events ever to happen in mutant
history. The X-Men eventually defeat
the Marauders with a little help from
friends like Thor, Power Pack and the
New Mutants, and after a pitched
battle between Wolverine and Sabre-
tooth that helped establish Sabret-
ooth as a popular super-villain.
The X-Men and X-Factor teams didn’t
emerge from the battles unscathed,
either. X-Factor’s Angel was crucified
by two Marauders, eventually forcing
him to have his wings amputated.
Kitty Pryde, Shadowcat of the X-Men,
became stuck in her intangible form,
while Colossus was briefly rendered
quadriplegic by events of the battle,
and Nightcrawler was beaten into a
coma. All of this trauma resulted in
major changes to the X-Men team.
Havok, Dazzler, Longshot, and Psy-
locke joined the X-Men to replace
their fallen comrades. What’s more,
in the battle Sabretooth destroyed
Cerebro, Professor Xavier’s brilliant
invention to help find mutants from
all around the world.
This was the first epic mutant cross-
over event, and it was a big hit with
164
readers. Claremont’s popularity as
a writer continued to climb, and the
X-Men stayed on the top of Marvel’s
sales charts throughout 1986, in
large part because this storyline re-
ally raised the stakes for the mutants.
Nothing sells like death.
A Punishing Schedule
And death certainly epitomizes Mar-
vel Comics’ resident vigilante, The
Punisher. The character’s eponymous
1986 mini-series became a major hit,
even though there was initial read-
er—and Marvel production depart-
ment—confusion as to whether the
comic book was intended to last four
issues or five. That’s because the ban-
ner on the cover of Punisher #1 reads,
“#1 in a four-issue limited series.”
The cover to Punisher #2, though, is
labeled “#2 in a five-issue limited se-
ries.” The covers to Punisher #3 and
#4 then reassert the limited series as
four issues, but that didn’t stop Mar-
vel from publishing Punisher #5, the
final issue of the limited series. In
Marvel Age #43’s letter page, an un-
named editor responds to a reader’s
complaint about the numerical mix-
up with sarcasm: “okay, we’ve gotten
hundreds of letters about that little
screw-up, so here’s the official word.
The Punisher was a three-issue Lim-
ited Series. Anyone who has copies of
the fourth or fifth issue is requested
to destroy them, as they do not ac-
tually exist. Thank you.” The incor-
rect banner was simply a mistake by
Marvel’s production team; Punisher
was always meant to be a five-issue
series, but since nearly all Marvel
limited series at that time lasted four
issues, Marvel’s production depart-
ment merely assumed Punisher was
intended to be four issues as well
(Cronin 196).
Confusing Punisher matters didn’t
end with the series’ labeling, how-
ever. The creative team also abruptly
changed between issues #4 and #5.
The first four issues were created by
writer Steven Grant and artist Mike
Zeck, but issue #5 was written by
Mary Jo Duffy and illustrated by Mike
Vosburg. The reason for the abrupt
switch in staff was the dreaded dead-
line doom. The Punisher mini-series
was originally planned to be sched-
uled when two issues of work was al-
ready done on the title, but Marvel’s
marketing department, sensing a
hit, moved the mini-series up in the
schedule in order to fill the product
pipeline for the summer. This meant
that the book was already behind
schedule even before Grant and Zeck
really got going on the series. Zeck
was only halfway through the first
issue when the schedule for the book
was decided upon, meaning he was
immediately late with his work.
Zeck didn’t have the time to produce
the quality of art that he wanted to
produce in the shortened time frame.
He was torn between meeting his
deadlines and producing professional
quality work on the book. This sched-
ule compression was especially dis-
appointing for Zeck because Punisher
represented his first interior work
since Secret Wars. Zeck was tremen-
dously disappointed with how his
work turned out in that 1984 series,
so Punisher gave Zeck the opportuni-
ty to reclaim his style. Unfortunately,
that redemption was fleeting due to
the extremely tight schedule for the
series (Witterstaetter 27-9).
When Zeck got a call that he was be-
ing removed from The Punisher be-
cause of his lateness, Grant opted
to stand by his friend and leave the
comic as well. Marvel wasn’t ready to
drop The Punisher from its schedule
since it had already been solicited, so
the company commissioned an un-
precedented fill-in for the last issue
of this mini-series. At the time, Potts
referred to the comic as “the latest
book I’ve ever dealt with in my life”
(Heintjes 26).
The Punisher was a hard-boiled action
thriller featuring a prison escape, a
gang war, a nasty bit of brainwash-
ing, and an ending that does nicely
sum up the series (even if it’s not by
the same creative team that produced Two years after working on Secret Wars, Mike Zeck reclaims his art style with The Punisher.
the first four issues). The massive The Punisher TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

popularity of this mini-series would

pave the way for an ongoing Punisher
comic in 1987.
Wars’ End
The most notable Marvel series to end
in 1986 was Star Wars, which com-
pleted its run with issue #107 in April.
Appropriately titled “All Together
Now” (though perhaps issue #105’s ti-
tle “The Party’s Over” was more appro-
priate), the comic that saved Marvel
in 1977 reached a peaceful end nine
years later. It had been three years at
that time since Return of the Jedi hit
movie theaters, and though Star Wars
still outsold many of Marvel’s second-
line series like Captain America, Lu-
casfilm’s restrictive approach to the
movie’s characters made working on
the title quite cumbersome for Mar-
vel.
As writer Mary Jo Duffy put it, “Star
Wars was still selling over 100,000
copies per month, better than most
of the mid-range super-hero books,
up until the end. The restrictions
from Lucasfilm are what effectively
cancelled the book. It got to the point
where they said I couldn’t do this and
that with the characters I created. I
was at my wit’s end. We got the feel-
ing that whoever was in charge of
approving all this at Lucasfilm didn’t
want there to be a comic book at all
anymore” (Greenberg 14).
Lucasfilm claimed at the time that

165

The final issue of Crisis on Infinite Earths heralded
major changes for DC’s fictional universe.
TM and © DC Comics.
the Star Wars comic was not actually
cancelled but was just on hold until
the next film was released. However,
continuing tension between Marvel
and Lucasfilm over the series, includ-
ing the comic introducing creatures
called the Lahsbees who were similar
to Ewoks, resulted in Marvel pulling
the plug on their Star Wars (Petach
19). Marvel’s Star Comics line did con-
tinue its run of The Droids through
1987, though.
After the Crisis, a Rebirth
As 1986 began, DC Comics had a com-
pletely rebooted fictional universe,
thanks to Crisis on Infinite Earths
which concluded with issue #12
(cover date March 1986). In its wake,
DC’s multiverse was now combined
into one universe. Some titles were
essentially unchanged by the events
of the maxi-series, while others, such
as Infinity Inc. and All-Star Squadron,
which took place on Earth-2, were
deeply affected.
Executive Editor Dick Giordano sent
out a list of strict post-Crisis rules for
DC’s writers to follow. They included:
1) Only DC’s heroes remember that the
Crisis occurred; 2) DC’s parallel uni-
verse is retroactive to the beginning
of time. No alternate universes have
ever existed; 3) The Golden Age ver-
sions of Superman, Batman, Wonder
Woman, and Aquaman never existed
and should not be used; 4) In the re- book. According to a short article in
formatted DC Universe, previous sto- Amazing Heroes Preview Special #2, DC
ries, incidents, and characters never was going to publish the exploits of a
happened unless a writer brings back new Flash, one who would have no re-
those elements (Heintjes 14). lation to the previous Flash (who died
To help readers understand the en- in Crisis on Infinite Earths #8) or any
tire history of the rebooted DCU from members of the Scarlet Speedster’s ex-
the dawn of time to the far future, DC tended family. Instead, the new Flash
published the two-issue Prestige For- was MacKenzie Ryan, a single dad
mat mini-series The History of the DC who worked in Metropolis as a S.T.A.R.
Universe, written by Marv Wolfman Labs technician. Ryan would gain the
with art by George Pérez. The two is- power to manipulate various forms of
sues firmly established DC’s history energy, such as light and sound, to de-
in 96 pages that worked as a kind of feat his foes. The announced creative
Crisis epilogue. team attached to this new Flash com-
ic book was writers
While the completely new timeline Marv Wolfman
was a radical change to the long- and Len Wein,
standing DC Universe, it was less radi-
cal than the idea that Marv Wolfman
pushed to implement: having the DC
Universe fade to black at the end of
Crisis #12 and starting a brand new
DCU from scratch. Instead, DC chose a
piecemeal approach to the post-Crisis
universe, doing a full restart on char-
acters such as Superman and Wonder
Woman while only making small or
incremental changes in titles such as
The Fury of Firestorm and Vigilante.
Even with a slate that was only mostly
wiped clean, DC’s post-
Crisis world
seemed ripe
for fresh
ideas and
opportuni-
ties. Pro-
posals
for new
charac-
ters and
new
titles
were
continu-
ally being
bandied about
DC Comics’ hall-
ways and meet-
ing rooms. While
many of these
proposals never
saw the printed
page, some of
them got presented
to the fan press as im-
pending publications. Case in
point: a brand new Flash comic
To help readers understand its revamped continuity,
DC released the two-issue History of the DC Universe.
TM and © DC Comics.
166
editor Mike Gold, and “most likely”
artist Chuck Patton (Waid 52). Despite
the announcement, Ryan never ap-
peared as the Flash. Instead, a more
familiar speedster became the new
“Fastest Man Alive,” the same charac-
ter readers saw assume the role of The
Flash at the end of Crisis on Infinite
Earth #12: Wally West.
Another proposed project that was
never published was a sequel to Crisis
on Infinite Earths titled Crisis of the
Soul, a 12-issue series to be plotted by
Paul Levitz, scripted by Len Wein, pen-
ciled by Jerry Ordway, inked by Karl
Kesel, and edited by Robert Green-
berger. An intimate story with galactic
implications, Crisis of the Soul would
have introduced the Corruptor, a se-
ductively handsome young man—al-
most an angel in human form—who
also happens to be a living catalyst for
evil who has come down to Earth to
feed on ruined souls. The Corruptor’s
actions would unleash a deadly cos-
mic cat-and-mouse game that would
have corrupted society by turning
man against man, eventually destroy-
ing society. Some of DC’s major heroes
would have been among those being
corrupted. The Corruptor would then
fall in with the Manipulator, a capital-
ist looking to exploit the chaos for his
own gain. The Manipulator’s actions
would have amped up the horror that
the Corruptor unleashed.
The story was to begin slow and grow
into a major cosmic event. The series
would have started with several com-
paratively quiet issues that dealt with
individual heroes slowly becoming
more corrupted before it morphed
into a massive cosmic adventure fea-
turing time-traveling members of the
Legion of Super-Heroes and the in-
credible event of the cosmic Control-
lers quarantining Earth from the rest
of the cosmos as a way to contain the
Corruputor’s evil (Eury 47-48).
Several significant events would have
happened in Crisis of the Soul:
• Catwoman would have re-
turned to a life of crime;
• Star City would have been
destroyed;
• Uncle Sam would have
formed a new team of Free-
dom Fighters with members
of the Teen Titans, Legion of
Super-Heroes, Outsiders, Jus-
tice League, and Infinity Inc., plotted by John Ostrander, scripted by
to be spun off in a new Free- Len Wein, penciled by John Byrne, and
dom Fighters title; inked by Karl Kesel—explored the re-
• The Creeper would have lationship of heroes to the society in
tasted blood and become evil, which they live as the evil Darkseid
leading to a Creeper mini-se- decides to relieve Earth of all its heroic
ries; legends so that people will worship
him rather than their heroes. Despite
• And the original, classic Jus- spinning off into other DC titles, Leg-
tice League would have re- ends couldn’t capture fans’ imagina-
turned to print (Eury 50).
tions in the same way that the Crisis
After several months of preparation did.
for the series, DC’s editorial team
pulled the plug on it before any pages
were produced. Though proposed art-
ist Jerry Ordway cleared his schedule
to work on Crisis of the Soul and pro-
duced many pages of sketches for the
series, none of his work ever appeared
in print. Instead, story elements were
reused for a different DC Comics
event.
Heroic Legends
That event was released in August. Its
title was Legends. And after so many
successes earlier in the year, and after
the aborted Crisis of the Soul, Legends
had to be considered a relative disap-
pointment for DC.
The book was born out of thinking
inside DC about how best to follow-
up the very popular Crisis on Infinite
Earths. Dick Giordano approached
editor Mike Gold, who had recently
arrived at DC after several years as Above: DC’s first post-Crisis cross-over event was
President at First Comics, and asked the Legends mini-series. Below: 1986 house ad
Gold if he wanted to create a “Crisis 2.” promoting DC’s new Blue Beetle series.
TM and © DC Comics.
The new mini-series didn’t need to be
a direct sequel to Crisis but did need
to provide a contrast to the mega-hit
of 1985 and explore the DC Universe
from a different angle. Gold hit upon
the idea of using the event to open
up the DCU, in contrast to how Crisis
shrank the multiverse (Eury 49).
In that vein, Legends showcased a
varied cast of established DC icons
(e.g. Superman, Batman) and other
second-tier characters that DC want-
ed to feature before launching their
own titles (e.g. Captain Marvel, The
Flash, Dr. Fate, and Suicide Squad).
One prominent character of the story
actually had already received his own
title before Legends began: the former
Charlton Comics action hero The Blue
Beetle whose eponymous title—writ-
ten by Len Wein and illustrated by
Paris Cullins—debuted in March.
The six-issue Legends mini-series—
167
Superman Becomes Super Popular to restart the Superman titles.
It’s difficult to overstate the seismic
The most important change coming
shock of Byrne taking over the Su-
out of Crisis was the complete re-
perman series in 1986. The Super-
boot of the Superman mythos. Action
man line was generally seen by most
Comics and Superman had been edit-
fans as being nearly unreadable and
ed by the great Julius Schwartz since
sold extremely poorly both in the
the early 1970s. Once the best-selling
Direct Market and on newsstands.
comic books in America, the Super-
In fact, Superman sold slightly more
man titles had fallen into hard times
than half of the number of copies per
by ’86. Schwartz’s Superman line
month in 1986 than it sold in 1980.
presented done-in-one stories that
Byrne, on the other hand, was one of
were dramatically out of touch with
the most popular comic book creators
most 1980s comic books. In addition,
in the U.S., and had long dreamed
the look and tone of the Superman
of working on his all-time favorite
titles were remarkably different from
character. He had strong ideas about
those found in the most popular com-
ic books of the day. Well before Crisis how he could restore Superman’s lost
on Infinite Earths popularity.
had completed, And even before his deteriorating
DC recruited relationship
John Byrne with Jim
Shooter
provoked
him to
leave Mar-
vel altogether,
Byrne got the
opportunity to
implement those
ideas, thanks
to the initia-
tive of Marv
Wo l f m a n .
Because
John Byrne’s sketches of Superman and Clark Kent that originally appeared in Modern Masters: John Byrne.
Superman TM and © DC Comics.
168
of the character’s poor sales, DC had
been vaguely shopping around for
a new version of Superman for sev-
eral years. Creators like Steve Gerber,
Frank Miller, and Wolfman had sub-
mitted proposals for the character
that DC ultimately declined. DC fi-
nally found their ideal Superman cre-
ator because of a fateful phone call.
In 1985, when Byrne’s exclusive con-
tract with Marvel had expired, Wolf-
man called Byrne to ask the artist
to collaborate with him on an issue
of New Teen Titans, which would be
published in 1986 as New Teen Titans
Annual #2 (Sanderson 23-24).
As the phone conversation proceed-
ed, Wolfman mentioned that DC
planned to revamp Superman in the
wake of Crisis, and he encouraged
Byrne to throw his hat into the ring.
Upon hearing this, Byrne broke into a
cold sweat at the prospect of not only
taking over Superman but reshaping
him for a new generation. Soon after,
Byrne moved to Connecticut, and two
of his guests at his housewarming
party on July 20, 1985 were Wolfman
and Dick Giordano. At that party, By-
rne laid out his broad plans for Super-
man if given the opportunity. It was
on that fateful day that Giordano
and Byrne really started to connect
on the character. Several weeks later,
Giordano and DC editor Andy Helfer
visited Byrne at his home to discuss
the character further. All parties de-
cided they were nearly simpatico on
the character (Sanderson 25). So the
deal went forward for Byrne to write
and draw an introductory Man of
Steel mini-series that would redefine
Superman for post-Crisis continuity.
Once that mini-series ended, Byrne
would be at the helm of a relaunched
Superman series. Alan Moore was
initially assigned to write Action
Comics—which would continue its
numbering as a Superman team-up
series that would replace the recently
cancelled DC Comics Presents—but
Moore ultimately declined because
he was overcommitted, so Byrne be-
came the writer/penciller of that
book too (Sanderson 28). Meanwhile,
Wolfman would be teamed with Jerry
Ordway on Adventures of Superman,
which continued the numbering of
the original Superman comic.
As Byrne took over Superman and
the post-Crisis era dawned on the Su-
perman line, Julius Schwartz opted

DC went into overdrive to promote
John Byrne’s Superman reboot.
Superman TM and © DC Comics.
to retire as a DC editor at the age of
71. Schwartz had been with DC for
42 years and was one of the indus-
try’s most respected and beloved edi-
tors, having been instrumental in the
creation of the entire Silver Age of
Comics at DC. Schwartz didn’t stop
promoting the Superman titles, how-
ever: he accepted a lucrative offer to
become a kind of goodwill ambassa-
dor for DC, traveling to conventions
and lectures around the world pro-
moting DC’s characters and comic
line until shortly before his death in
2004.
Julius Schwartz’s long and august run
on the Superman line was given a
special send-off in the two-part story
“Whatever Happened to the Man of
Tomorrow?” Written by Alan Moore,
illustrated by Curt Swan, George
Pérez and Kurt Schaffenberger, and
published in Action Comics #583
and Superman #423 (Sept. 1986), the
two-part story became the final Su-
perman comic books of the Schwartz
era. The issues were an affectionate
goodbye to the classic Silver Age Su-
perman and were hyped as “The Last
Superman Story.”
In this story, Superman confronts Mr.
Mxyzptlk and other enemies at the
Fortress of Solitude. But the real focus
of the book wasn’t its fights. Moore
took pains to embrace all the tropes
of Silver Age Superman comics, from
Jimmy Olsen’s signal watch to Krypto
the Superdog to appearances by
the Bizarros, the Luthor/Brainiac
team, and the Legion of Super-
Heroes.
The book was tremendously
critically acclaimed, and
there was wide agreement
that “Whatever Happened
to the Man of Tomor-
row” was the perfect
goodbye to the Silver
Age Superman. The
book’s opening
statement, “This
is an imaginary
story. Aren’t
they all?” has be-
come one of the
most quoted lines
Moore ever wrote.
Steeling Superman
Following the conclu-
sion of the Schwartz
era, Action Comics and
Superman both went
on a three-month hia-
tus to make way for
John Byrne’s Man of
Steel. That six-issue
bi-weekly mini-
series told the
origin of Su-
perman
through
Byrne’s per-
sonal filter.
This was a new Superman, stripped
away from all so many of the tropes
that were felt to make the character
burdened by a complex backstory. In
other words, it was a real post-Crisis
take on the classic super-hero.
In Man of Steel, Byrne worked hard
to make many aspects of Superman’s
life different from what readers had
been used to. His vision of Krypton
was stark and austere, a desert planet
with emotions as parched as its land-
scape. In Byrne’s reboot, Kal-El was move, the new continuity has Ma
the only Kryptonian to survive the and Pa Kent surviving into Clark’s
explosion of his planet, setting aside adulthood. Additionally, Lois Lane
the old Silver Age tradition of Super- is portrayed as a super-confident re-
man continually finding survivors of porter who is not at all concerned
his planet’s destruction. about Superman’s secret identity or
Once on Earth, Clark Kent’s life takes about Clark’s double life. Superman
subtly different directions than what also meets Batman for the first time
was presented in previous years. in Man of Steel, with the relationship
For instance, in a very controversial between the two heroes portrayed as
169
rather tentative and halting. This was
a dramatic contrast to the deep and
abiding friendship that the “world’s
finest pals” had prior to Crisis. The
idea of Clark Kent as Superboy was
also removed from the DC mythos,
which had a dramatic effect on the
Legion of Super-Heroes, a team that
was formed specifically because its
members had been inspired by Super-
boy’s exploits. (LSH writer Paul Levitz
would address Superboy’s absence
from the title in 1987.) And perhaps
in the most long-lasting and influen-
tial revision, Lex Luthor was changed
from a mad genius to a power-hungry
billionaire who devoted much of the
resources of his corporation, Lexcorp,
to destroying
Superman.
The reboot
of Super-
man attract-
ed massive
media atten-
tion from outside
the comics indus-
try. The NBC Nightly
News discussed Byrne’s
changes in a three-min-
ute story on its November
4, 1985 edition. Byrne was
featured on camera discuss-
ing how the character had
accumulated a bit of rust and
how his changes would make
the character much more con-
temporary. The AP wire services
picked up on the story, and the
story of Superman’s relaunch was
published in newspapers across the
country. Clearly, the hype machine
was in full swing for this title.
And that hype paid off. Man of Steel
was a massive sales success, and the
follow-up solo Superman series was
nearly as popular. New and lapsed
comic fans, prompted by the mas-
sive media hype over the “new Super- Superman uniform against an image
man,” flocked to their local shops and of an exploding Krypton. The other
bought copies of Man of Steel #1 in cover was a close-up of Clark opening
unprecedented numbers. his shirt to reveal the familiar Super-
That speculator market was addition- man chest emblem. The latter cover
ally spurred by the presence of the immediately became iconic, captur-
mainstream comic industry’s first ing readers’ imaginations and inspir-
variant cover on Man of Steel #1. To ing a slew of parodies. The cover com-
celebrate the excitement of the re- menced an industry-wide practice of
boot—and perhaps to boost specula- creating variant covers, which would
tor sales—Byrne provided two covers become pervasive by the end of the
for Man of Steel #1. One cover followed decade.
the same style guide as the rest of the Under the strong guiding influence
series, juxtaposing an image of Clark of John Byrne, Superman would ful-
Kent opening his shirt to reveal his fill its mission perfectly: the
series that had been
Below: covers to all six issues of Man of Steel, among DC’s lowest-
John Byrne’s bi-weekly mini-series that redefined
selling titles imme-
Superman for a new generation.
Superman TM and © DC Comics. diately reversed its
fortunes. Man of Steel
#1 became the best-
selling comic book of
1986, selling over a mil-
lion copies, and fanzines of
the era were buzzing about
John Byrne’s changes to Su-
perman. It had been a long
time since a DC title sold twice
as many copies as the most
popular Marvel title.
The Knight Rises
Earlier in 1986, DC pub-
lished an even more in-
fluential comic book
than Man of Steel: Bat-
man: the Dark Knight
by Frank Miller, Klaus
Janson and Lynn Var-
ley. A square-bound
four-issue mini-series
presented on slick pa-
per, Dark Knight set the
gold standard for comics
in terms of both popularity
and professional quality. The
series would deeply influence
the industry for years to come,
170
for better or for worse, becoming one
of the most significant comic books
ever published.
DK begins with a long-retired Bruce
Wayne who hung up his cape and
cowl years before in favor of a less
dangerous life. But Bruce’s compla-
cency is about to come to an end. He
realizes Gotham City has become a
massive cesspool of crime and vio-
lence and is compelled to allow his
alter ego emerge from the Batcave
yet again. The series has an in-
tense, operatic feel as Miller
and Janson mix super-hero
action, a frighteningly ef-
fete version of the Joker,
some thoughtful satiri-
cal commentary on the
contemporary world,
and a charming fe-
male version of Rob-
in into a heady brew
that immediately
commanded the at-
tention of the entire
comic book industry.
Dark Knight reflected
Miller’s anger and fear
of crime, built up dur-
ing his years living in
New York City. Miller
spoke frequently in in-
terviews about the im-
potence of those living
under the fear of crime,
of the compromises and
sacrifices that an ordi-
nary person had to make
on a daily basis to make
peace with himself in
order to be part of a soci-
ety embattled by crime
(Thompson 66). Miller saw
Batman as a counterpoint
to all the despair and evil
that was represented by
that debased society, so he de-
picted Batman as a man in relation
to his fictional and satirical world of
the future rather than in relation to
a world of other super-heroes. In fact,
when Superman appears in this mini-
series, Miller uses the Man of Steel as
a symbol of everything that is wrong
with modern society, depicting the
desperate fight between Batman and
Superman as an epic struggle of in-
dividual good versus collective evil,
of morality versus immorality. No
matter Batman’s weaknesses, he is
depicted as a hero of deep emotional
Frank Miller sketch of
Batman and his new Robin: Carrie Kelly.
Batman TM and © DC Comics.
strength, a man so wracked with an-
ger about everything that was hap-
pening around him that he has no
choice but to rise from his easy chair,
re-enter the battles, and work tooth
and nail to repair the broken society
that he lives in. Unquestionably, The
Dark Knight was a grand spectacle.
Despite the fact that each 48-page
issue of The Dark Knight retailed for
171
$2.95—four times as costly as a stan-
dard comic—it sold in phenomenal
numbers. In part boosted by feature
articles in publications such as Roll-
ing Stone, Spin, the AP newswire, and
major newspapers, the series was
a runaway blockbuster hit, sell-
ing out at comic book shops
nationwide and quickly re-
ceiving second and third
printings of its first and
second issues. Retailers
ordered relatively low
on the first issue of DK
because of both its high
cover price and the mem-
ory of the sales failure of
Miller’s 1983-84 Ronin
mini-series. However,
lapsed and current read-
ers flocked to the stores
in order to pick up cop-
ies of DK, telling their
friends to buy copies
only to find out that their
local shops had sold out
of their copies… if they
even received the book.
Some stores immediate-
ly boosted up the price of
the brand new comic to
as much as $30 and still
had problems keeping
copies of Dark Knight in
stock (Groth 13). The ex-
tended waits for issues
#3 and #4—issue #3
shipped three weeks lat-
er than planned—only
added to the buzz around
the title.
The sellouts happened
despite the fact that DC set
the print run at 40% above
initial orders—a giant overage
at that time. The comic had ac-
tually even sold out before cop-
ies of it reached the West Coast
from Eastern Canada-based
Ronalds Printing (Groth 12). The
book’s popularity caused headaches
for some distributors and retailers
because it was so hard to get copies.
This resulted in lost sales and mon-
ey that was never earned by retail-
ers, a problem that many blamed on
DC’s inefficient distribution system
(Groth 13). In other words, DC was too
good at generating publicity for the
book; the demand was so strong that
it completely outstripped the supply
of the series.

While
many readers
loved Batman:
the Dark Knight
and venerated
Miller for the story, it did receive its
share of criticism. Some reviewers
were offended by the effeminate way
that the Joker was portrayed, seeing
in the character an obnoxious satire
of homosexuality. But the criticism
that stuck the most was that the
story portrayed Batman as a fascist.
Village Voice
reviewer C.
Carr saw Batman
of DK as “Rambo in a cape,” and he
complained about the “cleverly dis-
guised racism” of the second issue’s
Mutants, concluding that the comic
was “neoconservative propaganda”
(Sacco 10). Cartoonist Art Spiegelman
called the series “fascistic” (Sacco 9).
Similarly, Comics Journal editor Gary
Groth found the series to be morally
reprehensible and debated Miller on
stage at the 1986 Dallas Fantasy Fair
172
about the politics of Dark Knight.
Miller himself had his own take
on the character’s fascist implica-
tions:
“That’s one of the things I’m
really having fun with in the
series. I think that in order
for the character to work, he
has to be a force that in some
ways is beyond good and
evil. It can’t be judged by the
terms we would use to de-
scribe something a man
would do because we
can’t think of him
as a man. I do this
series at a very good
time for me, because
it’s very clear to me that our
society is committing suicide
by lack of a force like that. A
lack of being able to deal with
the problems that are making
everything we’ve got crumble
into pieces. As far as being a
fascist, my feeling is… only
if he assumed public office.
[laughter]” (Thompson 66)
An unexpected fallout of The Dark
Knight was that Miller and his long-
time collaborator Klaus Janson came
to a parting of the ways. Janson was
frustrated by what he described as
the static tone and pace of DK, feeling
that he was underutilized because he
didn’t have enough room on the art
pages to do really interesting work.
The team had a serious argument
over Janson’s work on the books,
with both creators eventually agree-
ing that Janson’s inking on Batman:
Hunt the Dark Knight (issue #3 of the
mini-series) was not up to his usual
standards. In fact, Janson was almost
removed from DK before getting
the chance to ink Batman: the Dark
Knight Falls (issue#4), though cooler
heads prevailed and Janson was al-
lowed to finish his work on the series
(Elliott 31).
By the end of the year, DC reprinted
the four issues as Batman: the Dark
Knight Returns in several collections,
including a $39.95 limited edition
hardcover, and mass-market hard-
cover and softcover editions that
were sold both inside and outside the
Direct Market, one of the first collect-
ed graphic novels to be shelved in the
popular mall chain bookstores like B.
Dalton and Waldenbooks.

Everyone Watches the Watchmen

DC had a trifecta of illustrious pub-
lications in 1986. Besides Man of
Steel and Dark Knight, there was also
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave
Gibbons. The series premiered in
June after months of hype and com-
pelling advertising, arriving at a time
when Moore was approaching the
zenith of his popularity and acclaim.
Anticipation for Moore and Gibbons’
reinterpretation of the Charlton Com-
ics super-heroes was extremely high
from its announcement to its release,
and the creative team stunned the
entire industry with what they pro-
duced.
Frank Miller sketches of Batman.
The plot of Watchmen grew from an Batman TM and © DC Comics.
idea that Moore had been carrying
around for years. His first thought heroes into the mainstream DC Uni- Rorschach looks into the crime scene.
wasn’t that his story would depict verse (indeed, Blue Beetle’s own title He quickly discovers that Blake is his
the super-heroes that DC acquired was already in the works), so Dick former teammate the Comedian. He
from Charlton Comics but instead Giordano persuaded Moore and Gib- begins to uncover clues that reveal a
the abandoned super-heroes that bons to create a new set of odd, tragi- conspiracy is afoot to kill costumed
DC could possibly license from Ar- cally flawed, and thoroughly complex crimefighters. Rorschach warns sev-
chie Comics: The Mighty Crusaders. characters that tantalize with their eral of his former teammates of the
Moore imagined his story beginning similarity to many other heroes. conspiracy: the god-like Dr. Manhat-
with the dead body of the Shield be- The result was an intense clockwork tan; Laurie Juspeczyk, the second Silk
ing pulled out of a river, triggering a super-hero epic that perfectly reflect- Spectre; the flabby Batman analogue
plot about that hero’s murder (Cooke). ed the late Cold War political tensions Dan Dreiberg, the Nite Owl; and the
The idea was to take a second-rate set of the mid-1980s. In a manner that is imperious and super-rich Adrian
of super-heroes and do some radical captivatingly suspenseful, sophisti- Veidt, Ozymandias. The murder of
things with them. Moore eventually cated, profane, vulgar, gory, erotic and Blake/Comedian sets the wheels of
refocused his story on the Charlton bleak, Watchmen tells an intricate, Watchmen’s plot in motion.
action heroes (e.g. Captain Atom, Blue multifaceted tale in many shades of But while Watchmen’s plot was en-
Beetle, The Question, Nightshade, gray that starts with a simple mur- thralling, the manner it presented
Peacemaker, and Peter Cannon— der. In the opening pages of the first that plot was unprecedented bril-
Thunderbolt), with Moore using the issue, a man named Edward Blake is liance. For one, Watchmen has an
working title “Who Killed the Peace- flung out his apartment window by a elaborate structure that alternates
maker” (Gaiman 80). DC, however, mysterious foe. After the police inves- between issues that advance the core
had plans to integrate the Charlton tigate and find no clues, the vigilante plot and issues that profile the prin-

173
cipal characters. Two of
the most impression-
able profile issues are
Watchmen #4—which
shows how Jon Oster-
man became the om-
niscient Dr. Manhattan
at the expense of los-
ing his humanity—and
Watchmen #6—which
provides the gruesome
circumstances that
transformed Walter
Kovacs into Rorschach.
Just as important as
Watchmen’s alternat-
ing structure is the
manner in which the
comic interweaves
several narratives si-
multaneously, includ-
ing a seemingly non
sequitur pirate comic
book story being read
by a nameless boy at
a street corner news-
stand. As a comic book
within the comic book,
“Tales of the Black
Freighter” serves as a
meta-commentary on
the bleakness of the
world presented within
Watchmen.
Watchmen is often
cited as one of the fin-
est comics ever cre-
ated, a relentlessly de-
tailed masterpiece that
employed innovative
comic book storytell-
ing techniques. But the
story wasn’t originally planned as
meticulously as many fans believe
it was. It was only after Watchmen
#3 was completed that Moore took
stock of the details and complexity
that Gibbons was adding to the story
and saw that as a good reason to try
new effects. Many of the innovations
of the series emerged from the story
as Moore and Gibbons were telling
it. Moore let the story drive the struc-
ture and vice versa. In that way, the
story feels both uniquely organic and
thoughtful (Khoury 111).
Watchmen’s details were deliberately
placed, from the graffiti on the walls
(usually a slightly obscured version of
the phrase “Who Watches the Watch-
men?”) to the futuristic vehicles and
fashion, to repeated phrases, panels,
visual encapsulation
of the issue’s contents.
Watchmen’s front cov-
ers, however, show an
extreme close-up of
whatever object ap-
pears in the first pan-
el of the issue’s first
page: a blood-stained
smiley face button, a
fallout shelter sign, a
Rorschach test card, a
perfume bottle, et al.
The title logo is placed
vertically on the front
cover’s left side con-
trasting it to nearly
every other comic on
the stands whose logos
are bannered across
the top. The material
presented at the back
of each issue isn’t ex-
traneous padding but
supplemental infor-
mation that added
depth and complexity
to the main contents.
The back covers show
a nuclear countdown
clock, with each issue
showing the clock get-
ting one minute clos-
er to midnight. Each
Watchmen issue also
contained no ads, very
unique for a DC comic
book from that era. All
of these elements were
designed by Gibbons
and Moore before the
books appeared, with
1986 DC Comics house ad promoting Watchmen.
Watchmen TM and © DC Comics.
slight tweaks made by DC’s chief art
director, Richard Bruning, who fought
and images. Moore was proud of the with DC’s accountants for the book to
multilayered world that he and Gib- be free of ads, as it was designed to be
bons created: “What we were trying (Bruning 68-70).
to do was to create something which But it wasn’t just the design and plot
has a structure that is multi-faceted that fans responded to. Watchmen
enough and has enough layers to it also expressed late Cold War concerns
so that each subsequent issue rede- and anxieties. With nuclear tensions
fines bits of the ones that have come continuing between the United
before. So that you can check back to States and the Soviet Union, there
a scene that’s repeated, check back to was a feeling that a nuclear war could
when you saw it earlier, see the little be launched at any minute. Presi-
bits that are going on, find out more. dent Ronald Reagan’s gallows joke
So that it does reward multiple read- from 1984, “My fellow Americans,
ings” (Stewart 91).
I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve
What’s more, Watchmen’s very de- signed legislation that will outlaw
sign was unorthodox, defying stan- Russia forever. We begin bombing in
dard comic book norms. For instance, five minutes” was terrifying for many
most comic book covers provide a people because of the widespread
174
belief that a nuclear conflict was in-
evitable. So the nuclear paranoia
on display in Watchmen was quite
resonant to a readership of the mid-
1980s. Readers really could fathom
the actions of the father in Watchmen
#5 who kills his whole family rather
than subject them to the horrors of
an imminent nuclear war.
That visceral feeling applied to the
entire series. Watchmen was an
intense ride that didn’t hesitate to
present mayhem and slaughter (as
in a bloody prison escape scene in
Watchmen #8 or dead body strewn
streets that lead off Watchmen #12)
or shy away from showing sex in a
more realistic manner than most
comics do (notably the rape of the
original Silk Spectre in Watchmen #2
and the initially failed and later suc-
cessful sexual relationship between
the new Silk Spectre and Nite Owl in
Watchmen #7).
Clearly, Watchmen was radically dif-
ferent from any other comic book
being published in 1986, and fans al-
most unanimously extolled it, espe-
cially since it confirmed to the adult
comic book reader that the medium
could be finer and more mature than
many non-comic book readers be-
lieved. Watchmen #1 sold out immedi-
ately at comic shops, and each subse-
quent issue sold extremely well. The
series was both tremendously popu-
lar and hugely critically acclaimed,
sweeping nearly every comic book in-
dustry award for which it was eligible
in 1987 and 1988. In addition, Moore
was interviewed by various national
newspapers as well as Time and Roll-
ing Stone magazines. Watchmen was
awarded the prestigious Hugo Award
in the “Other Forms” category, and in
2005, it was the only graphic novel
listed in Time magazine’s 100 best
English language novels list.
Ironically, the success of Watchmen
has actually worked against its cre- of print.
ators in one sense. A unique clause
in Moore and Gibbons’ Watchmen One legacy of Watchmen that Moore
contract with DC stipulates that laments is that the series helped
if the book ever went out of print, precipitate a “grim and gritty” era for
the rights would revert back to the comics. Simply put, too many comic
creators. In early publicity about the book creators took the wrong lessons
series, Moore was ebullient about from the series; they attempted to
that unique clause. He obviously capture the surface mood of the book
didn’t anticipate what happened rather than its underlying satirical
next: since the time Watchmen was and storytelling qualities. Watchmen Top: Rorschach departs after a tense conversation with
first published, it has never gone out became a trailblazer for both great the former Ozymandias.
Watchmen TM and © DC Comics.

175
and terrible comics. Without Watch-
men there likely would have never
been a Vertigo Comics line, and with-
out Watchmen, creators like Grant
Morrison and Neil Gaiman might
never have had a chance to create
groundbreaking works like Animal
Man and Sandman. Moore and Gib-
bons’ masterwork was a brilliant
guiding light for ambitious creators
to formulate great works
that embraced complex
storytelling and themes.
Watchmen helped demon-
strate that comics did not
have to be disposable en-
tertainment for children
anymore.
But the inspiration too
many creators took from
Watchmen was a license
to destroy the purity of
costumed heroes, create
nihilistic stories, and try
to ride Moore and Gibbons’
coattails. As Moore states,
“I think that what a lot
of people saw when they
read Watchmen was a high
degree of violence, a bleak-
er and more pessimistic
political perspective, per-
haps a bit more sex, more
swearing. And to some
degree there has been, in
the years since Watchmen,
an awful lot of the comics
field devoted to these very
grim, pessimistic, nasty,
violent stories which kind
of use Watchmen to vali-
date what are, in effect,
often just some very nasty
stories that don’t have a lot
to recommend them” (Mil-
lidge 132).
In early publicity for the
series, Moore mentioned
that he and Gibbons had considered a
12-issue prequel to the mini-series to
be called Minutemen that would fo-
cus on the adventures of the Golden
Age heroes that Moore and Gibbons
created for Watchmen. Moore’s career
plans, though, changed after the con-
clusion of Watchmen, and his career
trajectory moved him away from the
proposed series.
As for Moore’s other DC work, his run
on Swamp Thing continued in 1986,
officially joined in issue #51 by art-
ist Rick Veitch, who finally saw his
name in the credits as sole penciller
after assisting his friends Steve Bis-
sette and John Totleben for many is-
sues. The comic was still riding high
in ’86, winning awards and garnering
endless praise for Moore. It seemed
he could do whatever he wanted
in the series by this point, creating
two double-sized issues within four
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons were interviewed
for the Watchmen-themed Comics Interview #65.
months with issues #50 (contain-
ing the grand conclusion to his epic
“American Gothic” storyline) and #53
(featuring Swamp Thing’s adventures
in Gotham City, including a fasci-
nating confrontation with the Bat-
man). The cover date year concluded
with Swamp Thing #55 where the
presumed dead protagonist was just
about to start some spooky and in-
triguing adventures in space.
176
Dark Shadow
Perhaps DC’s most controversial book
of 1986 was Howard Chaykin’s vio-
lent, sexy, and satirical take on the
classic pulp hero, The Shadow. Sub-
titled Blood and Judgment and pre-
miering in February, Chaykin’s Shad-
ow was much more in the tradition of
his American Flagg! than the slightly
less wild take that was published in
Walter Gibson’s famous
pulp stories of the charac-
ter and his agents.
Dick Giordano sought out
Chaykin at the 1985 San
Diego Comic Con to ask
him to take on the Shad-
ow. Chaykin was initially
reluctant to accept the as-
signment because he had
been well known for his
work on characters set in
the 1930s (like Dominic
Fortune and the Scorpion)
and did not want to be
pigeon-holed as a retro
1930s artist. Chaykin felt
he had done all the work
he wanted to do that was
based in that era.
But as Chaykin thought
about the book and the
main characters, as well
as the inherent difficulty
of the Shadow concept,
he decided to move the
character to the 1980s
and adopt an updated
approach, incorporating
strong elements of ’80s
fashion and sexiness to
the series, changes that
he knew would anger
longtime fans of the char-
acter (MacDonald 19).
Howard Chaykin’s Shad-
ow was not a super-he-
ro but instead a street-level crime
fighter, albeit one whose adventures
brought him around the world. The
writer/artist deliberately set his char-
acter in a different world than that of
Crisis and other cosmic events. The
Shadow’s world was one of crime,
deeply influenced by the hard-boiled
novels of Jim Thompson, W.R. Bur-
nett, and Elmore Leonard. Chaykin
presented a globe-trotting adventure
that took the Shadow from China to
New York to Washington to Seattle
and to many other stops in between.
The present-day setting of the series
triggered some interesting fan con-
cerns around how Chaykin would
manage the cast of the revival. His
approach was interesting but contro-
versial: while the Shadow’s agents
aged from their previous appearance
in the 1930s, and were portrayed as
elderly men and women who suf-
fered the weight of their years, the
Shadow himself didn’t age in the in-
terim. In fact, the Shadow had not just
survived but had prospered: wealthy
beyond reason and dressed snappily
in Armani clothes, the Shadow was a
violent reflection of the materialism
of the Reagan era. Chaykin’s Shadow
was a man certain of his approach
and attitudes, always ready for a
deadly battle with the forces of evil.
The comic was attacked by critics for
its hyper-violence and its perceived
lack of respect for the Shadow and its
supporting characters. For instance,
writer Harlan Ellison referred to the
series as “vile and detestable…”, add-
ing that Chaykin has turned the Shad-
ow into a “sexist pig who uses people,
sacrifices people, hasn’t one grain of
decency in him. He’s a psychopathic
killer” (Sacco 17). Despite the criti-
cism, the Shadow mini-series found a
large enough audience to compel DC
to launch an ongoing Shadow comic
in the summer of 1987.
Writer/artist Howard Chaykin ramped up the
violence for his updated take on The Shadow.
The Shadow TM and © Condé Nast.
Bye, Bye to the Boy
By 1986, Roy Thomas’s second exclu-
sive contract with DC was expiring,
and the experience hadn’t gone as
he had hoped. He considered himself
the victim of numerous broken prom-
ises from DC, and he was continually
working on projects that did not turn
out as planned due to company poli-
tics and meddling.
In the post-Crisis era, Thomas’s be-
loved All-Star Squadron struggled to
find its place in a DC Universe that no
longer had an Earth-2. Just as bad for
Thomas was that in the wake of Crisis
On Infinite Earths the Justice Society
was written out of DC’s continuity.
Dick Giordano vowed that “as long
as I’m editor, the JSA will never come
back” (Amash 47). It was a decision
that Thomas, of course, didn’t agree
with and wasn’t happy about, but he
decided that if that was the case, he
should be the one to deliver the JSA’s
killing blow. If anyone was to write
the end of the JSA, it should be him.
Thomas did so by creating a wrap-
up story titled The Last Days of the
Justice Society, which provided clo-
sure to long-time fans of the august
heroic team. In Last Days, the mem-
bers of the Justice Society are shunted
to a Limbo-like realm in which they
have to fight alongside the Norse gods
in trying to prevent a Ragnarok from
arising. The JSAers, aside from Power
Girl, the Star Spangled Kid, the Spectre,
177
and Doctor Fate, are consigned to
fight a battle that literally never ends.
But as seemed to be typical of Thomas’s
relationship with DC at the time, the
company couldn’t stop itself from
disappointing him. Thomas wanted
to send the JSA off in as luxurious
a comics format as possible. In his
mind, the team that helped start DC’s
success deserved special treatment,
and DC editorial did indeed initially
promise that Last Days would be
published as a Prestige Format one-
shot. Unfortunately, before it got sent
to the printer, Last Days got down-
graded to standard format. Thomas
sensed at the time that DC was a bit
embarrassed by its past, and that
they didn’t want to give the JSA any
more exposure than necessary. Once
again, it seemed that Roy Thomas
was on the outside looking in at DC.
That same level of editorial med-
dling was applied to Thomas’s new
post-Crisis series, Secret Origins. The
plan for Secret Origins was to retell
the origins of Golden Age characters
in chronological order as the charac-
ters appeared in the DC Universe. As
Thomas remembers, “DC loved the
idea, although the first few issues
they kept changing their minds every
little bit as to what the book was sup-
posed to be” (Amash 48). Thomas’s
issues of Secret Origins featured in-
spired combinations of artist to strip:
Wayne Boring drew the origin of

Roy Thomas scripted—what was intended to be—the JSA’s final adventure in The Last Days of
The Justice Society of America one-shot. Justice Society of America TM and © DC Comics.
Superman, Carmine Infantino drew
the origin of Adam Strange, Mur-
phy Anderson drew the origin of the
Black Condor, and Gil Kane penciled
an origin of the Ray, which was never
published.
However, office politics doomed
Thomas’s run on Secret Origins, as
they doomed much of his other work
during his second DC exclusive con-
tract. Before the series even launched,
there was confusion about which is-
sues would feature Golden Age char-
acters and which would feature other
origins (Waid 105, 107). Then with
issue #6, the comic expanded to dou-
ble-sized length to feature two stores
per issue, once again revealing edito-
rial uncertainty on the title. Before
too long, a backstage power grab at
the company pushed Thomas off the
178
series. The Golden Age origin stories
ended shortly thereafter (Amash 49-
50).
The Maus that Roared
In a year in which comics like Watch-
men and Batman: the Dark Knight
showed that the graphic story me-
dium could produce works of tremen-
dous quality, Art Spiegelman’s ep-
ochal Maus: A Survivor’s Tale stood
out for its deep sophistication and
remarkable artistic passion. Even
though it was only half of the entire
story that Spiegelman would even-
tually present, this first of two books
stood well on its own and garnered
massive critical acclaim.
Maus told the story of Spiegelman’s
extremely difficult relationship with
his father Vladek, of his mother’s
suicide, and, perhaps most impor-
tantly, of Vladek’s experiences as
a Jew caught up in the Nazi Holo-
caust. In the book, Jews are drawn
as mice and the Nazis as cats (with
other nationalities also presented as
animals: Poles are pigs, Americans
dogs). Vladek’s experiences are pre-
sented directly and clearly, without
an excess of sentimentality and also
with clean and crisp line-work. By
this point, Spiegelman was already
an acknowledged comics innovator,
presenting stories like “Two-Fisted
Painters” that played with the two-
dimensional space of the page and
the interesting ways that it explored
space and time.
But for Maus, Spiegelman eschewed
fancy effects to tell an incredibly har-
rowing story in an extremely direct
and affecting manner. Readers en-
dured the same horrors that Vladek
did: his life as a Polish soldier and his
terrified reaction to killing a German
soldier, the rounding up of Jews into
cattle cars, and the unspeakable hor-
rors of Auschwitz. But the combina-
tion of Spiegelman’s thoughtful and
straightforward line work, the dis-
tancing effect of the use of animals
as a design element, and the contrast-
ing story of the exploration of Art’s
relationship with Vladek made the
events of the book at least a bit more
palatable for many readers.
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale did not spring
full-born into the Pantheon Books
volume. Spiegelman had actually
been exploring these ideas for quite
a few years. His 1973 expressionistic diminishes his book’s intensity and Harvey Pekar was always quite a
story “Prisoner of the Hell Planet”— immediacy by representing humans character in the comics movement of
published in an underground comic as rather simply and inexpressively the 1980s. On October 15, 1986, Pekar
of the time—told the story of his 1968 drawn animals – Germans as cats, made the first of his eight appearanc-
nervous breakdown brought on by Poles as pigs. However, the animal es on Late Night with David Letterman
his horrified reaction to his mother’s metaphor is ineffective because this show. Pekar’s confrontational style,
suicide. That same year brought his single element of fantasy is contra- working class sentiment and aggres-
first story called Maus, a three-page dicted by Spiegelman’s detailed re- sive attitude towards NBC’s corporate
summary of the events that would alism.” Pekar also took Spiegelman parent GE made him a minor star on
be told in the longer book. Finally, in to task for what he sees as a conde- the show. And Pekar immortalized
1980 in the pages of RAW #2, Spiegel- scending and difficult depiction of his first appearance on the show in
man began serializing the story that his father (Pekar 55). the pages of American Splendor #12
would eventually be published in a in a story illustrated by his frequent
collected edition by Pantheon Books collaborator Gerry Shamray.
as Maus: A Survivor’s Tale.
Maus immediately sold well. Two
months after the book’s release on
September 15, 1986, Maus sold out its
first and second print runs of 35,000
copies. It made the Village Voice best-
seller list and was featured in Time,
Rolling Stone, People, the Washington
Post and many other publications.
Maus was also immediately ac-
claimed upon its publication, receiv-
ing rave reviews from readers all
across the spectrum, from holocaust
survivors to comic fans to those in-
terested in history. Spiegelman was
awarded a special Pulitzer Prize in
1992 for the work after the second
half of the book was released, and
his original art pages have been dis-
played at New York’s Museum of
Modern Art. While those interested
in the subject matter appreciated the
thoughtful, serious and unmanipu-
lative manner in which Spiegelman
told the story, comics fans celebrated
how the book showed the nearly lim-
itless boundaries of what could be
accomplished with the artform. Here
was a true graphic novel that showed
that comics could be about more than
super-heroes, and Maus opened the
door for a truly new era for the per-
ception of comics as art. Perhaps most
importantly, it was seen as an actual
book rather than a graphic novel, al-
lowing people who would not be
caught dead in a comics shop to enjoy
a quality work in the medium.
One major comics creator who did not
appreciate aspects of Spiegelman’s
work was Harvey Pekar, writer of
American Splendor. Pekar frequently
criticized Maus for not using realis-
tic depictions of its characters. While
praising the book as being “a good
and significant work,” Pekar none- Art Spiegelman’s Maus became one of the most distinguished graphic novels in the history of the medium.
theless complained that “Spiegelman Maus TM and © Art Spiegelman.

179

Upset over the outrage that preceded the publication of Miracleman #9,
Eclipse Comics editor Cat Yronwode placed a parental warning on the cover.
Miracleman TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
The Miracle of Birth
Thanks primarily to Watchmen,
Alan Moore was the talk of the com-
ics world in 1986. But months be-
fore the first issue of Watchmen was
even published, Moore expressed the
desire to write more diverse comic
books. As 1986 dawned, he men-
tioned a new series—to be published
by Fantagraphics—that would be
novelistic in approach and complete-
ly devoid of super-heroes. In fact, he
intended the first issue to be a vicious
black comedy about a comic book
convention, mocking fans and pros
alike. The second issue would be a bi-
ography of 19th century English illus-
trator Aubrey Beardsley, whose work
often explored bizarre sex and sen-
suality (“Alan Moore on (Just About)
Everything!” 39). Moore, though, was
already overcommitted, so he never
found the time to write this new
comic book.
One of his commitments was Eclipse
Comics’ Miracleman, and 1986 would
180
prove to be a controversial year for
that title. In Miracleman #9, Moore
and Rick Veitch radically departed
from the super-hero action the series
was known for in order to show a real
miracle, perhaps the most common-
place miracle in nature: childbirth.
The issue, titled “Scenes from the
Nativity,” featured the birth of Mira-
cleman’s daughter, Winter. Rather
than keep the reader’s eye away from
actually seeing the baby being born,
though, Moore and Veitch chose to
do something that had never been
presented in comics up to that time:
a graphic depiction of childbirth. It
is a slow and detailed close-up of the
birth of Miracleman’s baby, expressed
as the difficult, intense experience
that any parent would recognize.
As required, Miracleman #9’s solici-
tation detailed the issue’s contents,
and in doing so, several comic book
retailers and distributors expressed
concerns about the appropriateness
of childbirth in a comic book. Their
alarm drew the ire of Eclipse editor-
in-chief Cat Yronwode who couldn’t
believe that the depiction of one of
life’s most natural events could cause
such anxiety. She made a decision:
“So I, in my anger, decided that be-
cause there was a lot of stuff about
the Surgeon General’s report against
cigarette smoking, I would put on a
warning label that would be in the
same typeface and size as the ciga-
rette-warning label” (Khoury 115).
On the cover to Miracleman #9 is a
prominently displayed white-boxed
warning: “ATTENTION PARENTS:
This issue contains graphic scenes of
childbirth.” It is a warning that Cat
Yronwode referred to as “an obvious-
ly bitter joke” (Khoury 115).
Moore and Veitch went to great
lengths to depict child birth as sin-
cerely and accurately as possible.
Veitch referenced A Child Is Born,
Lennart Nilsson’s book of photo-
graphs which was routinely cited at
the time by such authorities as the
American Medical Association and
Parents Magazine as recommended
reading material for anyone inter-
ested in the details of childbirth. The
book was specifically recommended
as a great resource for curious chil-
dren expecting a new brother or sis-
ter. It had been in print continuously
since 1965 and had sold over a million
copies in ten years. It was in open cir-
culation in public libraries around the to educate children on such Comic Shops Under Fire
country. In fact, Yronwode checked A matters.
Child Is Born out of her local public If comic book retailers were con-
Geppi went on to assert, “Diamond cerned that Miracleman #9 might get
library in order to photocopy the rel- has been deluged by phone calls and
evant pages for Veitch (Khoury 115). them into trouble with the communi-
letters from irate retailers who insist ties they served, it’s because through-
Furthermore, on Sept. 19, 1986, on return privileges on this book. out 1986 comic book retailers were
NBC’s popular morning program To- Distributors who attended a sales getting into trouble with the commu-
day Show televised graphic scenes of conference in Las Vegas this month nities they served.
childbirth. The Today Show segment indicated they had received the same
was preceded with a warning that response.” Geppi further indicated in On April 2, 1986, Garry Sher, the own-
was virtually identical to the warn- his letter that Diamond would take er of Garry’s Comic Stop in Edgebrook,
ing appearing on the cover of Mira- returns from retailers on the book Illinois, was cited with selling harm-
cleman #9. By 1986, the public might and then pass those returns back to ful material to a minor. The minor in
have been ready to see childbirth on Eclipse Comics. Yronwode denied question was eight years old, and the
network television, but childbirth that Miracleman’s sales suffered due comic in question was Alien Encoun-
presented in a comic book was evi- to the controversy (Khoury 116). ters #5, published by Eclipse Com-
dently a different matter. ics, which featured two stories that
Geppi stated that the response to his contained topless women as well as
While some readers wrote to Eclipse letter was overwhelmingly positive, a cover featuring a revealing paint-
to praise Moore and Veitch’s work for with staff of both DC Comics and ing of a woman covering her naked
its beauty and honesty, others called Americomics pledging to help Dia- breast. The comic contained a “ma-
the comic disgusting and even ex- mond ensure that the industry would ture readers” advisory and was placed
ploitative. And then there were the produce material that would not face out of reach of young children in an
retailers and distributors, many of the wrath of censorship. He advo- area that was specifically marked as
whom felt the fears they had when cated a self-censorship movement, a containing comics that were not for
the issue was solicited were con- concept which would have major im- sale for children under the age of 17.
firmed now that issue was released. pact on DC Comics in 1987 (Fryer 11).
Ken Kruger, the Los Angeles repre- While the charges were eventually
sentative for distributor Bud Plant,
informed retailers that Miracleman
#9 could cause legal problems and
should not be sold in shops. In re-
sponse, Golden Apple Comics only
sold the comic behind the counter
and upon request (Fryer 11).
Steve Geppi, President of Diamond
Comics Distributors, was much more
strident in his criticism of the issue,
stating in an October 23, 1986 “Spe-
cial Report” to his sales outlets that
Miracle Man (sic) #9 was the
straw that broke the camel’s
back…. It appears to be a clas-
sic case of poor judgment (not
to mention poor taste) on the
part of the publisher, when
right above that warning la-
bel is the slogan proclaiming
Miracle Man #9 to be Ameri-
ca’s number one Super Hero…
What is the purpose of this
outrage? I have four children
of my own ranging in age
from ages six to fifteen, and
each of them knows where
babies come from. I never
found it necessary, how-
ever, to graphically describe
to them how a baby is born!
I’m certain that most, if not
all parents, would agree that A panel from Miracleman #9 showing the hero’s newborn daughter, Winter.
Miracleman TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
they don’t need comic books

181
dismissed, Sher chose to shut down
his store rather than live in fear of
being hounded by overly aggressive
police. “I was afraid of being set up,”
Sher stated at the time, adding that
he was harassed by members of his
community, including the principal
of a local school, who claimed to be
appalled by the material that he was
selling (Fryer 10).
It was a similar story 37 miles away
in Lansing, Illinois, where Michael
Correa, the manager of Friendly
Frank’s Comics, was arrested on
December 10, 1986, for intent to dis-
seminate obscene material. Plain-
clothes police officer Anthony Van
Gorp had entered Friendly Frank’s
about two weeks previously and
bought copies of 10 comics, includ-
ing issues of Omaha the Cat Dancer,
Bizarre Sex, Weirdo, Murder, The Bod-
yssey, and Heavy Metal. Van Gorp also
claimed that he had seen a child look-
ing through an issue of Heavy Metal
in the shop. Because of these charges,
not only was Correa arrested, but the
police actually shut down the store
for five days, as they stated it was in
violation of a Lansing city ordinance
forbidding the sale of adult materials
within 1200 feet of a residential area.
The store was only allowed to reopen
when all allegedly obscene materi-
als were removed from the shelves of
the store.
Amazingly, Correa had been notified
by the store’s owner, Frank Mangiara-
cina, to be extremely careful about
selling copies of adult comics to mi-
nors in light of the Garry’s Comic Stop
case, but he never felt the need to be
concerned about selling the comics to
adults, especially since nearly every
book that was purchased contained a
Mature Readers label on its cover.
The arrests in Illinois may have been David Singer’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents title ended with issue #5.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents TM and © John Carbonaro estate.
sparked by a state law that went
into effect on January 1, 1986. Chap- nated cash to help Correa and Mangi- months after the previous issue had
ter 38, section 11-20 of the Illinois aracina in their legal defense. These appeared. The series that made such
Revised Statutes allowed for a rather donations were the beginning of the a high-profile debut in 1984 headlin-
broad definition of obscenity in line Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. ing such renowned creators as George
with the community standards in Pérez, Dave Cockrum, Steve Engle-
which the material was presented, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Goes Silent hart, Keith Giffen, and Steve Ditko
whether the consumer of the obscene The year 1986 brought major was now introducing new talent like
and prurient material was an adult or successes in the comics industry. Jose Marzan Jr. and Anthony Pereira
child. Unfortunately for David Singer, his and parading relative newcomers like
Publishers Denis Kitchen of Kitchen Deluxe Publishing wasn’t one of Ron Lim (Ex-Mutants). In his editorial,
Sink Press and Ron Turner of Last them. In October 1986, Deluxe re- Singer claimed the fifth issue’s main
Gasp Publishing, who published leased the fifth issue of Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents feature—written
Omaha and Weirdo, respectively, do- T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, eight long by Roger McKenzie and art by Jerry

182
Ordway—was the first chapter of a
three-part crossover with The Next
Man and Codename: Danger. Those
latter two titles would be released by
Singer’s Lodestone Publishing.
That’s at least what Singer told his
readers. The Next Man, however,
never formally became a Lodestone
title after its cancellation by Comico.
It wouldn’t be the only title Singer
would prematurely announce as part
of Lodestone’s lineup. Singer also
claimed that Lodestone would pub-
lish a comic book written by Roger
McKenzie and drawn by Paul Smith
titled The Mime. Smith, though,
claimed to have never even discussed
The Mime with Singer (Heintjes 27).
But Singer’s hasty publishing an-
nouncements were moot points.
That’s because shortly after Wally
Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #5 was
released, David Singer stopped pub-
lishing comic books. That meant
there would be no second chapter
to the story begun by McKenzie and
Ordway because there would be no
more Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents. There would also be no more
Deluxe Comics. And after publishing
a reprint of Chuck Dixon’s Evangeline,
the third issue of Dave Cockrum’s The
Futurians, and the debut issues of
Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Flem-
ing’s The March Hare and a Honey-
mooners comic book (also written by
Robert Loren Fleming), there would
be no more Lodestone Publishing.
What collapsed Singer’s “empire”
was the civil action John Carbonaro
had brought against him. By 1986,
Singer’s ongoing defense against the
lawsuit effectively impaired his abil-
ity to pay his bills. Carbonaro’s legal
representatives didn’t just sue Singer
for violating Carbonaro’s copyright
to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, they also
sued Direct Market distributors—
specifically Glenwood, Capital City
and Comics Unlimited—for supply-
ing copies of Singer’s Wally Wood’s
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents to comic book
retailers. Wanting to avoid legal
entanglements, these distributors
complied with Carbonaro’s demands
(Irving 175). With Glenwood and Cap-
ital City being two of the industry’s
biggest distributors, their refusal
to carry Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents inevitably meant sales of
the title plummeted. That, of course,
meant less money in Singer’s coffers.
Singer’s money flow was systemati-
cally being cut off, and since Carbon-
aro’s lawyers were working pro bono,
they could extend the legal process
for as long as they wanted without
any financial hardship to their client.
Singer didn’t enjoy the same luxury.
He had to pay a legal team to defend
his interests, but as the legal process
carried on and on, that only meant
more money Singer had to pay his
lawyers. Inevitably, without suffi-
cient revenue coming from his pub-
lishing endeavors, Singer no longer
could continue his fight. The game
was up. Singer had no choice but to
settle his differences with Carbona-
ro, and he would pay a heavy price:
not only did Singer agree to discon-
tinue publishing the T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents, and not only did he agree to
never dispute Carbonaro’s owner-
ship of those characters, he also re-
linquished to Carbonaro all rights to
the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents stories that
he published since 1984 (Irving 175).
Despite finally putting Carbonaro’s
lawsuit behind him, Singer simply
had no more money to continue pub-
lishing comic books. With that, the
publisher who came onto the scene
in 1984 with grandiose plans and fi-
nancing effectively divorced himself
from the comic book industry, never
to be heard from again.
The success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles spawned
a slew of imitators, like Eclipse Comics’ Adolescent
Radioactive Blackbelt Hamsters.
183
The Black-and-White Boom Blows Up
The overnight success of Kevin East-
man and Peter Laird’s Teenage Mu-
tant Ninja Turtles and its immediate
derivatives encouraged a flood of new
companies producing black-and-
white titles. As a result, an unprec-
edented number of new publishers
released their first comics in 1986, in-
cluding ACE Comics, Adventure Publi-
cations, Aircel, Apple Comics, B-Mov-
ie Comics, Crystal Publications, Dark
Horse Comics, Entertainment Com-
ics, Eternity Comics, Fantagor Press,
Fantasy General Gladstone Comics,
Imperial Comics, Malibu Comics,
NOW Comics, Pied Piper Comics, Pyr-
amid Comics, Quality Comics, Silver-
wolf Comics, Slave Labor Graphics,
Showcase Publications, Solson Publi-
cations, Spotlight Comics, U.S. Com-
ics, and a score more publishers, large
and small.
Some of the books produced by these
companies were of high quality but
the vast majority of new comics were
simply exploitative. Comic shops
were filled with parodies of the Teen-
age Mutant Ninja Turtles with imita-
tive “age-group/martial arts/animal”
creations like Cold-Blooded Chame-
leon Commandoes, Pre-Teen Dirty
Jean Kung Fu Kangaroos, Adolescent
Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, Na-
ïve Interdimensional Commando Ko-
alas, and Geriatric Gangrene Jujitsu
Gerbils.
Gary Brodsky, son of the late Marvel
Comics vice president Sol Brodsky,
launched Solson Publications to re-
lease such titles as Texas Chainsaw
Samurai, Reagan’s Raiders, Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles Authorized
Martial Arts Training Manual, Code-
name: Ninja, Samurai Santa, Bushido
Blade of Zatoichi Walrus, Sultry Teen-
age Super-Foxes, Those Crazy Peckers,
Woodchuck Warrior, and even some
training guides like Rich Buckler’s Se-
crets of Drawing Comics. Meanwhile,
Silverwolf produced Gary Amaro’s Fat
Ninja and Ron Lim’s The Eradicators.
Wonder Color Comics solicited and
then never published a slate of a half-
dozen comics.
It’s little wonder Amazing Heroes
ran a feature titled “Industry Held
Hostage” that listed the number
of black-and-white parody comics
then on the stands: a breathtaking
Adventurers and Ex-Mutants were just two of many new titles released during the 1980s black-and-white boom.
41 of them offered by distributors Adventurers and Ex-Mutants TM and © respective copyright holders.
in December 1986 alone. One fact
comic sold 80,000 copies after DHP fire (Shade 21).
crystallizes the black-and-white
sold 50,000. With those two hits, Dark But many titles released during this
comic book boom: the number of
Horse began its rise to prominence in era were considered by most readers
black-and-white titles that Capital
the comics industry. to just not be of a professional qual-
City Distributors carried ballooned
from 39 in January 1986 to 170 in However, Dark Horse’s comics were ity. That didn’t stop publishers from
December, an increase of over 400% the exception to the rule. The dis- continuing to rush out exploitative
(Groth 8-12). tribution system in place in 1986 but highly profitable comics that
worked against wholesalers and re- sold to the stores, which just encour-
Even Eastman and Laird participated
tailers in the sense that neither could aged the publishers to create more
in the boom they created. They re-
gauge the quality of the publications terrible titles. Because production
leased several issues of Teenage Mu-
offered to them. Retailers were forced costs were so cheap for black-and-
tant Ninja Turtles in 1986, as well
at that time to essentially order their white comics, the barrier to entry to
as one-shots featuring Turtles Do-
comics blind. They had to look at the the field was extremely low, mean-
natello and Leonardo. TMNT #8 (July
sometimes small amount of preview ing that profits versus costs could be
1986)—with a guest appearance by
material and make purchasing deci- astronomical for publishers. Mean-
Dave Sim’s Cerebus character—sold
sions in expectation of future sales. while, readers began balking at any
between 90,000 and 100,000 copies
Many retailers, especially brand-new black-and-white titles of whatever
(Nickerson).
ones, were caught flat-footed when quality, thereby creating a cash flow
While most of the publishers that their customers began rejecting these crisis that would reach tsunami levels
launched during this boom proved new comic books as unacceptably ter- beginning in January 1987.
short-lived, one at least would thrive rible.
for years to come. Portland, Oregon-
At the beginning of the black-and-
based Dark Horse Comics was found-
white mania, almost any book sold
ed by longtime friends and APA-5
well as a gold rush mentality con-
members Mike Richardson and Randy
sumed the collectors. A surge of spec-
Stradley. The first book they released
ulators frequented comic shops to
was Dark Horse Presents, an anthol-
find comics that they thought would
ogy series featuring work by Chris
skyrocket in value like the first is-
Warner, Paul Chadwick, Stradley, and
sue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Randy Emberlin. But Dark Horse’s
Speculators in the summer of 1986
second comic book was the one that
bought up titles in bulk. Fish Police
really inaugurated their success.
was a major post-Turtles smash with
James Dean Smith created Boris the
those readers, as was Hamster Vice,
Bear Slaughters the Teenage Radioac-
which was so popular that it sold out
tive Black Belt Mutant Ninja Critters,
two printings of its first issue and
a parody comic that really caught the
helped its publisher, Rip Off Press,
mood of the era. The violently silly
shake off the effects of a devastating
184
 CHRONICLES FLASHBACK: 1986

“Let Me Tell You How It Happened…”

First-Person Narrators

By 1986, comic book readers were Blake (a.k.a. The Comedian) and pan- neering masterpiece, so much so that
well acquainted with first-person els that flash back to that murder it’s no exaggeration to claim that
narrators. The storytelling device had being committed by a mysterious Watchmen paved the way for future
been used in comic books for decades. assailant. As the detectives leave the comic book writers, like Grant Mor-
It could be found in many 1950s-era scene of the crime, they enter an el- rison and Neil Gaiman, to break new
EC Comics, and from the 1960s to evator and tell its occupant they need comic book narrative ground with
the 1980s writer Bob Kanigher often to go to the ground floor. The occu- their own innovative works by the
had DC Comics’ World War II-era he- pant’s response (“Ground Floor Co- end of the 1980s.
roes, Sgt. Rock and Enemy Ace, nar- min’ Up”) appears on the next panel
rate their own adventures. In 1976’s which flashes back to Blake being
Marvel Preview #2, Gerry Conway in- thrown out of his apartment window
troduced Punisher’s diary-like “War to his death. In other words, Blake
Journal” as a narrative device for the was on his way down to the ground
character, and even Chris Claremont floor too.
used a first-person narrator for select These kinds of visual-linguistic witti-
issues of Uncanny X-Men as well as cisms are strewn throughout Watch-
1982’s Wolverine mini-series. Despite men and overall, the series is a pio-
this, first-person narrators were not
as common a storytelling device as
third-person omniscient narrators or
thought balloons.
That changed in 1986 when writ-
ers like Art Spiegelman, Frank Miller
and Alan Moore ushered in an era of
first-person narrated comic books.
This is not to say that third-person
narrators and thought balloons com-
pletely disappeared from the comic
book landscape. Instead, by the late
1980s, comic book writers—inspired
by publications like Maus, The Dark
Knight, and Watchmen—utilized the
first-person narrator more often than
in previous years.
Alan Moore’s work on Watchmen was
particularly nuanced as it shuffled
the subjective perspectives of several
characters. In addition, Moore put
considerable thought into how words
and images can complement, supple-
ment and even contradict each other.
In a 1984 interview, Moore stated,
“Much of comics writing comes
down to finding interesting ways to
change scenes, and I use overlapping
dialogue a lot” (Lawley 23). This tech-
nique is demonstrated in the opening
pages of Watchmen #1 as the story al-
ternates between panels that show
two New York City police detectives
investigating the murder of Edward Sequence from 1986’s Watchmen #1.
Watchmen TM and © DC Comics.

185
1987
Bubbles Burst,
Back to Basics
And the tsunami created a wave and the wave created bub-
bles, then one giant bubble. And then, as these things go,
the bubble burst.
By all accounts, the end came quickly. The explosion of
comic companies churning out black-and-white product
continued throughout 1987 despite portents of doom all
around them. Some industry professionals like Bud Plant
had predicted the crash as early as 1985, but the flood of
quickie cash-in books increased as the final crash drew
nearer. An industry that sustained ten or so independent
publishers in 1984 had mutated into one that had 170
houses by the end of 1987 (Frankenhoff).
February’s bitter chill brought the first bad news: the first
of the companies stopped sending their product to distrib-
utors. Then, in March, a Comic Buyer’s Guide report showed
that the sales of more than a few titles had dropped any-
where from 80% to 90% as compared to only the previous
summer (Frankenhoff). But, again, the glut of black-and-
white books continued unabated through the remainder
of the year, the comic book equivalent to the string quartet
playing on while the Titanic sank.
One enterprising distributor tried to keep the boat afloat,
or at least as much as he could. Scott Rosenberg, president
of Sunrise Distribution, took it upon himself to shore up six
different publishers in early 1987 when the writing was
on the wall for each of them. Aircel, Adventure, Eternity,
Malibu, Imperial, and Wonder Color could keep their work
and some of the staff above water for a while through the
efforts of Rosenberg; at first he kept the companies sepa-
rate, due to their widely different output, but eventually
he merged them into one company: Malibu.
Rosenberg claims that it was the lure of Direct Market dis-
tribution that led many of the black-and-white companies
to the edge of the precipice: “What happened was a lot of
creators and entrepreneurs who wanted to start up little
companies…said, ‘Gee, we can get distribution, so let’s
start making comic books!’” (Brady). He, too, predicted the
crash, noting its inevitability as a “supply and demand
thing,” the fire being fed by fans who jazzed on the great
breadth of titles and genres available during the glut, but
whose appetites for it all too quickly sated (Brady).
Or as publisher and pundit Gary Groth put it, “you cannot
shovel shit into a finite market forever” (Groth 8). Groth
also pointed out that speculators carried much of the blame
for the bust, buying immense quantities of the small print
runs of black-and-white material and essentially driving
up those runs to ridiculous numbers. A book that would
have gotten a 10,000 copy print run just a few years ear-

CHAPTER EIGHT
lier wound up with a 100,000 copy run: “[The speculators]
were cutting their own throats because the audience for
black-and-whites was never that large to begin with and
it wasn’t likely the audience would grow exponentially
by Jim Beard just because a gang of speculators started buying up tons
186
of the stuff” (Groth 8). Furthermore, he theorized that re-
tailers moved forward into 1987 with blinders on because
“no retailer wants to believe a consumer frenzy is over and
dead” (Groth 9).
But dead it was, and by the end of the year the industry
was littered with causalities, including publishers, distrib-
utors, retailers and consumers. Very few got out alive and
virtually none of them unscathed in some way.
The story of Glenwood Distributors’ fall is a prominent
example of the tone and timbre of 1987’s crash. The com-
pany was ordering more than it could sell, reorders were
in the toilet and unpaid invoices from out-of-business
comic shops were piling up. Glenwood’s funds
began to run short and when they began to
miss payments to the large publishers like
Marvel and DC, they were cut off. One mo-
ment Glenwood was one of the industry’s
prominent players, the next it was yesterday’s
news (or black-and-white comic). The doors were
closed forever on Glenwood. Its warehouses were
stacked to the ceilings with boxes of comics no
one wanted and no one had paid for (Biggers).
There were a few bright spots among the inde-
pendents: the year saw the extension of a more
global feeling with a wave of Japanese comics
called manga. Fueled by a consumer interest in
Japanese animation, sometimes referred to as
“Japanimation,” American publishers looked to
manga to expand the trend. Lone Wolf and Cub,
a manga series about a Shogun’s executioner
that was first published in Japan in the early
1970s, was translated into English and re-
published by First Comics with new cov-
ers drawn by Lone Wolf and Cub enthusi-
ast Frank Miller.
Other manga being introduced to an
American audience in 1987 included the Eclipse Comics-
Viz Comics joint production of Mai the Psychic Girl. In fact,
that book is considered to be the first manga to have its Frank Miller provided the covers
for First Comics’ translation of
entire series published in English. Mai the Psychic Girl #1 Lone Wolf and Cub.
(May 1987) told the tale of a 14-year-old girl hunted by a TM and © respective copyright holder.
world-dominating group bent on controlling children with
powerful psychic abilities. The series reprinted the trans- “golden age” of video/computer games during the 1980s.
lated work for over a year and then Viz also published it in Super-heroes still prevailed in the 1987 comic book indus-
four digest-sized books, approximating the original Japa- try, though smaller houses tended to publish alternative
nese format. genres and left the costumed antics to Marvel and DC.
The Direct Market continued to increase in distribution “Events” proliferated at this time, with the Big Two houses
and sales in 1987, but the dwindling number of comics on putting out line-wide stories that promised major changes
traditional newsstands meant fewer “civilians” were be- in their respective fictional universes. That trend would
ing exposed to the medium. In addition, video/computer continue to grip the industry for years to come. DC, in fact,
games increased in popularity after a 1983 crash of that in- crafted an entire cottage industry using 1985’s Crisis on In-
dustry led to a fourth-generation of gaming consoles being finite Earths house-cleaning as a foundation to rebuild its
introduced in 1987. Young people who a generation before line of titles. It started with the biggest foundation block
may have looked to comic books for entertainment now of them all.
devoted increasing amounts of time and money to com-
puter and arcade gaming. The year produced many popu- DC Comics Aren’t Just For Kids Anymore
lar games, including Maniac Mansion, Metal Gear, Street Heading into her eleventh year as DC Comics’ president
Fighter, sequels to the popular Zelda and Castlevania and and publisher, Jenette Kahn, along with vice-president
the first in the long-running Final Fantasy franchise. The Dick Giordano, steered the company into what had to
games’ increasingly in-depth stories and characters began have been its most ambitious period to date. Through-
to supplant those of comic books, inaugurating a kind of out the year DC wrought an across-the-board revamping
187
1987 TIMELINE
A compilation of the year’s notable comic book industry events alongside
some of the year’s most significant popular cultural and historical events.
January 23: E. Nelson Bridwell – a writer and
editor for DC Comics since 1964 – dies of
lung cancer at the age of 55.
May: Jack Kirby receives
and signs an amended
version of Marvel’s original
art release form. The artist
will soon receive almost
2000 pages of original art
that he drew for Marvel in
the 1960s.
March 2: The Macintosh II computer goes on sale for
a retail price of $3,898. This first color Mac had a CPU
speed of 16 MHz.
June 5: In a ceremony presided
by Stan Lee, Spider-Man mar-
ries Mary Jane Watson at home
plate of Shea Stadium prior to a
New York Mets baseball game.
All attendees receive a copy of
Spider-Man Annual #21, which
features the wedding of Peter
Parker and Watson. The annual
arrives in comic book stores
four days later.

March 5: Flash #1 – written by Mike Baron and

February 26:
After probing the
Iran-Contra affair, the
Tower Commission
issues its report,
rebuking President
Reagan for allowing
his national security
staff to mislead him.
penciled by Jackson Guice – goes on sale. It presents
the former Kid Flash, Wally West, as DC’s new “Fast-
est Man Alive.”
April 5: The Fox
Broadcasting Co. makes
its prime-time television
debut by airing the
premiere episodes of
Married ... With Children
and The Tracey Ullman
Show.

JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL M AY JUNE

March 4: President Reagan

addresses the nation on the June 12: At Berlin’s Brandenburg
Iran-Contra affair, taking full Gate, President Reagan publicly
responsibility and acknowledging challenges Soviet leader Mikhail
mistakes had been made. Gorbachev by saying, “Mr. Gor-
bachev, tear down this wall.”
February 20: Wayne Boring
– artist most famous for his
Superman work during the
Golden Age of comics – dies
at the age of 80.
April 15: After serving
nearly 10 years as Marvel’s June 23: Web of Spider-Man #31 – written by J.M.
February 5: Justice League #1 – written by DeMatteis with art by Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod
Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis with art by Editor-in-Chief, Jim Shooter is
fired from the company. He is – goes on sale. It begins a six-issue story that will
Kevin Maguire – goes on sale. be published over two months, involving all three
replaced by Tom DeFalco.
Spider-Man titles. Eventually, the story will be
known as “Kraven’s Last Hunt.”

Flash, Justice League of America, Superman TM and © DC Comics. Spider-Man TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. Star Trek: The Next Generation TM and © CBS Paramount Studios.

to nearly all of its major characters parents. In a letter sent out to all of found the new guidelines would in-
and titles, plus a host of new first DC’s freelancers Kahn acknowledged evitably neuter the content of comics
issues and experiments. The vener- that more adults were reading comic and he also theorized they were pro-
able company touched upon almost books than ever before, but since the duced solely to appease the demands
every single property and concept general public still considered comic of censorship from distributors such
in its extensive library and changed books as entertainment solely direct- as Diamond’s Steve Geppi (who in
them to one extent or another. ed towards children, a labeling sys- 1986 had vociferously objected to
But just as Kahn and Giordano were tem became necessary to help par- the graphic depiction of childbirth in
getting the revamp started, they in- ents identify material that was (and Eclipse Comics’ Miracleman #9) and
troduced a matter that threatened to wasn’t) suitable for their children retailers like Lone Star Comics’ Buddy
undermine DC’s relationship with (Fryer 16). Saunders (who in an open letter de-
its creators. For 1987, DC intended on Even before DC’s new guidelines manded that comic book publishers
implementing new editorial stan- were made public, the industry’s self-censor the content of their titles).
dards that included a labeling sys- creative community cried foul. Led The petition turned DC’s new guide-
tem. Appearing on the cover of every by Frank Miller, 24 prominent com- lines into an industry preoccupation
DC title would be one of two labels: ic book writers, artists, and editors for months, drawing in fans, retail-
either “For Universal Readership” or signed a petition to denounce the ers and professionals alike as they
“Suggested for Mature Readers.” The fact that the guidelines (described debated and argued the matter in
“Universal Readership” titles were in the petition as “new standards of the pages of Comics Buyer’s Guide
meant for readers of any age as they in-house censorship”) were formu- and The Comics Journal. For some
were devoid of profanity, nudity or lated without any creator’s consul- creators, though, petitions and guest
excessive violence. “Mature Reader” tation (Fryer 17). An outraged Miller editorials in the fanzines weren’t pro-
titles, on the other hand, didn’t auto- declared, “I really thought it was a test enough. Some took an additional
matically preclude adolescent read- sign of contempt all around… [cre- step. On January 19, 1987, a letter
ers, but they might be considered ators] simply never heard that it was co-authored by Frank Miller, Alan
inappropriate by an adolescent’s being contemplated” (Fryer 18). He Moore, Howard Chaykin, and Marv

188
 September 22: Two days into the new December 8: President Reagan
season, NFL players go on strike in an and Soviet leader Mikhail S.
effort to gain free agency and other Gorbachev sign the INF
benefits. Football owners respond by (Intermediate-range Nuclear
continuing the season with substitute Forces) Treaty, under which the
players. The strike ends 24 days later two countries agree to dismantle
without a new labor agreement. their arsenals of intermediate-
range nuclear missiles.
September 26: Starring
Patrick Stewart as Captain
Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek:
The Next Generation debuts
July 1: DC Comics Publisher and President
on syndicated television.
Jenette Kahn informs DC’s freelancers via letter
that DC has decided not to label books with the
term “for universal readers.” DC continues to
use the “for mature readers” label.

J U LY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER

October 19: The stock market crashes as the Dow Jones

Industrial Average, amid frenzied selling, plunges 508
points. It’s the biggest one-day decline up to that point. The
day becomes known as “Black Monday.”

October 16: An Iranian missile hits a Kuwaiti ship guarded

July 7: Lt. Col. Oliver North begins
testifying at the Congressional Iran-
Contra hearings. He soon becomes a
household recognized figure.
September 22: The first Marvel
Masterworks hardcover – reprint-
ing Amazing Fantasy #15 and
Amazing Spider-Man #1-10 – goes
on sale with a retail price of
$29.95.
by the U.S. fleet in the Persian Gulf. The U.S. retaliates by
bombarding Iranian oil platforms.
October 14: 18-month-old Jessica McClure slides down an
abandoned well in Midland, Texas. Her dilemma rivets the atten-
tion of the nation as hundreds of rescuers work to free her. She is
saved two days later.
October 11: Over 200,000 homosexual rights activists march through
Washington D.C. to protest discrimination and demand more federal
money for AIDS research and treatment. The AIDS Memorial Quilt is
also presented for the first time.

Wolfman was sent to Jenette Kahn. For publicly speaking out

It stated that they would each honor
their contractual obligations with DC
but beyond that, they would all re-
fuse to produce new work if DC’s new
guidelines remained in place. The let-
ter was subsequently printed in the
February 13 issue of Comics Buyer’s
Guide.
For his public display of defiance,
Marv Wolfman was fired from his
position as DC editor, a role he had
served since 1982. Wolfman told The
Comics Journal that he intended the
letter to be a private matter between
his compatriots and DC’s leadership.
But when it became clear that DC was
turning a deaf ear, Miller urged his
fellow creators to go public with their
complaints. Soon after the afore-
mentioned CBG issue was published,
Wolfman was let go via a phone call
from Dick Giordano and then formal-
ly through a letter. As for the official
reasons given, the writer had this to
say in a press release:
against possible censorship,
DC Comics fired me as cre-
ative editor. It is easy for me
to say I am disappointed, but
I am certainly not surprised.
DC has made it policy to fire
any editor or part-time editor
who negatively comments
on DC policy in public. It is
a shame that they feel they
must rule through fear… (Fry-
er 10).
Rumors abounded that a rift had
been developing between Wolfman
and Dick Giordano for some time,
even before Wolfman had signed the
petition against DC’s new guidelines.
One report even had Giordano’s as-
sistant, Pat Bastienne, offering X-
Men scribe Chris Claremont the job of
writing New Teen Titans, a title Wolf-
man had been helming since he cre-
ated it in 1980. Claremont declined
the assignment and relayed the offer Photo of Marv Wolfman that originally appeared
in The Comics Journal #115.
back to Wolfman who was informed

189
by Giordano that it had been made in
jest (Sacco 19). Although dismissed as
an editor, Wolfman continued on as a
DC writer, most notably on New Teen
Titans and The Adventures of Super-
man.
And then DC altered its editorial poli-
cies once more. In a letter dated July
1, 1987, Kahn informed DC’s freelanc-
ers that, “we have decided not to label
books of more general interest with
the term ‘for universal readers.’ Feed-
back convinced us that this was not
necessary” (Powers 11). So before any
DC title could be labeled “For Univer-
sal Readership,” the tag was dumped.
At a panel at the August San Diego
Comic Con, Giordano added that the
“Suggested for Mature Readers” tag—
which by that point had
already appeared on the
covers to The Question,
Swamp Thing, and Vigi-
lante—would remain in
use. Furthermore, Pres-
tige format books that
contained profanity, sex,
or gore wouldn’t be la-
beled. Kahn felt that the
near three dollar cost of a
Prestige book along with
its square bound spine
was enough of a signal to
consumers that it wasn’t
intended for children
(Groth 82).
The changes appeased
most of the creators.
Frank Miller announced,
“I do not believe DC has a
rating system any more…
the issue is resolved. I’ve
no longer ruled out the
possibility of working for
DC” (Powers 12). How-
ard Chaykin and Marv
Wolfman reiterated that
sentiment with Wolf-
man declaring, “I’m very
pleased and I’m anxious
to get started on my new
work with DC” (Powers
12). Alan Moore, howev-
er, remained dissatisfied
with DC’s initial handling
of the matter. He still
refused to produce any
more new work for DC, so
he set about fulfilling his
contractual obligations as
quickly as he could.
“It’s Your First Issue, Superman…” the cornerstone of the new DC uni-
verse created during 1985’s Crisis on
Kahn and company began the re-
Infinite Earths series, the new Super-
alignment of the DC Universe in
man #1 moved past the Man of Steel’s
grand fashion, with the first issue
origin and accelerated the action to
of the second volume of their most
the present. The book was joined by
iconic character’s title – a publica-
The Adventures of Superman, which
tion that had not been restarted or re-
picked up the numbering from the
vamped or, essentially, remodeled in
first volume of the original Superman
its entire decades-long history. It was
run, and a re-purposed Action Comics,
a bold move, to make a statement of
which teamed-up the Man of Steel
the company’s intent to refresh and
and other DC characters.
modernize its line by rebooting the
Man of Steel himself, inarguably one Writer/artist John Byrne, the man
of the most-recognized fictional char- who’d garnered praise for orchestrat-
acters on the planet. ing Man of Steel’s success the year be-
fore, eschewed the common practice
Superman #1 (Jan. 1987) arrived on
of a representational image for Super-
the heels of 1986’s Man of Steel. To
man #1’s cover. Instead, as if to signal
keep the momentum going and to set
his and DC’s intentions to truly shake
up the status quo, he
adorned that first cover
with an image of Super-
man defeated.
As he says in his text
piece in Superman #1,
Byrne viewed what he
had done on Man of
Steel and what he’d be
doing going forward
not only as a statement
on the character and his
universal standing, but
also on himself as a pro-
fessional:
First off, the response
was overwhelm-
ingly favorable. For
that, and for all who
made their approval
known, heartiest
thanks. I was ner-
vous, to say the least.
I was messing with
a Legend, and there
was ample opportu-
nity to end up with
super-egg on my
face. (I say “I” here
not to exclude the
others associated
with the revamp-
ing of Superman,
but because the Fan
Press and much of
the reading public
perceived it as John
Byrne messing with
Superman. If the
project was a disas-
The first issue of the relaunched Superman title. ter, I was the one
Superman TM and © DC Comics.
who was going to
190
 catch all or most of the flack.
If it was a success, well…)
It was a success, to be sure. In 1985,
Superman sold on average about
98,000 copies per issue, but by the
end of 1987 the new book was selling
well over 161,000 copies per issue.
The revamped Action Comics, also by
Byrne, showed even higher gains. As
the premier super-hero, Superman
was rightfully on top again.
Byrne endowed Superman #1 with
an eclectic mix of new and old, basi-
cally jumping into the Man of Steel’s
adventures as if this new version had
been operating all along. Clark Kent
is reintroduced as a muscled, clean-
cut farmboy-in-the-big-city type, a
clear departure from the nebbish,
clumsy Clark of old. The biggest de-
parture from form would have to be
Superman’s complete thrashing in
the issue by a revamped Metallo, a
villain with kryptonite emanating
from his eyes – a substance this new
Superman is unaware of. (He’s also
unaware of his planet of origin.) By-
rne seemed to want to make it clear
to the reader that this was definitely
not “your father’s/grandfather’s Su-
perman,” the one who could move
planets effortlessly. In fact, the writ-
er/artist hammers this home in Ac-
tion Comics #584 (Jan. 1987), his first
on that series, wherein Our Hero has
The post-Crisis Superman revamp portrayed Lex Lu-
thor as a megalomaniacal billionaire industrialist.
Superman TM and © DC Comics.
his mind possessed and
body used for evil.
Over the following
eleven issues
of Super-
man, Byrne
introduced
the series’
support-
ing cast,
again
with a
mix of
new
and old
characters.
Capt. Mag-
gie Sawyer of
the Metropolis
Special Crimes
Unit, one of com-
ics’ first openly
gay characters,
was a timely addi-
tion: October 11th,
1987, saw the first
National Coming Out
Day and the second Na-
tional March on Wash-
ington D.C. for Lesbian and
Gay Rights.
Byrne also addressed such is-
sues as Superman’s secret iden-
tity with a fresh, new take: no one
would ever suspect that a mask-less
hero had anything to hide, so the
public is unaware that Superman
lives another life as a “normal” man.
The writer-artist rhetorically asked,
“When was Superman so stupid that
he told people he had a secret iden-
tity? Why would he do that?” (Dan-
iels 192). To streamline the Man of
Steel’s career, Byrne erased Super-
boy, the Superman-as-a-boy charac-
ter, out of continuity. (Since Super-
boy’s legendary adventures inspired
super-powered youths of the 30th
century to form the Legion of Super- Marv Wolfman and Jerry Ordway were the inaugural
creative team on Adventures of Superman.
Heroes, writer Paul Levitz, in turn, Superman TM and © DC Comics.
had to create a new Superboy—one
from a Time Trapper-constructed With a creative team of writer Marv
“Pocket Universe”—in order to keep Wolfman and artist Jerry Ordway, the
the Legion’s continuity relatively un- first issue of The Adventures of Super-
altered.) In all, Byrne’s own proclivi- man, #424 (Jan. 1987) picked up the
ties, such as an obsession with the numbering of the original run of Su-
DC concepts created by the legendary perman, which had begun in 1940. Its
Jack Kirby and an eye for mysteries cover offered a more traditional “first
and large-scale destruction, made for issue” image of the Man of Steel bask-
a colorful first year for the new Super- ing in the setting sun and sporting a
man and Action Comics. bald eagle on one arm. Wolfman used
191
the same set pieces as [Byrne’s] Superman act. We’re
Byrne, but with per- not planning to change Bat-
haps a bit more em- man’s origin, nor anything
phasis on Superman’s else that’s been established
cast, such as Perry about Batman, his friends,
White, Lois Lane’s foes, locales. Rather, we’re
family, the Daily Plan- regressing them, purifying
et’s new gossip colum- them.”
nist Cat Grant, and That purification pro-
the new businessman cess began in 1986 with
version of Lex Luthor. Frank Miller’s block-
The Adventures of Su- buster Batman: The
perman also began Dark Knight limited
much as Superman series and contin-
#1, as if nothing had ued in 1987 with a
changed and it was four-part story titled
business-as-usual in “Batman: Year One”
Metropolis. in the ongoing Bat-
All three Superman man title.
titles made strides to- For regular readers
wards unveiling new who perhaps were
adversaries for their not paying atten-
main character, yet tion to DC house
few of them made ads or other sun-
enough of an impres- dry announce-
sion on the readers— ments, Batman
or their creators—to #404 (Feb. 1987)
stand the test of time. must have come
Revamped version of as something of a
traditional villains surprise. With its
like Lex Luthor, Darkseid, terse Frank Miller
and even Mister Mxyz- prose, artist David
ptlk seemed to resonate Mazzucchelli’s no-
more with fans than nonsense, almost
1987 newcomers like expressionistic
Bloodsport, Klaash, or art and Richmond
Concussion. A reduced- Lewis’ somber
strength Superman colors, the first
meant more possibili- chapter of “Bat-
ties for villains to suc- man: Year One”
ceed in their schemes, heralded a new
but the Man of Steel look and style for
would carry on with the character that
a rogues gallery that so gripped readers
fell far short in creativ- that it was allowed
ity and staying power, to commit a once-
unlike that of his fellow unpardonable
hero, Batman. sin: the costumed
Batman was no-
Batman’s “New Adventures” where to be found
Whereas the Man of Steel changed, within its pages. That would come in
the Caped Crusader stayed the same the second chapter, in Batman #405
in 1987. DC seemed to have no inter- (March 1987), and when it did, it of-
est in rebooting the “Dark Knight” fered up a Caped Crusader sporting
after Crisis on Infinite Earths, just re- a costume that was almost realistic.
strengthening his origins and his ties This Batman’s colors were muted, his
to the darkness. Batman line editor belt a bulky thing with pouches and
Denny O’Neil gave readers a heads- his chest symbol a large stylized bat
up in a text piece in Detective Comics sans yellow oval. For the first time
#568 (Nov. 1986): “What’s happen- since 1964, Batman wore no bright,
ing with the Batman? Well, for open- On the heels of his Dark Knight series, Frank Miller’s
next Batman project was titled “Year One.”
garish bulls-eye over his heart.
ers, we’re not going to follow John Batman TM and © DC Comics.

192
 Covers to the four issues of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s “Batman: Year One” story arc.
If any of the Batman’s supporting cast
received the kind of make-over that
Superman experienced in 1987, it was
the series’ femme fatale Catwoman
and the Boy Wonder himself, Robin.
Selina Kyle was re-introduced during
“Year One” as a man-hating prostitute
in Gotham City’s squalid red-light
district, who received a punch in the
jaw from a disguised, pre-Batman
Bruce Wayne. This grittier portrayal
became the standard Catwoman ori-
gin for many years to come. Ironically,
the original version of the character,
with her purple-green 1940s-1950s
costume, appeared in Detective Com-
ics #569-570, written by Mike W. Barr
and published just one month prior to
the launch of “Year One.”
But it was Jason Todd, a.k.a. Robin,
who received the more extreme re-
boot during this time. With Crisis on
Infinite Earths providing DC the op-
portunity to alter the past and forge
a new future, gone was Jason’s circus
origin, a virtual clone of Dick Gray-
son’s beginnings. In its place, Batman
#408 (June 1987) introduced readers
to the new Jason Todd, a homeless
street youth who brashly stole the
wheels off a parked Batmobile. To ce-
ment the change, the new masthead
logo on the front cover proclaimed
these were the “New Adventures” of
the Dynamic Duo.
Batman #408 provided the surre-
al sight of Batman discovering his
wheel-less vehicle… and then laugh-
ing uproariously. “It takes stones to
rip off the Batman’s buggy—,” he
thinks admiringly to himself, then
Batman TM and © DC Comics.
catches a returned Jason in the act
of trying to snatch the remaining
tires. By Batman #410, the boy was in
costume as Robin. Little did anyone
know, especially at DC, that this Boy
Wonder’s days were numbered.
For the oldest Batman title, Detective
Comics, O’Neil brought in the team of
writer Mike W. Barr and artists Alan
Davis and Paul Neary, who kicked off
a run that featured many of Batman’s
most popular adversaries. Barr played
with the relationship between the
Caped Crusader and Catwoman, and
pitted Batman against such villain-
Batman #408 re-introduced Jason Todd
(a.k.a. Robin) to DC’s post-Crisis continuity.
Batman TM and © DC Comics.
193
ous luminaries as the Joker, the Scare-
crow, the Mad Hatter, and Two-Face.
1987 was also punctuated with De-
tective Comics #572, an “anniversary”
issue celebrating fifty years of Bat-
man headlining the book, and Barr’s
follow-up to Batman’s “Year One” sto-
ryline, “Batman Year Two,” for which
future comic book superstar Todd
McFarlane took over art chores from
Davis.
Barr had conceived the story in 1984,
something he called “Batman: 1980,”
but DC turned him down then, choos-
ing to look forward, not backwards.
After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Barr
would be given his chance to finally
tell the tale as a counterpart to the
“Year One” story, though it appeared
at the time as if he was only riding
Miller’s coattails (Cronin #53).
The cover of Detective Comics #575
(June 1987), the first part of “Year
Two,” attempted to provoke readers
with a bold image of the Dark Knight
Detective sporting a pistol. The story
itself addressed the character’s early
use of firearms and his eventual ban
on them. The shock must have been
enough to resuscitate fans, as Detec-
tive Comics’ sales numbers soared
from a lackluster 70,000 monthly
average in 1986 to a healthy 128,000
average in 1987. “Back to basics” for
Batman was best for business.
And that business model, good
enough for DC’s top two titans, would
remain true for its third big hero, a
certain Amazonian Princess.

A DC Comics 1987 house ad promotes George Pérez’s
reboot of Wonder Woman.
Wonder Woman TM and © DC Comics.
Something Other Than a
“Female Superman”
Superstar artist George Pérez be-
lieved in the most-famous of fictional
heroines, but by mid-1986, Wonder
Woman was, literally and figurative-
ly, dead. The third spoke of DC’s Trin-
ity of lead characters was an official
also-ran.
Since re-invigoration was in the air
and virtually every other character at
the company was getting the re-boot,
Wonder Woman also began anew in
1987. Jenette Kahn called her a “na-
tional treasure,” and “one of the three
most important DC characters ever
created, perhaps the first feminist in
pop fiction” (Daniels 194). Unfortu-
nately, Wonder Woman just couldn’t
sell like Superman and Batman.
The title dedicated to the adventures
of Princess Diana of Paradise Island
was selling only 52,000 copies on av-
erage per issue when DC pulled the
plug on her with Wonder Woman
#329 (Feb. 1986). For the first time
in over forty-five years, there was no
Wonder Woman title on the racks.
194
Then, the company outright killed
her during the climax of Crisis on
Infinite Earths #12 (March 1986), or
rather “devolved” her back into the
clay from which she was formed all
those years ago. Either way, the slate
had been wiped clean, and DC began
to think of a way to make her a viable,
lucrative property once again.
To fill the gap between her last issue
and the proposed relaunch, DC pub-
lished a four-issue mini-series called
The Legend of Wonder Woman at the
beginning of 1987. It was a legal move
to fulfill a decades-old contract with
the Marston estate; if the company
didn’t publish four issues of a Won-
der Woman title in a given year, the
entire ball of wax – or clay – reverted
back to the family of her creator.
Surprisingly, DC had a wee bit of
trouble finding a creative team to
re-imagine the Princess. According
to artist George Pérez’s text piece in
Wonder Woman #1 (Feb. 1987), the
company had scraped up a writer,
the relatively-unknown Greg Pot-
ter, but claimed that artists were
not beating down the door for the
artistic bragging rights. Pérez raised
his hand to volunteer, thinking he’d
only help out until a more suitable
illustrator could be found, but ended
up staying on the title for five years,
first as artist and co-plotter, but
eventually handling the full writing
chores. Pérez had a clear vision of the
new path that the princess walked,
“I wanted to get back to the mythol-
ogy. I wanted to purify the concept.
I was trying to do a humanist as
opposed to a strictly feminist point
of view, because I didn’t want her
to be a confrontational character”
(Daniels 194).
Mythology turned out to be the all-
important key, and the new Won-
der Woman title relied heavily on
the Greek legends and tales that the
character’s preceding versions only
obliquely referred to since the pass-
ing of Marston in the late 1940s. Pérez
ramped up the mythology angle and
revamped the heroine’s adversar-
ies and her supporting cast, sacrific-
ing a few sacred cows along the way.
Gone was the young, vital, beefcake
Colonel Steve Trevor who’d enjoyed
romancing Diana for decades; in his
place, Potter and Pérez introduced
an older, more mature Trevor whose
previous romantic inclinations to-
ward Wonder Woman were replaced
with decidedly paternalistic feelings.
Absent, too, was the roly-poly “Woo
Woo” girl-sidekick Etta Candy. Echo-
ing a 1980 reboot of the previous WW
series, she was replaced by a tougher,
no-nonsense Etta who wore a U.S. Air
Force uniform and was more con-
cerned with her boss Trevor than the
pursuit of candies.
To put the new Amazonian warrior-
princess through her paces in her first
year, Pérez called forth such mytho-
logical terrors as Phobos and Dei-
mos, the Medusa’s daughter Decay,
the legendary Hydra, the god of war
Ares, and a revamped, classic Won-
der Woman villain, the Cheetah. So
too was Diana’s origin tinkered with,
and, unlike DC’s rebooting of Super-
man, this new Wonder Woman be-
gan her career in the present-day, dis-
pensing with decades of stories of her
interacting with her fellow super he-
roes. In fact, Legends #6 (April 1987),
the final issue of DC’s company-wide
event for the year, told of the prin-
cess’ first meeting with the DC pan-
theon, which took place some time
after the others had begun
their costumed careers.
This was another
bold move on DC’s
part, if somewhat
piece-meal in its
George Pérez’s wrap around cover to the first issue of the new Wonder Woman series.
Wonder Woman TM and © DC Comics.
execution. stories about their respective rebirth
Regardless, sales on the new Wonder experiences.
Woman in 1987, while not reach-
ing the heights of her male counter- A Return to Greatness
parts, proved the old girl For the mighty Justice League of
still had some life America to be reborn, it, like Wonder
in her. In that first Woman before it, had to die. What
year, her series had begun in 1960 as a vehicle for
sold a respect- DC’s top characters to co-exist in the
able average of same book had by 1987 devolved
118,000 copies into the antithesis of that grandiose
each month, idea. Since 1984, the venerable Jus-
and DC looked tice League of America title had har-
down upon the bored a clutch of lower-tier heroes
work and pro- like Aquaman and Elongated Man
claimed it good. who babysat a few nobody-newbies
like Vibe and Gypsy in a headquar-
Now all DC need-
ters not orbiting the Earth, but set in
ed was a new
an old building in Detroit, Michigan.
clubhouse for all
The fans had come to understandably
these refreshed
loathe them and the book had fallen
heroes and her-
from its 1960s heyday of 300,000-
oines to hang
plus copies sold per issue to its mid-
out and swap
80s embarrassment of an average
of barely above 80,000. Without the
“big guns” of Superman, Batman, and
Wonder Woman, the Justice League
was running on fumes.
A new thought struck DC’s Powers-
That-Be and, after a death-knell for
“Justice League Detroit” in Legends
and in Justice League of America
#258-261 (Jan.-April 1987), a new
team entered the fray, as different as
what had come before as the day is
long.
195

A new era for the Justice League began in 1987, courtesy of Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire.
Justice League TM and © DC Comics.
DC editor Andy Helfer had a problem
on his hands. Tasked with launching
a brand-new Justice League book that
would be presented as a “return to
greatness,” he found himself limited
to which heroes he could use. With
the splashy reboots of Superman,
Wonder Woman, and (soon to come)
Flash at hand, the respective editors
of those titles nixed any use of their
stars in the new League. Helfer’s one
coup came with permission from
Batman’s Denny O’Neil to allow the
Caped Crusader to mix freely with
the nascent team (Cronin #199).
The new League came together first
in the final pages of Legends #6 (April
1987) and shortly thereafter in its
own title, Justice League #1 (May
1987). Readers noted that “of Ameri-
ca” was missing from the masthead,
but that was a purposeful omission
by DC. The new group would far ex-
ceed the borders and boundaries of
196
the United States and, interestingly,
serious crimefighting.
Artist-writer Keith Giffen, who tack-
led both the plotting and art break-
downs on Justice League, was joined
on the book by former Justice League
of America scripter J.M. DeMatteis
to spruce up Giffen’s dialogue. Origi-
nally, DeMatteis had no interest in
working on the book, desiring noth-
ing more than to move ahead to
other projects. But editor Helfer con-
vinced him to look at what Giffen had
wrought in the first issue and before
he knew what he was doing, DeMat-
teis was delivering dialogue over the
artist’s plots. “Writing Justice League,”
DeMatteis explained, “was like a re-
laxed game of tennis: Keith would
lob the ball to me, I’d lob it back to
him, he’d lob it back again, and, with
each whack of the racket, the stories
would grow far beyond what either
of us intended” (DeMatteis). Together,
in this fashion, the two ushered in a
singularly unique take on the Justice
League.
The big surprise on the creative team
had to be the inclusion of relative
newcomer Kevin Maguire as Justice
League’s penciler. Though one of Mar-
vel’s famous “Romita’s Raiders” from
the mid-1980s, Maguire had very few
professional comic book credits to his
name before the Justice League as-
signment. The artist’s name on the
roster was an interesting choice for
one of DC’s highest-profile series. Re-
gardless, Maguire soon garnered ad-
mirers for his clean art and his char-
acter’s almost-photorealistic facial
features; one had to wonder if the art-
ist spent a lot of time making faces in
the mirror while he drew. Maguire’s
cover for Justice League #1 showed the
entire cast standing together, staring
up at the reader with expressions that
ranged from stoic and heroic to out-
right aggression. It has since become
one of the most copied and parodied
covers in comic history.
If the names on the credit line were an
odd assortment, the roll call of heroes
in Justice League quickly cemented
the idea in readers’ heads that the tra-
ditions of the past were out the win-
dow. Batman led the team as the “Big
Gun” concession, bringing with him
League alumni Black Canary and the
Martian Manhunter, and an old Brave
and the Bold co-star Mister Miracle.
After that, DC took advantage of its
post-Crisis universe to bring in Doc-
tor Fate, a Golden Age hero formerly
from Earth 2’s alternate reality, and
two characters that the company had
acquired from defunct comic publish-
ers: Fawcett’s Captain Marvel and
Charlton’s Blue Beetle. Giffen, as both
writer and artist, even parlayed Fate
into his own four-issue mini-series in
1987, which paved the way for an on-
going Doctor Fate book the following
year.
Perhaps the true break-out
star of Justice League was
the book’s resident Green
Lantern, a red-headed ma-
cho man named Guy Gard-
ner. Guy’s prickly behavior
set up many of the situa-
tions in the first few issues
of the book, until a single
punch from a disgusted
Batman in Justice League
#5 (Sept. 1987) brought
about a new personal-
ity for the character, that
of a pacifist dreamer. In
fact, “one punch” became
something of a catch-
phrase for both fans of the
book and the characters
who inhabited it.
It became quickly appar-
ent that Giffen and DeMat-
teis’s objective for Justice
League was to shoot down
a few clichés of comic book
super-heroes and to take
very little in the continu-
ing stories seriously. The
title of the series actually
changed to Justice League
International with its sev-
enth issue and the inclu-
sion of a Russian team-
mate, Rocket Red. With the
very next issue the book’s
raison d’etre changed for-
ever from super-hero ad-
venture with comedic mo- With one punch, Batman knocks out Guy Gardner in Justice League #5.
ments to outright ongoing
comedy. With its now-
legendary inauguration
of the “Bwah-Ha-Ha!” war
cry in Justice League In-
ternational #8 (Dec. 1987),
the title would earn the
eternal sobriquet of “Jus-
tice League Ridiculous.”
Adversaries for the new
League in 1987 were as varied as the model Max on anybody, the char-
heroes themselves. Faux terrorists in acter nonetheless resembles actor
the first issue gave way to a trio of in- Sam Neill as he appeared as Damien,
ter-dimensional heroes from an early the son of the Devil, in the 1981 film
1970s Justice League of America story, Omen III: The Final Conflict. And Max
only to be topped in outrageousness was indeed devilish, as he attempted
by the Royal Flush deck of losers and to conform the fledging League to his
the sinister Gray Man. One of the own specifications. However, Max
elements of the series that piqued soon became a kind of erstwhile guid-
readers’ interest the most was enig- ing force for the team and a character
matic businessman Maxwell Lord, in- that later grew into a major player in
troduced at the end of Justice League the wider DC Universe.
#1. While Maguire asserts he didn’t Justice League took the more light-
hearted approach of 1987’s
Superman and Wonder
Woman relaunches to
goofy extremes. It bucked
the trend of popular “grim
and gritty” comic books
and because of that, the
creators uniformly as-
sumed the new Justice
League would be a sales di-
saster. Looking back, Giffen
states, “We really thought
we’d get killed, we thought
the book would die. I was
ready to go show my port-
folio to Marvel. I thought
we were doomed because
of our silly little sitcom of a
book” (Johnson 8). Maguire
shared similar apprehen-
sions: “When I was wait-
ing for [Justice League #1]
to come out, I was walk-
ing down the street with
one of the assistant editors
and said, ‘That’s it, it’s over,
man. No one’s going to like
this’” (Johnson 24). Much
to everyone’s surprise (and
relief), the book didn’t just
sell well, it cemented itself
as one of DC’s biggest suc-
cesses of the year with a
solid average of 165,000
copies sold per issue, pass-
ing the Man of Steel’s sales,
but falling short of League
leader Batman’s own title.
TM and © DC Comics.
But Superman #1, Won-
der Woman #1, and Justice
League #1 weren’t the only
inaugural issues that set
1987 apart as a year of be-
ginnings. DC had only just
begun providing new rea-
sons for readers to turn out
their wallets.
197
The Costume’s the Same,
Everything Else is Different!
And the new #1’s just kept on flowing
out of DC as 1987 progressed. Virtu-
ally every concept and character was
fair game for a new take, and the
company rolled the dice with wild
abandon. Two red-costumed, light-
ning bolt-wearers were up next for
new beginnings, but only one would
rate as a success, while the other, ul-
timately, never truly rose to the occa-
sion.
The Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen, had
been disintegrated in the pages of
1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths #8, and
while DC could have brought him
back from such a fate—a la Wonder
Woman—there was another angle
for resurrection that some of Barry’s
other chums didn’t have: a sidekick.
From the ashes of the Crisis rose a
new Flash to honor the old: Wally
West, the former Kid Flash. And the
legacy of the Scarlet Speedster would
never, ever be the same.
Once again, the Legends mini-series
provided a springboard for Wally,
wearing his mentor’s red suit and
golden boots but running at only a
fraction of Barry Allen’s faster-than-
light top speed. This was to be a Flash
who had to work harder for his fleet
footing and be reminded of its cost.
The grittier industry of 1987 demand-
ed a more realistic hero.
Flash #1 (June 1987) gave readers a
glimpse of the life of the first sidekick
in comics to take over his mentor’s
codename and costume. Writer Mike
Baron, along with artist Jackson
Guice, painted a picture of a young
man with the weight of legacy on his
shoulders and a healthy appetite for
food, fun…and fillies. Whereas Barry
Allen was a happily-married, mo-
The Flash is re-launched with the former Kid Flash, Wally West, assuming the role of his former mentor.
nogamous male, Wally West was very Flash TM and © DC Comics.
clearly playing the field, and readers
were treated to a super-hero whose When the original Flash title ended As for likable young heroes, DC had
sex life was all-too visible. Plus, the its race to the finish line in 1985 af- Captain Marvel, who, perhaps, was
red-haired speedster was something ter a 26-year run, it was barely selling too likable for a 1980s audience. By
of a jerk. As The Flash Companion de- 70,000 copies per issue. By contrast, 1987, no one knew what to do with
scribes it, “What readers of the new just one Direct Market distributor— the character that once outsold the
Flash had to adjust to the most… was Capital City—bought 31,500 copies Man of Steel himself. “Captain Marvel
Wally’s newly developed obnoxious of 1987’s Flash #1. Beset by personal was always a problem character for
personality. In his own title the Flash problems at the time, writer Mike the DC Universe, even in the slightly
was depicted as an insensitive, mate- Baron still managed to strike a coher- more innocent 1980s,” explains for-
rialistic, immature dunce. It was ulti- ent enough chord with the fans and mer DC editor Bob Greenberger. “His
mately established that this behavior made them root for one of the most world was of a simpler time, and
emerged from Wally’s low self-worth” unlikable young heroes of all. it never seemed to fit as things got
(Dallas 133).
198
grimmer and grittier” (12). But some-
one believed in the vintage character
and that someone was veteran comic
creator Roy Thomas.
Roy Thomas disagreed with Green-
berger’s assessment. In 1983, Thomas
set about the process of resurrect-
ing—and revamping—one of the
most popular Golden Age greats of
them all. “[In 1983] DC was still a
year or three away from owning The
Marvel Family outright, and merely
licensed them,” he remembers. “I was
told it might be tricky to get Fawcett’s
permission to radically revamp one
of the trio. Truth is, I got the distinct
impression that nobody at DC even
wanted to ask Fawcett” (9).
Captain Marvel, who Thomas calls
“one of the great pop-culture myths
of the twentieth century” in his text
page in Shazam: The New Beginning
#1, got his chance for resurrection
when, after a stint in the Legends
mini-series, the character once again
donned his cape and smile for his own
four-issue try-out book. In Shazam:
The New Beginning readers met the
Captain and his alter-ego Billy Batson
for the “first” time.
Thomas wiped the slate clean for
the character and, similarly to
Superman’s new start, pared away the
overgrowth from his mythos. Absent
was the rest of the Marvel Family. In
their stead, the writer brought Billy
into the present day and had him go
it alone against nemeses Black Adam
and Doctor Sivana. By the end of the
fourth issue, Thomas had dove-tailed
the story with Captain Marvel’s ap-
pearance in Legends and laid hints of
an ongoing series to come. Shazam:
The New Beginning had sold well, ac-
cording to its scribe:
The direct orders on Shazam:
The New Beginning, while de-
clining in the usual pattern
from #1 to #2 through #3,
jumped up again nicely with
the 4th issue and final issue,
which outsold the previous
two. When that occurred, I
was told, it meant that sales
of #1 in comics stores had
been good, since the last is-
sue of a four-part monthly
series was the first one whose
orders reflected actual sell-
through. The mini-series was
a hit – and, though (series
artist) Tom Mandrake moved
on, we had every reason to
believe a regular Shazam!
would be a good seller. (10)
But it just wasn’t to be. The exact
reasons why the concept once again
wallowed in a kind of comic book
limbo are under contention between
Thomas and Greenberger, the editor
to whom the ongoing book would
have fallen. Suffice to say that DC was
still unsure of Captain Marvel’s place
in the down-and-dirty modern world
of comics. Thomas would continue to
grow more discontented with his po-
sition at DC, after both this stillbirth
of a new Shazam! and the elimination
of his beloved Earth 2 with Crisis on
Infinite Earths. Perhaps in his corner
of the DC Universe, Roy Thomas felt
the sting of loss a bit more than his
fellow writers.
In the final issue of his World War
II-era series All-Star Squadron, the
writer-editor announced that 1987
would bring a new title which would
continue in the same vein but feature
a new cast of younger heroes fight-
ing for democracy in the 1940s. All-
Star Squadron had been, in his words,
“fatally wounded” by the plucking
of Superman, Batman, and Wonder
Woman from “Golden Age” continu-
ity, and instead of marching on with
that series, Thomas agreed with man-
Roy Thomas attempted to update
Captain Marvel for a 1980s audience in the
Shazam: The New Beginning mini-series.
TM and © DC Comics.
199
aging editor Dick Giordano to create a
new book that might better embrace
DC’s new revamped version of World
War II (Thomas 192).
Young All-Stars #1 (June 1987) de-
buted with an eclectic band of kids in
the lead spots, but the series failed to
capture the interest from readers that
its predecessor had enjoyed during its
near-six-year run. Thomas also still
had his Infinity Inc. book in 1987, but
that series wound down in the fol-
lowing year and the writer couldn’t
help but feel as if his beloved Golden
Age of heroes had been forever pulled
away from him. He had already
moved to save the Justice Society of
America characters from what he
felt was DC’s urge to write them out
of continuity all-together in Crisis on
Infinite Earths by, essentially, putting
them in a safe deposit box with 1986’s
Last Days of the Justice Society special.
With dark days ahead for both Young
All-Stars and Infinity Inc., something
had to give for Roy Thomas, and love
for his dear heroes of DC’s Golden Age
would not be enough to curb his wan-
derlust.
Off The Beaten Path
Like the Wally West Flash, not every
character at DC was a paragon of vir-
tue, cloaked in a billowing cape; some
wore shrouds on their backs. Two
new series for 1987 illuminated the
darker corners of the DC Universe and
proved that a few old concepts still
had some life in them.
Suicide Squad took a name from a
fictional team of plainclothes agents
from a 1959 issue of The Brave and the
Bold and turned that name on its ear
with a modern flair. According to the
text pages of Suicide Squad #1 (May
1987), editor Bob Greenberger had
suggested to writer John Ostrander
that the name had potential, and
over the following months the new
ideas flowed until a consensus was
reached: the new Squad would be
made up primarily of super villains.
It was one of the most eclectic comic
book teams ever assembled, per-
haps even more than the new Justice
League. Rick Flag, son of the man who
headed up the original Squad, held
together a loose-knit covert band of
ne’er-do-wells on behalf of the Amer-
ican government. The idea was that
if the bad guys agreed to perform

In a twist, Suicide Squad starred
DC Comics’ super-villains.
Suicide Squad TM and © DC Comics.
dangerous missions, their prison sen-
tences would be converted to time
served. If they were disagreeable,
they were fitted with a “bracelet”
that could be triggered to explode.
There was to be no confusion be-
tween the title and Justice League, de-
spite all the bluster and hot air they
both shared.
The resident villains included the
assassin Bronze Tiger, the magical
Enchantress, the repulsive Captain
Boomerang, the sullen Deadshot, the
explosive Plastique, and the enig-
matic Mindboggler. The latter didn’t
make it back from the first mission,
thus the book’s title, and Boomer-
ang became the book’s breakout star.
Readers seldom knew what to expect
from the Squad’s missions, as they
ranged from confronting superpow-
ered terrorists and inter-galactic girl-
gangs to invading Soviet sovereignty.
Between Ostrander’s often sarcastic
dialogue and Luke McDonnell’s art,
Suicide Squad became a minor hit for
DC and lasted five years and 66 is-
sues. The villains came and went, but
the diehard fans stayed.
The Doom Patrol, on the other hand,
finally got its next chance in the big
leagues. The original team’s demise
came in 1968’s Doom Patrol #121.
Writer Paul Kupperberg was a fan
of the team of misfit super-heroes—
which predated Marvel’s similar
X-Men—and pitched a revival of
the concept in 1977’s Showcase #94.
“It was well received,” explains edi-
tor Mike Gold in Doom Patrol #1
(Oct. 1987) of Kupperberg’s Showcase
experiment. “And there was some
talk about spinning it off into its
own series in 1978 when market con-
ditions shifted and DC cancelled a
number of titles. It wasn’t a good
time to launch a new series.”
But 1987 was a good time, perhaps
the best, to try something a bit
different, and the Doom Patrol was
certainly that. “1986-88 was the post-
Crisis period and a pretty fertile time
at DC,” the writer said in an interview
conducted for American Comic Book
Chronicles. “DC was looking to put out
more product and there were lots of
opportunities to pitch new ongoing
[series] and minis, especially those
that helped define the ‘new’ DCU.”
Headed up by original Patrol member
Robotman, the new team was made
up of misfits again, all of them with
their own particular chips on their
shoulders and secrets to hide. The
first issue was a eulogy of sorts to the
original members who died in Doom
Patrol #121, in a very rare example
of permanent death in a Silver Age
comic book. Robotman didn’t ex-
actly like his new teammates Celsius
Steve Lightle’s wraparound cover to the first issue of Doom Patrol.
Doom Patrol TM and © DC Comics.
200
(the wife of the late Chief), Negative
Woman, Tempest, and Lodestone, but
he tried to make it work.
In 1987, angst was all the rage in su-
per teams, and DC had even darker
paths to explore with only a few
fringe characters serving as guides.
Questions and Answers
In 1986, DC debuted two ongoing
titles starring Charlton Comics’ for-
mer “Action Heroes”: Blue Beetle and
Captain Atom. The former-Charlton
heroine Nightshade found herself
serving under the questionable eth-
ics of the Suicide Squad in 1987, but it
was a mysterious man without a face
who, arguably, represented one of the
strongest examples of grittier, more
realistic “mature readers” story-tell-
ing that year.
In The Question #1 (Feb. 1987), DC took
legendary comic creator Steve Ditko’s
trenchcoated hero and brought him
to his knees, both literally and figu-
ratively. The Question embraced both
martial arts and Eastern philosophy
under the tutelage of an obscure DC
character named Richard Dragon. The
Question tended to be more about
ideas and social movements than
simply action and fisticuffs. As a re-
sult, the series had a flavor not found
in DC’s mainstream offerings.
Writer Denny O’Neil, who in 1987
was working primarily as a DC editor,
crafted a book that he himself might
have liked reading when he was a so-
cially and politically minded youth
of the 1960s. The man
who almost
single-
In 1987, Green Arrow and
The Question both received
radical make-overs.
Green Arrow and The Question
TM and © DC Comics.
handedly put the nail in the coffin of
“camp” for Batman in 1969 and put
the “dark” back in the Dark Knight
Detective, infused The Question with
stories of social import, internal con-
flicts, and corrupt politicians. This
new series was something of a de-
parture from the original Charlton
concept created by Ditko, who had
embraced the tenets of objectivism in
his life and his work.
Of any former Charlton hero,
Captain Atom would go on to
have the longest-running DC
series, an admirable 57 issues.
The Question, though, man-
aged a respectable thirty-six
issues, and he did it without
benefit of super powers, a
flashy costume, or a Justice
League connection—just
the shadows and a strong
sense of social justice.
DC also allowed one of
its own characters to slip
into the darkness in 1987,
in a high-profile mini-
series that boasted pro-
duction values worthy
of one of DC’s top tier
heroes. That character
was Green Arrow, who
had run with the big boys
since 1941 but more of-
ten than not took a back
seat to them. Green Arrow:
The Longbow Hunters, a
Prestige format three-issue
story, pushed the boundar-
ies of what was acceptable in
a mainstream super-hero comic and
raised the bar for what could be done
to re-align a long-standing character.
Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters
#1 (Aug. 1987) showed readers an ag-
ing Oliver Queen, recognizing
his mortality and frustrated
with his life and career as the
Emerald Archer. Writer-artist
Mike Grell, who’d worked
on the character in the 1970s
with writer Denny O’Neil,
painted a picture of a hero
who was questioning his very
reasons to continue on a path
he’d walked for years. In a
bold move, Grell ditched Ol-
lie’s trademark “gimmick” ar-
rows, remodeled his costume
as a more sober hooded affair,
and set him on Seattle’s mean
201
streets hunting not super villains, but
a prostitute-dispatching serial killer
who was modeled on Seattle’s notori-
ous Green River Killer.
The series also addressed Green Ar-
row’s longtime paramour and part-
ner Black Canary. In a shocking turn
of events, Grell has Oliver find the
love of his life strung up by a mad-
man, tortured and quite possibly
sexually violated. Green Arrow then
crosses the ultimate line for a super-
hero: he kills. As writer Jayme Lynn
Blaschke describes it:
The graphic nature of Oliver’s
rage and pain is overwhelm-
ing as he instantly changes
from a playboy hero who had
never willingly taken a life to
one that would sacrifice ev-
erything to save the woman
he loves. Critics have blasted
Grell for the “rape” of Dinah
[Black Canary], but her suffer-
ing isn’t glamorized, and isn’t
minimized—the full impact
of what she went through is
felt for years to come in the
following regular Green Ar-
row series. Of a more imme-
diate nature, it is the pivotal
event in Oliver’s life. Crime
fighting stops being a game,
and becomes deadly serious.
Oliver, too, becomes deadly
serious, and while he still
champions the underdog, he
has far less respect—or mer-
cy—for those who do evil.
Disturbing and shocking, this
is still one of the most power-
ful comic issues ever printed,
and it only works because
Grell succeeds in making the
reader believe the characters
are living, breathing people.
(Blaschke)
In effect, DC had moved one of
its heroes into a darker realm of
vigilantism, popularized that same
year by Marvel’s Punisher. DC Comics
also inaugurated an era of comic art-
work that eschewed the traditional
pencil and ink method for a multi-
media style that incorporated paints,
charcoals, and other tools. All this,
plus its radical content and square-
bound publication, made Green
Arrow: The Longbow Hunters stand
out on the racks like no other comic
book before it.
Moore or Less
Alan Moore’s refusal to produce any
new work for DC beyond his contrac-
tual obligations assured the demise of
his proposed DC Universe crossover
event. He titled it Twilight of the Su-
perheroes, and as one would expect
from a late 1980s Alan Moore pitch,
the scope of the series was epic and
its outlook bleak. The story
begins with a time-travel-
ing Rip Hunter and a future
version of John Constantine
visiting the present-day
Constantine to warn him of
an impending, catastrophic
“Götterdümmerung.” In the
future, the super-heroes
have become the rulers of
the planet, and they have
divided themselves into
eight “Houses”:
• The House of Steel
(formed by the married
couple of Superman
and Wonder Woman,
along with their
brood);
• The House of Thunder
(composed of Captain
Marvel and his Marvel
Family);
• The House of Titans
(as in Teen Titans);
• The House of Mystery
(which includes DC’s
magic-based charac-
ters);
• The House of Secrets
(at-large super-vil-
lains);
• The House of Justice
(a collection of unaffili-
ated super-heroes);
• The House of Lan-
terns (aliens driven from
Earth);
• The House of Tomorrow
(made up of time travelers).
The Houses of Steel and Thunder plan
to merge with the marriage of Super-
boy (the son of Superman and Won-
der Woman) and Mary Marvel, Jr. (the
daughter of the incestuous Captain
Marvel and Mary Marvel). But the
other Houses oppose the union, and
they attack. The wedding ceremony
becomes a killing field, littered with
the corpses of super-heroes. That bat- posal to DC’s hierarchy was simply
tle, though, only serves as a prelude to too far ahead of its time. The pitch
an even bigger conflict (Cronin #162). includes a future where super-heroes
This is the future that the time-trav- have fallen into many sordid circum-
eled Constantine narrates to his pres- stances, including murder, sex, the
ent-day self. With an implanted vi- ghettoizing of their elderly mem-
sion of the apocalyptic twilight of the bers and a lust for power. Though its
DC Universe in his head, the present- story outline and themes were dark
day Constantine then seeks out the and emphasized the shadows that
were creeping into main-
stream comics at the time,
the writer offered up a vi-
sion of the future of the
DC Universe that, presum-
ably, went a bit too far. Re-
gardless, in 1987, Moore
refused to write it anyway.
As a result, the Twilight of
the Superheroes proposal
remained “lost” until the
1990s when all sorts of doc-
uments began proliferating
on the nascent World Wide
Web.
While Alan Moore was no
longer willing to proceed
with Twilight of the Super-
heroes, DC seemed very
willing to proceed without
him on a different project.
According to Barbara Ran-
dall, a DC editor during the
late 1980s, shortly after
Watchmen’s completion
in 1987, plans were being
laid for Watchmen prequels
that would include early
tales of the Minutemen,
the Comedian and Ror-
schach. These plans didn’t
involve either Alan Moore
or Dave Gibbons, and DC
wasn’t legally obligated
to involve either of the
Watchmen creators in or-
der to publish new Watch-
men comic books. At the
time, Randall vehemently
By 1987, Alan Moore was arguably the comic book
industry’s biggest superstar. His work for DC Comics opposed what DC was planning: “Al-
would soon come to an end. though I’m sure all those ideas would
have made money, I felt they would
world’s heroes in an attempt to turn have damaged (through dilution, not
them off the path to disaster. He does quality) a unique property and that
this with the assumption that his DC would be much better served by
future-self wants him to change the leaving it alone” (Johnston). Randall
course of history. In fact, the opposite felt obligated to sabotage the pro-
turns out to be the truth: the older posed prequels, so she contacted Alan
Constantine has tricked his younger Moore directly and tipped him off to
self into taking steps that will insure DC’s plans. Allegedly, Moore then con-
the future he has described to him tacted Jenette Kahn. DC closed the
will indeed transpire. year without publishing—or even an-
In many ways, Moore’s lengthy pro- nouncing—any Watchmen prequels.
202
Unified Universe?
Back in the real DC Universe, the re-
maining titles continued on with lit-
tle or no hiccups from the Crisis that
boiled multiple Earths into one. But
there were creators at the company
who shared Roy Thomas’ disappoint-
ment in not only what changes DC
wrought in 1986 and 1987 but also
how those changes were implement-
ed. One such was Robert Greenberg-
er, who joined the firm in 1984 and
had risen to a full editor by 1986. In
an interview conducted for American
Comic Book Chronicles, Greenberger
gave his point-of-view on the behind-
the-scenes story of DC’s post-Crisis ap-
proach to their new output:
After Marv [Wolfman]’s no-
tion of restarting all the titles
with a #1 was not accepted
by Dick Giordano, Marv more
or less stopped trying to deal
with the aftermath of the
Crisis. He was really burned
out from that and New Teen
Titans. It fell to [Executive
Vice-President] Paul Levitz to
hold a series of meetings de-
signed to deal with a unified
Above: DC Comics' cast of characters. Below: Stephen Bissette’s head sketch of the Rasputin-like Alan Moore
universe and timeline. He originally appeared in Amazing Heroes #58. All characters TM and © DC Comics.
wanted different groups of
editors to address things like at the consistent universe.
compiling a consistent list of
Dick was a great editor and
DC Universe people, places,
had a keen mind for good
and things so if we needed a
storytelling but things like
high tech corporation, we had
continuity, rules and consis-
a few already on hand as op-
tency to that degree were not
posed to making one up every
his strong suit. As a result, the
time.
post-Crisis DCU almost imme-
The most contentious of those diately fell into contradictory
may have been his insistence patterns that required Zero
that time travel now be de- Hour to attempt to straighten
fined and more restrictive. Af- out, followed time and again
ter a series of meetings it was with other attempts. Had
determined that a person was Dick and Paul presented a
altered each time he or she unified front, and forced the
traveled in time so that after editors to adhere to the new
a third such trip, your body single Universe, the books
could no longer withstand might have turned out very
the rigors. You were stuck differently.
wherever you were on the
DC Comics scored big with its revamp-
third trip. We came up with
ing of major characters and teams, (Thompson). The feat was made even
the appropriate pseudo-sci-
improving its sales by over 22% in one more impressive given the industry’s
ence and wrote up the rules,
year’s time (Tolworthy). Additionally, transformative shift away from the
which most of the editors de-
for the months of August and Sep- newsstand and toward the Direct
cided to ignore. By then, Dick
tember, DC beat Marvel in comic shop Market. By 1987, 70% of Marvel’s
had larger editorial matters
market share. Up to that point, DC had gross sales came from the Direct
to deal with as we rebooted
never beaten Marvel in comic shop Market (up from 20% in 1982) (Ro-
the Big Three so he tacitly let
market share for any given month zanski). Those newsstand sales
the editors thumb their noses

203
(even as shrinking as they were) still and writers who had worked under speculated that months’ long friction
gave Marvel a sizeable advantage Shooter related tales of the man’s between Shooter and his superiors
over DC. When combined with its Di- alleged ego and demanding tenden- led to his ouster. Soon after Cadence
rect Market grosses, Marvel’s news- cies. One striking 1987 example of sold Marvel to New World Pictures in
stand dominance helped maintain creators’ feeling towards their for- late 1986, Shooter alleges he wrote
Marvel as the best-selling comic book mer boss can be seen in DC’s Legends a letter to the New World managers,
publisher, a position it had kept since #5 (March 1987). In the course of the detailing the improprieties commit-
1972 (Thompson 3). story, writer Len Wein and artist John ted by Marvel’s still-in-power upper
Byrne, both former Marvel veter- level management. He waited for
Marvel Comics: Shake It Up ans, pit Green Lantern Guy Gardner what he saw as justice to be meted
Yet Marvel Comics in 1987 stood in against a one-shot would-be villain upon guilty parties. That justice
stark contrast to DC; whereas DC went named Sunspot… an obvious visual would never come: “Ultimately, I was
into the year with sweeping continu- and thematic stand-in for Shooter. fired… so, the bad guys won. They got
ity-revising changes to its core titles Costumed and sporting powers not away with the money, I was no lon-
and a solid president-publisher/ex- dissimilar to Shooter’s New Universe ger there to hassle them” (Shooter “A
ecutive editor team in place, Marvel’s character Star Brand, the tall, lanky Recent Question and an Answer”).
bombshells fell not in its titles, but at despot spouts lines like, “The ulti- Almost immediately after news of
the very top of its management situa- mate power is finally mine --,” “I will Shooter’s termination from Marvel
tion. As of April 15, 1987, Marvel edi- remake this sorry world in my own broke, independent comic book com-
tor-in-chief Jim Shooter was cleaning image!,” “I am always in control!,” pany Blackthorne Publishing pub-
out his desk after almost ten years at and “I wield the ultimate power – the licly announced it would offer him
the top of heap. power to create a new universe --.” a job, and Marvel editor Larry Hama
Ultimately, the villain ends up igno- assured, “[Shooter] had standing of-
Word of the change came officially in rantly burning off his own foot to es-
Marvel titles cover dated November fers from other companies. Some that
cape Guy’s emerald snare. would be pretty surprising” (Fryer
1987, in the hyperbolic “Bullpen Bul-
letins” text section: At the time of Shooter’s dismissal, 14). Shooter, however, painted a dif-
Marvel’s management refused to pro- ferent picture of his post-Marvel situ-
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH! vide an official reason for it. All Mar- ation: “I was the pariah of comics. I
After guiding Marvel Com- vel spokesman Steve Saffel would say couldn’t get a job. No one would hire
ics to dazzling new creative was, “Jim had been editor-in-chief me. The phone never rang. So, I start-
heights for the past nine and for ten years. The time just came for ed all over again” (Shooter).
a half years, Jim Shooter has a change” (Fryer 13). Many, though,
stepped down from his po- Ironically, in Marvel’s August 1987
sition as the Editor in Chief.
Unquestionably one of the The May 8, 1987 edition of The Comics Buyer’s Guide announces Jim Shooter’s dismissal as
editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. The Comics Buyer’s Guide TM and © F+W Media, Inc.
most talented creative peo-
ple in the entire comic book
industry, Jim was always
spearheading the develop-
ment of new formats, new
concepts and exciting new
comic book series! (Like The
’Nam! X-Factor! Power Pack!
The Punisher! New Mutants!
And others!)
Marvel produced its very first
Graphic Novels, Limited Se-
ries, and “Direct-Only” com-
ics under his superb editorial
leadership. His accomplish-
ments are too numerous to
list here. Suffice to say that he
will be missed.
Which all sounds very benign on the
surface, but the fact of the matter was
that Shooter hadn’t “stepped down.”
He was fired.
The tremendous commercial success
that Marvel Comics enjoyed with
Shooter at the helm could not be de-
nied, but for years some of the artists

204
“Bullpen Bulletins” section Shooter
was highlighted in a “Pro File” piece
with his “pet peeves” listed as “nar-
rowmindness [sic] and shortsighted-
ness” and his Marvel freelance cred-
its note that, “By popular demand,
I’m not writing anything at the mo-
ment.” This was true, because when
the piece was published, the man had
already been shown the door.
Industry reaction to Shooter’s sacking
ran the gamut. Writer Mark Evanier
told the fan press that upon learning
the news, he wrote on a CompuServ
computer network, “Ding-dong, the
witch is dead.” That sentiment was
then echoed by many of the other
professionals who shared the net-
work (Fryer 14). Writer David Micheli-
nie, on the other hand, described the
reaction from the other end of the
spectrum: on the day Jim Shooter
was fired, the Marvel staffers loyal
to him were “stunned” with “looks
of gaping surprise” on their faces.
Michelinie credited Shooter for re-
maining calm and dispensing with
anger at the time of his firing and for
the “anti-Shooter faction” to have the
“good taste” not to express their sup-
posed-joy while the man cleaned out
his desk (Fryer 13). Shooter though
claims the people who packed up his
office were “cretins who particularly
hated” him. As such, they made sure
to damage Shooter’s personal effects
as they boxed them up (Shooter).
One freelancer’s strong sentiments
managed to top all others. Contro-
versial longtime inker Vince Colletta
wrote a scathing, vitriolic letter to the
company’s editors that not only ex-
pressed his support for his friend and
former employer, but, in a stream of
profanity, attempted to put Shooter’s
detractors in their place. In part, it
read:
Marvel Editors, you are the
droppings of the creative
world…. [Jim Shooter] gave
you a title, respectability,
power and even a credit card
that you used and abused. He
made you the highest payed
[sic] editors in the history of
the business. He protected
you against all that would
tamper with your rights, your
power and your pocketbook.
The roof over your head. The
clothes on your back. The car
By the time Jim Shooter appeared on the cover to
The Comics Journal #115, he had been fired as
Marvel Comics’ Editor-in-Chief.
The Comics Journal TM and © Fantagraphics.
you drive and the trinkets
you buy for your blind wives
and girlfriends. You owe to
the Pittsburgh kid….
Not the slightest whimper or
cry or tear came out of this
man. With you still biting at
his ankles, he put on his coat
and walked away. Displaying
more class and poise in defeat
than all of you did in victory.
Jesus has one Judas, Jim had
many, those that speared
him and worse, those that
watched. (Bryant 109)
Colletta even attempted a turn as
power-broker when he called up Mar-
vel alum Roy Thomas and inquired as
to Thomas’s interest in taking Shoot-
er’s place. Thomas informed Colletta
that he had no desire to relocate
from California to take a position he
already once had in the early 1970s
(Bryant 111).
Instead, Marvel’s new editor-in-chief
was Tom DeFalco, who had acted as
executive editor under Shooter. De-
Falco had also come up through the
ranks, having once been an assistant
editor at Archie Comics and then a
Marvel writer before finally gaining
editorial control of the Spider-Man
titles in 1981. With editor Mark Gru-
enwald promoted to the executive
editor spot, DeFalco got on with busi-
ness-as-usual at the vaunted “House
of Ideas,” albeit in a less-conspicuous
205
manner than his predecessor.
Evanier explained the stakes of De-
Falco’s promotion by declaring, “how
Marvel will be different will have
everything to do with Tom DeFalco”
(Fryer 14). Roy Thomas forecasted:
The new regime, based on
statements that Tom has
made, will let editors and
writers play around with the
format more, make the page
layout a little less standard,
just for experimentation…
don’t look for a great change
in direction from Marvel…
expect more mutations than
cosmic changes. The fine-tun-
ing type of thing. (Fryer 14)
Finally, Marv Wolfman attempted to
define the incoming editor-in-chief
as a different sort of manager than
Shooter, one who had introduced
what Wolfman saw as a more concil-
iatory atmosphere at the company.
That conciliatory atmosphere didn’t
take long to exhibit itself. A little
more than a month after Shooter’s
termination, in a matter that didn’t
involve DeFalco, Jack Kirby received
and signed an amended version of
Marvel’s original art release form.
The form had been altered at Kirby’s
request. As Kirby’s lawyer, Greg Victo-
roff, put it, “Jack got just about every-
thing he wanted” (Fryer 15). For two
and a half years, a very public battle
had been conducted against Marvel
by a variety of individuals and orga-
nizations that all pressured Marvel to
return to Jack Kirby the original art
he drew during the 1960s. That battle
was finally over.
Although many questions of Kirby’s
rights in terms of the art and his claim
to co-ownership of the characters he
created with Stan Lee remained un-
answered at the time, he was to have
almost 2,000 pages of artwork re-
turned to him. Kirby estimated that
he had drawn approximately 13,000
pages for the company in total, but
over the years, many of these pages
had either been mistakenly discard-
ed or stolen (Fryer 15). Coincidentally,
artist Neal Adams also began receiv-
ing back original art he had drawn for
Marvel, except he hadn’t signed any
of the release forms that Marvel had
sent him (Fryer 15).

The Wedding of the Year
Shooter’s departure didn’t mean the
abandonment of projects begun at
the end of his tenure. One such 1987
project actually began at a 1986 Chi-
cago Comicon panel where a fan
asked Stan Lee—who was authoring
the Spider-Man newspaper strip—if
Spider-Man was ever going to get
married. Lee seemed keen on the
idea of having Peter Parker marry
old flame Mary Jane Watson, so he
turned to the person sitting next to
him and asked if he would allow it.
That person was Jim Shooter, and
as far as Shooter was concerned,
anything Stan Lee wanted, Stan Lee
should get. The two men agreed that
the wedding should occur simultane-
ously within the comic book and the
newspaper strip, and they began co-
ordinating the project. Unfortunate-
ly, Shooter admits, “we blew that all
to hell” (Shooter “Three Comic Book
Weddings”). Marvel’s sale to New
World Pictures occurred soon after
the convention, and both Shooter and
Lee became understandably preoc-
cupied by the details of the sale. As a
result, details like the location of the
206
On the final page of Amazing Spider-Man #290,
Peter Parker pops “the BIG question” to old flame,
Mary Jane Watson.
Spider-Man TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
wedding and the number of attend-
ing guests never got clearly commu-
nicated between creative teams.
As far as the Spider-Man comic books
went, the prelude to the wedding
began in Amazing Spider-Man #290
(July 1987) as Peter pops what the
cover to the issue called “The BIG
Question!” In the very next issue
Mary Jane issues an emphatic “No!”
She sees reason, though, by the end
of Amazing Spider-Man #292, and
the two love birds plan for nuptials
to take place in Amazing Spider-Man
Annual #21 (Oct. 1987).
Written by David Michelinie and Jim
Shooter and drawn by Paul Ryan and
Vince Colletta, Amazing Spider-Man
Annual #21 was offered with two dif-
ferent covers by John Romita, Sr. One
cover shows Mary Jane on Peter’s arm
with friends and family in the back-
ground. The other has Spider-Man as
Mary Jane’s groom with heroes and
villains squaring off behind them.
“The Wedding!” reads as much like a
soap opera than a super-hero comic.
Peter and MJ have their respective
bouts with cold feet and jealousy
before the ceremony, but by the an-
nual’s end they are happily wed and
firmly entered in the ledger of comic
history.
Publicity for the marriage involved
 Above: One of two covers John Romita Sr. drew for
Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21. Right: The 1987
Spider-Man newspaper strip that presents Peter and
Mary Jane’s wedding.
Spider-Man TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

more than just a “Giant-Sized An-

nual” and a newspaper strip. Marvel
attempted to marshal as much main-
stream media coverage as it could.
Fashion designer Willi Smith was
commissioned to create MJ’s wed-
ding dress (one of his final projects as
he died on April 17, 1987). The wed-
ding was announced in the “Style”
section of The New York Times, and on
June 5—four days before the Annual
arrived in comic book stores—Spider-
Man married Mary Jane Watson on
Shea Stadium’s home plate before
the start of a New York Mets baseball
game. Captain America, The Hulk,
Iceman, Firestar, and Green Goblin— first published appearance in 1962’s comics that year. It features Kraven
or more accurately, actors portraying Amazing Fantasy #15. the Hunter, one of Spider-Man’s old-
them—witnessed a ceremony that But back in the comic books, Spider- est adversaries, though not as nota-
Stan Lee officiated. Everyone in the Man didn’t have time to enjoy a hon- ble an enemy as the Green Goblin or
stadium received a commemorative eymoon. Three weeks after the publi- Doctor Octopus. Writer J.M. DeMat-
gift bag adorned with a picture of Spi- cation of the wedding annual, a new teis set out to change that.
der-Man holding up a baseball in a epic story arc began in Web of Spider- Essentially, it’s the tale of Kraven’s
mitt. The bag reads, “I caught Spider- Man #31 that continued over the next last-ditch effort to conquer his foe,
Man’s wedding,” and inside were sou- two months in Amazing Spider-Man Spider-Man, by killing him and then
venirs that included a poster featur- #293-294, Spectacular Spider-Man stepping in to replace him. It came
ing the Marvel super-heroes posing #131-132, and Web of Spider-Man as something of a shock to read-
with four New York Mets players as #32. It would soon become recog- ers to witness their hero so roundly
well as Amazing Spider-Man Annual nized as one of the character’s best defeated, shot and then buried in a
#21 itself. Later that night, a wedding tales: “Fearful Symmetry: Kraven’s grave. Kraven replaces Spider-Man
reception was held at “The Tunnel,” Last Hunt” (later referred to as just by becoming a more ruthless, violent
a trendy lower west side Manhattan “Kraven’s Last Hunt”). The story is a version of the wall-crawler, almost
night club. Not a bad way to celebrate down-and-dirty serial that in many crossing over into Punisher territory
not only a fictitious wedding but the ways exemplifies the grittier trend in by gifting other criminals with brutal
25th anniversary of Spider-Man’s beat-downs. Spider-Man, as it turns
207

Mike Zeck drawn cover to the fifth chapter of the “Kraven’s Last Hunt” story arc.
Spider-Man TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
out, isn’t really dead, just in a drug-
induced coma and he returns to the
land of the living to get his life back.
Kraven, satisfied and claiming to be
at peace, commits suicide. Marvel
treated it as a “permanent” death,
making for an even greater impact
on readers.
The tale had a labyrinthine origin.
DeMatteis originally conceived it for
Marvel as a Wonder Man story that
involved his evil brother, the Grim
Reaper, but the writer subsequently
caused both within and outside of
comic fandom, even claiming one
woman wrote to the company ask-
ing why they advocated suicide and
criticizing them for “destroying lit-
erature.” “Many people wrote us ex-
pressing their views that Spider-Man
shouldn’t be involved with such in-
tense storylines,” the editors wrote
in the collection’s Afterword. “One
would infer that they believe every-
thing about the wall-crawler should
be candy coated and totally escap-
ist. We, on the other hand, feel that
anyone who believes such nonsense
doesn’t understand who Spider-Man
is or what he represents. From the
very outset, Spider-Man (the comic)
explored mature themes” (Herdling).
In 1987, Spider-Man comics also rep-
resented and explored the ability to
sell a lot of copies. That year, Amazing
Spider-Man averaged sales of more
than 284,000 copies per issue, Web
of Spider-Man 242,000 copies, and
Spectacular Spider-Man a respectable
213,000. Those numbers were almost
double that of the competition’s big-
gest characters, but they still paled
in comparison to a group of mutants
and a guy with a gun.
Punishments and Rewards
Perhaps the finest barometer on con-
sumer buying habits in 1987 comes
in this little factoid: cover date July’s
best-selling comic book was the first
issue of The Punisher. The previous
1986 Punisher mini-series paved the
way for what would become the gun-
toting vigilante’s first ongoing title
and his eventual plethora of blood-
soaked books.
Capital City Distribution alone or-
dered 62,500 copies of that first issue,
more copies than for any other comic
book for that month. Frank Castle, the
Punisher, was, essentially Number
One with a bullet. A 1987 Amazing
pitched the story to DC as a “Joker
Heroes article trumpeted the news:
kills Batman” epic. Turned down
with that proposal, the writer re-jig- Look out, X-Men! Move over,
gered the story to feature Bat-baddie Superman! There’s a new top
Hugo Strange, but that too found no gun in the comics market-
favor at DC. Ultimately, the idea land- place. And gun is the opera-
ed back at Marvel, this time with the tive word! The newest hit title
writer crafting it as a Spider-Man ve- is The Punisher, starring every
hicle (Cronin #218). Marvelite’s black-and-white
clad, violence-incarnate vigi-
In the 1989 trade paperback collec-
lante. The new series, craft-
tion of “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” editors
ed by comics veteran Mike
Glenn Herdling and Jim Salicrup
Baron and Klaus Janson,
noted the controversy that the story
208
 debuts March 17 and is al-
ready the best-selling book
for that month. Advance or-
ders for the first issue ran 10
to 20% higher than the next
title. “X-Men and Silver Surfer
are duking it out for second
place,” Janson cheerfully re-
lates. (Elliott 27)
Baron, the fan-favorite creator of an-
other dark avenger, the Badger, was
reportedly hand-picked for the gig
by Punisher editor Carl Potts. Baron
promised that he was making the
new book as violent as possible: “You
take a character like the Punisher and
you certainly cannot shy away from
the implications. My God, this is the
most action-explosion, blood-orient-
ed character they [Marvel] have. It’s
stupid to try to tone down
the violence, so I don’t try
to. I let the editors deal
with it” (Elliott 29).
The Punisher’s world was
also noted to be moving
from stark black-and-
white to shades of gray in
the ongoing series. For the
first time, Frank was gift-
ed with a small support-
ing cast and a bit of a nag-
ging conscience over how
he acquired his weapons.
Still, The Punisher didn’t
seem to shirk from pleas-
ing its readers and the
success of this series led
directly to Marvel expand-
ing the anti-hero’s shoot-
ing range over the follow-
ing two years.
Meanwhile, over in Cap-
tain America, the Sentinel
of Liberty took some pun-
ishment at the hands of
writer Mark Gruenwald.
In a move that echoed
Steve Englehart’s “Cap-
tain America Must Die!”
story from 1974, the hero
resigned his famous sta-
tus as a living American
flag and allowed someone
else to step into his big red
boots.
Captain America #327
(March 1987) brought
back a character intro-
duced four issues ear- Above: 1987 Marvel Comics house ad promoting the new Punisher title.
lier. Super-Patriot was a
militant flag-waver named John
Walker who had his own ideas about
patriotism. Of course, he and Cap
clash, and in Captain America #332
(Sept. 1987) Steve Rogers throws down
his shield and, in protest of govern-
ment interference, walks out, leaving
Walker to fill the costume and name
of Captain America. To perhaps emu-
late the 1970s team of a white Steve
Rogers and a black sidekick, the Fal-
con, Gruenwald introduced a partner
for the new Cap, a black man named
Lemar Hoskins who at first went by
the tried-and-true codename “Bucky”
until he is told that it sounded like a
racist slur. The character was later re-
named Battlestar.
Marvel also threw caution to the
wind when, late in 1987, it brought
back Steve Rogers, but
not as Captain America.
The legendary hero of
World War II now sport-
ed a black version of his
old duds, a new shield,
and the simplified code-
name of “The Captain.”
In 1987, Mark Gruen-
wald also continued to
edit Iron Man, a title its
creative team felt Mar-
vel was neglecting. As
writer David Micheli-
nie recounts in his in-
troduction to the Iron
Man: Armor Wars trade
paperback collection,
one night in early 1987
plotter/inker Bob Lay-
ton gathered with other
members of the Iron
Man team—Michelinie,
assistant editor Howard
Mackie, and Jim Shoot-
er—for a brainstorm-
ing session at an Ital-
ian restaurant. Layton
expressed dismay at the
lack of publicity he felt
Marvel was giving the
book. Layton thought
that he and Micheli-
nie, along with penciler
Mark Bright, were pro-
ducing good stories. So
why couldn’t they get
some press? Shooter
answered that quality
Top: cover to the first issue of The Punisher ongoing series. wasn’t enough because
quality was the stan-
The Punisher TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
dard at Marvel. To get
209
 Right: 1987 Marvel Comics house ad promoting
the “Armor Wars” story arc that began in
Iron Man #225 (above).
Iron Man TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

noticed, they’d have to do something

special: “You need an EVENT. Give us
something to push and we’ll push it!”
Musing a little more, Shooter then
said, “What about this? What if some-
one got hold of Tony Stark’s armor de-
signs and gave them to his ENEMIES?
So that, in a moral sense, HE could be
considered responsible for the results
of their evil deeds?”
With that, Iron Man had a new direc-
tion and an event worthy of promo-
tion. House ads teased “Time for the
Avenger to start Avenging.” “Armor
Wars” (actually titled “Stark Wars”
within the issues themselves) began
in Iron Man #225 (Dec. 1987) when
Tony Stark learns a mercenary named
Force was wearing armor based on
designs stolen from Stark Interna-
tional. Stark goes on to discover that question the actions of the armored er, shadowy side of the street, Marvel
his armor designs have been widely— Avenger, but Stark’s crusade contin- still had another familiar cash-cow
and illegally—disseminated. Stark ues, and the story raises the question to prop up the entire line should the
resolves to find all the people he be- of how far Iron Man is willing to go to readers not embrace the company’s
lieves to be using his stolen designs retrieve what belongs to him. 1987 changes. The X-Men franchise
and relinquish them of their armor. in 1987 was hale, hearty, dense and
While tracking down his technology, “Armor Wars” lasted eight issues,
diverse, and it continued to have one
Iron Man clashes with many foes, and by its end, Iron Man had a new
principal architect: Chris Claremont.
among them Stilt Man, The Control- streamlined suit of armor, devoid of
ler, Crimson Dynamo, and Titanium shoulder pads and neck collar. Per- The writer had been handling the
Man. But Iron Man also feuds with haps most symbolically, the new ar- characters regularly since their re-
allies, such as Captain America (who mor’s color scheme returned to the suscitation as the “New X-Men” in
is protecting the Guardsmen) and classic red and gold. 1975, and twelve years later, he was
Nick Fury (who is keeper of the Man- still scripting the core title, Uncanny
Despite experimentation with new
droids). Soon the country begins to X-Men, as well as the first X-spinoff,
faces under the masks and the seedi-

210
New Mutants. Midway through 1987,
Claremont handed the latter book
off to writer Louise Simonson, leav-
ing her to juggle both it and the third
house in Marvel’s mutant cottage in-
dustry, X-Factor. Sales were the envy
of the industry, with Uncanny X-Men
in the lead with a whopping 1987
average of 430,000 copies sold per is-
sue. X-Factor, the relative new kid
on the block then, checked in with a
340,000 copy average and New Mu-
tants, which really was about kids,
sold roughly 223,000 per issue.
One of the stand-out unveilings from
Claremont that year came in the dark
form of Mister Sinister, a foe for the
“merry mutants” that would stand
the test of time and return for later
engagements. Debuting in Uncanny
X-Men #221 (Sept. 1987), the former
19th-century doctor was utilized by
Claremont for more musings on such
heady topics as genetics and immor-
al medical practices. Readers would
soon learn of Sinister’s far-reaching
hand and his involvement in the early
development of X-Factor’s Cyclops.
The year also brought two mini-series
that pitted Marvel’s main mutants
against their fellow heroes, a tried-
and-true comic book cliché that just
never seemed to get old. First up was
Fantastic Four vs. X-Men, a four-issue
mini-series that delivered what the
title promised, thanks to, yes, writer
Chris Claremont and artist Jon Bogda-
nove. The second series, X-Men vs. The
Avengers, laid out its four-part story
sans Claremont and with even more
drama behind the scenes than on its
pages.
X-Men vs. The Avengers #1-3 were
written by Roger Stern, who was also
writing the ongoing Avengers title in
1987. However, the wrap-up to the
mini-series, issue #4 (July 1987), was
written by Tom DeFalco, then on the
cusp of being promoted to Editor-in-
Chief. Stern explained the situation in
1997:
Tom [DeFalco] was tapped
to script the last issue all by
himself (I never touched it),
after a previously-agreed-to
plot was changed by editorial
fiat. The story was supposed
to end with Magneto show-
ing himself for the bastard
he really was. After the plot
was changed on me (not by
Tom), I decided the mini-
series was too much grief to
deal with any further. And
[series artist] Marc [Silves-
tri] was yanked away from
the mini-series to draw Un-
canny X-Men, which was in
need of a penciler. And, of
course, I didn’t leave in a huff.
I continued to work at Marvel
full-time… until I was finally
fired from Avengers in May of
1987. (Seitz)
That sacking would end Stern’s five-
year run with Earth’s Mightiest
Heroes, but not before the writer had
a few last things to say about them.
In Final Battle…
The prolific Roger Stern had been
writing Avengers since 1982, but in
1987 he hit a snag that his long tenure
wouldn’t survive. Stern had begun
Above: Marc Silvestri drawn cover to the first issue
the year in the middle of a storyline of the X-Men vs. the Avengers mini-series.
that is considered to be the pinnacle Below: Marvel Age #46 promotes the Fantastic Four
of his run, a high-water mark well- vs. the X-Men mini-series.
All characters TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
remembered by readers of the time.
Known today as “Under Siege,” Stern’s
Avengers #273-277 (Nov. 1986-March
1987) pitted the team against a new
Masters of Evil, made up of some of
the nastiest Marvel villains around.
The story put the heroes through the
ringer, both physically and emotion-
ally, and some of them barely sur-
vived. It was a wake-up call to fans:
the Avengers were not untouchable.
They did bleed.
Sales were good on the title as the
year dawned, placing Avengers as a
mid-to-high-level Marvel seller with
an average of 220,000 copies per issue.
Stern’s line-up included a mixture of
stars, like Captain America and Thor,
and a few lower-tier stalwarts, like
the Black Knight and Hercules, but if
there were any shirkers in the group,
the John Buscema-Tom Palmer art
more than made up for them.
But then the credit box for Avengers
further claimed his remarks were
#286 (Dec. 1987) noted that only the
made with Stern’s indulgence:
plot was by Roger Stern. The script
was handled by writer Ralph Mac- Sometime mid-April [of
chio. By issue #288, Stern’s name was 1987], I had Roger fly to New
gone all together. That issue’s “Mark’s York for a conference to map
Remarks” column by Avengers editor out the next year’s Aveng-
Mark Gruenwald noted a “Changing ers story line and coordinate
of the Guard” and that a few words on them with our two compo-
the change might have been in order nent books Captain America
to “help illuminate the writer/editor and Thor. In an afternoon-
working relationship.” Gruenwald long session attended by the
211
 various concerned writers
and editors…we worked out
what I thought to be an inter-
esting, innovative direction.
It seemed like all participants
agreed. However, when Roger
got back home and began to
work out the specific details
to the scenario, he reported
that he couldn’t come up
with any way to make the
scenario work without doing
injustice to some of the char-
acters involved. The bottom
line was that he didn’t want
to proceed with the story line
we all discussed.
I was not interested in do-
ing any injustices to any
characters either, but I also
believed that the story line
could be done without hurt-
ing any characters. I was also
not interested in forcing a
writer to write something he
didn’t want to. So, despite our
five years’ plus of amicable
working relations, we had
developed what seemed to
be irreconcilable differences.
Something had to give. I in-
formed Roger that I wanted
to proceed with the agreed-
upon story line and thus, I
would hire another writer
who could get behind the sce-
nario enough to do it justice.
Gruenwald wrapped up the column
by thanking Stern for “five years of
good hard avenging,” and allowed the
writer to make a brief, yet somewhat
bittersweet statement of his own. On
the surface, it sounded like a relatively
amicable divorce, but, as he stated in
1997, Stern maintains that he was let
go in a one-sided firing. He had insti-
tuted one of his own creations, the Af-
rican-American female Captain Mar-
vel, as Avengers leader, but claimed
that in 1987 Gruenwald asked him
to replace that captain with another,
specifically Captain America. Fur-
thermore, the editor also wanted the
writer to show that Captain Marvel
had proven herself “inferior” in the
role as Avengers leader, a develop-
ment that Stern insisted would make
himself appear racist and sexist to his
readers. For his opinion on the mat-
ter, Stern was removed from the book
(Cronin #11).
Macchio picked up the pieces and that were sold on the newsstand,
stayed only for that one dissembling Marvel Masterworks could be bought
storyline, which featured a band of not only at Direct Market shops but
artificial intelligences. He was then also at the more ubiquitous retail
replaced by Walter Simonson who book stores. That meant solid sales,
went along with Gruenwald’s wishes despite a thirty-dollar price tag for
as to the question of leadership. Roger each volume.
Stern took the opportunity to jump Marvel’s other good choices during
ship to DC and write for, among other the 1987 regarded the talent it hired
things, a certain Man of Steel. and retained. One such talent was a
recent Princeton University graduate
Looking Back/Moving Forward who opted to change his career path.
At its core, Marvel made good choices He seemed predestined to follow in
throughout the year, whether under his father’s footsteps and become a
the auspices of the more visible and doctor, but an art class during his se-
vocal Jim Shooter or the more low- nior year at Princeton reinvigorated
key Tom DeFalco. One of those choic- both his interest in comic books and
es was to promote Marvel’s history his desire to draw. He decided to post-
through a series of expensive hard- pone his entry into medical school,
cover reprints dubbed the Marvel a decision which tested the patience
Masterworks. The line grew out of a of his parents. To appease them, he
need for new editor-in-chief DeFalco promised that if he didn’t earn a liv-
to balance the budget after the sales ing as a professional comic book art-
shortcomings of Shooter’s experi- ist within a year’s time, he would be-
mental New Universe line of titles gin his medical studies. He brought
(DeFalco 232). The
Masterworks vol-
umes reprinted sto-
ries from the very
beginning of “The
Marvel Age,” pre-
senting the first ten
issues of Amazing
Spider-Man, Fan-
tastic Four, X-Men,
and Avengers, each
grouped in its own
volume. Of course,
for years Marvel had
reprinted its 1960s-
era comic books in
the form of titles like
Marvel Tales (which
reprinted early is-
sues of Amazing
Spider-Man), Marvel
Super Action (which
reprinted The Aveng-
ers) and Amazing
Adventures (which
reprinted The X-
Men), among others.
The difference in
1987 was that these
decades-old comic
books were now be-
ing presented on
glossy, sturdy paper
within a dust-jack-
eted, stitch-bound
hardcover. Also, un- John Buscema/Tom Palmer drawn cover to Avengers #276,
the penultimate chapter of the “Under Siege” story arc.
like the reprint titles Avengers TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
212
his art samples to a
New York comic con-
vention and showed
them to Marvel editor
Archie Goodwin. Those
samples were evident-
ly good enough for the
aspiring professional
to earn an ongoing as-
signment as the pen-
ciler of Alpha Flight. He
made his debut with
issue #51 (Oct. 1987),
and he stayed on the
title for eleven issues.
It was an inauspicious
start, but suffice to say,
Jim Lee never enrolled
in medical school. It
wouldn’t take him
long to become rec-
ognized as one of the
most promising young
artists in the industry.
Another promising
young artist, and one
of Lee’s future part-
ners, Todd McFarlane,
also benefited from
Marvel’s good choices
in 1987. He got paired
with prolific writer
Peter David on Incred-
ible Hulk, starting
with issue #331 (May
1987). The two creators
would stay together
on the book throughout the year,
cementing both of their stars in the
Marvel firmament and leading up to
a Hulk-Wolverine battle in early 1988
that would become a fan-favorite for
many years to come.
Marvel also embraced both the then-
current crop of British creators and
the poke-in-the-eye violent trend of
comics in a single book, Marshal Law.
Part of Marvel’s Epic Comics imprint,
Marshal Law skewered the super-he-
ro genre with a healthy heaping of
parody, satire and adults-only visu-
als. Writer Pat Mills and artist Kevin
O’Neill, both British, took pains to
address matters of United States gov-
ernmental policy and other purely
American tropes with a free hand, es-
sentially producing a comic book for
a company that stood at the center
of their wry aim. As Don Markstein’s
Toonpedia describes it, Marshal Law
“took all the grim and all the gritty
characteristics of contemporary long-
underwear guys, exag-
gerated them beyond
reason as a good parody
should, and distilled
them into the grimmest,
grittiest superhero of
all” (Markstein).
Once the transition
from Shooter to DeFalco
was past, Marvel set-
tled back into the busi-
ness of making comics
and looked forward to
even bigger mile mark-
ers ahead. Marvel con-
tinued to dominate
the industry’s market
share, but that didn’t
mean that the indepen-
dent comic companies
weren’t making an im-
pact.
Independent Thinkers
In some ways, Paul
Chadwick personi-
fied the nitty-gritty of
1980s comic books. Af-
ter graduating from the
Art Center College of De-
sign in 1979, Chadwick
provided storyboards
for such film studios as
Disney, Warner Broth-
ers, and Lucasfilm. His
resume includes con-
Above: Credit page from Peter David and tributions to movies
Todd McFarlane’s Hulk #333. Below: Cover to the first like Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, The Big
issue of Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill’s Marshal Law.
Easy, and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor,
Hulk TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Marshal Law TM and © Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill. among many others. He became a
professional comic book artist in 1985
while drawing Marvel’s Dazzler, but it
was for Dark Horse Presents #1 (July
1986) that Chadwick introduced the
creation he would become most fa-
mous for: Concrete. Ronald Lithgow is
an everyman whose brain gets invol-
untarily transplanted by aliens into a
colossal concrete-like artificial body.
After being featured in several short
tales in subsequent issues of Dark
Horse Presents, the character earned
his own eponymous black-and-white
title. Concrete #1 arrived in stores in
March of 1987.
While Concrete did go on “adven-
tures,” they were of the mundane,
non-super-heroic variety. Indeed,
Chadwick shaped his series as a piece
of realism, with the only fantastic ele-
ment being the protagonist’s hulking,
213

stony frame. A seriously contempla-
tive book, Concrete ruminated on ex-
istential, political, and even sexual
matters. It was also a bit of a throw-
back in its extensive use of thought
balloons, a narrative device that had
fallen out of favor among comic book
creators by 1987. Concrete would go
on to earn the highest of industry
honors in the form of Eisner Awards
in the consecutive years of 1988 and
1989, and also became one of the
most enduring parts of Dark Horse
Comics’ catalog, with new Concrete
stories and mini-series being pub-
lished for decades to come.
Another writer/artist, Michael Gus-
tovich, revived his Justice Machine
concept, which he had previously
published through his Noble Comics
with little success. But now at Comico,
Gustovich finally hit his stride. Justice
Machine #1 (Jan. 1987)—featuring
Gustovich on art chores and Marvel
214
Left: Roll Call page from Concrete #1.
Concrete TM and © Paul Chadwick.
alum Tony Isabella scripting—gave
the inter-dimensional super-powered
police force its second ongoing title,
one that lasted until the end of the
decade.
Where There’s Thunder…
Interestingly enough, a group of char-
acters that once co-starred with the
Justice Machine in a 1983 one-shot
sat squarely in the middle of a messy
1987 copyright matter. The saga of
the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents hit a strange
note with not one, not two, but three
different 1987 appearances – all of
them disputed as illegal.
David Singer, the man who declared
that Wally Wood’s legendary 1960s
characters were public domain, had
ceased publication of his own take
on them, Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents, in 1986. Singer did so because
of legal pressure from the man who
asserted legitimate ownership of the
characters, John Carbonaro. But Sing-
er’s departure from the comic book
scene didn’t end Carbonaro’s head-
aches. Instead, Carbonaro found that
Singer’s efforts had so confused the
industry about his possession of the
“T-Agents” that other companies be-
gan publishing their own versions of
the super-heroes too. So when Solson
Publications released T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
#1—written by Michael Sawyer, pen-
ciled by James Lyle, with art direction
by Rich Buckler—Carbonaro knew he
had a troublesome situation on his
hands:
On the basis of Singer’s pre-
mature declaration [that the
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents were in
the public domain], [Solson
publisher] Gary Brodsky and
many others – without prop-
erly checking sources – start-
ed to produce new T-Agents
books. I had to put out brush
fires all over, ones started by
people who had been, in ef-
fect, also sucker-punched by
Singer. Brodsky was upset
because he had already put
together a book but couldn’t
publish it, yet because I be-
lieved Gary and the creative
team to be innocent (if fool-
hardy), I licensed the deal for
a minimal fee. (Cooke 148)
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. #1 would be the only
cameo of the team under the Solson
banner, but Carbonaro would have
two other messes to clean up that
year, namely Dark Horse Comics’ Bo-
ris the Bear #11 (June 1987) and Ap-
ple Comics’ Thunderbunny #11 (Sept.
1987), both of which prominently
featured the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.
When Carbonaro received assurances
from both Dark Horse and Apple that
they would never use T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents again, he let these copyright
transgressions slide. Years later, he
explained, “Understand that I was
never looking for money but rather
just to protect the characters I owned”
(Cooke 157).
For the remainder of his life, Carbon-
aro sought a publisher who would
not only produce a new T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents book, but one that fell com-
pletely in line with his own vision
of the property. Yet besides a couple
of false starts with Penthouse Comix
and DC Comics, Carbonaro would nev-
er live to see another T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents comic book. He passed away
in 2009 at the age of 58.
Darker Days Ahead
The independent comic book scene of
1987 was rounded out by a few other
notable publications, including Glad-
stone’s Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge
#219 (July 1987), which featured an
inaugural Uncle Scrooge adventure
by Carl Barks-aficionado Don Rosa.
Up to this point, Gladstone’s publish-
ing line was built on reprints of se-
lect artists like Carl Barks and Floyd
Gottfredson, and if you asked Uncle
Scrooge and Mickey Mouse fans, any-
thing not created by those artists was
irrelevant. The occasional new sto-
ries Gladstone published were truly
produced just for foreign licensees
and didn’t garner much fan enthusi-
asm. Don Rosa’s “The Son of the Sun,”
however, broke through the fan bias
and turned the writer/artist into a
bonafide superstar in the Disney/fun-
ny animal arena, attracting the atten-
tion of people who’d otherwise dis-
miss the duck comics as kid stuff. Not
only was “The Son of the Sun” nomi-
nated for a Harvey Award, it proved
there was an audience for good, new
Uncle Scrooge stories and paved the
way for other popular contemporary
cartoonists like William Van Horn.
Meanwhile, Apple Comics published
Vietnam Journal #1 (Nov. 1987), writ- Gladstone’s Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge #219
featured “The Son of the Sun,” the first Scrooge McDuck
ten and drawn by Vietnam War veter- story by writer/artist Don Rosa.
an Don Lomax. If Doug Murray’s The Uncle Scrooge TM and © Disney Enterprises, Inc.
’Nam was as authentic as a standard
Marvel comic book was allowed to be, Books like Giffen and DeMatteis’s
Justice League deliberately went
Lomax’s Vietnam Journal took that
authenticity up to its highest level by against the grim and gritty grain and
were rewarded for it, but the fact of
refusing to filter out war’s inevitable
gore. As a result, Vietnam Journal pre- the matter was that every comic book
publisher witnessed how incredibly
sented horrific images: disfigured ci-
vilians, dismembered soldiers, bayo- well books like The Dark Knight and
Watchmen sold, and the common as-
neted babies. Nothing was censored.
Future comic book writer Jason Aaron sumption that was drawn was that
the fan base wanted comic books of
described Lomax’s work as “without
a doubt, the most brutal and disturb- a similar tone and perspective. And
when new books with those story ele-
ing comics I’ve ever read…. Vietnam
Journal is one of the most gritty and ments sold well, that guaranteed the
production of even more of them.
brutally honest war stories ever pub-
lished” (Aaron). This all meant that 1988 was sure to
deliver more “dark” narratives. The
The distinction between The ’Nam
and Vietnam Journal also epitomized form that darkness took, though,
would end up shocking many comic
the difference between the years
in which those two titles were first book readers, especially those who
were fans of the Batman family.
published. If 1986 set the trend of
violent comic books with bleak world
overviews, 1987 not only continued
that trend but tried to amplify it to
an even more extreme degree. In the
name of presenting “mature” ma-
terial, more and more comic books
began featuring protagonists em-
bodying questionable morality who
fought blood-splattering conflicts
that had despairing resolutions. As a
result, the comic book industry ended
up publishing both innovative narra-
tives of sophisticated execution and
derivative tales that simply wallowed
in their own nihilistic outlook.
215
1988
Killing Jokes
and Killing Calls
American Conservatism continued its political reign in 1988
as George H. W. Bush easily bested Democratic Party nomi-
nee Michael Dukakis in the November general election. In
doing so, Bush became the first sitting Vice President of
the United States to be elected President in 200 years.
Social Conservatism remained in its heyday as well, and
those who seemingly violated the nation’s conservative
values found themselves under fire. Case in point: Michael
Correa, the manager of Lansing, Illinois comic book store
Friendly Frank’s who was arrested on December 10, 1986
for attempting to disseminate obscene material, specifi-
cally copies of select issues of Catalan Communications’
The Bodyssey, Last Gasp’s Weirdo, and Kitchen Sink Press’
Omaha the Cat Dancer and Bizarre Sex. Correa’s trial before
Illinois Judge Paul T. Foxgrover began in October 1987 and
included testimony from Eclipse Comics’ editor-in-chief
Cat Yronwode (who paid her own way to travel to Illinois
and aid Correa’s defense). With Yronwode on the stand, Il-
linois prosecutor James Knibbs asked her to read and de-
scribe several comics, panel by panel. When Knibbs got to
Weirdo #17, specifically a parody of the television sitcom
Gilligan’s Island called “Isle of Lust,” Yronwode had to tes-
tify to the sexual shenanigans of the Skipper’s little buddy.
When she quoted, “My ass hurts,” Yronwode saw the court
clerk “laughing so hard she could barely type” (“Filth on
Trial” 103).
Ultimately though, the trial was no laughing matter. On
January 13, 1988, Foxgrover found Correa guilty, fined him
$750, and gave him a one-year probationary sentence.
With regards to Yronwode’s testimony, Foxgrover found it
very weak. In his decision he declared, “The Court … disre-
gards the purported testimony of the young woman who
testified in this case…. She added nothing to the case as to
the basic question of obscenity” (Powers 5). Correa subse-
quently appealed the verdict but also resigned his position
as manager of Friendly Frank’s.
Back in December 1986 after his manager’s arrest, Friendly
Frank’s owner, Frank Mangiracina, reached out to Kitchen
Sink founder Denis Kitchen for aid. Kitchen recalls, “Frank
called me because I was one of the publishers who got
him busted. He was pretty distraught…. What frustrated
me was that Frank was struggling to take care of this him-
self and it didn’t seem fair” (“CBLDF Case Files — Illinois v.
Correa”). So Kitchen set out to rally the troops, asking
artists and creators to donate work to help raise funds
to cover Correa’s legal costs. This included a gathering of
comic book professionals at Hollywood’s Golden Apple
Comic Shop exactly one month after Correa’s guilty ver-
dict came down. A virtual who’s who of industry names

CHAPTER NINE
attended: Frank Miller, Steven Grant, Harlan Ellison, Sergio
Aragonés, Marv Wolfman, Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez,
Gary Groth, Dave Stevens, Doug Wildey, Brent Anderson,
Paul Smith, Mike Barr, Jan Strnad, Mark Evanier, among
by Dave Dykema others. Original artwork was auctioned off and autographs
216
were sold. Approximately $1,500 was collected, and this
money went to Kitchen’s now officially named Comic
Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF). Several
other fundraising efforts sprang forth, more
portfolios were auctioned off, and the address of
the CBLDF was printed in comics-related publica-
tions for interested parties to contribute to the cause
(Powers 6).
Ultimately, the CBLDF gave its financial support
to help hire Burton Joseph, a Chicago attor-
ney with 36 years of constitutional law
experience. On November 16, 1989,
Correa’s conviction was overturned
on appeal. The appellate judge found
the specific comics “bizarre” but not
obscene (“CBLDF Case Files — Illinois
v. Correa”). For his part, Kitchen had a
surplus of $20,000 from his money
raising efforts. He used that
money to incorporate the
Comic Book Legal Defense
Fund as a non-profit organi-
zation, which, according to
its website, is dedicated to
“the preservation of First
Amendment rights for
members of the comics
community.”

A Creators’ Bill of Rights

As 1988 began, Diamond
Comic Distributors had already taken
steps to protect its retailers from the kind of
legal troubles Friendly Frank’s found itself in. The
previous year Diamond president Steve Geppi
explained to his retailers why Diamond was delib-
erately steering clear of books he found morally
questionable:
Diamond values its retailers too much to take
chances on such a dangerous situation…. We
are not censors. We no more want someone
deciding for us than you do. We cannot, howev-
er, stand by and watch the marketplace become
a dumping ground for every sort of graphic fantasy
that someone wants to live out. We have an indus-
try to protect; we have leases to abide by; we have
a community image to maintain (Duin 125-6).
To that end, Diamond stopped carrying both Vortex Com-
ics’ Yummy Fur and Kitchen Sink’s Omaha the Cat Dancer,
along with most underground titles. Many publishers—
and retailers, for that matter—considered Diamond’s deci-
sion an arbitrary one, mostly because the distributor had no
problem carrying Marvel’s Elektra: Assassin and DC’s Green
Arrow, both of which had adult content. In late April, Geppi
admitted Diamond’s policy was “being applied unequally.”
He then announced that going forward, Diamond’s deci-
sion on whether or not to carry a title would be based on
artistic quality and financial terms (McCubbin 20).
Earlier, though, Diamond chose not to distribute a comic
book for a completely different reason: payback. It began
when Aardvark One International/Aardvark-Vanaheim
1988 was dominated by two events
featuring The Joker: The Killing Joke
and “A Death in the Family.”
Batman TM and © DC Comics.
publisher Dave Sim chose not to have Diamond
carry his Cerebus graphic novel High Society. Dia-
mond countered by refusing to distribute Aardvark’s
Puma Blues. In a letter printed in Puma Blues #15 (Feb.
1988), Diamond representative Bill Schanes declared,
“If it is your intention to pick and choose which products
you want distributors to carry, it should be our privilege to
choose what we wish to distribute. Therefore, it is our feel-
ing we should no longer carry and promote Puma Blues.” At
the time, Diamond was responsible for one-third of Puma
Blues’ print run, and obviously the refusal to distribute
the book meant a significant loss of revenue for the Puma
Blues’ creators: writer Stephen Murphy and artist Michael
Zulli. Through an open letter, the two creators vowed to
continue production even without Diamond’s support.
Diamond eventually relented, agreeing in late March to
distribute Puma Blues once again (McCubbin 7). Nonethe-
less, the dispute incited Sim. Throughout the year he held a
series of summits where he spoke out about creators’ rights
and publishing. “A Bill of Rights for Comics Creators”

217
1988 TIMELINE
A compilation of the year’s notable comic book industry events alongside
some of the year’s most significant popular cultural and historical events.
January 12: Amazing Spider-Man #300 March 4: The U.S. Bureau of
– revealing the origin of Venom in a story Labor Statistics reports that
written by David Michelinie and drawn by the unemployment rate has
Todd McFarlane – goes on sale. dropped to 5.7 percent.
March 25: In New York City’s
so-called “preppie murder
case,” Robert E. Chambers Jr.
pleads guilty to first-degree
February 4: Comic book manslaughter in the death of
inker Frank Giacoia dies at 18-year-old Jennifer Levin.
the age of 63. Chambers is sentenced to a
5-to-15 year prison term.
May 29: President Ronald Reagan
begins his first visit to the Soviet
Union for a summit with Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev. The two ratify
their nuclear arms treaty from
December.
April 3: Milton Caniff – cartoonist most famous
for creating the Terry and the Pirates and Steve
Canyon newspaper strips – dies at the age of 81. June 23: NASA climatologist James
Hansen tells Congress that world-
wide temperature increases are
April 5: With its 601st May 15: The Soviet Union probably a sign of human alteration
issue, Action Comics begins withdrawing its of the atmosphere. The greenhouse
once again becomes an troops from Afghanistan, effect is brought to the attention of
anthology comic book as it more than eight years after the American public.
changes its title to Action Soviet forces had entered
Comics Weekly. the country. At least 40,000
Soviets troops died during
the conflict.

JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL M AY JUNE

March 29: Batman: The Killing Joke – a 48-page

Prestige format one-shot written by Alan Moore
and drawn by Brian Bolland – goes on sale. In the
May 17: The first issue of DC
story, the Joker shoots Barbara (Batgirl) Gordon
Comics’ V for Vendetta – a
through the spine, crippling her.
dystopian adventure by writer
Alan Moore and artist David
January 13: Illinois Judge Paul T. Lloyd – goes on sale. The first
Foxgrover finds Friendly Frank’s comic seven issues reprint material
book store manager Michael Correa guilty originally published in the British
of possession with intent to disseminate magazine Warrior. The final
obscene material. three issues present new mate-
March 7: Two years into his
run on Superman, John Byrne rial. V for Vendetta is the last
February 13: The resigns as its writer and artist. original work Moore will write
Winter Olympics for DC Comics.
begin in Calgary,
Canada.

Batman, Invasion!, The Joker, Superman and V for Vendetta TM and © DC Comics. Spider-Man TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

ended up being drafted in November right will be in your name or [your] Comic Glut Punch in the Gut
at the Northampton Summit, held company’s name” (McCubbin 5). DC
in Northampton, Massachusetts and The headline read “New Glut Pre-
was the last major comic book pub-
hosted by Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur- dicted.” It appeared in the April 1988
lisher to retain full ownership over
tles creators Kevin Eastman and Peter issue of The Comics Journal. The
characters created by its freelancers.
Laird. Zot! creator Scott McCloud was adjoining article warned of a
As such, some freelancers expressed
the principal author of the bill that major influx of product that retail-
the belief that the new policy helped
stressed full creator rights of owner- ers wouldn’t be able to move that
DC keep its competitive edge within
ship as well as control over licensing spring. Buddy Saunders, the owner
the industry (McCubbin 5).
and guarantees of the return of origi- of the Texas-based Lone Star Comics
Diamond extended its competitive chain, sounded the alarm in a guest
nal artwork after its use. Years later,
edge by purchasing the nation’s third editorial published in Comics Buyer’s
McCloud observed that one of the
largest comic book distributor, Bud Guide #749 that The Comics Journal
bill’s main relevancies is that “comics
Plant Comic Distributors, on July 15. reprinted:
creators already have the right to con-
For the Eastern U.S.-based Diamond,
trol their art if they want it; all they The glut is coming from the
this opened up the West, as it gained
have to do is not sign it away” (Mc- super-hero genre and is be-
warehouses in San Diego, Los Ange-
Cloud). McCloud downplayed the in- ing brought about primarily
les, northern California, and Denver.
fluence of the Creators’ Bill of Rights, by DC and Marvel. Both are
The purchase gave Diamond a 40%
but while the original summits Sim fighting for the first place in
market share, leapfrogging over the
put together were going on, DC Com- the industry. Both are pub-
Wisconsin-based Capital City Distri-
ics’ Jenette Kahn announced to free- lishing more and more high-
bution to become the country’s big-
lancers on June 7: “…from now on ticket items. Many titles have
gest comic book distributor (Powers
DC Comics will acquire wholly new gone to new, more costly for-
9). Astoundingly, Diamond would
properties on a basis more favorable mats. Weeklies and bi-week-
only become bigger before the end of
to you, our creators. We will no longer lies are coming on line.
the next decade.
purchase these properties under the Marvel has boosted the cover
work-for-hire provision and the copy-
218

July 3: An Iranian passenger jet is shot
down by the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf.
All 290 people aboard are killed after the
plane is misidentified as an Iranian F-14
fighter jet. In 1996 the U.S. pays over $131
million in compensation for the incident.
J U LY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER
price of better selling titles by
33%. Several of Marvel’s flag-
ship titles, X-Men included,
will be bi-weekly through
the summer. All these things
can’t be absorbed by a retail-
er’s budget without some give
elsewhere (McCubbin 5).
Saunders found that his budget for
April’s books was completely con-
sumed by DC and Marvel product
that had recently increased in price.
After adding his orders for indepen-
dent publishers to the total for his
April books, he was 28.5% over bud-
get—a rate he couldn’t sustain be-
cause he predicted that consumers’
spending budgets wouldn’t increase
commensurately. Rather than spend
more money to obtain the same
number of books, consumers would
simply spend the same amount of
money they have been spending to
obtain fewer books. Just like with the
black-and-white glut that occurred
in 1987, Saunders believed this new
December 5: A
October 8: The first episode of Superboy – federal grand jury in
starring John Haymes Newton as the Boy North Carolina indicts
of Steel and Stacy Haiduk as Lang Lang Christian televangelist
– premieres on syndicated television. The Jim Bakker on fraud
series will last four seasons. and conspiracy charges.
November 8: Sitting Vice He is later convicted of
October 11: The first President George H. W. Bush is all counts.
issue of DC Comics’ elected the 41th President of the
next crossover event United States in a landslide victory
– Invasion! – goes over Democratic nominee Michael
on sale. Dukakis.
December 21: A
bomb causes a Pan
Am passenger jet
to explode over
Lockerbie, Scotland,
killing 270 people.
Years later, Libya
accepts responsibility
for the bombing.
November 30: Kohlberg Kravis
Roberts & Co. takes over RJR
Nabisco Inc. with a bid of $24.53
billion.
November 15: At the close of a four-day conference
in Algiers, The Palestine National Council proclaims
the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
September 17: The October 18: Batman #428 – the penultimate chapter
Summer Olympics begin of the “Death in the Family” story arc – goes on sale.
in Seoul, South Korea. In the issue Batman discovers the lifeless body of
Jason Todd. Robin is dead.
glut would produce casualties, both comics they were publishing and
among retailers and independent converted them to graphic novels in
publishers (McCubbin 6). hopes of saving the books. Eclipse,
In its defense Marvel claimed it First, and Fantagraphics all upped
wasn’t glutting the market; instead, their output in early 1988. The Amaz-
Marvel contended the entire indus- ing Heroes Preview Special announced
try was producing “a great diversity more than 140 graphic novels and
of product” (McCubbin 6). Bud Plant trade paperbacks scheduled for the
Distributors (before it was sold to first half of 1988.
Diamond) advised retailers to reduce
their stock of a greater range of titles Comics on the Screen
and to reorder best-sellers instead of While more comic-related material
getting stuck with large amounts of moved into mainstream bookstores
stagnant material. “As Marvel and DC like Barnes & Noble, Borders, and
put out more highly priced titles it Waldenbooks, the television and
sucks away money from less popular movie studios cast their eyes toward
independents,” Steve Bond, purchas- comic books too. Word reached fan-
ing manager for Bud Plant, told The dom that plans were underway for a
Comics Journal (McCubbin 6). But slew of Hollywood super-hero proj-
many independent publishers also ects, among them Iron Man, Wol-
got on board. The main goal was to verine, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four,
break into the expanding bookstore Daredevil, Elektra, The Flash, Sgt. Rock
market where a softcover book had a (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger),
better chance of selling than floppy Watchmen, and Superman V. And
periodicals. Slave Labor Graphics and they were all going to be live-action
Blackthorne both took conventional entertainment, not cartoons. While—
219
at least at the time—none of those
projects got off the ground, the rights
to the comic book properties were
optioned and studio discussions took
place. Some, like Watchmen, were
even scripted. Sam Hamm penned
that screenplay. He also wrote the
script for a movie that did go before
the lens in July of 1988: Batman. “Af-
ter eight years Batman is finally go-
ing to be made!” director Tim Burton
announced. “We’re not going to turn
this movie into a psychological poem.
The basic theme is along the lines of
‘Here’s a child who has a life-chang-
ing experience. Instead of getting
therapy, he deals with it by fighting
crime’” (Shapiro). Before shooting be-
gan, Burton mentioned that he and
Hamm struggled with whether or not
Robin should
star in the mov-
ie, but in the
end “we want to make this movie for
everybody so we decided to include
him” (Shapiro). Evidently, the Bat-
man script still had some revisions to
go through, since Robin didn’t appear
in the final film. Burton’s take on the
Dark Knight would swoop into the-
atres June 23, 1989.
Meanwhile, DC Comics’ other iconic
super-hero hit television screens in
the syndicated Superboy. Ilya Sal-
kind, the executive producer for Su-
perman I, II, & III, as well as Supergirl,
produced this series about Clark Kent
and Lana Lang as college students.
Clark attended the Siegel School of
Journalism at Shuster University.
The show lasted four seasons. John
Haymes Newton played Clark
during the show’s first sea-
son before being replaced
by Gerald Christopher for
the rest of the run. Stacy
Haiduk played
Lana
for
all four
seasons. The
show’s story was
set not in Kansas or a fic-
tional Metropolis but in Flor-
ida where production for the
show took place. Filming oc-
curred at both Disney/MGM
and Universal Florida.
ABC television had taken a
chance on a comic-based se-
ries in the fall of 1987 with
Sable, about a children’s book
writer who changes into a
costumed vigilante at night.
Based on First Comics’ Sable,
it was the first independent
comic to be adapted for
TV or film, but it was can-
celled in early 1988. An
early Saturday timeslot
didn’t help matters, but
creator Mike Grell also
had qualms about how
his creation was brought
to cinematic life: “Every
time they did something
stupid, I cringed; every
time they made a ma-
terial change in one of
my characters, it made
me want to hide my head.” Grell con-
ceded there was only so much control
he could have over the production
and was glad it wasn’t messed up too
badly (Kim Howard Johnson).
One indie comic that would eventual-
ly go on to have two TV series was the
super-hero parody The Tick. It first be-
came an animated show on Fox that
ran three seasons in the mid-1990s.
It then later became a short-lived—
though cult favorite—live-action
show on the same network in 2001.
Before all that happened, The Tick was
a 300-pound, 7-foot-tall, blue-suited
buffoon first created in 1986 as a mas-
cot for the New England Comics (NEC)
chain of comic stores by 18-year-old
cartoonist Ben Edlund. The Tick ap-
peared regularly in NEC’s newsletters
until 1988 when NEC gave the char-
acter his own comic book, publishing
The Tick #1. The issue was an instant
hit, somewhat ironic given the fact it
took Edlund a year and a half to write
and draw it. Speed was never Edlund’s
forte as he confessed years later, “I
strung The Tick fans along with a min-
imum amount of material—twelve is-
sues in five years” (Reber). He attribut-
ed the popularity of his creation to the
detail-orientated storylines and the
densely written humor: “each issue
that came out provided a reasonably
enjoyable experience for the reader”
(Reber).

Superboy, starring Stacy Haiduk as Lana Lang and John Haymes Newtown as the Boy of Steel,
premiered on syndicated television on October 8, 1988. Superboy TM and © DC Comics.

220

Ben Edlund originally created The Tick as a mascot for comic book retailer New England Comics.
Tick TM and © Ben Edlund.
Jim Shooter Takes Aim At Marvel
Despite his ouster from the company
in 1987 (or perhaps because of it), Jim
Shooter tried to buy Marvel Comics in
1988. He spent a “nightmarish” year
putting together a partnership of
investors, calling it a “full-time job”
(Thomas). At the time, New World En-
tertainment owned Marvel, having
acquired it in 1986 for $45.5 million.
As a Hollywood production company,
New World “garnered very limited
payoffs from made-for-television
movies featuring the Incredible Hulk
and other Marvel Comics superhe-
roes. New World had gone flat and
wanted to pump itself up with new
genres of TV and movies” (Raviv 11).
So New World went looking for buy-
ers, putting Marvel on the auction
block. Shooter and his investors of-
fered $81 million. Years later, Shooter
explained their intended business
plan:
We were going to liquidate
Marvel Studios and Marvel
Books. I could drop twelve
million dollars to the bottom
line like that, because those
operations were losing a for-
tune—and comics publish-
ing, my area, was making a
fortune. Comics were mak-
ing hand over fist money. The
British publishing did okay,
and I would’ve left them
alone for a while. Licens-
ing was a train wreck, and I
would’ve improved that. Any-
way, we had a good plan, and
we would’ve tried to bring
them all home. (Irving)
With his $81 million bid, Shooter
thought he’d won. He even signed a
letter of intent (Thomas). To hear his
account, the rug was pulled out from
under him at the last minute and
Marvel was sold behind his inves-
tors’ backs to Ron Perelman for $82.5
million: “[Perelman] was an insider,
because he owned 20% of New World
Entertainment. Legally, he needed an
‘arm’s length bid’ to be allowed to buy
Marvel, and we provided that, unwit-
tingly…. It was a totally corrupt deal”
(Irving).
An “arm’s length” transaction meant
that the buyer and seller are familiar
with each other or the property—in
this case Marvel—and therefore the
agreed upon price might differ from
fair market value. Since Shooter al-
ready ran the company once, it pro-
vided the loophole for Perelman to
make his winning bid.
It would be years later, when Marvel
entered bankruptcy proceedings in
the mid-1990s, before Shooter would
try to buy the company again. Before
then, though, Shooter would regain
industry prominence with a com-
pletely different publishing venture.
221
The Death Throes of the New Universe
In 1986, Jim Shooter brought Marvel’s
New Universe imprint to life and nur-
tured it as best as he could. Two years
later, the New U. was on life support.
Four of its inaugural eight titles—
Kickers, Inc., Mark Hazzard: Merc,
Nightmask, and Spitfire and the Trou-
bleshooters a.k.a. Codename: Spit-
fire—had been cancelled in 1987. The
newly appointed showrunner for the
New U., Howard Mackie, tried to re-
vive the line by recruiting some new
blood for the titles. He called a cre-
ator he considered a personal friend:
John Byrne. Mackie recounts, “That
was, honestly, one of the most absurd
phone calls I had ever made… I said,
‘You don’t have to give me an answer
now, but if you happen to think of
any Star Brand stories, let me know,’
and I hung up” (Dan Johnson 30). An
hour and a half later, Byrne called
back: “It turned out that indeed he
did have some stories in mind. That
was how I got John Byrne involved
with New Universe. All I needed to
do was plant the seed, leave it in a
dark room somewhere, and it would
sprout” (Dan Johnson 30).
That seed grew into a story that
would set the New Universe off into a
radical new direction: a graphic novel
titled The Pitt (March 1988). After By-
rne agreed to take over Star Brand, he,
Mackie, and New U. editor-in-chief
Mark Gruenwald got together one
day and sat on Byrne’s side porch to
throw around ideas. They discussed
how the Star Brand that affected
character Ken Connell could only
be passed along to animate objects.
As the men talked, they considered
what would happen if the Brand was
passed on to an inanimate object
(Dan Johnson 32).
In the story arc they brainstormed,
Connell learns that his recurring
nemesis, the Old Man, has been
branded, just like Connell. The brand,
however, has driven the Old Man in-
sane. To avoid the same fate, Connell
immediately decides to rid himself of
the Star Brand. He flies into space to
release the energy on the other side
of the moon, but on the way there, he
second-guesses himself and releases
the energy closer to Earth in case he
has difficulty trying to return from
outer space. While releasing the en-
ergy at the end of The Star Brand #12
(March 1988), Connell explodes in a
blinding ball of light, ten miles above
Pittsburgh. The Pitt graphic novel,
written by Byrne and Gruenwald
with art by Sal Buscema and Stan
Drake, continues from that point. It
shows Ken Connell’s released energy
erupting outward in a perfect 50 mile
diameter sphere. With 15 miles of de-
structive energy impacting the Earth,
the entire city of Pittsburgh and its
surrounding suburbs get annihilated.
In their place is a perfectly symmetri-
cal concave pit.
Many readers have interpreted the
fictional destruction of Pittsburgh in
The Pitt as a symbolic slight toward
Jim Shooter. Shooter grew up in Pitts-
burgh, and Star Brand was one of the
few comic books he wrote while serv-
ing as Marvel’s editor-in-chief. Given
this, many feel Byrne, Gruenwald,
and Mackie took the opportunity to
revenge themselves on their former
boss, a man who was known to have
strained relationships with several
Marvel staffers and freelancers dur-
ing his tenure. It is an assumption
Mackie refutes:
I know a lot has been read
into the changes we made
and that they were attempts
by us to take swipes at Jim
Shooter…. That really was not
my intent. We made sure that
anything we did was devel-
oped out of what had been
previously established with
the characters…. In terms of
blowing up Pittsburgh, it re-
John Byrne’s work on Star Brand led to The Pitt and The Draft graphic novels. Marvel’s New Universe line of titles was coming to an end.
ally was determined by the
way Jim chose to establish
the character in that town….
I can’t speak for John Byrne,
but I really had no issues with
Jim. Jim hired me, he gave me
my promotion… I think he did
a hell of a lot for Marvel and
the last thing in my mind
was to try and take a swipe at
him. (Johnson 32-3)
But if The Pitt wasn’t an attempt to
annoy Jim Shooter, it also didn’t suc-
ceed in reversing the New Universe’s
fortunes. Rather than bringing the
imprint back to prominence, The Pitt
instead laid the foundation for its
demise. The Pitt’s sequel, The Draft,
came out in the summer of 1988. It
shows the repercussions of the “Black
Event” as the United States govern-
ment reinstates the draft in order to
assemble soldiers with paranormal
abilities to fight the Soviet Union,
mistakenly believed to be the cause of
Pittsburgh’s destruction. Several char-
acters from cancelled New Universe
books sign up for the upcoming war.
Before that conflict gets underway,
the final issues of the New Universe’s
remaining titles—D.P.7, Justice, and
Psi-Force—were published, each with
the intriguing cover banner “#32 in a
thirty-two-issue limited series.” After
those issues were released, the four-
issue mini-series The War then got
underway. Written by Doug Murray
and drawn by Tom Morgan, The War
wrapped up dangling New Universe
storylines.
TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
222
As The War was being published,
Gruenwald announced in Marvel Age
#77 (Aug. 1989) that “the great exper-
iment known as the New Universe is
dead.” He provided several reasons
why the New Universe ultimately
failed, including the opinion that the
imprint was “too different, too off
the beaten track, for its own good.”
Elaborating, Gruenwald argued that
in abandoning super-hero costumes,
codenames and conflicts, the New
Universe titles became too unortho-
dox for a reader base that enjoyed
those genre conventions. Perhaps the
most damning assertion Gruenwald
made was that the New Universe was
ill-conceived: “The birth of the New
Universe was hyped to be a way to
celebrate the 25th anniversary of the
Marvel Universe, but it must be ad-
mitted that establishing a rival cos-
mos is a somewhat strange way to
celebrate a cosmos…. Asking readers
to love two universes may have been
too much to ask.”
Of course, Marvel was already offer-
ing its readers multiple fictional uni-
verses in the form of licensed prop-
erty adaptations. As the year began,
Bullwinkle and Rocky, Care Bears, four
different Conan books (Conan Saga,
Conan the Barbarian, Conan the King,
and Savage Sword of Conan), Elfquest,
The Flintstone Kids, Foofur, five G.I. Joe
books (G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero,
G.I. Joe Comics Magazine, G.I. Joe Spe-
cial Missions, G.I. Joe Yearbook, and
Tales of G.I. Joe), two Healthcliff the
cat books (Healthcliff and Healthcliff’s
Funhouse), Madballs, Mas-
ters of the Universe, Muppet
Babies, Star Comics Maga-
zine, ThunderCats, and
three Transformers comics
(Transformers, Transform-
ers Comics Magazine, and
Transformers: Headmas-
ters) filled the racks. Joining
them as the year went on
were Akira, ALF, ALF Comics
Magazine, Captain Justice
(from the short-lived TV
series Once a Hero), Count
Duckula, Elvira: Mistress of
the Dark, Fraggle Rock, G.I.
Joe: European Missions, Pin-
occhio & the Emperor of the
Night, Sledge Hammer, Who
Framed Roger Rabbit, and
an adaptation of George Lu-
cas’s Willow.
The vast majority of these
were children’s books pub-
lished under Marvel’s Star
imprint, but that corner of
the publishing powerhouse
folded after cover date Feb-
ruary 1988, and the books told the tale of the High
were absorbed under the parent Mar- Evolutionary and his
vel banner. quest to evolve mankind
into the supreme rulers
ALF even got his own Annual, one of the universe. First ap-
that (sort of) crossed over into the pearing in The Mighty
larger Marvel Universe. Thor #134 (Nov. 1966),
The High Evolutionary
The Evolutionary War was a master geneticist
Traditionally, Marvel’s annuals pre- named Herbert Edgar
sented a stand-alone story in the Wyndham who un-
form of a double-sized, double-priced locked the secret of evo-
comic book. The House of Ideas had lution and evolved him-
a unique plan for its 1988 annuals, self into a higher state,
however; they would all connect into becoming a godlike be-
one big story. The transparent pur- ing. He had run-ins with One of the developments of Marvel’s
11-part “Evolutionary War” was the
pose of this plan was to entice read- various Marvel characters over the introduction of Speedball (top left).
ers to purchase every annual in order years, but eventually he felt it neces- All characters TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

to read an entire story. The plan ob-
viously worked as inter-connecting
annuals would become the norm for
Marvel (as well as DC) for years to
come.
Starting in April and ending in July,
“The Evolutionary War” was pre-
sented across 11 annuals (X-Factor
Annual #3, Punisher Annual #1, Silver
Surfer Annual #1, New Mutants An-
nual #4, Amazing Spider-Man Annual
#22, Fantastic Four Annual #21, X-
Men Annual #12, Web of Spider-Man
Annual #4, West Coast Avengers An-
nual #3, Spectacular Spider-Man An-
nual #8, and Avengers Annual #17). It
sary to evolve everyone on Earth into
a god like himself. To do so, he plans
to set off a genetic bomb which the
Avengers race to stop. In a desperate
act, the Avengers use the High Evo-
lutionary’s own equipment to hyper-
evolve Hercules “beyond godhood.”
Hercules and the High Evolutionary
wage battle as both of them continue
to evolve, seemingly out of existence.
In the course of the “Evolutionary
War”, a new Marvel super-hero got in-
troduced in Amazing Spider-Man An-
nual #22. Robbie Baldwin is a teenag-
er who works part-time at Hammond
Laboratories. During an experiment,
Robbie accidentally gets bombarded
with a strange energy source. He
soon discovers he can generate ki-
netic energy as strange spheres form
around him, repelling any physical
attack against him. With his new
powers, Robbie chooses to become
the costumed crime-fighter named
Speedball.
Speedball was originally intended
for Jim Shooter’s New Universe im-
print. Tom DeFalco developed Speed-
ball while the New Universe was still
being put together. In fact, before
Shooter’s New Universe budget was

223
 Todd McFarlane drawn cover for the celebratory
Amazing Spider-Man #300.
Spider-Man TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
drastically cut by the Marvel execu-
tives above him, Speedball was one
of the few prospective titles that
had money spent on it, only to not
become part of the New Universe at
all (Cronin #23). Two years after the
debut of the New Universe, with De-
Falco now entrenched as Marvel’s ed-
itor-in-chief, Speedball finally made
his debut within the Marvel Uni-
verse. A mere two weeks after Amaz-
ing Spider-Man Annual #22 arrived in
stores, Marvel published Speedball:
The Masked Marvel #1 (Sept. 1988),
plotted and penciled by Steve Ditko,
scripted by Roger Stern, and inked by
Jackson Guice. Even though his series
would only last 10 issues, Speedball
would go on to become one of Mar-
vel’s most popular characters in the
1990s.
A tongue-in-cheek postscript to “The
Evolutionary War” came in the form
of ALF Annual #1, published two
weeks after Avengers Annual #17,
the final installment of the cross-
over event. ALF Annual #1 serves as
an unofficial “Evolutionary War”
tie-in where the High Evolutionary
meets ALF. (He’s much surprised to
learn of the existence of a Melmacian
on Earth.) As to not offend continu-
ity purists, the story was written so
it could be interpreted as a dream
sequence.
Todd McFarlane’s
Venomous Debut
But Marvel’s big-
gest 1988 attrac-
tion wasn’t an ALF
Annual or the introduc-
tion of Speedball or even the “Evo-
lutionary War.” Instead, that honor
went to Amazing Spider-Man and its
new artist Todd McFarlane. Hardly
a newcomer, McFarlane had been
drawing comic books since 1985,
most notably on DC’s Infinity Inc. and
Detective Comics’ “Batman: Year Two”
story arc. In 1987, Marvel paired him
up with writer Peter David on In-
credible Hulk before moving him to
Amazing Spider-Man with issue #298
(March 1988).
One of the first things McFarlane
wanted to do with his new assign-
ment was change the web-slinger’s
appearance. He described his goals
in an interview with Comics Scene
magazine:
“The biggest thing I saw in
looking through past Spider-
Man comics is once he got
into his costume, the artists
placed too much on the man
in Spider-Man. I’m trying to
224
place more on the spider, put
him in positions where he’s
triple-jointed and crouched. I
want to put him in positions
nobody else could ever get
into in the whole Marvel uni-
verse or comic books, period.
If you just saw him in silhou-
ette, you would still know
that he was Spider-Man”
(Dickholtz 32).
True to form, McFarlane’s Spider-Man
contorted and swung through New
York City unlike any previous version.
But McFarlane didn’t stop with Spider-
Man’s appearance; he also changed
how Mary Jane Watson looked. He
felt her original John Romita hippie-
era design desperately needed an
update. To that end, McFarlane made
Mary Jane more sexy and contempo-
rary, someone who truly looked like
a model. All told, McFarlane brought
a distinct, dynamic artistry that not

only made Amazing Spider-Man one
of the most visually appealing comic
books on the market but also quickly
propelled him to “superstar” status
within the industry. It was quite obvi-
ous in 1988 that Todd McFarlane was
destined to accomplish great work for
many years to come.
Amazing Spider-Man’s 300th anniver-
sary issue hit stores a few months af-
ter McFarlane began working on the
title. “People wanted a big thing,” edi-
tor Jim Salicrup said (Dickholtz 30).
Salicrup, though, didn’t want to force
an artificially created story onto the
celebratory issue. He wanted the sto-
ry to flow more organically from the
preceding issues. The previous year,
writer David Michelinie had started
a storyline in Web of Spider-Man
where someone was going to bond
with Peter Parker’s black alien sym-
biote costume. The symbiote hadn’t
been seen since Spider-Man defeated
it in a church in Web of Spider-Man
#1 (April 1985). This time, Michelinie
was going to have the symbiote bond
with a woman who hated Spider-
Man for fighting a gigantic creature
that stepped on her car as she and
her husband rushed to the hospital to
deliver her baby. Before he could ac-
225
Left: In this page from Amazing Spider-Man #300,
Eddie Brock reveals himself as Venom.
Above: an example of the unique contortions that
artist Todd McFarlane provided for Spider-Man.
Spider-Man and Venom TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
tually finish that storyline, Micheli-
nie left Web of Spider-Man. All for the
best, perhaps, as readers might con-
fuse a woman in the symbiote cos-
tume with Spider-Woman who wore
a similar black-and-white costume
(Dickholtz 31).
Michelinie instead dusted off his
discarded story for the build up to
Amazing Spider-Man #300. Someone
new would merge with the black
alien symbiote, someone who would
become one of Spider-Man’s most
famous nemeses: Venom. That some-
one turned out to be Eddie Brock, a
respected journalist who ruined his
reputation when his series of inter-
views with the villainous Sin-Eater
turned out to be bogus. (The real
Sin-Eater was captured by Spider-
Man.) According to Michelinie, Brock
was based on real-life New York
City reporter Jimmy Breslin, who
had been approached by someone
claiming to be the Son of Sam serial
killer during the notorious summer
of 1977. Brock’s disgrace sowed the
seeds of his hatred for Spider-Man.
He inadvertently enters the same
church that had been the symbiote’s
last battleground. Lured by Brock’s
intense feelings for Spider-Man, the
symbiote merges with him. Thus,
Venom is born.
And he looked like a monster. With
his mass and height and sharp teeth,
Venom was as visually nightmarish
as a super-villain can get. McFarlane
confessed that “the reason he has this
big, demonic smile is because when I
first drew Venom, I didn’t know there
was a man underneath the alien
costume” (Dickholtz 31). Regardless,
the look stuck, and Venom would be
plaguing everyone’s favorite web-
slinger for years to come.

The Death of the X-Men

Cover date 1988 launched with a ma-
jor X-title crossover. “The Fall of the
Mutants” played out between cover
dates January and March in Uncanny
X-Men #225-227, X-Factor #24-26, and
New Mutants #59-61, as well as tie-ins
with several other Marvel books—in-
cluding the popular Hulk vs. Wolver-
ine battle by Peter David and Todd
McFarlane in Incredible Hulk #340.
“The Fall of the Mutants” wasn’t se- Marc Silvestri drawn cover to Uncanny X-Men #227. “The Fall of the Mutants” story arc ends with the
rialized among all the titles; rather, world believing the X-Men have died. X-Men TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

the crossover was thematic as each
team dealt with a different threat. For
instance, X-Factor contended with
Apocalypse’s Four Horsemen, which
included former teammate Angel
(now called Archangel). The X-Men,
on the other hand, opposed a demon
who could only be stopped with their
own deaths.
The team goes to Dallas to search for
their missing member, Storm. While
there, they battle the Freedom Force,
a super-powered group of ex-cons
led by Mystique, now working for
the government. Freedom Force is
intent on pummeling the X-Men for
refusing to comply with the Mutant
Registration Act. During the battle,
Freedom Force member Destiny has
a vision that whoever is inside Eagle
Plaza at dawn will perish. Heroes that
they are, the X-Men enter anyway.
Storm, meanwhile, is on a quest of her
own: in search of her missing powers.
Her hunt takes her to a strange land
and Forge, a mutant who served in the
Vietnam War. During the war his en-
tire platoon was killed, save for him-
self. To take revenge, he cast a spell,
summoning the Adversary, who used
the nine souls of his dead comrades to
take the lives of their Vietcong killers.
Years later, that spell is still causing
havoc, as Dallas is overrun with di-
nosaurs, cavemen, Indians, and oth-
er assorted time-displaced warriors

226
and creatures. Forge gives Storm her
powers back, and the two of them
construct a gateway and try to return
to Dallas.
They end up captured by the Adver-
sary on Celestial Guardian Roma’s
Starlight Citadel. He wants to destroy
the world and remake it in chaos. To
stop him, Forge must recast his spell,
but it will take nine feely given souls
to do it. The eight X-Men (Storm, Wol-
verine, Colossus, Rogue, Havoc, Psy-
locke, Dazzler, Longshot), along with
Madelyne Pryor, Cyclops’s ex-wife, of-
fer themselves up. They die, and the
Adversary is stopped.
But then at the end of Uncanny X-Men
#227, Roma resurrects the nine he-
roes, saying that the X-Men are “en-
titled to a reward commensurate with
your sacrifice. You literally hold your
future, your fate, in your hands.” They
choose to go into hiding, allowing the
world to believe they are dead.
The mourners included two of their
teammates not involved in the bat-
tle: Shadowcat and Nightcrawler.
Even though these characters were
no longer part of the X-Men roster,
writer Chris Claremont had no inten-
tion of abandoning them. Doing so
would have left them to the whims
of other Marvel writers: “I knew if I
didn’t do anything with them, other
people would leap forward like rabid
wolves to heist them” (Sanderson 24).
Instead, Claremont joined the two
mutants with Rachel Summers (a.k.a.
Phoenix, who hadn’t been seen since
1986), Captain Britain (a character he
created in 1976), and Captain Brit-
ain’s changeling girlfriend Meggan,
to form the X-Men’s first foreign fran-
chise: Excalibur. Excalibur: Special
Edition (a.k.a. Excalibur: The Sword
is Drawn) establishes the new team
in Great Britain in a 48-page, square
bound one-shot, written by Clare-
mont and illustrated by Alan Davis
and Paul Neary. The book sold well a “cosmic comedy”—an appellation
enough to earn two additional print that surprised Davis. “I was told it was
runs and an ongoing series launched because my artwork was so comedic,
later in the year with Excalibur #1 and while it wasn’t my decision, there
(Oct. 1988) hitting the Direct Market. was a definite intention to put more
At the time, Davis told Comics Scene humor into Excalibur” (Andersen).
that “it was nice to be in on something One might wonder why Marvel didn’t
since its inception” and that “by start- simply continue its trend of putting
ing on Excalibur with issue #1, I was the letter “X” on X-Men spin-off titles
Top: Excalibur is formed in the
able to put a lot of myself into it” (An- and title this new book “X-Calibur.” final page of the Excalibur: Special
dersen). He must have, because editor The truth is that in 1988 someone else Edition one-shot (above).
Ann Nocenti started calling Excalibur owned the nearly identical name of Excalibur TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

227
“X-Caliber.” That some-
one happened to be
long-time Marvel scribe
Steve Englehart who cre-
ated a character named
“X-Caliber” for Coyote #6
(June 1984), which, iron-
ically enough, was pub-
lished by Marvel within
its creator-owned Epic
Comics imprint. As En-
glehart tells it:
I created “X-Cali-
ber” when having a
name like that was
no biggie. Then later,
Marvel decided they
had to own all such
names. They asked
me to give them the
rights. I proposed
they buy them.
They proposed not
giving me any more
work if I didn’t give
them the rights. But
I didn’t, so they cre-
ated “Excalibur.”
Later, at Valiant,
they were hassling
Shooter over “X-O
Manowar,” so I of-
fered to let him use
X-Caliber; leased
him the rights for a
buck. (Cronin)
Along with Uncanny
X-Men, New Mutants,
and X-Factor, Excalibur
became Marvel’s fourth monthly X-
Men-related title. Marvel now had
an X-Men comic book for every week
of the month. The proliferation of X-
Men titles didn’t hurt sales. In 1988,
Uncanny X-Men sold on average over
430,000 copies a month while X-Fac-
tor and Excalibur both averaged over
300,000 copies a month. While New
Mutants didn’t perform anywhere
near that well, its 210,000 monthly
average still made it one of Marvel’s
top sellers. Given this, one might
wonder why Marvel simply didn’t
publish more mutant books.
In 1988, Marvel did. For starters,
Marvel tried yet again to give two of
its most popular supporting charac-
ters their own ongoing series, this
time with the mutant theme more
emphasized; the title of the series
Welcome to Marvel’s Future
Marvel’s Epic imprint pub-
lished the first computer
generated graphic novel:
Iron Man: Crash. Back in
1985, artist Michael Saenz
drew First Comics’ Shatter
via an Apple Macintosh
computer. For Iron Man:
Crash, however, Saenz used
a computer not only to
draw but also to color and
letter. The graphic novel’s
back cover announces
“Welcome to the Future.”
It was both an indication
of an Iron Man story that
takes place in the future
and a prediction about
where comic book produc-
tion was headed. Through
the computer, people like
Saenz contended, tasks like
coloring, inking, and letter-
ing could be accomplished
more efficiently. Despite
the innovation, however,
computer generated comic
books didn’t immediately
catch on, perhaps because
the technology hadn’t
reached the point where it
could produce an aestheti-
cally pleasing art style.
On the other hand, very
Jim Lee drew over Carl Potts’ layouts in this
page from Punisher War Journal #2. few people were complain-
The Punisher TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. ing about the art found in
the new Punisher spin-off
was The Mutant Misadventures of title, Punisher War Journal.
Cloak and Dagger (the first issue even It was being produced by 24-year-old
guest-starred X-Factor). Meanwhile, Jim Lee, who got pulled off Alpha
Marvel’s most popular mutant, Wol- Flight by editor-turned-writer Carl
verine, headlined a new bi-weekly Potts. Unlike Alpha Flight, Punisher
anthology comic book titled Marvel War Journal helped Lee gain some
Comics Presents. He was the featured recognition, but it would be noth-
character until issue #10 when the ing like the recognition he would get
spotlight was moved on to fellow X- with the assignment Marvel gave
Man, Colossus. Along with his slot him in late 1989.
in MCP, Wolverine also got his own
ongoing title—written by Claremont Writer Doug Murray received a dif-
and drawn by John Buscema—that ferent kind of recognition. For his
began with a Casablanca/Terry and work on The ’Nam, the Brotherhood
the Pirates-inspired tale set in the Rally of All Veterans Organization
fictional Southeast Asian country of (BRAVO) bestowed Murray with the
Madripoor. “Best Media Portrayal of the Viet-
nam War” award, beating out Oliver
Marvel ended the year setting up the Stone and his Platoon film. The criti-
next X-Men mega-crossover, “Infer- cal (and sales) success of The ’Nam
no,” with Uncanny X-Men #239 (Dec. encouraged Marvel to publish a new
1988) and the X-Factor spin-off mini- war-themed series: Semper Fi’: Tales
series, X-Terminators. of the Marine Corps, written by Mi-
chael Palladino with art by John
228
Severin and Sam Glanzman. Unlike
The ’Nam, which featured the same
characters month after month, Sem-
per Fi’ featured different members
of the Whittier family month after
month, but in various time periods.
They were all involved in the Marine
Corps. Stories took place in all sorts of
military engagements, ranging from
the Revolutionary War to the then
current conflict in Nicaragua. Unfor-
tunately, the series couldn’t dupli-
cate The ’Nam’s success; it only lasted
nine issues.
DC Comics Straightens Out
Its Cover Dates
One of the goals DC Comics had for
1988 was bridging the gap between
its books’ cover dates and publication
dates. The three-month gap between
a comic book’s cover date and its ac-
tual publication date was intended
to extend the amount of time comic
books were displayed on the news-
stand before a dealer pulled them for
newer material. Since the Direct Mar-
ket had more efficient distribution
than the newsstand, Direct Market
retailers sometimes received the lat-
est comic books two or three weeks
sooner than newsstand dealers did.
That kind of quickness could extend
the gap between a comic book’s cov-
er date and publication date to four
months (Voiles). With the comic book
industry growing ever more reliant
on the Direct Market, there became
no good reason to have a three (or
four) month gap between an issue’s
cover date and its publication date.
Direct Market retailers didn’t return
unsold comic books; they moved
them to their back issue bins.
So DC set out to reduce the gap be-
tween an issue’s cover date and pub-
lication date to (at most) two months.
To accomplish this, DC had to remove
cover dates altogether from books
being sold in October and Novem-
ber of 1988. (Some titles displayed
the terms “Winter” and “Holiday” on
their covers.) DC comic books arriv-
ing in stores in December 1988 sub-
sequently had a January 1989 cover
date. This created the unique oddity
(or aggravation for comic book index-
ers) of two issues of every DC title
having neither a 1988 cover date nor
a 1989 one.
No Man DC Comic Escapes
the Manhunters
If DC ended cover date 1988 focused
on how its comic books were being la-
beled, it began cover date 1988 rolling
out its next annual crossover event.
Arguably, it was DC’s most logisti-
cally complicated crossover event to
date. It was an eight-issue mini-series
pitched by Steve Englehart titled Mil-
lennium, and the rub was that it was
Above: Joe Staton drawn cover to the first issue of
DC’s weekly event, Millennium.
Below: The first issue of DC’s promotional Focus
magazine focused on Millennium.
All characters TM and © DC Comics.
229
released weekly. That kind of pub-
lication schedule concerned many
within DC’s halls, as Englehart
acknowledged in an interview for
American Comic Book Chronicles:
“I remember [editor Andy
Helfer] and others were a
little dubious, for the same
reason Roy Thomas was dubi-
ous when I proposed [in 1973]
the bi-weekly Avengers/De-
fenders crossover: screw up
anywhere along the line and
everything goes off the rails.
But as I told Andy, as I told
Roy, that I wouldn’t screw it
up, and I didn’t. I really want-
ed to make that two-month
megastory as intense as it
could be.”
After Dick Giordano approved
Englehart’s proposal, Helfer hopped
on a plane to Houston, where Engle-
hart was attending his brother’s wed-
ding. The two of them holed up and
plotted a story outline. (In doing so,
Helfer also taught Englehart how to
spell the title of his comic book cor-
rectly. Englehart kept misspelling
“Millennium” as “Millenium,” and
he soon learned he wasn’t the only
one guilty of committing this error
(Englehart).) Millennium involved
one of the Guardians of the Universe
and his Zamaron mate arriving on
Earth to announce that they would
hand pick ten new Guardians to lead
mankind into the next stage of evo-
lution. Earth’s super-heroes are con-
signed to collect “the Chosen,” but
unbeknownst to them, the Manhunt-
ers—an interstellar robot force cre-
ated by the Guardians but believed
destroyed—have been operating
undercover as “sleeper agents,” pa-
tiently waiting for the opportunity
to attack the Chosen before they can
be gathered. Many of the disguised
Manhunters are revealed to be reg-
ular supporting characters of the
DC Universe, including Superman’s
childhood sweetheart Lana Lang, the
Flash’s father, and one of the newest
members of the Justice League, Rock-
et Red. As they reveal themselves, the
Manhunters vow “No Man Escapes
the Manhunters!,” and the super-
heroes are tasked with stopping them
before they can succeed in sabotag-
ing the Guardian’s plans.

1988 house ad promoting DC’s Millennium
spin-off series, The New Guardians.
TM and © DC Comics.
Over the course of two months, nearly
the entirety of DC’s super-hero line
of titles tied into Millennium. Like
Marvel’s “Evolutionary War” cross-
over, Millennium was intended to en-
tice readers to purchase not only the
mini-series but as many other comic
books that tied into the mini-series as
well. Again, for American Comic Book
Chronicles, Englehart explained his
objectives:
“What I wanted to do was
really turn DC into one long
story for the duration of the
series. I set about working out
how every DC series could fit
together into the two-month
run, and I was completely
aware that I would be ask-
ing other writers to do some
bending to make it work, so I
kept things as loose as possi-
ble and opened myself to any
and all feedback. Most of the
writers gave me feedback and
I made sure to accommodate
them, reworking the plot as
necessary to make everybody
happy. What surprised me
was one writer, *cough* John
Byrne *cough*, who told me
he wasn’t going to play at all.
He would do whatever he felt
like.”
Evidently, Byrne did capitulate, as he
wrote Millennium tie-in issues for
Action Comics, Adventures of Super-
man, and Superman. A few other DC
titles were left out of the Millennium
event, though, mainly the ones la-
beled “Suggested For Mature Audi-
ences”: The Question, Vigilante, and
Swamp Thing. As Englehart explained
in a text piece printed in Millennium
#5, “The logic, I think, is pretty obvi-
ous: you don’t want to say to an eight-
year-old, ‘You’re not supposed to read
Swamp Thing’ and then hand him an
issue of Millennium that says ‘You
have to read Swamp Thing.’”
Because of all the tie-ins, the Millen-
nium mini-series reads a bit disjoint-
ed: one issue ends with characters
rushing off, and the next issue
begins with them all back in the fold.
Dialogue and flashbacks admirably
try to fill in gaps, but Millennium
seems incomplete when read on its
own. However, the problems Engle-
hart had working out the Millennium
narrative pale in comparison to the
problems the entire creative team
had in finishing each issue on sched-
ule. Production began later than it
needed to for an eight-issue series be-
ing released over eight weeks. Joe Sta-
ton was removed from Green Lantern
Corps—a book written by Englehart—
so he could pencil Millennium. In an
interview conducted for American
Comic Book Chronicles, Staton recalls:
“For starters, I was brought
onto Millennium late. And
then there’s the fact that it
was a company-wide event. It
had so many different parts,
and it was all being done
by the seat of our pants. For
some reason, while we were
doing all this, a lot of the char-
acters’ costumes got changed,
and I would find out too late,
so [inker Ian Gibson] would
have to make changes to the
pages. But then the costumes
would change again once Ian
sent the pages to DC’s produc-
tion department. So many
pages were made up of photo-
stats. I don’t think it was the
finest hour for me or Ian or
anyone else associated with
that mini-series, but it was
truly a triumph for DC’s pro-
duction department to put
together so many pieces and
get these books out on time.”
230
As Millennium unfolds, the Chosen ten
gets whittled down to six. As a group,
they accept the offer to lead mankind
and they become the New Guardians.
Englehart originally wanted to call
them something else, “I wanted to
call them Trumps, but DC was afraid
The Donald would object, so the name
was changed.” The group’s member-
ship embodied different races, sexes,
and orientations. Extraño, a Peruvian,
became the first openly gay super-
hero in comics. The group’s epony-
mous ongoing title reunited the
Millennium creative team of Engle-
hart and Staton and debuted cover
date September 1988. Englehart
wanted the comic book to be progres-
sive in its tone and subject matter, but
he found himself at odds with his edi-
tor, Helfer, as well as Dick Giordano:
“[New Guardians] was sup-
posed to be an advance in
comics comparable to Coy-
ote—the next step in a more
realistic approach to super-
heroes—and to that end I got
a promise from the highest
powers at DC that I could do
sex, drugs, and politics, un-
hindered. I put all those into
the first issue and they were
taken out. I went to [Dick
Giordano] who’d given me
the promise, and he reneged.
So I walked away.” (Englehart)
Englehart only wrote the first issue
of New Guardians and plotted the
second. Cary Bates took over the writ-
ing chores for the series which subse-
quently only lasted 12 issues.
Superman’s 50th Birthday
1988 marked the 50th anniversary
of the first appearance of Superman
in Action Comics #1 (June 1938), and
the promotion machine of DC’s par-
ent company, Time Warner, went into
overdrive to celebrate it. On February
26, DC rented part of Manhattan’s
Puck Building to throw a Superman
birthday party. In attendance were
DC’s publisher and president Jen-
ette Kahn, its executive vice presi-
dent Paul Levitz, retired editor Julius
Schwartz, long-time Superman artist
Curt Swan, and then New York City
mayor Ed Koch. Several thousand fans
paid $12 (or $6 for children aged 12
and under) to watch Superman film
clips, eat cake, and reminisce about
their favorite comic book character.
Part of the proceeds was donated to
the National Foster Parent Associa-
tion because as Kahn noted during the
event “Superman is the world’s most
famous foster child” (McKernan).
Three days later, on February 29—
Superman’s “official” birthday—CBS
broadcast a prime-time special titled
“Superman’s 50th Anniversary: A Cel-
ebration of the Man of Steel,” hosted
by comedian Dana Carvey. Through
June the National Museum of Ameri-
can History exhibited Superman com-
ics alongside one of Lois Lane’s old
dresses from the 1950s TV
show (Goulart). Other
celebrations took place
at Washington D.C.’s
Smithsonian Institute, which held
the awkwardly-phrased “Supermano-
bilia” exhibition. Metropolis, Illinois
refurbished its large Superman stat-
ue that proclaims it as “Superman’s
hometown,” while in Cleveland, the
hometown to Superman creators
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, a non-
profit organization calling itself “The
Neverending Battle” sponsored an
“International Superman Exhibition”
from June 16 to June 19. Unfortunate-
ly, attendance for the expo fell way
below expectations, forcing the Nev-
erending Battle’s president—comic
book writer Tony Isabella—to
liquidate the organization
(McCubbin 11). Perhaps
most notably of all, Time
magazine featured Super-
man in its March 14th is-
Above: The March 14, 1988 issue of Time magazine
sue with an Otto Friedrich featured a cover story about the 50th anniversary of
article that commented Superman’s first appearance in Action Comics #1.
Below: The opening pages to the Time article that
on the history of the Man of includes artwork John Byrne and Jerry Ordway drew
Steel. The John Byrne drawn cover to just for the magazine.
the issue declares “He’s 50!” Superman TM and © DC Comics.
Byrne, of course, remained the fea-
tured architect of the Superman
comic books, continuing to write and
231

Supergirl (sort of) returned to the DC Universe
in Superman #21—the first chapter in the
“Supergirl Saga” story arc.
Superman and Supergirl TM and © DC Comics.
draw both Superman and the Super-
man team-up book, Action Comics. As
cover date 1988 began, writ-
ing duties for the Marv
Wolfman-vacated
Adventures of Su-
perman were
added to By-
rne’s workload.
By this point,
readers were all
too familiar with
how different the
rebooted version of
Superman was from
the version that pre-
ceded it: Lex Luthor
was now a cunning
businessman,
Clark’s foster
parents were
still alive,
Lana Lang
knew Clark’s
secret iden-
tity, Super-
man never
a dv e n t u r e d
as Superboy, etc. De-
spite all these changes,
some fans, correspond-
ing through the letter
columns, held onto
the hope that their
beloved Kara Zor-
El—the Supergirl
who died in Crisis
on Infinite Earths
#7—would be re-
introduced in this new
Superman mythos.
And Byrne fueled that hope
in the build-up to perhaps
the most memorable Su-
perman story of 1988: the
three-issue “Supergirl Saga,”
published in Superman #21-22
(Sept.-Oct. 1988) and The Adventures
of Superman #444 (Sept. 1988). The
first hint that Supergirl could be re-
turning came on the final page of Su-
perman #16 (April 1988) where a fa-
miliar looking female gets unearthed
from Antarctic ice. She’s unconscious
yet dressed like the Man of Steel. Af-
ter recovering with scientists for a
few issues, she flies off toward Small-
ville to find Superman. When Kal-El
first sees her in Superman #21, he
grabs the young woman’s ankle and
says, “Great Guns! A flying woman
232
Superman #22—in which the Man of Steel
executes three genocidal Kryptonians—would be the
last issue of John Byrne’s tenure on the title.
Superman TM and © DC Comics.
in a variation of my costume! Is it…
some kind of illusion…?” On the next
page she introduces herself as Super-
girl, but then morphs into Lana Lang,
proving she has chameleon-like pow-
ers. Evidently, this is not Kara Zor-El
somehow brought back to life. In-
stead, this Supergirl is a protoplas-
mic entity (“a matrix”) created by
the Lex Luthor from the same Pocket
Universe where the Legion of Super-
Heroes found their Superboy.
Indeed, Supergirl needs Superman
to return with her to the Pocket Uni-
verse Earth which is being destroyed
by three Kryptonian villains (includ-
ing General Zod) who were acciden-
tally freed from their Phantom Zone
captivity. Unfortunately, Superman
and Supergirl arrive too late: Gen-
eral Zod and his companions have al-
ready burned away the Earth’s atmo-
sphere, effectively annihilating the
planet’s population. After a pitched
battle, Superman is able to depower
the rogue Kryptonians through the
use of Gold Kryptonite. Vowing to
the dying Pocket Universe Lex Luthor
that he won’t let the three criminals
commit genocide ever again, Super-
man performs the harshest act he’s
ever done: he decides to act as judge,
jury, and executioner by exposing the
rogues to Green Kryptonite. Fighting
amongst themselves and pleading for
their lives, the three Kryptonians die.
Superman killed them. He returns to
his own Earth, and after putting Su-
pergirl in the care of his adoptive par-
ents, Superman flies off to reflect on
his actions.
John Byrne had been doing some re-
flecting of his own. After completing
the “Supergirl Saga,” he quit. Years
later, Byrne used four words to ex-
plain why he ended his two-year
association with both Superman
and DC Comics: “The fun was gone”
(Thomas). He was worn down. He
described his time on Superman as a
“death of a thousand cuts” and the fi-
nal cut was the aforementioned Time
magazine article (Cooke 51). The way
Byrne looked at it, Time and DC Com-
ics were “sister” publications as both
were owned by Time/Warner. Given
this, Byrne bristled when he read
Time’s article about Superman, espe-
cially when its author, Otto Friedrich,
described Byrne’s version of Super-
man as “the most radical alteration.”
Friedrich also openly criticized By-
rne’s attempt to modernize the most
iconic of super-heroes for a more ma-
ture audience:
“There is in this a deplorable
element that might be called
adultification, in which a fig-
ure created for children is
subjected to adult concerns,
much as though Tom Sawyer
or Alice in Wonderland were
updated by being made to
confront sexual problems….
DC Comics is delighted that
its newest Superman has
doubled sales, to 200,000,
but that is a relatively paltry
number compared with the
millions who cherish an older
image from their childhood.”
(Friedrich 74)
Byrne could only read the article and
sarcastically think of Time, “Gee,
guys, thanks for your support” (Cooke
51). But it wasn’t just Time magazine
that Byrne had a problem with. He
also felt that DC Comics didn’t fully
support him, not even at the very
start of his run: “DC hired me to re-
vamp Superman, and then immedi-
ately chickened out. They backed off
at the first whiff of fan disapproval,
which came months before anyone
had actually seen the work” (Thom-
as).
With Byrne gone, writer Roger Stern was cancelled with issue #224 (May
and artist Kerry Gamill became the 1988), but Englehart didn’t want to
new collaborators on Superman, be confined to the cramped space the
while Adventures of Superman artist anthology stipulated: “We’d been do-
Jerry Ordway assumed writing chores ing two or three-full-issue arcs, with
on that book as well. Meanwhile, the a large cast of characters and cosmic
book behind all the birthday celebra- sweep and grandeur. Joe Staton and
tions, Action Comics, went under the I talked it over and decided that we
knife for some radical changes of its couldn’t do the GLC we wanted to do
own. in seven page segments, so we bailed.
Basically, we were the victims of our
Action Comics Weakly Weekly own success.”
In a statement to Comics Buyer’s Adventure Comics Weekly was a go
Guide, Giordano explained that the until Byrne’s departure altered DC’s
success of Millennium earlier in the plans. Rather than keep Action Com-
year led DC to believe it could pull off ics as a Superman team-up book (or
another weekly comic, adding that restore it as a solo Superman title),
readers were eager for “a series that DC decided to transfer its anthology
they can buy and read each week, plans to Action Comics. With its 601st
every week” (Myers 1). To that end, issue, then, Action Comics became
DC launched a weekly anthology— Action Comics Weekly with an ini-
each 48-page issue containing six tial line-up that consisted of Green
stories—and Mike Gold was tapped Lantern, Deadman, Blackhawk, Se-
to edit it. Gold promptly dispersed cret Six, and the new vigilante Wild
the individual fea-
tures to several
other editors (Den-
ny O’Neil, Mike
Carlin, Barbara
Randall, among
others) in order to
manage the dead-
lines.
According to Gold,
DC’s original title
for the anthology
was Adventure
Comics Weekly (Le-
ong). The book’s
main attraction
was going to be
Green Lantern. In
an interview for
American Comic
Book Chronicles,
Green Lantern
Corps writer Steve
Englehart said
that Dick Gior-
dano told him
that because of
GLC’s success—its
sales had doubled
during Englehart
and Joe Staton’s
run—DC wanted
to make Green
Lantern the lead
feature of the new
anthology. Green
Lantern Corps With its 601st issue, Action Comics became a weekly anthology.
All characters TM and © DC Comics.
233
Dog. Of course, even as an anthol-
ogy, Action Comics wouldn’t be Ac-
tion Comics without the character
that anchored it for 50 years, so Gold
tasked Mike Carlin to edit a two-page
Superman strip—written by Roger
Stern and drawn by Curt Swan—that
would be an ongoing feature of the
book.
Superman and Green Lan-
tern would be the only
long-term features of Ac-
tion Comics Weekly. The
other characters would
be replaced as their story
arcs finished. Later issues
of the anthology starred
Black Canary, Phantom
Stranger, Catwoman,
Nightwing & Speedy
(billed both together and
separately), Starman,
Captain Marvel, Demon,
Phantom Lady, Hero Hot-
line, and Human Target.
True to any anthology,
some stories were stron-
ger than others; forget-
table and memorable
material was mixed in to-
gether. Gold said that the
book’s multiple editors
helped from an organiza-
tional standpoint but ulti-
mately led to Action Com-
ics Weekly not having “a
firm identity”: “if I had to
do it all over again, I think
I’d put it in the hands
of one very tight edito-
rial team which shared
a strong common vision
and had no other respon-
sibilities” (Leong).
Gold himself would describe the
contents of Action Comics Weekly as
“skittish.” Perhaps that’s one reason
why the anthology never caught on
with readers. In 1988, Action Comics
Weekly sold on average just under
98,000 copies per issue. That’s al-
most half the number of copies Ac-
tion Comics sold in 1987 as a Super-
man team-up book (181,000 copies
per issue). DC personnel were quickly
coming to the conclusion that Action
Comics Weekly might be more trouble
than it was worth, especially given
the oppressive grind involved in pro-
ducing a weekly publication. Mark
Waid became one of the anthology’s
editors later in the year, and making second feature,” written and drawn
sure the book got to press on time by fledgling comic book profession-
was a responsibility that gave him als. A “Johnny DC” editorial even
nightmares for years to come. De- touted these inserts as “where tomor-
scribing Action Comics Weekly as a row’s megastars are making their de-
comic book with “an unintentionally but.” While that was the hype, the re-
doubly fitting title,” Waid remarked ality depended on one’s perspective.
“just about the time the beleaguered Of all the Bonus Book contributors,
the true newcomers who
went on to have notable
professional careers were
writers Tom Joyner and
Hank Kanalz and artists
Jim Balent, Dean Haspiel,
Gordon Purcell, and Rob
Liefeld.
In fact, according to John-
ny DC, Rob Liefeld “wowed
everyone” with his Bo-
nus Book work in Warlord
#131 (Sept. 1988). The
same year, the 20-year-old
California native also drew
pin-ups for Who’s Who in
the Legion of Super-Heroes,
the cover to Checkmate #3,
and a Nightshade story for
Secret Origins #28. His first
extended professional as-
signment was DC’s Hawk
& Dove mini-series, which
debuted cover date Octo-
ber 1988. The series sold
well, in no small part due
to Liefeld’s energetic art-
work, which showed the
potential for greatness.
The young artist was al-
ready attracting his fair
share of admirers.
But not everyone was a
fan. An editorial com-
ment in the letter column
of Hawk & Dove #5 claims
Liefeld “showed some-
1988 house ad promoting DC Comics’ Hawk & Dove
mini-series, written by Karl and Barbara Kesel and thing new to an editor who thought
drawn by newcomer artist, Rob Liefeld. he’d seen everything.” The comment
Hawk & Dove TM and © DC Comics.
goes unelaborated, leaving readers in
production department was finally the dark as to its meaning. The anon-
readying its torches and rakes, wiser ymous editor was Mike Carlin who
heads finally realized that the com- was perplexed by Liefeld’s decision to
pany’s internal resources might best draw parts of Hawk & Dove #5—the
be served (might best live to see 1989) parts that take place in the “Chaos
if Action Comics Weekly were relegat- Dimension”—sideways. When Car-
ed to that age-old honorific of Noble lin asked for an explanation for his
Experiment” (Waid). “landscape” layouts, Liefeld told him
that Erik Larsen drew the Chaos Di-
One of DC’s previous Noble Experi- mension in that fashion for a recent
ments, New Talent Showcase, was re-
issue of Doom Patrol. Unmoved, Car-
vived in 1988 in the form of a “Bonus lin cut and re-rotated the landscape
Book” program. Throughout the year,
panels to lay them out in the usual
various DC titles had a “free 16-page vertical manner. The pages were then
234
sent on to Karl Kesel for inking
(Cronin 36). This would hardly
be the last time Rob Liefeld became
the subject of controversy.

DC Writers Across The Pond

While new DC talent was being
showcased in the Bonus Books, DC
brass continued looking across the
Atlantic Ocean for new creators,
and a Scottish writer by the name of
Grant Morrison caught their atten-
tion. Hardly a novice by 1988, Mor-
rison had been a professional comic
book scribe since the late 1970s. His
work had been published by a num-
ber of smaller UK imprints—includ-
ing Galaxy Media (Near Myths) and
DC Thomson (Starblazer)—as well as
by Marvel UK (Spider-Man and Zoids
and Doctor Who Magazine). But it
was his work on the 2000 AD serial
“Zenith” that really impressed DC.
Morrison was subsequently asked by
DC to pitch stories with a particular
Above: Grant Morrison’s
focus on updating “dusty first work for DC Comics
old characters languish- was Animal Man.
Below left: Final page from
ing in DC’s back catalogue” Animal Man #5 introduced
(Morrison 3). A DC contin- the metatextual
theme to the series.
gent flew to London, and TM and © DC Comics.
Morrison brainstormed
ideas on the train en route
to his meeting with them.
He had already worked out
an Arkham Asylum pitch,
and as the English land-
scape rolled by, his “fever-
ishly overstressed brain”
came up with one other,
Animal Man:
This minor charac-
ter from the pages of
Strange Adventures in
the ’60s had always,
for heaven only knows DC accepted
what murky reason, both of Mor-
fascinated me and, rison’s pitches.
as the train chugged Arkham Asylum
through a picturesque wouldn’t see the light
landscape of Tudor of day until 1989 while
houses and smiling Animal Man received a green
bobbies on bicycles, I light for a four-issue mini-
began to put together series starting cover date
a scenario involving an September 1988. DC was so
out-of-work, married- impressed by Morrison’s ini-
with-children, third- tial scripts, however, that
rate super-hero who the decision was almost im-
becomes involved with mediately made to promote
animal rights issues Animal Man into an ongoing
and finds his true voca- title. Morrison consciously
tion in life. (Morrison 3) wrote the first four issues
of Animal Man in the “Alan
235

Above: In 1988 the anti-heroic John Constantine
got his own series, Hellblazer. Top: Credit panel
from Hellblazer #9.
Hellblazer TM and © DC Comics.
Moore” style, which meant poetic
captions and fancy transitions be-
tween scenes, but with Animal Man
#5, “The Coyote Gospel,” things
changed dramatically.
The series’ animal rights preoccupa-
tion continues here but this becomes
the first of several issues where Ani-
mal Man sits back and observes other
characters’ stories, passively witness-
ing or actually failing to effect any
change in the narratives. “The Coyote
Gospel” (which was nominated for an
Eisner Award for Best Single Issue in
1989) tells the story of an anthropo-
morphic coyote, modeled on Wile E.
Coyote, who confronts his animator/
creator and is condemned to exist and
suffer in the “real world” in the same
way he did in the cartoons. Crafty the
Coyote can’t be killed no matter how
violent and painful the damage he
suffers. At the same time, he is being
hunted by a delusional truck driver
who thinks Crafty is the devil.
But what could have ended there as
a commentary on violence in media,
animal rights, or any number of other
236
topics, Morrison opens up with the
first volley in what will be the guid-
ing thematic approach to his Animal
Man run. The final page of the issue
begins with a close-up on Crafty as
he dies, killed by a silver bullet, with
Animal Man kneeling over him. Each
consecutive panel pulls back to re-
veal that Crafty is lying in a crucifix-
ion pose at a crossroads. And the final
two panels present the artist’s brush
filling in the red of Crafty’s blood in
the panel, revealing to the reader
that Animal Man exists in a narrative
reality exactly the same as Crafty’s
original world. Crafty’s story is actu-
ally a microcosm of Morrison’s entire
Animal Man run.
This metatextual approach of telling
the story of a comic book character
who slowly begins to realize that he’s
a comic book character was, accord-
ing to Morrison, inspired by the 1960s
Flash adventure where the Flash
“would get on his cosmic treadmill
and turn up on Earth-Prime or wher-
ever and meet Julius Schwartz in the
DC office. That idea was present, but
they never really explored it and they
didn’t ally it to things that were go-
ing on in literature or films” (Hasted
61). Building up the metatextuality
and taking it seriously, especially in
the context of a comic company that
had just a few years earlier destroyed
entire narrative universes in order to
streamline continuity, turned Animal
Man into one of the decade’s most
ground-breaking comic books.
DC recruited a different British
writer for a new series starring John
Constantine: Hellblazer. DC origi-
nally planned to title the comic book
Hellraiser, but an alternative had to
be used after Clive Barker’s Hellraiser
movie came out in September of 1987
(Carroll). Constantine first appeared
in Saga of the Swamp Thing #37 (June
1985) as an incidental character
written by Alan Moore. Much like
Grant Morrison, Hellblazer writer
Jamie Delano says he was wined and
dined by DC brass during one of their
visits to England. As Delano saw it,
he had the right nationality for the
Hellblazer job:
“Either [DC Comics] or Alan
[Moore], I’m not sure which,
were responding to some
popularity of the Constantine
character in Swamp Thing,
 and decided they’d risk spin-
ning him off into a monthly
series of his own. Alan didn’t
want to write it, he wanted
to get on with his Watchmen
and various other projects,
and they wanted a British
writer because it was a British
character, and he’d be mainly
UK-based, and fortunately
I was offered the chance to
have a crack at it.” (Carroll)
With its cynical preoccupation with
contemporary British politics and
culture, Hellblazer was as much
about Great Britain as it was about
the demons and obscene supernatu-
ral terrors it featured in its stories.
Unquestionably, though, Hellblazer’s
principal allure was the anti-heroic
Constantine, a foul-mouthed, arro-
gant “tosser” who nonetheless man-
ages to make a lot of friends. Not
that being John Constantine’s friend
actually helped anyone. It usually
only meant the assurance of an ear-
ly death. As such, Constantine holds
himself responsible for his friends’
miseries. Despite any (momentary)
noble intentions he may have, Con-
stantine almost always just makes
matters worse.
Unlike Constantine’s friends, Hell-
blazer would go on to have a long life.
Its popularity was instrumental in
the formation of a new DC Comics’
imprint in the early 1990s.
cluding a T-Shirt, a blood-splattered
smiley-face watch, and a portfolio of
artwork. Actually, according to DC,
they weren’t truly selling Watchmen
“merchandise”; instead, DC claimed
to be selling Watchmen “promotion-
al items.” The word choice wasn’t
just a matter of semantics. It meant
the difference between the Watch-
men creators—Moore and Dave Gib-
bons—being owed royalty payments
for the sale of all Watchmen-related
“merchandise” and being owed noth-
ing for the sale of Watchmen “pro-
motional items.” Moore and Gibbons
argued DC was in violation of their
contract, and to appease the creators,
DC offered a 1.6% “gratuity” to be split
between them. When Moore and Gib-
bons wouldn’t drop their complaint,
DC relented and paid them the con-
tracted 8% royalties (Plowright 20).
The matter only left Moore with a
bad taste in his mouth, so much so
that in the aftermath he declared his
independence from DC Comics: “I’m
now eager to put mainstream comics
behind me as far as possible” (Plow-
right 20). To that end, he started up
Mad Love Publications with his wife
Phyllis and their mutual lover Deb-
bie Delano. Its first publication was a
76-page, black-and-white anthology
titled AARGH! (Artists Against Ram-
pant Government Homophobia) that
included contributions from such tal-
ents as Los Bros Hernandez, Steve Bis-
sette, Rick Veitch, David Lloyd, Dave
Gibbons, Bill Sienkiewicz, Harvey
Pekar, Art Spiegelman, Neil Gaiman,
Dave Sim, Robert Crumb, Brian Bol-
land, and Frank Miller, among many
others. As a non-profit publication,
AARGH!’s raison d’etre was to oppose
“Clause 28,” a controversial attempt
to outlaw the promotion of homo-
sexuality by local British authorities.
But as Moore was moving on to that,
he was also fulfilling his remaining
DC Comics obligations. Fortunately
for Moore, one project was already
finished, a 48-page Prestige format
one-shot that would become recog-
nized as one of the greatest Batman
stories ever published: Batman: The
Killing Joke. Ostensibly, The Killing
Joke is the Joker’s origin story, but
not one which completely discarded
continuity as readers were becom-
ing accustomed to in the post-Crisis
DC universe. Instead, The Killing Joke
embellishes the Joker’s “Red Hood”
beginnings that were first presented
in 1951’s Detective Comics #168. As
the Joker recounts his own origin, he
never reveals his true name but he
does provide details about his former
(now deceased) pregnant wife and
his previous unremarkable life as a
floundering comedian. Forced by his
accomplices to put a red dome over
his head, he tries to do one big job to

No More Moore?
While Grant Morrison and Jamie
Delano became the latest members
of DC’s “British Invasion,” the British
creator who essentially inaugurated
that invasion was now leaving DC for
good. That’s because Alan Moore no
longer respected (or trusted) the com-
pany that had been publishing his
work for the past four years: “I’ve al-
ways known how greatly comic book
creators have been abused by pub-
lishers, but it’s only recently that I’ve
begun to feel it” (Plowright 20). The
bottom line was that Moore wasn’t
satisfied with how DC resolved its
dispute with creators over its pro-
posed implementation of a ratings
system in 1987. To that moral insult,
DC added financial injury.
Over the course of several weeks in
January 1988, DC released a vari- Two 1988 house ads promoting the final two works Alan Moore would produce for DC Comics:
The Killing Joke and V for Vendetta. TM and © DC Comics.
ety of Watchmen merchandise, in-
237

The controversial final page from Batman: The Killing Joke.
TM and © DC Comics.
score the money he needs to support
his family. But everything gets bun-
gled, and in order to escape from the
Batman, he jumps into a chemically
polluted river. When he surfaces, he
finds himself permanently disfig-
ured… and insane. He’s become The
Joker. That’s at least the story as told
by the Joker, and whether or not he
is a reliable narrator is up for debate.
Indeed, the Joker himself casts doubt
on his own truthfulness. As The Kill-
ing Joke reaches its climax, the Joker
surmises the Batman has suffered a
tragedy in his past, and as the Joker
draws out the similarities between
their lives, he says, “Something like
that happened to me, you know. I…
I’m not exactly sure what it was.
Sometimes I remember it one way,
sometimes another… If I’m going to
have a past, I prefer it to be multiple
choice!”
Through his origin story, the Joker
stresses how one bad day turned
him criminally insane. But the Joker
238
doesn’t consider himself unique. He
theorizes that one bad day can turn
anyone insane. To that end, he choos-
es Commissioner Gordon as his test
subject and, in one of the most con-
troversial events in comics history, he
shoots Gordon’s daughter Barbara at
pointblank range through the spine.
Batgirl (as she is known to us) be-
comes paralyzed. Joker then strips
her nude and takes photos. Next he
kidnaps Gordon and takes him to a
re-jiggered amusement park. Strip-
ping the bereaved father naked, the
Joker forces the commissioner to
see the photos he took of the bleed-
ing and naked Barbara in an attempt
to drive Gordon crazy. But Gordon
doesn’t succumb to madness, and
the Batman arrives to apprehend the
Joker. With the police on the way, Bat-
man offers to help cure the Joker’s in-
sanity if only to stop the two of them
from inevitably killing each other.
But the Joker declines by telling a
joke that re-emphasizes the insanity
of both of their lives. And the story
ends with the two of them laughing
hysterically at each other.
It’s an ending that has troubled many
readers. To have Batman laugh with
his archenemy after the Joker shot
one of his closest friends and trau-
matized another seems grossly out of
character. Other readers found fault
with the story’s violence, consider-
ing it gratuitous. One critic even de-
clared the story “sadistic to the core”
(Packer 210). And then there was the
matter of what happened to Barbara
Gordon. A popular supporting char-
acter had been crippled, perhaps
even permanently. Since The Killing
Joke was published as a one-shot, un-
connected to any of the monthly Bat-
man titles, DC could have assuaged
any reader outrage by simply declar-
ing The Killing Joke as apocryphal, a
tale that wasn’t going to be included
in Batman’s ongoing continuity. DC
chose instead to do the opposite. The
crime-fighting heroine was officially
retired in Batgirl Special #1, written
by Barbara Randall, penciled by Bar-
ry Kitson, and published exactly one
week before The Killing Joke’s release.
Perhaps no one was a harsher critic
of The Killing Joke than the person
who wrote it. Alan Moore deemed it
“a terrible book” (Stone). His explana-
tion illuminates why he wanted to
distance himself from mainstream
(read: super-hero) comics:
“The only problem I’ve got
with [The Killing Joke] is my
writing. And I think that the
problem was that I wrote it
while I was writing Watch-
men, or just after. But, I was
still too close to Watchmen,
I was bringing the same sto-
rytelling approach to Batman
as I had for Watchmen. I was
also bringing the same kind
of quite grim, moral sensibil-
ity to Batman…. Ultimately, at
the end of the day The Killing
Joke is a story about Batman
and the Joker; it isn’t about
anything that you’re ever
going to encounter in real
life, because Batman and the
Joker are not like any human
beings that have ever lived. So
there’s no important human
information being imparted.”
(Khoury 121-3)
Despite these criticisms, it bears
mentioning that the general re-
sponse to The Killing Joke in 1988 was
overwhelmingly positive, if not gush-
ing with praise. And the book sold
tremendously well. Capital City Dis-
tributors alone ordered over 660,000
copies. As such, The Killing Joke’s
first print run sold out quickly, trig-
gering additional printings, and that
subsequently made a first print run
copy skyrocket in value in the back
issue market. Alan Moore and Brian
Bolland both won Eisner Awards for
their work on the book, and The Kill-
ing Joke itself was awarded an Eisner
for Best Graphic Album. Decades af-
ter its release, The Killing Joke contin-
ues to be honored as one of the best
Batman stories ever told.
Alan Moore also garnered acclaim
for the other book of his that DC pub-
lished in 1988. V for Vendetta began
in 1982 as a serialized feature within
the British anthology comic Warrior.
Before Moore could finish the story,
however, Warrior was cancelled in
1984. Subsequently, DC acquired the
right to publish V for Vendetta and of-
fered it as a ten-issue Deluxe format
series, starting in 1988. The first sev-
en issues that DC published reprint-
ed the Warrior chapters with David
Lloyd’s original black-and-white art-
work now subtly colored with a lim-
ited palette by Lloyd, Steve Whitaker
and Siobhan Dodds.
The final three DC issues presented
new material and concluded the dys-
topian story about a masked mystery
man named V who wreaked havoc
on post-WWIII Britain by engaging
in anarchist acts against a fascist re-
gime. But what began in 1982 as a
standard “one man against a corrupt
political system” story concluded at
the end of the decade as something
else as Moore explained in a 1990 in-
terview:
I started to realize that there
was the possibility here to
at least attempt to put down
some of my own thoughts
about the possibilities of an-
archy, the things that might
be wrong with it, that things
that were wrong with fas-
cism, and the things that
might be right, or unavoid-
able about fascism....What V
was doing, in the context of
the adventure strip that I had
originally plotted and laid
down, was attempting to say
something about the differ-
ent options open to us now
and in the future—the idea
that the two basic poles of
human politics are not capi-
talism and communism, that
they are fascism and anarchy.
David Lloyd’s wraparound cover to DC Comics’ first issue of V for Vendetta.
V for Vendetta TM and © DC Comics.
239
(Groth 80)
So by V for Vendetta’s end, Moore’s
original intention to have V “insti-
gate an anarchist utopia” was jetti-
soned as he felt “that that would be
a betrayal of the entire series because
it would be wildly unrealistic and
not take into account any of the basic
facts of human nature – that we are
greedy and suspicious and cowardly
and frightened and brutal, with a
will to dominate” (Groth 80). Instead,
V for Vendetta’s ending was left open,
which not only reflected Moore’s
disillusionment with politics of all
stripes, but with the adventure genre
as a whole:
Saying something with my
strips has become more and
more important until it’s the
only thing that’s important.
I think it’s a point of hav-
ing outgrown the adventure
genre. That sounds snotty
and pretentious and conde-
scending to all the people
who still enjoy working with
adventure characters, but I’d
have to say that if I was to try
and tackle the themes that
I tackled in V for Vendetta
again today, I wouldn’t tackle
them in a near-future science
fiction scenario, I wouldn’t
tackle them using a semi-
 1988 house ad promoting the reunion of
Marv Wolfman and George Perez as The New Teen
Titans changed its title to The New Titans.
TM and © DC Comics.

super-human protagonist,
I wouldn’t tackle them in a
series of tightly-paced adven-
ture stories with cliffhangers
and twist endings. (Groth 80)
V for Vendetta represents the last
original work Alan Moore produced
for DC Comics.

Formatted Events
The Killing Joke and V for Vendetta
were hardly the only non-standard
books that DC published in 1988.
The fact of the matter was that DC’s
entire line used various formats. As
a result, DC’s price points ran the
gamut. Iconic titles like Superman
and Batman maintained the same
$0.75 price point they’ve had since
late 1983 while other newsstand dis-
tributed comic books (i.e. Flash, Won-
der Woman) increased in cost to one Bart Sears drawn cover to the first issue of DC Comics’ Invasion mini-series. TM and © DC Comics.
dollar at different points during 1988.
Prestige format books like Superman: New Teen Titans became New Titans, issue series, Sonic Disruptors ended
The Earth Stealers—a 48-page one- as artist George Pérez reunited with after the publication of its seventh
shot written by John Byrne, penciled writer Marv Wolfman for “Who is issue (July 1988). Conceived as “The
by Curt Swan and inked by Jerry Wonder Girl?,” a story arc which United States Army vs. the United
Ordway—and Howard Chaykin’s sought to reconcile Wonder Girl’s States of Rock,” the book dealt with
three-issue Blackhawk series retailed place in DC’s new fictional continuity a future America run by fundamen-
for $2.95. “New Format” books like that had recently been upended by talist Christians who have outlawed
Checkmate and The Spectre cost $1.25, Wonder Woman’s reboot. rock ‘n’ roll. Hip outcasts, led by Sheik
and DC’s original Baxter paper, Direct A different Baxter paper comic book Rattle Enroll, try to right that wrong.
Market-exclusive monthlies—New earned the distinction of being the Song titles and lyrics fill the prose,
Teen Titans and Legion of Super-He- first DC maxi-series to be prema- as do allusions to the Moral Major-
roes—cost $1.75. With its 50th issue, turely cancelled. Billed as a twelve- ity, Nancy Reagan’s “Just say ‘No’”

240
campaign, and Top Gun-
like military air battles.
The book sold very poor-
ly and Sonic Disruptors’
writer, Mike Baron, ad-
mitted years later that “he
was pretty much winging
it [writing the book] and
that the decision to kill
the series was a mutual
one” (Weiss).
DC ended 1988 with its
next crossover event. In-
vasion! was a three-issue
series, with each 80-page
issue printed in square-
bound format with no
ads. Its plot involved a
conglomerate of aliens
attempting to conquer
Earth. Led by the Domina-
tors, the group consisted
of Citadelians, Durlans,
Gil’Dishpan, Khunds,
Psions, Thanagarians, and
the Warlords of Okaara.
Daxamites came along as
observers. Most of these
alien races previously ap-
peared in either Legion of
Super-Heroes or Omega
Men, two titles previ-
ously drawn and writ-
ten by Invasion!’s plotter
Keith Giffen. Bill Mantlo
scripted the series while
art chores were divided among three
pencillers: Todd McFarlane drew the
first issue and half of the second.
Giffen himself finished the second
issue, and Bart Sears drew the last is-
sue and all the covers.
As it did for Millennium, DC’s entire
line of super-hero titles tied into In-
vasion!, including one title Millenni-
um refused to link up with: the “Sug-
gested for Mature Readers” Swamp
Thing. Invasion!’s lasting legacy,
though, was its introduction of the
“metagene”: a biological variant that
gives select people the potential to
exhibit superpowers. In other words,
the metagene explains how super-
heroes gain their powers in the DC
universe. It was a term used for years
within DC’s fictional continuity.
Starlin’s Return to the Stars
Three months prior to Invasion!’s
launch, DC released a different space-
themed series: Cosmic Odyssey. Ac-
1988 house ad promoting Jim Starlin and
Mike Mignola’s Cosmic Odyssey mini-series.
All characters TM and © DC Comics.
cording to its writer, Jim Starlin, DC
approached him to create a series
that mapped out its science-fiction
heroes and universe. It took Starlin
about a month to hash out a plot,
one that Starlin laughingly confessed
“had nothing to do with mapping
anything out, of course, other than
we picked out three planets DC had
in their universe, because I wasn’t
about to go look through a bunch of
back issues to map things out. That’s
Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s
territory” (Johnson 17). Starlin start-
ed drawing the first issue, but when
scheduling conflicts with Starlin’s
other projects arose, the decision was
made to find a substitute artist. That
substitute ended up being Mike Mi-
gnola, who jumped at the chance to
collaborate with a comic book creator
he grew up idolizing (Johnson 17).
The four-issue Prestige mini-series
241
revolves around Darkseid’s
attempt to stop the threat
of the Anti-Life Equation.
To do so, he must join forces
with the New Gods and he-
roes from Earth, specifically
Superman, Batman, Green
Lantern John Stewart,
Martian Manhunter, the
Demon, and Starfire (who
became Wonder Woman’s
replacement when the
Amazon princess proved
unavailable for the story’s
use). Aspects of the Anti-
Life Equation are located
on four planets—Earth,
Rann, Thanagar, and Xan-
shi—so the group splits—
in the time-honored way of
comics—into teams to deal
with the threats. The Mar-
tian Manhunter and Green
Lantern John Stewart go to
Xanshi, where they meet
horrific defeat. Stewart
is overly cocky about the
threat, believing he can
defuse a bomb all by him-
self. When he gets to the
bomb seconds before its
explosion, he finds it has
been painted yellow. Since
his power ring can’t affect
anything yellow, the bomb
detonates, wiping out the
star system and killing millions.
Stewart suffers immense guilt and
almost kills himself, but the Martian
Manhunter talks him out of it.
The incident became canon for the
John Stewart character, but other
than that, the events of Cosmic Odys-
sey almost seem out of continuity for
the DC Universe. In fact, despite the
Cosmic Odyssey trade paperback col-
lection receiving numerous reprint-
ings for decades to come, the book
received little fanfare in 1988, at least
from the perspective of its creators.
Mignola reflects that when Cosmic
Odyssey was first published, “It didn’t
cause much of a stir. I remember
when DC talked me into doing this
book, it was talked about like it was
going to be a big, giant, turning point
book. Then it just became a fun, goofy
thing that didn’t change the world”
(Johnson 20). While Mignola enjoyed
working on Cosmic Odyssey, the ex-
perience made him realize that more
super-hero work wasn’t for him. He
redirected his career in a bold new
direction. Starlin, on the other hand,
was extremely satisfied with how
Cosmic Odyssey turned out: “It came
at a time when I was doing a lot for
DC. It was probably the last good proj-
ect I worked with them on” (Johnson
22).
A different Jim Starlin DC project
that was released almost simultane-
ously with Cosmic Odyssey was the
four-issue series titled Batman: The
Cult. It was an almost-horror story
approach to the Dark Knight, and in
a fitting move, premier horror genre
artist Bernie Wrightson came aboard
to illustrate it. Starlin and Wright-
son had collaborated earlier in 1988
on the four-issue DC mini-series The
Weird, and Starlin was well aware
of Wrightson’s tendency to abandon
half-completed projects that lost his
interest. To make sure Wrightson fin-
ished The Cult, Starlin implemented a
direct plan of intervention: “We were
living in the same area and Bernie
was beginning to get to a point where
if he didn’t have enough stimuli on
the job he would never finish it… I
was around and I’d come over and
say, ‘Hey, you’re doing great. Keep it
up. Good work.’ And so he’d have the
juice to go back to it” (Clancy 39).
The Cult follows Batman on an inves-
tigation of a series of brutal murders
of street criminals. The trail leads to
the city’s sewer system. One night,
Batman is caught off guard while
fighting some punks and is shot by
one of them. Just before a killing
blow can be delivered, a mysterious
savior stabs Batman’s assailant from
behind, rescuing Batman. As Batman
rises to thank his savior, he blacks
out and gets dragged under the city.
There he meets Deacon Blackfire, a
cult leader who indoctrinates Bat-
man into the fold by using the time-
honored methods of isolation, star-
vation, drug-induced hallucination,
and finally suggestion when Batman
is most vulnerable. Batman then
accompanies The Cult, made up of
homeless people, cast outs, and other
crusading wayfarers, on a couple of
killing missions. He struggles, sens-
ing what they’re doing is wrong, but
he doesn’t stop them nor does he par-
ticipate, at least lethally.
Batman: The Cult is a violent book.
Undoubtedly, DC wouldn’t have al-
Above: 1988 house ad promoting Jim Starlin and
Bernie Wrightson’s Batman: The Cult mini-series.
Batman TM and © DC Comics.
lowed it to be sold on the news-
stand. In the story Deacon Blackfire
bathes in a pool of blood, beheadings
abound, and blood slathers many
panel borders. In one sequence in the
first issue, Batman fantasizes about
finally doing to the Joker what he’s
always wanted to do: hacking the
smiling maniac to bits with an axe.
Perhaps the most telling moment
of the story comes in issue #3, after
Robin rescues Batman, and the Dark
Knight confesses: “The Deacon broke
242
me, Robin.” His shoulders slumping,
he goes on to say, “I just wasn’t strong
enough to resist him.”
By the time The Cult debuted, Starlin
was already the regular writer for
the ongoing Batman monthly series.
For that book, Starlin wrote a differ-
ent violent Batman story titled “Ten
Nights of the Beast.” Running from
Batman #417 to #420 (March-June
1988), “Ten Nights of the Beast” in-
troduces new villain KGBeast, a KGB
trained assassin whose strength was
cybernetically enhanced. Upset by
the improving relations between the
Soviet Union and the United States,
the KGBeast’s superiors send him
to Gotham City to assassinate ten
people connected to the Strategic De-
fense Initiative (a.k.a. the U.S. mili-
tary’s “Star Wars program”), includ-
ing President Ronald Reagan. At one
point in the story, artists Jim Aparo
and Mike DeCarlo produce a crowd
shot of 80 dead people, facedown in
their food, as the KGBeast has his as-
sistant poison the soup at a luncheon
to kill one targeted victim.
The story’s conclusion proved even
more shocking. Batman lures the KG-
Beast into Gotham’s sewers. In the
final pages the KGBeast runs into a
dead end, a room with a metal door.
KGBeast taunts Batman to enter the
room and finish their fight. Instead
of doing so, however, the Dark Knight
Detective calmly closes the door, lock-
ing in the KGBeast, effectively killing
him. Aparo’s Batman is inexpressive,
cloaked like the grim reaper. DeCar-
lo’s inks are so black that not a facial
feature can be seen. Some fans ap-
plauded this severe twist, while oth-
ers renounced the loss of their hero’s
nobility. It’s a chilling moment… but
ultimately not very lasting, as a year
later Batman #439 (Sept. 1989) re-
veals that Batman reported the KG-
Beast’s whereabouts to police a few
hours after locking him up.
1-900-Dead-Robin
But “Ten Nights of the Beast” was
only a prelude to the most controver-
sial Batman story of the year, if not
the decade. It centered on Batman’s
sidekick, the Jason Todd version of
Robin. “The initial reaction to Jason
was a positive one,” John Wells wrote
in 2004, “and he provided a fresh
viewpoint to many familiar relation-
ships and characters” (11). To all ap-
pearances, the new Boy Wonder was
still well accepted in 1988, thanks in
part to Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis’s
popular Batman and Robin stories
in Detective Comics a year earlier. If
there was any discord, it was over the
replacement of the 1983 version of
Jason’s introduction with a new ac-
count written by Max Allan Collins in
1987. While some read-
ers loathed “that stupid
‘new Robin origin’” (as
Tim Dwyer called it in
Batman #420’s letter col-
umn), most still seemed
to like Jason himself.
During Dennis O’Neil’s
first two years as Bat-
man editor, exactly one
anti-Jason letter (in De-
tective #575) appeared in
his text pages.
Jim Starlin was solidly
with that lone dissenter;
not only didn’t he ad-
mire Jason Todd, he ob-
jected to the whole no-
tion of Robin: “Who goes
out to fight crime with a
child that you dress up
in bright primary colors,
while you shroud your-
self in dark clothing?
In the real world, that
would be called child
abuse” (Franklin 73). En-
trenched as Batman’s
writer, Starlin suggest-
ed a story where Robin
dies. The suggestion was
rejected. Alternatively,
Starlin tried to avoid us-
ing Robin as much as
possible.
An opportunity came in
the form of a telephone
gimmick. By the late
1980s, premium rate
telephone numbers were
becoming more and more prevalent.
In this pre-internet era, 1-900 num-
bers were used for an assortment of
services like daily horoscopes, celeb-
rity “hotlines,” sex chats, updated
weather information, polling, etc.
Callers were charged 50¢ every time
they dialed a premium rate number.
One night after an editorial retreat,
O’Neil was sitting in a hotel room
with several other DC staffers, and in
the course of their conversation they
reflected on premium rate telephone subtly implied to have tossed a freed
numbers and how they could be used rapist from a roof” (6). It was a star-
to let fandom determine the outcome tling departure from the traditionally
of a comic book story. Obviously sunny portrayal that Barr, Collins,
though, something meaningful had and (in New Teen Titans) Marv Wolf-
to be presented to readers to entice man had written previously.
them to spend 50¢ on a phone call, Batman #426 has Jason Todd jour-
and what could be more meaningful neying by himself to the Middle
than letting the readers determine if East in hopes of discovering his real
Robin lives or dies? mother. Meanwhile,
the Joker has acquired a
nuclear missile, which
he plans to sell to ter-
rorists. As the Batman
tracks the Joker to the
Middle East, he happens
upon Jason. The two as-
sist each other in their
searches, which leads
them to Ethiopia and the
discovery of Jason’s real
mother, Dr. Sheila Hay-
wood. Little does Jason
or the Batman know that
Dr. Haywood is being
blackmailed by the Joker.
After Bruce Wayne ex-
cuses himself to give the
reunited mother and son
some privacy, Dr. Hay-
wood betrays Jason by
handing him over to the
Joker. The Clown Prince
of Crime proceeds to use
a crowbar to beat Jason
to within an inch of his
life and then leaves both
Dr. Haywood and Jason
tied up in a warehouse
with a bomb counting
down to detonation. As
Batman #427 draws to a
close, a revived Robin is
unable to either defuse
the bomb or help his
mother exit the locked
warehouse. The bomb
explodes just as Batman
arrives on the scene, and
the issue ends with a
The final page of Batman #427 directed readers
to determine Robin’s fate by calling a premium rate
house ad that informs readers that
telephone number. “Robin will die because the Joker
Batman TM and © DC Comics. wants revenge, but you can prevent it
with a telephone call.” By dialing one
Thus was born “A Death in the Fam- number, readers could vote to have
ily,” a four-issue arc beginning in Bat- Robin survive the explosion, and by
man #426 (Dec. 1988). “A prologue dialing a different number, readers
(Batman #422, 424, and 425) saw a could vote to have Robin perish. There
seismic shift in the characterization was a 35-hour window for readers to
of Jason Todd,” Wells observed. “Now call, starting from 9:00 AM EST Thurs-
surly and confrontational, the sec- day, September 15 and ending at 8:00
ond-generation Robin was none-too- PM EST Friday, September 16.
243

Above: 1988 house ad promoting the first two issues of the “Death in the Family” story arc.
Opposite page: Batman cradles a lifeless Robin in this splash page from Batman #428.
Batman TM and © DC Comics.
Starlin made no bones about what
final tally he wanted to see. At the
1988 Chicago ComiCon—two months
before the telephone voting got un-
der way—Starlin told an audience,
“I’ve got an awful lot of great story
ideas that’ll be messed up if [Robin]
lives” (Myers 1). Starlin also wanted
the opportunity to fulfill the prophe-
cy of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight: that
Jason Todd would die in the line of
duty. Starlin’s interpretation of Dark
Knight has the Joker killing Jason,
even though Miller’s story never ex-
plicitly provides that detail (Franklin
74).
In the editorial column that appeared
in Batman #429, O’Neil described
how the vote tally unfolded. At first
check-in, Robin had 243 well wishers
and 199 calling for his head. Through
most of the first day of voting Robin
was set to live but then around 8:00
PM the “no kill” voters were overtak-
en by the “kill” voters: 2,104 to 2,195.
244
Observers smirked that the 1-900
number to kill Robin ended with the
number 666.
The next day things got a bit better for
Jason as he reversed the deficit in the
early afternoon and took a five-vote
lead to save his life. DC staffers start-
ed to feel the tension as the end drew
near, feeling as if they were pulling
for a loved one to make it through
surgery, ordering sandwiches and not
going home. O’Neil tells the rest:
Dan [Raspler, Batman assis-
tant editor] made his final
check Friday at 7:30, and it
was bad news for Jason: 5081
[sic] for, 5148 [sic] against.
But with 30 minutes left, and
a margin of a mere 67 votes,
there was still hope for the
kid. And at 7:45, it looked like
he might make it, with 5,221
for him, and 5,259 against.
Only 38 calls difference.
There must have been a last-
minute surge of Jason-haters.
When, at 8:30, I finally spoke
to a human being instead of
that semi-articulate comput-
er, the final count was 5,271
to 5,343. Rest in peace, Jason
Todd.
Overall, 10,614 votes were cast. A dif-
ference of 72 callers sealed Robin’s
fate. Starlin’s wish to write a Robin-
less book came true after all.
In Batman #428, the Caped Crusader
rummages through the debris of the
explosion. He eventually finds Dr.
Haywood who dies explaining how
her son tried to shield her from the
bomb blast. Several yards away lies
Jason’s lifeless body. Batman checks
for a pulse even though he knows it’s
a futile gesture, and then in a splash
page devoid of captions and dialogue,
Batman cradles Robin. The Boy Won-
der is dead.
And then the mainstream press got
wind of the news. DC received calls
from dozens of news organizations,
even from such distinguished peri-
odicals as Newsweek, The Wall Street
Journal, and USA Today. For three
days, O’Neil spoke to newspaper jour-
nalists, radio show hosts, and televi-
sion reporters to explain what hap-
pened (O’Neil). Unsurprisingly, most
were unaware that the Robin cos-
tume had been transferred from Dick
Grayson to Jason Todd.
Meanwhile, reaction to the earlier
story in Batman #424 earned a flurry
of anti-Jason letters that serendipi-
tously ran in issue #428, the very is-
sue in which Robin died. Pulling a
quote from one’s fan’s missive, The
Chicago Tribune described Jason as
a “vindictive, vengeful little brat” in
an October 27 article and declared
that “readers [had] protested” his ex-
istence ever since Dick Grayson “quit
the biz” in 1984. The Tribune also
quoted an unnamed DC spokesman
who when asked who killed Robin
answered that “readers did it.” That
much, at least, was true, but the mar-
gin calls into question whether there
was really as much anti-Jason senti-
ment as later accounts would claim.
After all, nearly as many readers vot-
ed for him to live as to die.
As was becoming the industry norm,
DC quickly collected the “Death in
the Family” issues into a trade paper-
back to be sold in bookstores. On the
trade’s back cover, placed below sev-
eral testimonials from various news-
papers, is a declaration from Denny
O’Neil. As if to reassure readers as to
the finality of Robin’s death, O’Neil
wrote, “It would be a really sleazy
stunt to bring him back.”
That would become a declaration
that O’Neil would regret making. And
soon.

245
1989
The Year of the Billionaire,
the Bat and the Brits
As the 1980s sped to a close, Marvel Comics kept building
larger and larger crossovers while DC Comics pulled on the
reins. One of the largest independent publishers, Comico,
struggled to pay its bills, and a couple of young writers
from the UK were poised for superstardom. It was a year
marked by controversy both legal and social, as Revolu-
tionary Comics pushed the boundaries of free speech and
everyone was put on alert to all the sex and violence in the
pages of America’s most popular comics.
Marvel, as had been the case for the previous five years,
reinforced its hold on the marketplace by producing event
comics that coerced readers to pick up titles they might
not have normally purchased in order to be able to read
the event’s entire story. At the same time, Marvel spun out
popular characters into two or three separate titles each.
DC Comics, on the other hand, mainly focused on two
things: expanding its new, Post-Crisis Universe with re-
imaginations of classic (and not-so classic) characters and,
to put it simply, the Batman.
For DC, it was all Batman all the time in 1989 as not only
was the publisher gearing up for the 50th anniversary of
Batman’s first appearance in Detective Comics #27, par-
ent company Warner Brothers began to build the mar-
keting juggernaut that would lead to the June release of
Tim Burton’s big-budget Batman film. Fandom didn’t just
raise their collective eyebrows at the announcement that
Michael Keaton would be playing Batman; they lost their
collective mind. Many fans accused Warner Brothers of
planning a secret sendup of Batman rather than a seri-
ous attempt to present the character on-screen (Hughes).
Batman’s creator, Bob Kane (who also served as a consul-
tant on the film) even had to speak out in an attempt to
calm fan anxiety, saying, “The movie isn’t a comedy at
all. It’s going to be heavy melodrama… [and the Joker] is
a psychotic murderer, a maniacal killer. It’s all very evil”
(Hughes). But even that didn’t settle things down, and Don
Thompson, co-editor of Comics Buyer’s Guide observed,
“No one seems to have taken [Kane] seriously.” He added
that CBG had received over 500 protest letters decrying the
film—all before anyone had seen any footage (Hughes).

Code? What Code?

The final revision to the Comics Code went into effect in
1989, and it was the most dramatic revision yet. Of course,
by this point, the Comics Code Seal meant very little,
thanks to the rise of the Direct Market. Newsstands and
other sources of comic book distribution may have con-
tinued to pay attention, but the publishers didn’t seem to
worry. Given the coming summertime fuss that would be
made over sex and violence in comics, there were very few

CHAPTER TEN
real repercussions to violating the code, and comics were
more violent and sexual than ever.
The 1989 revision was no longer concerned with things
by Paul Brian McCoy like what types of monsters could be used (thanks to the
246
1971 revision). Instead the code focused on maintaining
a responsible and respectful tone regarding social chang-
es. The most notable change was the fact that the Code
openly mentioned homosexuality, sexual orientation, and
sexual preferences and instructed that they all be treated
with respect, rather than hinting surreptitiously that they
shouldn’t be mentioned at all under the catch-all descrip-
tion of sex perversions (“Sealed With Approval 1989”).
The ban on rape was also dropped, so there was bad to go
with the good. Regardless, it appeared that what the com-
panies wanted most, was the freedom to make as much
money as possible, by virtually any means necessary (Ir-
ving).
And it worked for a while, as Perelman kicked off “an era
of gimmicks meant to goose sales and impress corporate
bosses” (Raviv 36).
Crossover Nation
Perelman’s arrival inaugurated Marvel’s “Event Storytell-
ing” as a way to increase profits. Marvel had been devel-
oping mini-series events for the better part of the decade.
Up to this point, though, these events generally stayed fo-
cused around a single mini-series that would have tie-in
issues throughout the Marvel Universe of titles (e.g. 1985’s
Secret Wars II). 1989 was, however, the first time that the

Meet the New Boss, Almost the Old Boss

Marvel started the New Year with a dramatic change in
ownership. The Marvel Entertainment Group’s made-for-
television movies featuring The Hulk and other Marvel
Comics super-heroes had garnered little profit for New
World Entertainment (Raviv 11). Ronald O. Perel-
man, the chairman of Revlon, then stepped in and
bid $82.5 million dollars for the company, snatch-
ing Marvel away from Jim Shooter’s partnership and
their $81 million dollar bid (Thomas).
MacAndrews & Forbes, the shell company owned
personally and wholly by Perelman, cut a check
for just $10 million. More than $70 million was
borrowed from a syndicate of banks, led—as was
becoming standard for Perelman—by Chase
Manhattan. Chase would handle all the pa-
perwork and formally make the loan offer,
while recruiting other banks to take on por-
tions of risk. (Raviv 11)
At the time this seemed like a great move both
for Perelman and for the company, even though
the Marvel Productions unit was excluded
from the sale because it had merged with
New World’s television and movie busi-
ness (Hicks). Right out of the gate,
Perelman had a plan: “Marvel’s op-
erations were analyzed, top to bottom,
stem to stern. Departments deemed
unprofitable or unpromising were shut
down and writers were fired. Net in-
come quickly doubled” (Raviv 15).
When discussing his interest in and
goals with the company, Perelman was
clear: “[Marvel] is a mini-Disney,” he said.
“Disney’s got much more highly recognized
characters and softer characters, whereas
our characters are termed action heroes. But
at Marvel we are now in the business of the
creation and marketing of characters” (Raviv
12). As such, Perelman believed that Marvel
“should waste less time and money on art-
ists thinking up new ideas that were slow to
develop popularity and should concentrate
instead on cash flow, selling more licensing
rights based on the comic book characters
The villainous Mr. Sinister headlined Marvel Comics’
that were already hot” (Raviv 36). premiere 1989 event, “Inferno.”
All characters TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

247
1989 TIMELINE May 8: DC Comics’
Piranha Press imprint
launches with the publication
June 4: Chinese troops crush
a pro-democracy movement
in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square
A compilation of the year’s notable comic book industry events alongside of Dave Louapre and Dan where for weeks hundreds of
some of the year’s most significant popular cultural and historical events. Sweetman’s Beautiful Stories thousands had been protesting
for Ugly Children #1. official corruption and calling for
democratic reforms. Hundreds
January: Ronald Perelman purchases the Marvel March 5: Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. die in the assault.
Entertainment Group, the parent company of Marvel announce a deal to merge into the world’s largest media
Comics, from New World Entertainment for $82.5 and entertainment conglomerate. June 13: Tim Drake – who
million, outbidding Jim Shooter’s partnership. May 12: The Return will eventually become the
March 24: The oil tanker Exxon Valdez runs aground in Prince third Robin – is introduced
William Sound in the Gulf of Alaska, causing the worst oil spill of the Swamp Thing,
January: Comico and DC Comics reach an agreement starring Louis Jourdan, in Batman #436.
where Comico will pay DC a fee to print, solicit, and in U.S. history up to that point; more than 11 million gallons of
oil are dumped into the Sound, resulting in massive damage Heather Locklear, and
distribute its titles. June 21: The U.S.
to its environment and wildlife. Exxon spends over $2.5 billion Dick Durock – reprising
Supreme Court
to clean up the spill. his role as Swamp
rules that burning
Thing – opens in
the American
movie theaters. The
March 26: Ballots are cast in the flag is a form of
January 4: U.S. fighter planes shoot down movie grosses less than
Soviet Union’s first democratic na- political protest
a pair of Libyan MIG-23s over international $200,000 at the box
tional election since 1917’s October protected by the
waters off the coast of Libya. office.
Revolution. Boris N. Yeltsin and other First Amendment.
anti-establishment candidates are
subsequently elected.

JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL M AY JUNE

April: Archie Goodwin submits

his resignation as editor of
Marvel’s Epic imprint. A month
later, Goodwin is working for DC May 24: George Lucas’s third
Comics while Carl Potts becomes Indiana Jones film – Indiana
February 14: Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini Epic’s new line editor. Jones and the Last Crusade –
sentences author Salman Rushdie to directed by Steven Spielberg June 23: Directed by Tim Burton
death for his book The Satanic Verses, and starring Harrison Ford and and starring Jack Nicholson as the
March 30: Former Justice
which many Muslims deem sacriligeous. Sean Connery – opens in movie Joker and Micheal Keaton in the
January 20: George League of America and Wonder
theaters. title role, Batman opens in movie
Bush is sworn in as the Woman artist Mike Sekowsky
theaters. It would set a then-box
41st President of the dies at age 65.
office record of $100 million in its
United States. first 10 days of release, and go on
to become the highest grossing
Batman, Captain Marvel and Superman TM and © DC Comics. Epic Comics and The Punisher TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
film of the year.

crossover events continued virtually formation. The story centered on the the Deviant High Priest Ghaur, who
without pause from one to the next corruption of Madelyn Pryor into the then returns to Earth and attempts
for the entire year. Goblin Queen and Illyana Rasputin to restore the Serpent Crown and un-
It began with “Inferno” whose seeds into the Darkchilde, and it stayed leash the seven-headed serpent god,
were planted in late 1988 with Un- center-stage through April. Set, on Earth. As such, the titular at-
canny X-Men #239 (which served as a April also debuted “Atlantis Attacks,” tack from Atlantis is a bit of a bluff.
prologue to the story) which then led which replicated the format Marvel The real story involves the search for
into the X-Terminators mini-series. used the previous year for “The Evolu- mystical artifacts, the mutating of or-
As 1989 dawned, Marvel upped the tionary War.” “Atlantis Attacks” was dinary humans into serpent-people,
ante and instead of sticking mainly a 14-chapter crossover story spread and the gathering of seven brides for
to the X-Titles as previous X-Family through nearly every Annual Mar- Set. Ultimately, the combined efforts
crossovers had done, the “Inferno” vel released that summer, beginning of The Avengers, The Fantastic Four,
logo was displayed on the covers with Silver Surfer Annual #2 (released and Namor defeat Ghaur’s plans and
of The Avengers, Cloak and Dagger, alongside comics cover dated June) maintain Set’s banishment from this
Damage Control, Fantastic Four, Dare- and ending in July’s Fantastic Four dimension. In addition, each Annual
devil, Power Pack, Amazing Spider- Annual #22 (released alongside com- also contained a back-up story, “The
Man, Spectacular Spider-Man, and ics cover dated November). But un- Serpent Crown Saga,” which explored
Web of Spider-Man. like “The Evolutionary War,” “Atlantis the history of one of the Marvel Uni-
Attacks” was written as a serial with verse’s most mysterious and danger-
The main “Inferno” storyline ran ous artifacts.
through New Mutants #71-73, Un- many of the Annuals ending with
canny X-Men #239-243, X-Factor #36- cliffhangers that led directly into the Without missing a beat, books cover
38, and Excalibur #6 and #7, telling next chapter. dated December 1989 initiated the
the tale of a demonic invasion from The story revisits themes of invasion next Crossover Event, “Acts of Ven-
Limbo that transforms New York into and transformation from the “In- geance,” which would run through
a demonic state. But New York wasn’t ferno” crossover, as The Silver Surfer February 1990. This time out The
the only thing undergoing a trans- inadvertently awakens and frees Avengers, rather than the usual

248
 October 3: Written by Grant Morrison with
painted art by Dave McKean, the 212-page
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious
Earth graphic novel arrives in stores.
October 5: The Punisher, star-
ring Swedish muscleman Dolph
Lundgren as Marvel Comics’
resident vigilante, opens in movie
theaters… in West Germany.
The movie would not be seen
in the United States until March
1990 when it is shown at the Los
Angeles Comic Book and Science
August 8: Co-creator of the Green Fiction Convention. In 1991, the
Arrow and 1950s Superboy artist, movie is released in the U.S.
George Papp dies at the age of 73. video market.
November 6: The Batman
newspaper strip is revived with an
opening story by Max Allan Collins
and Marshall Rogers.
November 9: The Communist
government of East Germany
collapses. For the first time in
decades, travel between East
and West Germany is unre-
stricted, and Germans begin to
tear down the Berlin Wall.
November 22: Captain
Marvel creator C.C. Beck
dies at the age of 79.
December: Alan Moore
finishes his run on Miracleman
with issue #16. He transfers
his 30% share of ownership
in the character over to
new Miracleman writer Neil
Gaiman.
December 20: U.S. troops
invade Panama in order to
capture that country’s ruler,
General Manuel Noriega, for
his role in international drug
trafficking. Noriega seeks
political asylum with Vatican
officials in Panama City but
eventually surrenders to U.S.
authorities in early January
1990.

J U LY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER

October 10: Billed December 22: A pro-democracy

as “The First New revolution causes Romanian
Batman ‘Solo’ Book dictator Nicolae Ceausescu to
Since 1940!”, Legends flee from power. He and his wife
of the Dark Knight #1 Elena are eventually captured
arrives in stores with and executed.
five different covers.

October 17: Just minutes before the

August 24: Commissioner A. Bartlett
Giamatti bans Cincinnati Reds manager
Pete Rose from Major League Baseball
for gambling.
start of a World Series baseball game
at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park,
an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the
Richter scale hits the San Francisco November 14: Written by Brian Augustyn with art by
Bay area, causing $7 billion worth of Mike Mignola and P. Craig Russell, Gotham by Gaslight:
damage and the death of 67 people. An Alternate History of the Batman imagines the Batman
as a Victorian-era detective.

autumn crossover focus, The X-Men,
were at the center of the event which
spanned over twenty titles. The main
thrust of the story involved Loki at-
tempting to defeat the Avengers by
manipulating Doctor Doom, Magne-
to, Kingpin, Wizard, Mandarin, and
Red Skull (a.k.a. the “Prime Movers”)
into the confrontation. Their plan
involved engineering a super-villain
jailbreak and then shuffling up the
villains to attack the heroes, so that
the heroes would be caught off-guard
in battles against foes they’d never
faced before. As such, the event was
essentially a series of unexpected
match-ups between heroes and vil-
lains (including the Fantastic Four be-
ing attacked while appearing before
Congress to argue against a Superhe-
ro Registration Act) with no real im-
mediate impact on the Marvel Uni-
verse as a whole. “Acts of Vengeance”
did, however, feature the first appear-
ance of Psylocke in the body of Kwan-
non, transforming her from the twin
sister of Captain Britain into an Asian
ninja assassin. Also appearing for the
first time were The New Warriors in
the pages of Thor #412 (Dec. 1989).
One aspect of Perelman’s takeover
came to light as these crossovers de-
veloped, particularly during “Atlantis
Attacks.” According to Dan Raviv, au-
thor of Comic Wars, “[w]riters and ed-
itors of the various books inevitably
clashed when trying to coordinate
the stories, and the staff ultimately
felt that the Atlantis series was way
more trouble than it was worth” (36).
Better to Byrne Out Than Fade Away!
John Byrne had returned to Marvel
in 1988 to take over and revamp the
failing Star Brand title in Jim Shoot-
er’s New Universe, but sales weren’t
improving so the title was eventually
cancelled with issue #19 (May 1989).
Byrne’s tenure at DC had been contro-
versial, to say the least, and his return The multi-chapter/multi-title “Acts of Vengeance”
story arc included Avengers #313.
to Marvel brought controversy, and The Avengers TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
sales, as well.
249
The first mainstream Marvel title he
took on was The West Coast Avengers.
His debut in issue #42 was a clearing
of the decks, and characters who had
been gone (like Wasp and Hank Pym)
were suddenly back in the line-up
with no explanation. Previous team
leader, Hawkeye, was demoted and
played as less competent than he’d
been during the previous 41 issues,
and by issue #46, he took a leave of
absence from the team. Pym took
over the leadership position and re-
united with his estranged wife as per
Byrne’s inclinations (Sanderson 22).
But it was Byrne’s treatment of The
Vision that really ruffled feathers.
Byrne’s first West Coast Avengers
story arc was titled “Vision Quest.” It
John Byrne drawn cover to Sensational She-Hulk #1.
She-Hulk TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
focused on the Vision’s abduction by
an international group effort to neu-
tralize him as a worldwide security
threat. This was in response to the
“Unlimited Vision” storyline from
Avengers #251-4 (Jan.-April 1985),
where Vision went rogue. Once cap-
tured, Vision was disassembled and
his memory erased, so by the time
the West Coast Avengers rescued
him, he had been reduced to a logical,
inhuman android with no history or
emotional connection to his wife and
family. And if that weren’t enough,
Byrne completely erased Vision’s ori-
gin in an attempt to provide a fresh
start for the character. No longer
was Vision built by Ultron from the
android body of the original Human
Torch.
The Vision’s wife, The Scarlet Witch,
fared even worse as her husband
was essentially replaced with an
emotionless machine. Then she John Byrne’s first issue on West Coast Avengers began
the controversial “VisionQuest” story arc.
discovered that their twin West Coast Avengers TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
sons were actually made
from pieces of a demon providing both the scripts and art un-
called Pandemonium, til leaving (again with some contro-
unknowingly in- versy) with issue #57 (April 1990).
corporated into One of the few non-controversial
them through things Byrne did during his tenure
the spell she had with Avengers West Coast was create
cast to cause her the fan-favorite team of amateur su-
pregnancy. This was perheroes from Wisconsin, The Great
revealed when Pande- Lakes Avengers in issue #46 (July
monium arrived and vi- 1989). The sense of humor displayed
olently reclaimed them. with these characters found another
Before long, Byrne was outlet in the Byrne-written and illus-
also writing The Aveng- trated Sensational She-Hulk, which
ers, taking over with debuted cover date May.
issue #305 (July 1989) Sensational She-Hulk was a straight
and initiating a ro- humor comic from its very concep-
tating roster that tion. The main source of the comedy
allowed him to es- was, in Byrne’s words, “the fact she
sentially recruit knows she’s in a comic book. So her re-
whichever actions are based on that knowledge”
groups of he- (Sanderson 13). She-Hulk would reg-
roes were ap- ularly comment on the events going
propriate for on around her and break the fourth
an adventure. wall, addressing the readers directly.
Writing both The rogue’s gallery for the title was
books allowed drawn from the odder villains in the
for more over- Marvel Universe, echoing, for the
lap and inter- first few issues anyway, The Incred-
play between ible Hulk’s original run-ins with The
the titles, al- Ringmaster and the Circus of Crime
though it was as well as the alien Toad Men.
with Avengers West
Coast (renamed with is- But Byrne left the title with issue #8
sue #47) where he seemed (Nov. 1989) due to editorial interfer-
to be the more comfortable, ence. As Byrne tells it:
250
 I went on with producing the
book, and, quite by accident,
discovered that [editor] Bobbi
[Chase] was, indeed, mak-
ing changes. To my scripts!...
Without telling me. I com-
plained to Tom DeFalco, then
editor in chief, and he told me
he did not want to be “like
Shooter”, so he would always,
arbitrarily, support his edi-
tors over the creative team....
So I suddenly found myself
booted off She-Hulk. (qtd. in
Tipton)
Without missing a beat, he stepped
in and began penciling a seven-issue
Wolverine run with writer Archie
Goodwin, starting with issue #17,
thus wrapping up the year working
on one of Marvel’s highest-profile
titles.
Comings and Goings
Byrne wasn’t the only Marvel writer
blaming Tom DeFalco for causing
him to leave titles; Marvel veteran
Steve Englehart left the company in
1989 under bizarre circumstances
and charges of editorial interference
that were denied by everyone else
involved. Englehart’s situation was
fairly unique in that he was actually
fired in the summer of 1988 but was
allowed to stay on-board West Coast
Avengers, Silver Surfer and Fantastic
Four to finish storylines that were un-
derway. This meant that his final is-
sues were actually West Coast Aveng-
ers #39 (Dec. 1988), Fantastic Four
#333 (Nov. 1989), and Silver Surfer
#31 (Dec. 1989). (For the seven-issue
span between Fantastic Four #327
and #333, Englehart wrote under the
pseudonym “John Harkness”.)
According to a 1989 Amazing Heroes
interview, Englehart claimed that his
firing was due to personality conflicts
between himself and editor-in-chief
DeFalco, stemming from DeFalco’s
reneging on a promise to raise sala-
ries. Because of this, DeFalco had him
fired despite excellent sales figures
(“X-Men numbers,” Englehart says
he was told), but thanks to the sup-
port of his editors Ralph Macchio and
Craig Anderson, he was allowed to
finish his work before leaving (Mc-
Cormick 46, 48).
Most of these statements were im-
mediately disputed by both Macchio
and Anderson, each of whom claimed On the bright side, Silver Surfer con-
that the decisions to remove Engle- tinued with hardly a bump as script-
hart were theirs and theirs alone. ing duties were taken on by someone
They also denied that Fantastic Four who had made a name for himself
was doing as well as claimed (McCub- in the mid-1980s as the creator of
bin 49). According to its published normalman: Jim Valentino. He took
circulation notice, Fantastic Four sold over Silver Surfer with issue #32 (Dec.
on average 180,000 copies a month in 1989). The Fantastic Four was not so
1989, well less than half of Uncanny lucky. The majority of storylines and
X-Men’s average sales of 406,000 cop- plot developments that Englehart
ies per month for the same year. Silver had incorporated into the series dur-
Surfer sold 165,000 copies per month, ing his two-year run were editorially
a 25% drop from its 1988 average of mandated to be reset as though they
221,000 copies per month. had never happened:
With the FF, [DeFalco] came
and said he wanted Reed
and Sue back, he wanted Ben
un-mutated, he wanted Ms.
Marvel to go away... Crystal,
as you may have noticed, just
vanished in the middle of the
storyline without any expla-
nation.... In fact, we had a very
long-term plotline worked
out with Crystal and Alicia
and Johnny and Ben. Tom
said, “I don’t care.” So [Crys-
tal] just sort of vanished, and
nobody talks about where she
went, or why she’s not there.
(McCormick 47)
Englehart claimed that DeFalco also
mandated the use of single-issue sto-
ries in Silver Surfer, saying “No more
of these complex storylines. We want
simple stories with morals... one-
issue stories” (47). In the same inter-
Despite being fired from the titles in the summer of
1988, Steve Englehart continued to write Fantastic view, Englehart expressed his excite-
Four and Silver Surfer until the end of 1989. ment for his next project: a revival of
Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Archie Comics’ The Fly. Unfortunate-
ly, that never happened.
While Englehart was on the way out,
another classic Marvel writer was
making his return. Steve Gerber was
back, writing a bi-weekly 12-part
Man-Thing story for Marvel Comics
Presents from late 1988 through cov-
er date February 1989. He was then
assigned scripting duties on Freddy
Kruger’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, a
black-and-white Marvel magazine set
to launch with an October 1989 cover
date, but that title was cancelled af-
ter the second issue, despite having
the first five issues plotted with writ-
ing begun (Kim Thompson 28). He
wrapped up 1989 by taking over the
now Byrne-less Sensational She-Hulk
with issue #10 (Dec.) and producing a
12-issue run. 1990 would be a much
more productive year for him.
251
Above: Newcomer writer Dwayne McDuffie
created Damage Control for Marvel in 1989.
Right: 1989 closed with the end of Todd
McFarlane’s tenure on Amazing Spider-Man.
Damage Control and Spider-Man TM
and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Finally fed up with his treatment
at DC Comics, Roy Thomas returned
to Marvel’s fold in the late 1980s. Af-
ter a brief stint closing out New Uni-
verse’s Nightmask in 1987, Thomas
co-wrote with his wife Dann a 12-is-
sue limited series titled Saga of the
Sub-Mariner that retold the origins
of Prince Namor. Then they both took
over Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme
with issue #5 (July 1989). This marked
Roy Thomas’ return to writing both
characters at the same time, just as
he did in the late 1960s. Co-plotting
with them and writing a back-up
feature that explored the lore of Doc-
tor Strange was an old collaborator:
French writer Jean-Marc Lofficier.
The Thomases had previously worked
with Lofficier on DC Comics’ Arak and
Young All-Stars. Together, the three
writers brought a bizarre new energy
to Doctor Strange that continued on
through the early 1990s.
After working on a She-Hulk spe-
cial and a Hawkeye short story in
Solo Avengers #13 (Dec. 1988), young
up-and-comer Dwayne McDuffie
introduced his first original Marvel
creation, “Damage Control,” in the
Marvel Age 1988 Annual before get-
ting the go-ahead for the first of a se-
ries of mini-series. Damage Control
was a construction company in the
Marvel version of New York City that
specialized in rebuilding the damage
caused by superheroic battles. The
series was characterized by a sit-com
style of humor that drew on the “reali-
ty” of the Marvel Universe. McDuffie’s
inspiration for the series came from
the 1960s Batman television show:
I was watching one day – this
is years ago – and after the
Batmobile released its drag
parachute, a little blue laun-
dry van pulled up with a sign
on the side that said, “Batman
Drag-Chute Pick-Up and Dry
Cleaning Service.” I thought
it was great that these guys
waited around all day for
Batman to release the Drag-
Chute, and I wondered what
other kinds of businesses
would be around with super-
heroes. (Cadenhead 41)
Series artist Ernie Colón had nothing
but praise for the young writer, jok-
ing, “If I call Dwayne brilliant one
more time, he’ll ask me to marry
him” (43). This was just the first of
many successful and popular proj-
ects McDuffie would develop over the
coming years, and as 1989 drew to a
close he wrote a Captain Marvel Gi-
ant-Size Special (Nov. 1989), featuring
the Monica Rambeau version of the
character, before launching a three-
issue run on Avengers Spotlight (#26-
252
28) and a two-part Iron Man adven-
ture (#251-252). The end of the year
brought the beginning of his second
Damage Control mini.
Images of Spiders,
Mutants and Mercenaries
Marvel’s most popular titles of 1989
(Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine, Punisher,
Punisher: War Journal, and Amazing
Spider-Man) proved to be the training
grounds for the next generation of ar-
tistic superstars. But as 1989 began,
there was only one already recog-
nized visual superstar on that group
of titles: Todd McFarlane. His work
with writer David Michelinie on
Amazing Spider-Man had revitalized
the title, making it one of Marvel’s
most consistently successful books
almost from the day he started with
AMS #298 (March 1988). When he fi-
nally left the title in January 1990 to
launch his own Spider-Man as writer/
artist, its first issue (Aug. 1990) “sold a
record 2.85 million copies” (Raviv 36).
As popular as McFarlane was, Uncan-
ny X-Men was 1989’s unrivaled top
seller for Marvel, even though after
kicking off the year with “Inferno,”
the title saw its sales dip slightly.
This popularity was mainly thanks to
 the creative Marvel in Black-&-White With an October cover date, the
combination of Nightmare on Elm Street black-and-
In 1989, Marvel also expanded its
Chris Claremont’s white magazine joined the line-up
black-and-white magazine line,
scripts and the dy- (for its two-issue run, anyway) with
which allowed the company to ex-
namic art of Marc Silves- the other two magazines already be-
pose its brand to a market outside of
tri who had been with Marvel ing produced: Conan Saga Magazine
the traditional comic reader. The Pun-
since 1981. Silvestri had been the (which reprinted stories from Mar-
isher was supposed to launch with an
penciler on Uncanny X-Men since is- vel’s Conan the Barbarian comics and
original adaptation of the Punisher
sue #218 (June 1987), and he would The Savage Sword of Conan maga-
film, starring Dolph Lundgren which
remain on that title until cover date zine), and The ’Nam Magazine (which
was due to premiere in August (Fisch
May 1990 before his shift to another featured black-and-white reprints of
15). However, due to the financial
X-Family book, taking over art duties the ongoing The ’Nam series).
difficulties at New World Entertain-
on Wolverine. In what seemed to be a bid to corner
ment (which led to Ron Perelman’s
Another hot Marvel artist, Whilce subsequent purchase of the compa- the market on testosterone-fueled
Portacio, had risen through the ranks ny in 1990), the film never received adventure magazines, Marvel then
at Marvel, first as an inker on Alpha an American theatrical release (al- released Destroyer Magazine in cover
Flight from 1986 to 1988 before pen- though it did premiere around the date November 1989. The Destroyer
ciling Punisher from issue #8 (May world). Because of this, the official novels, originally co-written by War-
1988) through issue #18 (April 1989). Marvel adaptation didn’t see print ren Murphy and Richard Sapir, had
The Punisher had really taken off until the following year. In its place, been published since 1971, with
since the first Steven Grant/Mike Punisher Magazine #1 (Sept. 1989) over 75 novels on the market by the
Zeck mini-series in 1986, with his solo opened with reprints of Ste- time Marvel launched
series remaining a consistent top-ten ven Grant and Mike Zeck’s the magazine. The
Marvel title from its launch in 1987. 1986 mini-series, followed magazine series
Its popularity, in fact, encouraged by reprints of the Mike
Marvel to publish not only the regu- Baron and Klaus
lar Punisher series, but a second title Janson ongoing
for the character, a black-and-white series.
magazine, and a couple of graphic
novels.
When Portacio moved on from Pun-
isher, Erik Larsen was waiting in the
wings for his shot, stepping in with
issue #21 (July 1989). He worked on
Punisher through issue #25
(Nov.) while also producing
a series of bi-weekly Excali-
bur stories in Marvel Comics
Presents #31-38 (Nov.-Dec.).
His big break would come
as 1990 began when he took
over Amazing Spider-Man
after McFarlane’s departure.
If there was to be another ri-
val to the popularity of Mc-
Farlane and Silvestri, it was
in the line work of Jim Lee,
who really made his mark
in 1989 on Punisher: War
Journal. But it was filling
in for Silvestri on Uncanny
X-Men #248 (Sept.) and dur-
ing the “Acts of Vengeance”
crossover in Uncanny X-
Men #256 (Dec.) through
#258 (Feb. 1990) that led to
him becoming that title’s
regular artist with issue
#267 when Silvestri moved
to Wolverine.
Left: Whilce Portacio drawn cover to Punisher #17. Right: From John Byrne drawn cover to Wolverine #17.
Punisher and Wolverine TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

253
was written by Will Murray, who at
the time was the sole ghost writer
for the paperback series. Illustrator
Lee Weeks, who had recently pen-
ciled the New Universe series Justice,
served as the core artist with rotat-
ing artists working on the even num-
bered issues. Creator Warren Murphy
oversaw the entire project, approving
the plots, and ensuring the lead char-
acter, Remo Williams, stayed “true to
his roots” (Dutter 14).
Epic Drama
Along with the more mature edge of
the magazines, Marvel’s prestige im-
print, Epic Comics (under the hand of
line editor Archie Goodwin), contin-
ued to break new ground in American
comics by importing and translating
some of Europe and Japan’s most crit-
ically-acclaimed works, particularly
Akira (translated by Mary
Jo Duffy with computer col-
ors by Steve Oliff, who was
hand-picked for the role by
Akira creator Katsuhiro Oto-
mo) and the Incal works of
French creators Jean (Moe-
bius) Giraud and Alejandro
Jodorowsky (English transla-
tions by Jean-Marc Lofficier
and his wife Randy Lofficier).
Particular effort was put into
bringing Moebius’ work to
an American audience. De-
cember 1988 and January
1989 saw the release of the
Stan Lee/Moebius collabora-
tion, Silver Surfer (renamed
for its 1998 rerelease as Sil-
ver Surfer: Parable), followed
quickly by a hardcover col-
lection a month later. Lee
and Moebius had met the
previous summer at the San
Diego Comic-Con, where Lee
proposed the Silver Surfer
collaboration. Moebius then
“took Stan’s outline and flew
with it, utilizing his superb
sense of storytelling and pol-
ished, cinematic pacing to
create pages that Stan found
a delight” (Nelson 20). Par-
able won the Eisner Award
for Best Finite Series of 1989.
In addition to these works,
Epic also produced a four-
An Eisner Award was awarded to Stan Lee and Moebius’s
issue mini-series written and illus-
trated by Bill Sienkiewicz called Stray
collaboration on a two-issue Silver Surfer series.
Silver Surfer TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
254
Toasters (Jan-April 1989). It was an
ambitious but low-selling story that
is at times “a murder mystery, in
which author and criminal psycholo-
gist Egon Rustemagik tries to track a
serial killer” wherein Sienkiewicz’s
style of painting is sometimes such a
“nightmarishly distorted fashion that
it’s initially impossible to tell fantasy
from reality” (Robinson).
Epic also produced another fully-
painted mini-series cover dated from
March through June, this time utiliz-
ing two artists with previous Epic ex-
perience. Havok & Wolverine: Melt-
down was written by Walt and Louise
Simonson and illustrated by Jon J.
Muth and Kent Williams. Both paint-
ers had previously worked on Epic
titles with J.M. DeMatteis, and in or-
der to cash in on this more high-pro-
file work, Epic re-released
Blood: A Tale as a graphic
novel in May, and Moon-
shadow in July. For Melt-
down, the painters split the
work right down the middle
with Muth doing all of the
Wolverine art and Williams
handling the Havok duties.
However, early in the year,
there were rumors of trou-
ble between Goodwin and
Marvel’s new owners—Ron
Perelman’s Andrews Group
Inc.—and in April, Goodwin
turned in his one-month
notice and resigned on May
19, taking a job at DC eleven
days later. After purchas-
ing the company, Andrews
conducted “a routine finan-
cial examination of Marvel”
and was “dissatisfied with
the sales performance of
most Epic titles,” and there
were more rumors that Epic
would be “dismantled and
its titles merged with the
regular Marvel line” (Baisen
& Hargitt 26). As Goodwin
put it in an interview with
Comics Buyer’s Guide, “my
actions [grew] out of a grow-
ing unhappiness with the
reorganization of Epic. Orig-
inally, it seemed it would
work out fine. In practice,
many of the working details
of the arrangement bothered me a
great deal” (Maggie Thompson).
Epic’s Shadowline Saga took the brunt
of the new restructuring, with all
three Shadowline titles, Doctor Zero,
Power Line, and St. George, being can-
celled after their eighth issues due
to poor sales. Issues #9-13 were then
published in a seven-issue anthology
called Critical Mass, beginning in Jan-
uary 1990.
With Goodwin’s departure, Carl Potts
was named Epic’s new executive edi-
tor and was responsible for finding,
developing, and orchestrating the
release of new Epic titles as well as
running a number of editorial teams
(Ellis). This included the first of Epic’s
Clive Barker adaptations/short story
collections, Hellraiser (Dec. 1989),
along with November 1989’s 48-page
painted graphic novel Neuromancer:
an adaptation by Tom de Haven and
Bruce Jensen of the first two chapters
of William Gibson’s classic cyberpunk his two bodies of work separate.” But
novel. Unfortunately, no further chap- with “Moebius” being more known
ters were completed even though the in America, he consented to market-
plan was to adapt further chapters ev- ing these new collections differently.
ery two years or so (Witterstaetter 25). It was around this time that Moebius
began work on a sequel to The Airtight
The February 1989 issue of Amazing Garage, originally intended to be pub-
Heroes reported that Epic planned lished by Epic (Lofficier 21). Instead, it
to collect and re-present Sergio Ara- would eventually be published by
gonés’ pre-Epic comic adventures of Dark Horse in 1996 as The Man
Groo the Barbarian. The Groo Chron- from Ciguri.
icles (July 1989) were released “to
commemorate Groo’s ‘lost years’... in a
six-issue bookshelf format” featuring
two stories per issue, collecting all the
Pacific and Eclipse Comics material to
accompany the current ongoing Epic
series (“Lost Years of Groo Set for Epic
Series” 11).
Potts continued Epic’s work with
Moebius, releasing three graphic
novels cover dated November and
December of 1989: Blueberry #1–
Chihuahua Pearl, Blueberry #2 –
Ballad for a Coffin (both by Moe-
bius and Jean-Michel Charlier),
and The Art of Moebius. The
Blueberry books were the first
of five planned volumes set for
release on a bi-monthly basis.
Writer Charlier had co-founded
the French weekly magazine Pilote,
where he and Giraud originally be-
gan telling the Blueberry adventures
in 1963, and this was the first time
Giraud would use his Moebius pseud-
onym with regards to his Blueberry
work. This was ironic, since “Giraud
first coined the ‘Moebius’ pseudonym
precisely because he wanted to keep Three Archie Goodwin-created titles—St. George, Doctor Zero and Power Line—formed Epic Comics’
“Shadowline Saga.” All three titles were cancelled in 1989 after their eighth issues. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

255

Originally a Malibu title, Will Jacobs and Gerard Jones’
Trouble with Girls also got published by Comico and
Eternity before the end of 1989.
Trouble with Girls TM and © Will Jacobs and Gerard Jones.
and Will Jacobs’ The Trouble with
Girls, effective in July, leaving Matt
Wagner’s Grendel and Bill Willing-
ham’s Elementals as the only ongo-
ing titles alongside a few minis and
specials (Baisden 5). By May, howev-
er, Fish Police and Trollords had been
picked up by Apple Comics, and The
Trouble with Girls returned to its for-
mer publisher, Eternity (Murphy 13).
The Trouble with Girls and Trollords:
Death and Kisses were both back with
July cover dates with Fish Police fol-
lowing in August.
The Maze Agency took a little longer
to land, eventually releasing issues
#8 through #23 with Innovation Com-
ics starting with cover date December
1989. In a 2004 interview, writer Mike
W. Barr blamed the situation on Com-
ico not being up-front about the actu-
al status of The Maze Agency; Comico
first claimed Maze Agency was on
By the end of 1989, Mike W. Barr’s Maze Agency
hiatus, allowing Barr to shop the title — featuring art by Adam Hughes —moved from
around to other publishers, but then Comico to Innovation Comics.
Comico backpedalled and told Barr Maze Agency TM and © Mike W. Barr

Independence Days:
Comico, The Crow, and Rock ’n’ Roll
But the 1989 marketplace wasn’t en-
tirely friendly to fringe publishing
efforts. In fact, if Epic hadn’t been a
Marvel imprint, it’s doubtful it would
have lasted as long as it did, even af-
ter its restructuring. For example,
Comico ended 1988 with serious cash
flow issues, and in January 1989 a
deal was announced where Comico
would pay DC an undisclosed fee in
exchange for DC printing, soliciting,
and distributing Comico’s eight titles
(Baisden 17). With DC’s distribution
fee added to Comico’s burden of debt,
the only way the struggling publisher
could dig itself out of the substantial
hole it found itself in was through a
dramatic increase in sales.
And that didn’t happen. After in-
creasing the number of press runs in
an effort to provide enough volume
to cover the DC handling charge, sales
did not go up. In fact, Blackthorne
Publisher Steve Schanes estimated
that Comico’s sales actually decreased
by as much as three percent (Baisden
6). In March, the other shoe dropped
as Comico announced that it would
be cancelling four titles: Steve Mon-
cuse’s Fish Police, Mike W. Barr and
Adam Hughes’ The Maze Agency, Paul
Fricke’s Trollords, and Gerard Jones
his title wasn’t really on hiatus and
they were still considering publish-
ing future issues. Comico also held
onto unpublished artwork and Barr
was forced to hire a lawyer to fight for
its release. At the same time, DC Com-
ics swooped in at the first notice of
Maze Agency’s possible cancellation
and offered artist Adam Hughes the
opportunity to pencil Justice League
America. Hughes would still do pen-
cils on Maze Agency #8, #9 and #12,
as well as a short piece in The Maze
Agency Annual #1 (August 1990), and
Comico’s Elementals #12 (Feb. 1990),
but was already gaining fame for his
Justice League debut work (Eury 24).
Comico continued publishing Bill
Willingham’s Elementals and Matt
Wagner’s Grendel, along with a hand-
ful of minis, before finally suspend-
ing regular publication in mid-1990.
That meant by the end of 1989, First
Comics was the only major indepen-
dent publisher still keeping a regular
slate of books on the market, month
in and out. Dark Horse, though, was
beginning to gain ground, and Eclipse
continued to publish erratically with
the occasional Tales of the Beanworld,
Zot!, and Miracleman (which con-
cluded Alan Moore’s acclaimed run at
the end of the year).
Outside of those larger independents,
smaller presses maintained their
traditional position in the comics
marketplace, with a few companies
actually building a healthy stable of
titles. Caliber Comics, founded by
comic store owner Gary Reed, burst
onto the scene in 1989 after acquir-
ing two titles from Arrow Comics:
the zombie adventure Deadworld and
the fantasy The Realm. With Arrow’s
folding, the company turned over the
rights of Deadworld to artist Vince
Locke and The Realm to artist Guy
Davis. Both artists frequented Reed’s
shop, and he opted to begin pub-
lishing them, continuing each title
from its previous numbering. Reed
explains:
Guy Davis already had a few
issues of the unpublished
Realm completed and wanted
to move into something else.
It was an adaptation of the
Sherlock Holmes stories but
set in an alternative universe
where punks had made a big-
ger impact on culture. We dis-
cussed the ideas, both good
and bad, so I came in on the
writing end and Baker Street
was born. I thought that was
a good nucleus to start the
company with Deadworld,
Realm, Moontrap [a film ad-
aptation], and Baker Street.
(Smith)

256
After launching Caliber Comics with
the release of Deadworld #10 at the
end of 1988, Reed released the an-
thology comic, Caliber Presents (Janu-
ary 1989), which featured the debut
of James O’Barr’s original creation,
The Crow. O’Barr had been develop-
ing The Crow since 1981, while he
was a U.S. Marine stationed in Ber-
lin. His enlisting had been motivated
by the death of his fiancée,
Beverly, in 1978, and The
Crow was a way of dealing
with that personal tragedy
(Blair). The story follows
the Crow, a young man
named Eric, who returns
from the dead to avenge
his and his fiancée’s mur-
ders. After the initial short
piece in Caliber Presents,
The Crow #1 was released
the following month (Feb.
1989). The series ran for
four issues through 1989,
with this first arc dedicated
to Ian Curtis, the deceased
lead singer of the band
Joy Division. In November,
The Crow went to a second
printing, having sold out its
initial 10,000 copies.
Throughout 1989 Caliber
released three to four is-
sues each of Deadworld, The
Realm, Baker Street, and the
Crow, while also publishing
seven issues of Caliber Pres-
ents.
Over at Dark Horse, Paul
Chadwick (Concrete) left
comics for the year to work
as the production designer
on the horror anthology
film After Midnight, pro-
ducing only a few short
pieces (including two Con-
crete shorts for Dark Horse
Presents #28 (March 1989) and #32
[August 1989]), which caused prom-
ised new work for Dark Horse to be
pushed back to 1990. In the mean-
time, Dark Horse published three col-
lections of Concrete, reprinting Con-
crete #1-4 and work from Dark Horse
Presents #1 and #2.
NOW Comics maintained a steady
stream of licensed work with its
Ghostbusters and Speed Racer fami-
lies of comics, as well as the ongoing
Terminator, Fright Night, and Astro
Boy series. At the end of the year,
NOW also launched a long-running
Green Hornet series—initially writ-
ten by Ron Fortier and illustrated by
Jeff Butler—that attempted to recon-
cile all of the previous incarnations of
the Green Hornet and Kato into one
multigenerational epic. The series’
story began in 1945 and worked its
way up to the present day (even in-
1989 house ad promoting the characters and
licenses found in Dark Horse Comics’ lineup.
TM and © Dark Horse Comics.
corporating the 1966-7 TV version of
the character).
Fantagraphics continued to publish
the critically acclaimed Love and
Rockets, by Gilbert and Jaime Her-
nandez, along with Stan Sakai’s Usagi
Yojimbo, and late in the year began
publishing the daring experimental
anthology, Eightball, by Fantagraph-
ics regular Daniel Clowes. Each Eight-
ball issue contained a number of
257
short pieces on a variety of subjects
along with regular episodic adven-
tures of Young Dan Pussey. The cen-
terpiece of the first ten issues, how-
ever, was the darkly surreal “Like a
Velvet Glove Cast in Iron.” The story
takes its name from Russ Meyer’s
film, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, and
follows the attempts of a man named
Clay Loudermilk as he searches for
his estranged wife, Bar-
bara Allen. What follows
is a nightmarish journey
through sexual fetishism,
deformity, and obsession.
While that all sounds con-
troversial, there was only
one publisher that seemed
to have no trouble (or
qualms) about using con-
troversy to sell its comic
book. Revolutionary Com-
ics published the unli-
censed rock star biography
Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics, which
garnered more press than
most independent comics
in 1989.
Founder, Todd Loren, had
worked selling music mem-
orabilia for most of the
decade before launching
Revolutionary Comics, and
depending on the source,
he was described as every-
thing from a shrill carnival
barker to a First Amend-
ment crusader. The Comics
Journal’s Gary Groth even
penned an editorial about
Loren in 1990 titled, “Todd
Loren – First Amendment
Advocate or Lying Sack of
Shit?” Regardless of what
people thought of him,
Loren was responsible for
some of the highest sell-
ing independent comics
of 1989. Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics #1 (July
1989) told the unauthorized story of
Guns N’ Roses, and after Rolling Stone
reported that the band’s lawyer Peter
Parerno had sent Loren a cease and
desist letter, the comic almost imme-
diately sold out its entire 10,000 copy
print run (Sanford). The series then
moved on to Metallica, Bon Jovi, Mot-
ley Crue, Def Leppard, and rounded
out the year with The Rolling Stones,
all the while rallying behind the First
Amendment, but quietly agreeing to
not reprint issues once lawsuits were
actually filed by both Bon Jovi and But Archie Comics Chairman, Michael
Motley Crue (Groth 5). The lawsuits Silberkleit, also served as President
resulted in Revolutionary Comics of the Comics Magazine Association
having to build its own distribution of America, which administers the
network outside of traditional comics Comics Code Authority. As such, he
outlets, making Revolutionary inde- had been called on to comment on the
pendent from even the independent sex and violence scandal. While con-
scene. sistently condemning mainstream
comics, Silberkleit reinforced Archie
Where to Draw the Line? Comics’ wholesome image. Archie
The Violence Debate Comics President, Richard Goldwater,
echoed these remarks, stating that
Revolutionary Comics wasn’t
there “seems to be a growing trend
the comic book industry’s
toward excessive violence in some
biggest controversy in 1989,
areas of the industry. Archie
though. Instead, an April 30
Comics has enjoyed years
feature article in The New York
of success by promoting
Times Magazine by Forbes Se-
The Joker TM and © DC Comics.

healthy, wholesome val-

nior Editor Joe Queenan, titled
ues. We will not com-
“Drawing on the Dark Side,”
promise our principles for
spurred a barrage of unflattering
the additional profits that
media scrutiny of comic books over
might come with trying to com-
the summer (Baisden, “Violent Com-
pete with those publications.” As a
ics Draw Unfavorable Media Spot-
result, Spectrum was cancelled be-
light” 5). Queenan did praise inde-
fore it had really even begun (“Ar-
pendent publishers for providing
chie Cancels Spectrum” 12).
alternatives to the mainstream
sex and violence, citing Love
and Rockets, American Splendor,
The Year of the Bat Robin
and Maus, in particular, but As noted by Queenan, DC
characterized the majority of Comics had closed out 1988
independents as “practic[ing] Books Now Much More with a bang – literally. The
downscale me-tooism, Violent.” Marvel and DC death of the second Robin,
churning out poorly drawn were the primary targets Jason Todd, at the hands of
versions of the major pub- of the reports, citing Dare- the Joker in Batman #428
lisher’s superheroes” (6). devil, Green Arrow, Sandman, was a startling end to the
The Punisher, and Black Orchid, character’s run, and a bi-
“There is no better sym- zarre way to kick off the
bol for the direction com- amongst others, for excessive vio-
lence (8). The final assault on comics 50th anniversary of Batman
ic books have taken,” Queenan wrote, and the build-up to the big-budget
“than the devolution of the Joker from came from a June 12 Time magazine
article by Anastasia Toufexis, titled Warner Brothers’ film. As it turned
the deranged prankster of the 1960s out, Jason’s fate was sealed before the
to the homicidal, sexually aberrant “Our Violent Kids,” which attempted
to draw connections between violent callers even finished voting. As one
monster who beats Robin to a pulp would expect in a situation like this,
in the enormously popular 1988 Bat- entertainment like comics and youth
crime (9). there were two endings written: one
man series, published by DC comics where Jason died and one where he
[sic] and now collected in booksize The comics industry weathered the lived. But even if the readers voted
format under the title ‘A Death in the assault with hardly a ripple. Mar- for Jason to live, he was being retired
Family.’” “The Joker’s depradations vel’s Nightmare on Elm Street maga- as Robin. And just a few months af-
[sic] may be lethal to Robin,” Queen- zine was quietly cancelled after the ter the conclusion to that story was
an continued, “but they have had a second issue (Nov. 1989), but there published, Batman writer Jim Star-
salutary effect on the nearly $300 was no formal explanation tying the lin would be retired from DC for over
million comicbook industry, which has cancellation to the summer’s con- a decade. As he put it during a 2011
more than doubled in size in this troversy. The only clearly connect- interview:
decade” (5). ed cancellations came from Archie
Comics, which had been developing When [“Death in the Family”]
The article was followed by comic began, [Batman editor] Den-
book-focused coverage on CNN’s Lar- Spectrum Comics as the return of its
super-hero line. These new takes on ny O’Neil showed up on all
ry King Live on May 2, and then more the morning TV talk shows,
on NBC’s Today show on May 4 and characters like The Hangman (to be
written by Len Wein) and The Fly (by reportedly taking full credit
May 11. Then, on May 18, the Nation- for the project. Jim Aparo and
al Coalition on Television Violence Steve Englehart) were promoted as
grittier, more violent versions of the I were never mentioned. But
(NCTV) issued a report by NCTV Direc- when the merchandising de-
tor Dr. Thomas Radecki, titled “Comic originals in an attempt to fit into the
contemporary comics marketplace. partment suddenly realized
258
 they had all these licensing
deals involving Robin being
on PJs and lunchboxes, they
kicked up a real stink. All
of a sudden DC’s bestseller
that year became a horren-
dous mistake. Guess who got
blamed for it? I was off Bat-
man within weeks and gone
from DC, as soon as I finished
[the 1989 mini-series] Gil-
gamesh II. (Franklin 74)
In the April 21, 1989 is-
sue of The Comics Buy-
er’s Guide, Starlin was
quoted as saying that
“the death of Robin
was planned all along,
because DC intends to
introduce a new ver-
sion of the character”
(Salerno). DC denied
the accusations in
the very same is-
sue, but refused to
comment in any detail. Looking back,
Starlin also denies it, saying,
When [CBG] ran the inter-
view, they started it off with a
headline that heavily hinted
that the whole call-in stunt
was a hoax; that we planned
to kill off Robin all along.
They did this, even though I Left: DC Comics house ad promoting the
never said anything like that “Batman: Year Three” story arc.
Above: Batman #436 introduced Tim Drake.
in my interview. Of course, Batman TM and © DC Comics.
most folks up at DC never
read past the headline and Year Three” (Batman #436-439 [Aug.-
that pretty much finished me Sept.]) which focused solely on retell-
up at DC for more than a de- ing the origin of the original Robin,
cade. (Franklin 74) Dick Grayson, parallel to a contem-
nightmare to stop the story porary storyline that draws Dick back
Regardless, one thing was fairly cer-
and do a major introduction to Gotham in his current Nightwing
tain: a new Robin was indeed on the
sequence for a whole new identity. Beginning immediately af-
way, one that was a bit more palat-
character who doesn’t really ter the conclusion of that story was “A
able to the general public (or at least
have a dramatic function. Lonely Place of Dying,” a five-part arc
to the suits at Warner Brothers). Star-
He’s just in there because he’s that included Batman #440-442 and
lin’s explanation for this at the time
obligatory. What wound up The New Titans #60-61, which cul-
was that “for some reason DC seemed
happening was that, surprise, minated in Batman #442 (Dec. 1989)
to think that Robin was also going
surprise, somebody thought with a new Robin, the previously in-
to be in the Batman movie” (Salerno
“We can do this without Rob- troduced Tim Drake. The debut of this
3). Batman screenwriter Sam Hamm
in.” All the hoops we had to third “Boy Wonder” came one year, to
confirmed that Robin was in the early
jump through getting him in the month, since the published death
drafts:
there turned out to be wasted of Jason Todd. This was done thanks
Yeah, Robin was in there be- to demands from Warner executives,
cause Warner Brothers was effort. (Mangels 48)
and despite Denny O’Neil’s desire to
hot to have him. Their basic But the wheels for Robin’s return wait even longer before introducing a
string of demands when we were already in motion in the pag- new Robin (Rogers).
first came in to talk about do- es of Batman. Coinciding with the
release of the film in June, writer Wolfman had a very specific plan for
ing it was to have the Batman,
Marv Wolfman began a four-part, creating a Robin that the fans would
to have the Joker, to have Rob-
bi-weekly storyline called “Batman: accept in the role:
in... It became somewhat of a

259

Above: DC Comics house ad promoting the
“Lonely Place of Dying” cross-over. Top right: In
Batman #442, Tim Drake became the next Robin.
All characters TM and © DC Comics.
My
thoughts
were that this
Robin should
want to be Robin
and not Batman....
That he have parents,
to differentiate him from all
other kid partners, and that
he not only be a good ath-
lete, but incredibly bright
and intuitive. To accomplish
some of that, I had him at
the circus, as a very young
child, when [original Robin]
Dick [Grayson]’s parents were
killed; I thought that would
be something he’d never for-
get and would cement the
memory of Dick’s perfor-
mance in his mind. The rest
followed out of that. (Rogers)
The Year of the Bat Detective
Meanwhile, over in Detective Comics,
after the January and February issues,
Alan Grant, the series’ writer since
issue #583 (Feb. 1988), was shunted
aside to prepare for the big Fiftieth
Anniversary Adventure, “Blind Jus-
260
tice,” written by Batman screenwrit-
er Sam Hamm in his first foray into
scripting comics. Issues #598 and
#600 were each 80 pages and priced
at $2.95 (as opposed to the regular
$0.75), containing three chapters
apiece along with pin-up pages and
text pieces commemorating Batman.
Issue #599 was regular-sized and con-
tained only one chapter of “Blind Jus-
tice” with extra text and illustrations.
Hamm’s story introduces character
Henri Ducard, the man who helped
train Bruce Wayne in Paris during
his years preparing to become the
Batman. Outside of that, there’s not
a whole lot to distinguish the adven-
ture from any other Batman story.
The “Fiftieth Anniversary Adventure”
seemed more like a marketing ploy
than anything else, making sure to
emphasize the fact that the screen-
writer of the film was writing the
comic in the months leading up to the
film’s release. Outside of the writer’s
name, there was no other connection
to the film. As Hamm put it at the
time:
Well, when I approached it,
I didn’t really want to try to
do a definitive Batman, be-
cause there seem to be about
eight “definitive Batmans.”... I
wanted to do something that
would fit into the regular con-
 tinuity of Detective Comics,
and try to do Bruce/Batman
as he is in the comic books as
opposed to the revised ver-
sion that is being introduced
to the mass movie audience.
It’s really a pretty straight
story in Batman continuity.
I’m not really trying to add
another aspect to the legend
or come up with anything
which is going to be incor-
porated into the mythos on
a running basis. (Mangels,
“Part II” 61)
Alan Grant’s return to the title with is-
sue #601 (June 1989) was marked by
nothing more than a return to qual-
ity short Batman stories that rarely
utilized Batman’s traditional Rogues
Gallery. The only classic Batman vil-
lains Grant used in 1989 were each of
the four Clayfaces for the story titled
“The Mud Pack” (#604-607 Sept.-Oct.
1989) when the title went bi-weekly
for two months, ensuring there was
a new Batman title on the shelves
nearly every week during the film’s
premiere and in the months just after.
Grant’s 1989 run was capped with
the introduction in Detective Com-
ics #608-609 (Nov.–Dec.) of one of his
most popular and enduring creations,
Anarky, a twelve-year-old anarchist
vigilante. Grant intended Anarky
to be positioned as the next Robin,
but evidently he didn’t run that idea
by Denny O’Neil. Grant didn’t know
about DC’s plans with Tim Drake until
Wolfman’s introduction was already
approved and in motion (Berridge 7).

The Year of the Bat Legends

The same time that Alan Grant was
introducing Anarky and Tim Drake
was about to pick up the Robin cos-
tume, DC debuted what was hailed
on its cover as “The First New ‘Solo’
Batman Book Since 1940!” Legends of
the Dark Knight was written by Den-
ny O’Neil with art by Ed Hannigan
and purported to tell the very first
Batman adventure, slotting it into
continuity by overlapping it with
events in Frank Miller’s Batman: Year
One. Initially, Legends was promoted
as a series of stand-alone five-issue
stories, but after a while that became
less strict a standard as the series
continued its run of 214 issues.
The opening story, “Shaman,” told of
In 1989, Batman screenwriter Sam Hamm penned a three-issue arc for Detective Comics and
DC launched a new Batman series: Legends of the Dark Knight. Batman TM and © DC Comics.
Bruce Wayne’s near-death in Alaska quality graphic novel-style stories in
while bounty hunting a murderer. a monthly serial format, was the use
After almost dying, he is rescued by a of multiple covers to take advantage
Native American girl and her grand- of the collectibles market. Legends of
father who tell him the story of how the Dark Knight #1 shipped with four
The Bat gained its wings, providing variant covers, each with a different
a little bit more insight into Wayne’s color. Because Batman didn’t actually
eventual choice of crime fighting appear in the book, DC’s marketing
identity. opted for a Bat-silhouette as the cov-
Perhaps the most notable thing about er, which allowed for the easy incor-
the launch of this new series, aside poration of four different background
from the intent to produce high- colors.

261
 It was not a reputation he wanted.

Gotham By Gaslight TM and © DC Comics.

In a decision that would change the
course of his career, Mignola jumped
at the chance to take the more ab-
stract stylistic elements he’d devel-
oped while studying Kirby and ap-
ply them with an expressionistic
approach to creating mood and re-
alizing period architectural details
(Boucher). This would become his
distinctive signature style, finding
expression in adaptations of Fritz
Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
(Epic Comics, 1990) and Bram Stoker’s
Dracula (Topps Comics, 1992), and
finally the development of his own
original property, Hellboy, in 1994.
The success of Gotham by Gaslight
opened up the possibility to tell
alternative stories of DC’s heroes, al-
though initially these stories focused
mainly on Batman. Unlike Marvel’s
What If...?, though, these were not
just changes in continuity to tell
alternate takes on established stories.
The Elseworlds imprint provided cre-
ators the opportunity to tell stories
with fully self-contained continu-
ities with the only connection to the
The Year of the Bat Elseworlds DC Universe being the appearance of
And if untold stories from Batman’s DC characters in fresh takes on their
past weren’t enough to broaden the established roles.
Bat-market, editor Mark Waid had
an idea to bring back the imaginary The Year of the Bat Transvestite?
stories that DC had retired with the October saw the release of Grant
1986 publication of Alan Moore’s Morrison and Dave McKean’s long-
“Whatever Happened to the Man of awaited painted/collage, hardcover
Tomorrow?” The first of what would graphic novel, Arkham Asylum:
become DC’s Elseworlds imprint was A Serious House on Serious Earth.
released in November 1989. Gotham On the surface, the story is simple
by Gaslight was written by Brian enough: The Joker and other inmates
Augustyn with stylish, atmospheric of Arkham Asylum have taken over
art by Mike Mignola and inking by the hospital, have hostages, and de-
P. Craig Russell, telling the tale of a mand that Batman be turned over
Victorian-era Batman on the trail of a in exchange for them. They plan on
Gotham transplanted Jack the Ripper. defeating Batman once and for all.
While the story itself was notable Around this standard plot, Morrison
mainly for reimagining Batman as and McKean constructed an elabo-
though he were a steampunk-styled rate symbolic narrative inspired by
adventurer in 1889, what really cap- Jungian philosophy, Crowley’s tarot,
tured the imaginations of readers mythology, psychotherapy, and the
was the art. Mignola had been known myth of the hero. The graphic novel
mainly for his inking, along with opens and closes with epigraphs
some pencils on Marvel titles like In- from Lewis Carrol’s Alice’s Adventures
credible Hulk, Alpha Flight, and the in Wonderland, appropriately linking
1985 mini-series Rocket Raccoon, but the madness that Alice finds in Won-
he had just finished art for DC’s Cos- derland with the madness that Bat-
mic Odyssey (1988), and after spend- man confronts in the insane asylum.
ing nearly a year using Jack Kirby Providing further thematic depth is
as his inspiration for that work, he Arkham Asylum’s subtitle, “A Seri-
found himself gaining a reputation ous House on Serious Earth,” which is
for super-hero work. taken from the final stanza of Philip
262
Larkin’s poem “Church Going” (which
describes an abandoned church):
A serious house on serious
earth it is,
In whose blent air all our
compulsions meet,
Are recognized, and robed as
destinies.
And that much never can be
obsolete,
Since someone will forever
be surprising
A hunger in himself to be
more serious,
And gravitating with it to
this ground,
Which, he once heard, was
proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie
round. (lines 55-63)
And while at the time Arkham Asy-
lum was the top-grossing comic book
ever sold—eventually selling over
500,000 copies and earning more
than $2.5 million—it was also one of
the most poorly received Batman sto-
ries by its contemporary Batman fans
(although many comic critics today
rank it as amongst the best). As Mor-
rison himself put it in a 1995 inter-
view, “[o]ver 200,000 people bought
it… [and] 199,000 people regretted it”
(Hasted 68).
port, Steven J. Ross, then President
of DC-parent Warner Communica-
tions had “taken exception to the
‘dark’ Batman, which could jeopar-
dize further merchandising of the
hero” (Baisden, “Arkham Asylum” 19).
There were also reports that the proj-
ect had been cancelled, which were
confirmed by Morrison in the same
article: “It was cancelled for about a
month, but we were able to convince
them to let us continue. It’s a fairly
difficult situation – the problem lies
with Warner Brothers themselves
rather than DC” (19). According to
Morrison, “concerned parties at War-
ner objected to his portrayal of the
Joker as a Madonna-inspired trans-
vestite who uses that image to chal-
lenge Batman’s sexual self-image”
(19). Due to the mandated rewrites,
the release date for Arkham Asylum
was pushed back to October, well af-
ter the release of the film.
The Year of the Bat!
But DC and Warner Brothers weren’t
the only people worrying about how
Batman was being represented this
year. The Batman movie was beset by
anxieties from all quarters, particu-
larly from the fan community, with
nearly every announcement made
along the way from pre-production
up until the actual release. The main
Arkham Asylum TM and © DC Comics.

Dave McKean also felt that it ulti-

mately failed creatively: “[B]y the
end of it I’d really begun to think that
this whole thing about four-color
comics with very, very overpainted,
lavish illustrations in every panel
just didn’t work. It hampers the sto-
rytelling. It does everything wrong”
(Chritton). Grant Morrison, on the
other hand, argued that the “comics
audience is fairly conservative oddly
enough, so it’s no surprise that they
found Arkham Asylum ‘difficult.’
People who DON’T read comics regu-
larly seemed to really enjoy the book”
(Ness). The fan reaction was so poor
that Morrison felt he had to write
“Batman: Gothic” in Legends of the
Dark Knight #6-10 (April-Aug. 1990)
“to show people that [he] could just
write a straight thing as well” (Hast-
ed 70).
Regardless of the creators’ opinions,
DC editorial definitely had issues
with the work. According to one re-

263

Michael Keaton is Batman in
Tim Burton’s 1989 feature film.
Batman TM and © Warner Bros. Entertainment.
point of contention early on had to do
with just how “serious” Tim Burton’s
approach was going to be, especially
after casting Michael Keaton as Bat-
man. It didn’t help matters that up
until this point, Burton had only di-
rected Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985)
and Beetlejuice (1988), two surreal
comedies that didn’t hesitate to em-
brace juvenile humor. Similarly, Ke-
aton was best known for comedies
like Night Shift (1982) and Mister
Mom (1983).
Burton’s own explanation for the
casting of Keaton shifted the blame
a little, but he didn’t hesitate to own
the decision:
264
Casting Keaton as Batman
was producer Jon Peters’ idea,
Burton says. “I was shocked at
first, but the more I thought
about it, the more sense it
made to me. I started out
with the classic square-jawed
hulk guys. But then I just
couldn’t visualize them in a
batsuit… And I thought with
Bruce Wayne… if he’s so hand-
some, rich and strong, why
is he putting on a batsuit?
With Michael, I can see him
putting on a batsuit.”… Adds
Keaton, “Tim said, ‘Look, you
look like a guy who’d put on
a batsuit and go out and do
damage.’ Once he said that, I
knew how to act accordingly.”
(Carr)
Luckily for everyone involved, Bat-
man (with a shooting budget of $35
million) was a smash hit, earning
over $40 million in just its opening
weekend (June 23-25, 1989), and by
the time it left theaters in December,
the film had made over $251 million
in the U.S. alone. Those totals meant
that Batman had the best opening
weekend of the year and ended up
being 1989’s number one film. It was
only beaten out in worldwide box of-
fice totals by Indiana Jones and the
Last Crusade.
The question was how much of this
success was dependent on the qual-
ity of the film and how much was
due to the Warner Brothers market-
ing machine. The critical response
from mainstream critics was mixed,
with more critics enjoying the film
for what it was than denouncing it
as poorly made or written. The fan re-
sponse was also mixed, with a lot of
the vocal fears about Keaton and the
film’s tone being satisfied with the
dark, almost surreal look and the oc-
casionally borderline psychotic edge
that Keaton gave Bruce Wayne. This
was a major step forward for comic
book films, particularly after the fail-
ures of Superman III and Superman
IV: The Quest for Peace. Batman es-
tablished to the studios that superhe-
ro films could not only be financially
successful, but could also appeal to
adult audiences as well as children
and teens.
With the Batman film being such a
huge hit, there were other fears and
anxieties about just how the mer-
chandising would affect the comics
marketplace. For DC there was no
question that it was going to be a
banner year as DC Publisher Paul Lev-
itz promised that all of the Bat-books
would stay in print at least through
the end of the year. The September
1989 issue of Amazing Heroes noted
that DC already had gone through
“eight printings of Dark Knight, four
printings of Son of the Demon, and
three each of Year One and Death
in the Family” (“DC Promises” 9). In
addition to these, DC went back to
press for their first time ever for a
standard-format comic and issued a
second printing of Batman #436 – the
first chapter of “Batman: Year Three”
(9). When the record-breaking finan-
cial success of Arkham Asylum was
factored in, there could be no doubt
that DC benefited from the Batman
film promotion. DC’s comic book adaptation of the Batman movie was
written by Denny O’Neil and drawn by Jerry Ordway.
Other publishers weren’t so lucky, of Batman TM and © DC Comics.
course. Comics Journal surveyed re-
tailers, distributors, and publishers
The film saw the return of actors Lou-
for an article in its November 1989
is Jourdan as Dr. Anton Arcane and
magazine and learned that while
Dick Durock as Swamp Thing, while
most retailers found Bat-Mania to
adding television star Heather Lock-
be a boon to sales, “small-scale pub-
lear as Abby Arcane. Even though
lishers, and publishers of alternative
it tried to touch on elements of
comics, found the market soft, and
the comic, the movie’s come-
targeted the Batman movie and its
dic approach was not well
attendant merchandising mania as a
received and the film failed
major factor” (Baisden, “Bat Summer”
at the box office, bringing in
9). And while some retailers claimed
a domestic gross of just un-
that independent sales were drop-
der $192,000. This didn’t
ping due to the increase in Bat mer-
stop a successful
chandise, distributors didn’t note any
syndicated tele-
real change. All of this led to DC beat-
vision series
ing Marvel’s market share in Septem-
from launching
ber, an extraordinarily rare accom-
in 1990, with
plishment at the time.
Dick Durock
Not the Year of the Swamp Thing continuing
to play the
But Batman wasn’t the only DC film title role.
released in 1989, nor was it the only
one to impact its comic book counter-
part. The Return of the Swamp Thing
premiered in May and eschewed the
more serious tone of its previous 1982
film outing, which had been directed
by horror superstar Wes Craven. The
sequel was directed by Jim Wynorski,
“best” known for directing Chopping
Mall (1986) and the Tracy Lords sci-fi
vampire film, Not of This Earth (1988),
before moving on to low-budget ac-
tion and soft-core porn in the follow-
ing decades.

265
But on March 9, a day after DC an-
nounced that President Jenette Kahn
would be shifting her executive posi-
tion from Publisher to Editor-in-Chief
(Baisden, “DC Announces” 16), the
current writer of the Swamp Thing
comic series, Rick Veitch, resigned
after Kahn rejected his previously ap-
proved script for issue #88, despite
it already being three-quarters pen-
ciled. Writers Neil Gaiman and Jamie
Delano, who were scheduled to script
the series after Veitch’s
planned exit, both declined
the assignment in a show
of solidarity with Veitch
(Baisden, “Rick Veitch” 7).
The issue was to be a con-
tinuation of the ongoing
Swamp Thing time-travel
storyline with Swamp
Thing being drawn through
time to witness the cru-
cifixion of Christ. Veitch
“cast Swamp Thing in the
role of the angel [who of-
fered the cup to Christ in
the garden]” (8). Appar-
ently, it was a combination
of this and pressures from
Warner Brothers that led to
the last-minute refusal to
publish the story. Swamp
Thing editor Karen Berger
claimed “an unnamed War-
ner Executive reaffirmed
Kahn’s decision” and added
that “two years ago, we
could have published this
story... but couldn’t now be-
cause the current political
climate [determines] we
can’t have a religious icon
with a monster in a comic
book” (8).
That political climate
would have been the pending Time/
Warner merger, which was an-
nounced less than a week prior, on
March 5 (Norris). Warner was already
actively intervening with DC to make
sure that the Batman franchise didn’t
stray too far from what was market-
able with its demands for a new Rob-
in and its requirements that Morrison
and McKean’s Arkham Asylum didn’t
get too risqué. Protecting the Swamp
Thing marketing made financial
sense, seeing as along with the up-
coming film, the television series was
on the horizon.
Just a few months later, in the June
15, 1989 issue of Amazing Heroes (No.
167), Veitch announced that he would
be launching his own publishing
company, King Hell, that fall. The first
release would be a trade paperback
collection of his six-issue 1984 Epic
comic, The One, to be followed shortly
thereafter by a new mini-series called
Brat Pack, which would “examine the
‘kid-sidekick’ experience in excruciat-
ing detail” (“Rick Veitch” 13).
Comics Scene #7 had a feature story on
the second Swamp Thing movie.
Crossovers?
What Crossovers?
On cover date January 1989, DC re-
leased both the final issue of the In-
vasion! crossover and the “Invasion
Aftermath” issues that tied up sto-
rylines between Invasion! #2 and #3.
The main repercussions of the event
weren’t really felt in the mainstream
titles, instead finding its most influ-
ential expression in the launch of
Keith Giffen’s L.E.G.I.O.N. ’89 and the
266
creation of Crazy Jane for Grant Morri-
son’s Doom Patrol. There was also the
forgettable Blasters Special #1 (March
1989) where the Blasters (a group of
metahumans and the newly-powered
Snapper Carr) fight off the Spider
Guild before deciding to leave Earth
behind.
With Invasion! completed, DC pre-
pared to roll out its next crossover
event. For 1989, DC planned a six-
issue mini-series titled
Seventh Generation, to
be co-written by John Os-
trander and Roger Stern.
A news article in Amazing
Heroes #165 (May 16, 1989)
claims the plot of the post-
apocalyptic story involves
“the seventh-generation
descendents of 20 survivors
of WWIII, all with the me-
ta-human gene, as they at-
tempt to travel back in time
and prevent the final war”
(Cranston 8). But with Bat-
mania taking over the DC
Universe, Seventh Genera-
tion was jettisoned under
the rationale that a cross-
over event wasn’t needed
for the year. Ostrander was
even paid a “kill fee” for his
work on the aborted series
(Ostrander, “Seventh Gen-
eration”).
Consequently, DC’s only
real crossover event in 1989
was a smaller affair. Begin-
ning in Checkmate! #15
(May 1989) and continu-
ing bi-weekly in tandem
with Suicide Squad (begin-
ning with issue #27, May
1989) through June, writers
Paul Kupperberg, John Os-
trander, and his wife Kim Yale, script-
ed “The Janus Directive.” The story
would also cross over into Manhunter
#14 (June 1989), Firestorm #86 (June
1989), and Captain Atom #30 (June
1989), but the main thrust of the story
was contained in DC’s two covert op-
erations titles.
It was a surprisingly low-key cross-
over, given that the last one, Inva-
sion!, had leaked into nearly forty
other DC titles. “The Janus Directive”
served mainly as a way to realign the
covert agencies Checkmate and Sui-
cide Squad. The story followed Suicide
 DC Comics house ad promoting the
“Janus Directive” cross-over event.
TM and © DC Comics.

Squad leader Amanda Waller going

rogue in an attempt to discover who
had tried to have her assassinated
and replaced (with a doppelganger).
The villain of the piece was Kobra, the
cult leader and international terrorist,
who was attempting to manipulate
various governments into activating a
space-based microwave pulse cannon
in the eastern United States, setting
off the Kali Yuga, the age of chaos he
believed would signal his dominion
over humankind.

Who’s That Girl?

Just prior to the launch of the “Janus
Directive,” Ostrander and Yale intro-
duced a character who would become
a controversial keystone in the DC Uni-
verse. In Suicide Squad #23 (Jan. 1989),
a mysterious voice identifying itself
as Oracle contacts The Suicide Squad’s
computer technician, Flo, through
her computer network. Over the next
few issues of both Suicide Squad and
Manhunter (which was also written
by Ostrander and Yale), Oracle contin-
ues to provide intelligence, eventually
becoming an important part of both
ongoing series.
In Suicide Squad #38 (Feb. 1990), a lit-
tle over a year after Oracle’s introduc-
tion, Ostrander and Yale revealed (al-
though hints had been dropped along
the way) that Oracle was actually the
former Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, who
had been paralyzed from the waist
Barry Kitson drawn profile of Barbara Gordon, a.k.a. Oracle, that originally appeared
in Who's Who in the DC Universe. TM and © DC Comics.
down after being shot in Alan Moore More Number Ones Than You Can Count!
and Brian Bolland’s Killing Joke (1988).
Barbara Gordon wasn’t the only char-
Ostrander and Yale’s motivation for
acter returning to the DCU in 1989.
bringing back Barbara Gordon, but
In fact, while Marvel was concentrat-
not healing her, was fairly straight-
ing on epic crossovers and expanding
forward: “Kim and I, when we cre-
its audience with Epic comics and
ated Oracle for the Suicide Squad, felt
graphic novels, DC chose to focus on
the action [being shot by the Joker]
its mainstream universe and licensed
should have repercussions. Barbara
projects. Over the course of the year,
Gordon should be crippled as a result.
DC launched approximately thirty in-
However, it should make her no less of
augural issues of new ongoing series,
a ‘hero’ so we armed her with a mess
mini-series, and specials, compared
of very high-end computers and made
to the dozen or so that Marvel pre-
her the research person for the DCU”
miered.
(Ostrander, “Comic Reality Bytes”).

267
 In 1989, DC Comics released numerous new titles, specials, and mini-series like Catwoman, Blackhawk and Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography. TM and © DC Comics.
The year began with the return of
Mister Miracle (Jan. 1989) under the
guiding hands of J.M. DeMatteis and
Ian Gibson. The title spun out of the
Justice League International ongoing
and had a more comedic approach
than Mr. Miracle’s earlier series. The
following month saw the release of
New Gods #1 (Feb. 1989), a continua-
tion of Jack Kirby’s classic work, spin-
ning out of Jim Starlin’s recently com-
pleted Cosmic Odyssey mini-series.
Starlin was scheduled to write the se-
ries with Paris Cullins doing the art,
but after completing three issues,
Starlin was pulled from the project
due to the fallout from the CBG inter-
view about the death of Robin. Mark
Evanier was then hired to carry it on-
ward. Evanier had been a production
assistant to Kirby in the early 1970s,
when Kirby was originally writing
the New Gods saga, and he took the
job, saying that Kirby had asked him
to do New Gods if it was ever offered
(“Mark Evanier”). Unfortunately, it is
not work that Evanier is happy with:
“What happened was that
I was brought onto a series
that had already been started
and I had to step into some-
one else’s storyline and work
with an artist who had his
own ideas about the comic.
His ideas were probably fine
but they weren’t my ideas
and the book was already on
the schedule so we were im-
mediately racing deadlines
with no time to sit down and
reconcile my concepts with
his. (“Mark Evanier”)
A four-issue Catwoman mini-series
by Mindy Newell (who would return
to writing Wonder Woman with is-
sue #36 (Nov. 1989), scripting George
Pérez’s plots) and J.J. Birch also de-
buted with a February cover date,
picking up where Frank Miller’s Bat-
man: Year One (1986) had left off. It
was not the job Newell had hoped
it to be and she prefers not to speak
of it (Simone). It was marketed as a
Mature Readers title and explored
Selina Kyle’s time as a prostitute be-
fore becoming Catwoman. In the
story, her pimp, Stan, kidnaps and
violently abuses her sister Maggie
(a nun), before Selina kills him. The
mini-series essentially just expanded
and detailed Catwoman’s new origin
as established in Year One, without
leaving much room for Newell to add
to the narrative. Newell’s time on
Wonder Woman was much more cre-
atively satisfying both for her and for
the readers (Simone).
Cover date March brought the release
of The Phantom #1, carrying on from
the mini-series of the previous year.
While that mini had been written by
Peter David with artists Dennis Janke
and Joe Orlando, Mark Verheiden
took the reins for the ongoing series,
268
with art supplied by Luke McDonnell.
Their job was to write a modern-day
incarnation of The Phantom, so Ver-
heiden researched modern Africa to
find socially relevant subject matter
and read some of Phantom creator Lee
Falk’s Phantom novels. The end result
pitted an angrier-than-usual Phan-
tom against threats like modern-day
pirates, toxic dumping, racism, and
hunger. The series lasted just over a
year before it was cancelled due to a
combination of low sales and licens-
ing issues. Once all was said and
done, though, Falk wrote to Verhe-
iden complimenting him on his sto-
ries (“Mark Verheiden”).
That same month, DC launched
Blackhawk #1, an ongoing series that
failed to live up to expectations af-
ter the concept’s run in Action Com-
ics Weekly and the Howard Chaykin
mini-series from 1988. Writer Martin
Pasko told solid stories, but without
the edginess of Chaykin’s mini, the
concept lost some of its appeal to
readers. Rick Burchett did an admira-
ble job illustrating the book in a man-
ner that recalled Chaykin’s distinctive
style while maintaining his own flair.
Another character, like Catwoman,
who made it through Crisis on Infinite
Earths but emerged fundamentally
altered was The Huntress, and long-
time Huntress writer (as a back-up
feature in Wonder Woman through
the early 1980s) Joey Cavalieri was
assigned to write this new version of
the character, with Joe Staton on art.
Huntress #1 (April 1989) gave readers
a Huntress who was no longer the
Earth-2 daughter of Batman and Cat-
woman, and instead presented her as
Helena Bertinelli, daughter of one of
Gotham City’s most prominent Mafia
families. After being raped as a child,
she was sent off to boarding school
with a bodyguard, but at the age of 19
she witnessed her entire family being
murdered in a mob-hit. So she trains
with her bodyguard Sal and crusades
against the Mafia.
Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biog-
raphy was released with a July cover
date. Written by James D. Hudnall
with art by Eduardo Barreto, the 48-
page special tells the story of the
murder of investigative reporter Pe-
ter Sands who was working on an un-
authorized biography of Superman’s
arch-enemy Lex Luthor. It expands on
events from John Byrne’s The Man of
Steel (1986) and subsequent
Superman reworking, ex-
plaining how the poor boy
from Suicide Slum became
the evil corporate executive
Byrne imagined. It serves
as an interesting and well-
constructed companion
piece to 1988’s Killing Joke,
which provided a similar
introspection of The Joker.
A Pause For Superman
and Wonder Woman
And speaking of Byrne’s Su-
perman, with the comple-
tion of Invasion! and no
other major crossovers on
the horizon, Adventures of
Superman and Superman
writers Jerry Ordway and
Roger Stern sent Superman
into exile for six months, as
Superman is overwhelmed
with guilt for breaking his
oath against killing. The
execution occurred back in
Superman #22 (Oct. 1988)
when Superman felt he had
no alternative but to kill
three Kryptonian criminals
in John Byrne’s final con-
troversial addition to the
new Superman mythos. In
the aftermath of that event,
Superman had become so
DC Comics house ad for Action Comics Annual #2,
part of the “Exile” story arc that involved all three
Superman titles.
Superman TM and © DC Comics.
269
troubled that he had begun fighting
crime in his sleep as a violent vigilan-
te calling himself Gangbuster.
“Exile” was an introspective tale,
punctuated with a bout of alien
gladiatorial games and some secrets
about the history of Krypton, begin-
ning in Superman #28 (Feb. 1989)
and followed by Adventures of Super-
man #451 (Feb.). The story alternated
between the two titles and was also
featured in Action Comics Annual #2
(May 1989). Both titles also included
a Lex Luthor back-up called “Hostile
Takeover” beginning in Superman
#30 (April), with the second chapter
a week later in Adventures of Super-
man #453, followed by the same pac-
ing the next month for its conclusion.
At around the same time, Action
Comics ended its weekly schedule, go-
ing monthly again with issue #643. It
also reverted back from an anthology
title to focusing exclusively on Super-
man. The final weekly issue
was Action #642 (March),
a full-length crossover be-
tween the various featured
characters, but focusing
on Green Lantern. Neil
Gaiman wrote an initial
script, but its central con-
ceit relied upon Superman
and Green Lantern know-
ing one another’s secret
identities, which contra-
dicted then-current conti-
nuity. So Gaiman’s script
was scrapped and Elliot S.
Maggin wrote a replace-
ment script, where Abin
Sur’s ring had originally
summoned Superman be-
fore choosing Hal Jordan as
Green Lantern (Darius).
Superman returned to Earth
in Action Comics #643 (July
1989), written and drawn
by George Pérez, with Roger
Stern taking over the writ-
ing with the next issue
while Pérez continued pen-
ciling. Pérez also initially
wrote Adventures of Super-
man beginning with his re-
turn in #457 (Aug. 1989) be-
fore handing the title over
to co-writer/penciler Dan
Jurgens. Jerry Ordway shift-
ed over from Adventures of
 Superman to Super-
man with issue #34.
Meanwhile, George
Pérez also continued
his acclaimed run
writing Wonder
Woman, spend-
ing most of the
year telling a
long-form re-
working of the
origin of The
Cheetah. In the
post-Crisis DCU,
Barbara Minerva
underwent a blood
ritual to become a
living avatar of the
cheetah god of the Urtz-
kartaga tribe. But the
ritual was meant to be
performed on a virgin,
so instead of being
granted youth and strength, Miner-
va was stricken with sickness, pain,
and frailty when in her human form,
along with a blood-thirsty euphoria
in her Cheetah form.
Even More Number Ones!
In the mid-1980s, Grimjack co-creator
Timothy Truman, spoke with Gard-
ner F. Fox (creator of the Golden Age
Hawkman) about doing a pulp sci-fi
story – something with “sword-
men [sic] and great, tall towers”
(Holtorf). Before they could get
the story together, Fox died
on Dec. 24, 1986. A few years
later, DC Editor Mike Gold be-
gan trying to entice Truman
to do some DC work. Truman
suggested his Hawkman story
but laid it out as a “Hawkman:
Year One” tale, telling the ori-
gin of Thanagarian lawman,
Katar Hol. The first issue of
the three-issue mini-series,
Hawkworld, was released cov-
er date August 1989 and was a
smash success.
By incorporating themes of class con-
flict into his story, Truman created a
modern Hawkman that had rebelled
against a corrupt social system and
paid the price. After ten years in exile,
he returned to Thanagar, and with
the help of Shayera Thal, a lower-class
police officer, defeated the renegade
police captain, Byth, who had orches-
Wonder Woman spent most of 1989
dealing with The Cheetah.
trated both Katar’s father’s death and
Wonder Woman TM and © DC Comics.
270
Katar’s own exile. By the end of the
mini-series, Byth had transformed
into a shape-changing monster due
to his bizarre drug abuse. Truman
completely reimagined Thanagar-
ian society as one based on religious
intolerance and institutionalized
violence, and in doing so he struck a
chord with readers.
Unfortunately, he also struck a chord
with DC Editorial. The mini-series
was so successful that DC decided to
make it an ongoing series, starting
the following summer. But where
Truman had written the book as an
exploration of Katar Hol’s early years,
DC decided that the ongoing series
would take place on Earth in the pres-
ent day—even though it was titled
Hawkworld—thereby compromising
the established continuity that had
only recently been reset with Cri-
sis on Infinite Earths (Holtorf). This
meant that Hawkman’s first post-
Crisis mini-series The Shadow War
of Hawkman (1985-6) and his solo
series, Hawkman (1986), were essen-
tially erased from continuity, as well
as his appearances in The Outsiders,
Action Comics, and Infinity Inc. He
had even briefly joined the JLI during
Invasion!. All of these appearances
reinforced the fact that Katar Hol was
Hawkman and had been for years.
But at the beginning of the Hawk-
world series, when Katar and Shayera
arrive on Earth, hunting the escaped
shape-changer, Byth, they are treated
like strangers. And thus, the first in a
long line of editorial attempts to rec-
oncile Hawkman’s tangled continu-
ity began.
Also released with an August cover
date was a re-imagining of a classic
DC Western hero, El Diablo. This time,
however, editor Brian Augustyn con-
ceived of the character as a “small
city Tex-Mex protagonist in the hope
of reaching an untapped market.”
This new El Diablo is Rafael Sandoval,
a “lawyer, streetfighter, and the first
Chicano to serve on the city council”
of the border town of Dos Rios, Texas
(Martinez 58-60). Augustyn picked
Gerard Jones (The Trouble with Girls)
to write and newcomer Mike Paro-
beck to provide the art. It was a fresh
and well done take on the costumed
vigilante cliché, never straying too
far into super-heroics while paying
attention to real-world issues like
small town politics and racism. The
title lasted sixteen issues.
After the extremely inventive An-
drew Helfer and Kyle Baker Shadow
run was cancelled earlier in the
year, an announced Shadow Special
promised to wrap up the story. Un-
fortunately, it never came together.
Instead, the creative duo produced a
two-issue mini-series titled Justice,
Inc. (Aug.-Sept. 1989) which revealed
the “truth” behind another
pulp adventurer’s origin:
The Avenger.
The following month,
DC launched The Shadow
Strikes!, scripted by Gerard
Jones with art by Eduardo
Barreto. This was a far more
traditional approach to The
Shadow, as there were ru-
mors that Shadow license-
holders Conde Nast objected
to the satirical updating of
the character that Helfer and
Baker had done, threatening
to pull the license if changes
weren’t made. Regardless of
the reasoning, eight months
after the cancellation of one
series, this new Shadow se-
ries launched, telling tales of
the Shadow set in the 1930s,
as in the original pulps. It
also provided an opportu-
nity to eventually cross over
with DC’s concurrently run-
ning Doc Savage comic.
October saw the release of
two more licensed titles:
Star Trek and Star Trek: The
Next Generation. Although
DC had been publishing a
Star Trek series since 1984,
that volume had drawn to
a close in November 1988. The new
series was written by Peter David
with art by James W. Fry and was set
in the film continuity after Star Trek
V: The Final Frontier (which DC had
adapted just two months prior to this
relaunch). The Next Generation series
was written by veteran Star Trek nov-
elist Michael Jan Friedman with art
by Pablo Marcos. Both titles ran until
1996, when DC lost the Star Trek li-
cense.
DC rounded out the year with two
more Number Ones with Decem-
ber cover dates. Deadman: Love and
Death #1 (of 2) was written by Mike
Baron, with disturbingly gaunt,
zombie-like visuals by artist Kelley
Jones. Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn
#1 was the first in a six-issue retell-
ing of Green Lantern’s origin in the
post-Crisis DCU. The series featured
art by Mark D. Bright, and the first is-
sue was written by Jim Owsley, but
subsequent issues were written by
the prolific team of Keith Giffen and
Gerard Jones.
DC Comics house ad promoting
Tim Truman’s Hawkworld mini-series.
TM and © DC Comics.
Giffen It His All!
1989 was the year Keith Giffen really
began dedicating himself to build-
ing up the DC Universe, providing
plots, scripts, and pencils for between
two to five titles a month all year
long – and the only months he had
two titles on the stands were cover
dated January and March. February
was the real start of the busy year for
Giffen as DC launched the JLI spin-
off, Justice League Europe, and the
271
Legion of Super-Heroes spin-
off, L.E.G.I.O.N. ’89. As Giffen
explained years later, those
two titles came about only
because openings in DC’s
production schedule weren’t
being filled: “At the end of In-
vasion!, we were waiting for
[creators] to come and want
to do spin-off books, because
at the end of any crossover,
a lot of spin-off books come
out. Nobody stepped up. The
reason I did L.E.G.I.O.N. ’89
and JLE was because there
were all these openings for
spin-off books, and I felt,
‘Well, if no one else is going
to do them, I’ll grab them.’…
You have to understand, In-
vasion! as a mini-series was
not very popular among the
professional rank and file up at DC.
I guess no one wanted to play in our
playground” (Cadigan 194).
Giffen served as plotter on both series
while continuing to provide the plots
for JLI and the art for Legion. As with
JLI, Giffen plotted the JLE issues, with
JLI co-conspirator J.M. DeMatteis on
scripting duties. Bart Sears, who had
penciled Giffen’s Invasion! #3 (Jan.
1989), provided the art. The tone of
JLE was fairly close to JLI, focusing
on inventive plotting and witty ban-
ter, but failed to really recapture the
magic of those early JLI issues.

Keith Giffen was involved with several new DC series that launched in 1989, including Justice League Europe and L.E.G.I.O.N. ’89. TM and © DC Comics.
Meanwhile, over in JLI (renamed Jus-
tice League America with the launch
of the companion title), Kevin Magu-
ire, whose distinctive art and flair for
capturing facial expressions and body
language had helped establish Justice
League International as one of the
most refreshing comic experiences
on the shelves, left the series with is-
sue #24 (Feb. 1989), unable to keep up
with the demands of a monthly sched-
ule (Johnson 25). He restricted himself
to doing only cover work and pin-ups
for the rest of the year, continuing to
do the covers for JLI/JLA and moving
over to provide covers for Giffen’s oth-
er new title, L.E.G.I.O.N. ’89.
L.E.G.I.O.N. ’89 grew from seeds laid
during Invasion!, as Vril Dox II (Brai-
niac II) and his allies escaped from
a Dominator prison. This series was
conceived as a way to establish an
intergalactic police force in the wake
of the dissolution of the Green Lan-
tern Corps (Green Lantern Corps #224
– May 1988) while also providing a
science fiction title with a darker edge
than the contemporaneous Legion.
According to Giffen,
With L.E.G.I.O.N. ’89, none of
them want to be there. There
are some really nasty people
in L.E.G.I.O.N. ’89. So far, there
are not many role models
in there.... Vril Dox, let’s not
mince words, is a bastard.
He’s an egomaniacal creep....
The reason these guys are
sticking around with him is
just basically to protect peo-
ple from him.... L.E.G.I.O.N. ’89
is going to be more along the
hard edge. It’s going to be a
meaner book [than Legion of
Super-Heroes]. (Berganza and
Dickholtz 26)
The first year of the title was spent lay-
ing the groundwork for this group of
characters to come together and form
L.E.G.I.O.N., an acronym whose mean-
ing Giffen hadn’t determined when
272
This is where a caption would go once it is written.
This is where the caption would be placed.
Property TM © Copyright Holder.
the series began but eventually stood
for “Licensed Extra-Governmental In-
terstellar Operatives Network.” Barry
Kitson provided the art and Alan
Grant scripted Giffen’s plots for the
first twelve issues before assuming
full writing duties as the title changed
to L.E.G.I.O.N. ‘90 (the title would
change with each new calendar year
for the series’ entire publication run).
That summer, Giffen was also behind
the return of Aquaman, with both
a Legend of Aquaman special (May),
and a five-issue limited series simply
titled Aquaman (June-Oct.). Actually,
Aquaman had already returned in a
critically acclaimed 1986 four-part
mini-series by Neal Pozner and Craig
Hamilton. But continuation of that in-
terpretation of the character fell apart
due to creative problems, leaving the
door open for Giffen and scripter Rob-
ert Loren Fleming to retell the origin
with Curt Swan penciling over Giffen’s
breakdowns. While Pozner and Ham-
ilton’s series had been originally
intended to re-introduce Aquaman to
a post-Crisis DC Universe, Giffen said
he received no editorial push to con-
tinue their story ideas:
In all honesty, when I took
on Aquaman, I asked what
exactly could I do, not hav-
ing read that mini-series. I
had no idea what had gone
in there. When I went to Bar-
bara [Kesel], I said “What are
the parameters of this job?”
She said, “Just do Aquaman.
How do you see Aquaman?”
When I told her, she and DC
said fine and I sat down and
plotted it out. I never read
what Pozner and Hamilton
did; it was no intention of
mine to invalidate anything
they did or to lessen anything
they did. I hope that both ap-
proaches are equally valid if
they’re that different and that
people are going to say, “Hey,
they’re both good stories.” I’m
not that continuity conscious.
(McPherson 34)
While all of this was going on, Giffen
continued to co-plot and pencil The
Legion of Super-Heroes. That title’s
writer, Paul Levitz, became DC Com-
ics’ Publisher in March while retain-
ing his Executive Vice-President title.
As such, he was now responsible “for
business management – including
publishing, marketing, and licensing
duties” (Baisden, “DC Announces” 16).
This promotion left Levitz with no
time to continue writing Legion. Ac-
cording to Giffen, Levitz had been dis-
cussing leaving the title for a while,
and Giffen decided that he wanted
to be the one to carry on with the
series. But he didn’t want to reboot
continuity and he didn’t want to dis- and inker Al Gordon. Thus began the
mantle Levitz’s work just to be able to “TMK” era of Legion history, the three
tell his own Legion stories. In order letters representing the first initials
to preserve the sanctity of Levitz’s Le- of the first names of the three prin-
gion run then, Giffen pitched jump- cipal writers: Tom (Bierbaum), Mary
ing the story forward five years from (Bierbaum), Keith (Giffen).
where Levitz left it (Cadigan 193-5). New editor Mark Waid was vocal in
DC agreed, re-launching the Legion defending both the time jump and the
with a new first issue (Nov. 1989), new numbering, declaring that it was
which appropriately opens with a full “not a stunt – it’s to show that there’s
page star field with three words cen- an end to this era that’s been going on
tered on it: “Five Years Later…” Giffen for 10 or 15 years in Legion of Super-
received scripting and plotting as- Heroes” (Eury, “Five Years Into the Fu-
sistance from writers Tom and Mary ture” 27). While many fans saw this The most controversial era of
the Legion of Super-Heroes began
Bierbaum—who previously collabo- new era as creatively ambitious, many in 1989, when Keith Giffen and Tom and
rated with Giffen on Deluxe Comics’ others expressed their dissatisfaction Mary Bierbaum re-launched the series.
Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents— with it, responding in a manner Waid Legion of Super-Heroes TM and © DC Comics.

273

Neil Gaiman’s Morpheus, a.k.a. Dream, was
introduced in the first issue of Sandman.
Sandman TM and © DC Comics.
described as similar to that when Mi-
chael Keaton was announced as play-
ing Batman (Eury, “Five Years Into the
Future” 27). No doubt, the transition
from Levitz’s version of the Legion of
Super-Heroes to TMK’s was jarring.
Whereas Levitz depicted a culturally
harmonious far future with the Legion
protecting the United Planets from in-
tergalactic threats and terrors, TMK’s
future was bleak and dystopian, ruled
over by an oppressive Earth govern-
ment with the Legion nowhere to be
found. The first issue makes clear the
Legion had disbanded during the five
years of story time between series.
As a result, the cast of characters was
radically altered, not only with the in-
troduction of new characters but with
drastic changes made to longtime Le-
gionnaires (Cosmic Boy, for instance,
had lost his powers, and Phantom Girl
was pre-
sumed dead).
TMK’s Legion of Super-He-
roes began as a super-hero book with-
out super-hero costumes, presented
with a nine-panel art grid that Giffen
used on every page. He chose the nine-
panel grid to pack more story into ev-
ery issue, but Giffen’s critics accused him
of merely imitating Dave Gibbons’
Watchmen style (Cadigan 194).
Giffen and company weren’t just deal-
ing with fan outrage over their work;
they also found themselves the target
of interoffice editorial interference.
Specifically, Superman editor Mike
Carlin decided that Legion of Super-
Heroes could no longer reference the
Superman mythos in any way, forc-
ing the Legion writers to remove the
pocket dimension Superboy from con-
tinuity (Cadigan 201). The subsequent
creative decisions made TMK’s Legion
one of DC’s most controversial comic
books of the early 1990s.
Dream A Little Dream
As Alan Moore promised in 1988, he
was putting mainstream comics be-
hind him. As a result, he produced
very little new material for the 1989
comic book marketplace. He fulfilled
his V for Vendetta obligations, which
DC published as the year opened.
He also wrote his final Miracleman
script, which Eclipse released as issue
#16 (Dec. 1989). In fact, Moore was so
done with Miracleman that he trans-
ferred his 30% share of ownership
274
in the Miracleman charac-
ter over to a friend who later
split the share with artist
Mark Buckingham (Raphael
16). The friend was someone
inspired by Moore’s work to
become a comic book writer:
Neil Gaiman.
Gaiman’s inspiration to dip
his toes into the waters of
comics scripting came in
1984 after he picked up a
copy of the Alan Moore-
written Swamp Thing
#28 (Olsen 18). In 1985,
Gaiman sent a compli-
mentary note to Moore
and was surprised to re-
ceive a call from him a few
days later. Over the next
few months, Gaiman sent Moore
scripts and Moore sent Gaiman notes.
It was a chance encounter with artist
Dave McKean that pushed Gaiman to
the next stage in his comics career as
the two of them began working on a
graphic novel titled Violent Cases, to
be published in 1987. In September
of 1986, Gaiman introduced himself
to DC editor Karen Berger and then,
five months later, he and McKean met
with her and DC’s vice-president, Dick
Giordano, to pitch a number of story
ideas (Olsen 23-24).
This led to Gaiman and McKean’s
Black Orchid, a three-issue prestige
format comic, beginning at the end
of 1988. Black Orchid was essentially
Gaiman’s attempt to work in the for-
mat that Moore had established for
“quality comics” wherein an older
character is reinterpreted for a mod-
ern audience, with a darker edge to
the characterization. In this case,
Black Orchid, a character created by
Sheldon Mayer and Tony DeZuniga
for Adventure Comics #428 (July-Aug.
1973), was never given an established
origin (although many were hinted at
over the years). Gaiman took a note
from Moore’s book and established
that Susan Linden-Thorne was actu-
ally a human-plant hybrid, linking
her thematically and narratively with
Swamp Thing and other characters
associated with the Green—the mys-
tical realm inhabited by the minds of
Plant Elementals and connecting all
botanical life on earth.
The series garnered critical acclaim,
but Gaiman and McKean were not
happy with the end result. As Gaiman
put it:
It was quite genuinely us try-
ing to put out the kind of com-
ic that we thought should be
there. With, I suppose, all the
good and bad things that that
implied. To be honest, I think
the only thing that we did
that was of any real interest
was at the very end. In main-
stream comics, a pacifist pro-
tagonist is simply somebody
who it takes until the end of
the story to say, “Now you’ve
made me really angry. Yes,
I am a pacifist, but you just
killed my brother and pushed
me farther than...” you know.
And I really liked getting to
the end of that story and hav-
ing the two dumb henchmen
say, “No, we’re not going to
kill her; we think she’s won-
derful.” (Kim Thompson 71)
The fully-painted, mature-themed
mini-series combined with a quality
pitch for another character ripe for
reworking led Berger to offer Gaiman
an ongoing series. Sandman #1 (Jan.
1989) initially had virtually nothing
to do with the previous Sandman DC
published. That Sandman starred in
an eponymous DC series from 1974 to
1976 that was written by Joe Simon
and Michael Fleisher with illustra-
tions by Jack Kirby and Ernie Chan.
The Sandman protected children
from their nightmares and occasion-
ally fought real-life threats. Gaiman’s
Sandman was decidedly different,
making the character, Dream, part of
a pantheon of god-like entities called
The ethereal Sandman, as depicted in Who's Who in the DC Universe. Sandman TM and © DC Comics.
the Endless.
In an interview with the British on a monthly comic, bowed out and tasy found in Unknown in the
magazine, Speakeasy, Gaiman said inker Mike Dringenberg took over the 1940s; “Passengers” was my
he wanted to see if he could write a art. Together, they crafted one of the (perhaps misguided) attempt
monthly book and do “some of the most groundbreaking works of the to try to mix super-heroes
stuff that would give people the same ’80s and ’90s. into the Sandman world; “24
sort of pleasure that I get, or that I There was a definite effort Hours” is an essay on stories
used to get, from good, competent, on my part ... to explore the and authors, and also one of
scary dark fantasy” (qtd. in Cochran genres available: “The Sleep the very few genuinely hor-
80). He plotted out the initial twelve of the Just” was intended to rific tales I’ve written; “Sound
issues, in the hopes that DC would at be a classical English hor- and Fury” wrapped up the
least give it that, even if it was a com- ror story; “Imperfect Hosts” storyline; and “The Sound of
mercial failure, but by “issue eight plays with some of the con- Her Wings” was the epilogue
[it was] selling more than anybody ventions of the old DC and and the first story in the se-
had ever done in the horror-comics E.C. horror comics (and the quence I felt was truly mine,
context” (Gresehover). However, the hosts thereof); “Dream a and in which I knew I was be-
original penciler, Sam Kieth, not be- Little Dream of Me” harks ginning to find my own voice.
ing used to the pressures of working back to the kind of dark fan- (Gaiman 609)

275

Death lets her brother know what she thinks of him in this page from Sandman #8. TM and © DC Comics.
By the time Gaiman made his way
through the initial storyline, the
stylistic echoes of Moore’s influence
had already begun to fade (as had
the overt guest-appearances by DC
super-heroes). When Dream’s sister
Death is introduced in Sandman #8
(Aug. 1989), something about the
character’s visual design (by Drin-
genberg) and her playful, almost
innocent, personality immediately
made her very popular with readers,
prompting re-appearances in each
subsequent story arc.
Back in the regular DCU, Gaiman
also provided short pieces providing
glimpses into the origins of Batman
villains Poison Ivy (Secret Origins
#36 – Jan. 1989) and the Riddler (Se-
cret Origins Special #1 – Oct. 1989). He
wrote Swamp Thing Annual #5 (Aug.
1989), which starred Brother Power,
The Geek (a character created by Joe
Simon and Al Bare and not seen since
1968). Both the Poison Ivy origin and
the Brother Power stories connected
the characters to the Swamp Thing
mythos, reimagining Poison Ivy as
276
a plant-human hybrid like Black Or-
chid, and Brother Power as an im-
perfect elemental tied to all human
simulacra.
More Morrison
Alan Moore had already established
himself as a game-changer in the
comics field; Neil Gaiman burst into
the upper stratosphere with the re-
lease of Sandman; 1989 would also
be the year that Scottish writer Grant
Morrison cemented his position as
the third voice in the Power Trio of
UK writers who would change the
creative landscape of American com-
ics for decades to come.
After introducing himself to the
American audience in 1988 with Ani-
mal Man, Morrison next took over
the failing Doom Patrol. It would be
a mixed bag with both readers and
critics. Influences for his approach
to this title ranged from “the films
of people like Jan Svankmajer, Ken-
neth Anger, and Maya Deren, to the
mathematics of Godel, Escher, Bach,
to the multiple-personality account
of When Rabbit Howls, to the fiction
of Jorge Luis Borges, to the actions of
avant-garde poster-boy Tristan Tzara
and beyond” (Callahan, location 2329
par. 2). But Morrison was clear that
the first inspiration for his approach
was the original Doom Patrol series
from the ’60s:
When I sat down to work out
what I wanted to do with
this book, I decided straight
away that I would attempt
to restore the sense of the bi-
zarre that made the original
Doom Patrol so memorable. I
wanted to reconnect with the
fundamental, radical concept
of the book – that here was
a team composed of handi-
capped people. These were
no clean-limbed, wish-fulfill-
ment super-adolescents who
could model Calvins in their
spare time. This was a group
of people with serious psychi-
cal problems and, perhaps,
one too many bats in the bel-
fry. (Morrison 187)
His approach to the comic was also
fed by an urge to just do a super-
hero adventure comic that made the
reader “feel the way the Kirby Fantas-
tic Fours did. Where you would have
fantastic concepts, mind-boggling companies, and we’ve really and-ink, sometimes black-and-white
ideas every issue, but at the same been pushing and promot- paint wash.
time it was a good riotous rollicking ing our upcoming line since Beautiful Stories was followed the
read” (Hasted 59). Unfortunately, the the idea for Piranha Press next month by Etc. by Tim Conrad
series wasn’t financially successful was conceived two years ago. and Michael Davis, a five-issue series
(although it did better than it had (Sellers 46) set in the year 2051 and examining a
been doing before Morrison took world obsessed with media culture.
When asked if Piranha Press was DC’s
over) with many readers finding it Each issue focused on a different
answer to Epic, Nevelow was em-
obtuse or pretentious, despite critical character, but they all orbit the tale of
phatic that this was not the case:
acclaim. a faultily programmed clone, thrust
“The Epic line of books was
The success of Arkham Asylum, how- into the media spotlight and strug-
intended, from a marketing
ever, helped DC to justify Doom Pa- gling to regain control of her life.
point of view, to hold onto
trol’s continued existence. And the Each of the next three months
comic fans as they grew
critical success of these UK writers brought a new Piranha Press graphic
up,” he said. “Marvel sim-
opened up a window for another novel. First came The Sinners (Aug.),
ply bumped everything up
UK writer, Peter Milligan, to pro- a 48-page black-and-white story
a notch as readers aged and
pose a six-issue science-fiction crime written and painted by Alec Stevens
matured. We’re not neces-
series called Skreemer (May-Oct. about an old beggar looking back
sarily trying to hold onto
1989) which was praised critically over his life. This was followed by
DC readers; we’re trying to
but didn’t sell. Milligan, along with Desert Streams (or Miriam’s Search
reach new ones. And to do
Gaiman, Morrison, and Delano (to be for Divine Bliss) (Sept.), a 120-page
that we’re creating the kind
joined later by Garth Ennis and Ra- half-size trade paperback. Written
of storylines those readers
chel Pollack), would eventually form
wouldn’t ex-
the creative foundations of DC’s al-
pect to find in
ternative comics imprint, Vertigo, in
comics.” (Sell-
1993.
ers 46)
That Press Has Teeth Case in point, the
Before Vertigo would arrive, DC ex- first Piranha Press
perimented with another alternative title to hit the
imprint, Piranha Press. Originally marketplace was
discussed during one of DC’s edito- Dave Louapre and
rial retreats in 1986, it wasn’t until Dan Sweetman’s
June of 1987 that Mark Nevelow, a Beautiful Stories
self-taught business entrepreneur, for Ugly Children
was hired to get the press off the (June 1989), a star-
ground. In order to not jump the gun tlingly experimen-
and launch with a handful of titles tal work with each
but then be scrambling to maintain issue serving as a
down the line, Nevelow was allowed stand-alone illus-
to move at his own pace, developing trated short story.
titles and preparing for a steady re- The only unify-
lease schedule (Sellers 47): ing principle was
Louapre scripted
With Piranha Press, we’re each issue and
trying to reach an audience Sweetman pro-
that’s not necessarily reading vided the art. Even
comics today.... We’re going more daring was
after an adult, intelligent, so- that the stories
phisticated readership that’s were filled with
interested in mainstream cul- very dark humor,
ture. Piranha Press won’t be sometimes bor-
doing heroic fantasy of any dering more on
kind.... I feel one of the prob- disturbing than
lems that other companies of funny. Sweet-
a similar bent have faced is man’s art varied
the inability to reach out to from issue to issue
a hardcore audience who is depending on the
looking for something differ- demands of the
ent. But we have greater ac- story, sometimes
cess to marketing and distri- using bare pencils,
bution facilities than smaller sometimes pen-
Writer Grant Morrison took over Doom Patrol with issue #19.
Doom Patrol TM and © DC Comics.

277
 Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children, Gregory and Etc. were three of DC Comics’ inaugural Piranha Press offerings. Piranha Press TM and © DC Comics.
and illustrated by Alison Marek, Des-
ert Streams is the tale of a little rich
girl who goes from boarding school,
to life as a child model, to running
away from it all. Another 120-page
book, Gregory (Oct.) by Marc Hempel,
collected darkly comic short stories
about the titular character, Gregory,
a tiny straight-jacketed person with
a huge head, living in a padded cell.
Piranha Press rounded out the year
with the launch of a four-issue lim-
ited series by Gerard Jones and Mark
Badger called The Score (Nov.), a “taut,
psychological thriller with political
overtones” (50). Then came the re-
lease of Epicurus the Sage, Volume
One (Dec.) by William Messner-Loebs
with illustrations by Sam Kieth. Epi-
curus is a satire of fourth century
Greek philosophy set in an imaginary
time when all the famous philoso-
phers (Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, etc.)
are all alive at the same time.
Unfortunately, even though Piranha
Press was never really expected to be
a hit-maker, none of the titles ever re-
ally garnered a large enough follow-
ing to put the press on the map, re-
gardless of the critical acclaim some
works received. (As an exception, Kyle
Baker’s 1990 Why I Hate Saturn won
an Eisner Award and received several
printings.) In 1993, the imprint was
renamed Paradox Press and contin-
ued to publish high-quality mature-
reader graphic novels, but by that
point, the more experimental work
was being done through DC’s newly
launched Vertigo Comics.
Drawing the Curtain on the Eighties
As 1989 drew to a close, Jim Shooter,
Bob Layton, and other financial part-
ners began gathering the money to
launch their own publishing compa-
ny. They formed Voyager Communi-
cations and began publishing Ninten-
do licensed comics under the Valiant
Comics banner in 1990, followed by
World Wrestling Federation comics
in 1991. They really began to make a
name for themselves with the licens-
ing of three 1960s properties, Magnus
Robot Fighter, Doctor Solar, and Turok
Dinosaur Hunter, and would go on to
be one of the more prominent pub-
lishers of the 90s.
Given where the decade began, this
was an amazing turn of events. In
1980, most pundits were predicting
the end of the industry was nigh. Jim
Shooter, though, was the lone voice
in the wilderness decrying the pes-
simism of the rest of the crowd. And
then, at the start of the 1990s, he was
back with a new company, a new
slate of popular titles, and the comic
book industry was healthier than it
had maybe ever been. It wasn’t go-
ing to last long, but the change over
the course of ten years was nothing
if not dramatic, as the Direct Market
opened up new opportunities and the
278
Batman movie helped launch com-
ics into the mainstream public con-
sciousness.
Perhaps the most notable thing about
where the decade ended up wasn’t
the overall success, but the fact that a
comics industry that most people felt
was on the verge of collapse in 1980
was now supporting both standard
super-hero fare and avant-garde ma-
terial like Gaiman’s Sandman while
also introducing a new American
generation to classic European com-
ics. It wasn’t just an expansion of
content. The methods for structuring
stories in comics had matured over
the decade, moving from the depen-
dence on thought balloons and third-
person omniscient narrators to the
use of first-person narrative captions
and sophisticated scene transitions,
allowing for more realistic, and also
experimental, modes of storytelling.
A new day was dawning for the com-
ic book industry; the sun was shin-
ing, and the weather would remain
perfect...
...for at least the first few years of the
1990s.

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Conway, Gerry 39, 47, 49-50, 52, 55, 91-92, 102, 122,
124, 126-127
Daredevil 10-11, 14, 29-31, 57-58, 61, 95, 97, 140, 158-
159
characters TM and © DC Comics.
INDEX
Dark Horse Comics 184, 213-215, 256-257 Gruenwald, Mark 13, 56, 60-61, 93, 99, 101, 110-111,
David, Peter 154, 213, 224, 226, 268, 271 141, 153-155, 205, 209-210, 212, 221-222
Davis, Alan 148-149, 193, 227, 243 Guice, Jackson “Butch” 85, 109, 156, 162-163, 188, 198,
224
Dazzler 24-26
Gustovich, Mike 41, 82, 214
Day, Gene 57
DC Comics 8, 19-22, 33-41, 47-54, 88-97, 121-139, 148,
166-178, 187-204, 229-245, 256, 258-278 Hama, Larry 28, 65, 156
DeFalco, Tom 13, 25, 27, 61, 65, 100, 108, 143, 154, 205, Hamm, Sam 220, 259-261
211-212, 223-224, 251 Harras, Bob 163
Delano, Jamie 236-237, 266 Harris, Jack C. 20
DeMatteis, J.M. 13, 35, 110-111, 141, 156, 188, 196- Harrison, Sol 33
197, 208, 215, 268, 271 Harvey Comics 9, 71, 99, 143-144, 151
Ditko, Steve 68, 113, 121, 151, 182, 201, 224 Heck, Don 93, 113, 128, 146
Dixon, Chuck 117, 183
Helfer, Andy 51, 123, 168, 196, 229-230
DuBay, Bill 78-79, 81 Hembeck, Fred 11, 57
Duffy, Jo 13, 27, 59, 164-165, 254 Herman, Lennie 143
Hobson, Michael 32, 66, 93, 143, 147
Eclipse Comics 11, 27, 67, 115-117, 144, 146, 148-149, Hughes, Adam 256
180-181, 187, 256, 274
Hulk, The 40, 142, 158, 213
Eisner, Will 86, 117
Elektra 30-31, 57
Indiana Jones 28
Englehart, Steve 34-35, 73, 86, 102, 123, 142, 148, 159,
182, 209, 228-230, 233, 251 Infantino, Carmine 26, 33, 35, 50, 52, 128, 134, 138,
148
Evanier, Mark 50, 67, 86, 125, 144-145, 205, 216, 268
Iron Man 55, 61, 210-211
FantaCo 11-12, 66
Jacobson, Sid 143
Fantastic Four 19, 66, 97, 157-158
Janson, Klaus 30, 171, 173, 209
Fawcett Comics 9
Jones, Bruce 48, 68, 77, 115
Fingeroth, Danny 27, 104, 108
Jones, Louise (see Simonson, Louise)
First Comics 68-69, 72-77, 112, 114, 148, 256
Jurgens, Dan 122, 269
Flash, The 20, 26, 35-36, 49, 51-52, 124, 127, 134-135,
166-167, 198 Justice League of America 21, 40, 91-93, 126-127, 188,
195-198
Fleming, Robert Loren 123, 150, 183, 273
Justice Machine 41, 82-83, 214
Frenz, Ron 108
Justice Society of America 36, 89, 177-178, 199
Friedrich, Mike 11
Kahn, Jenette 20, 33, 36, 40, 47, 95-97, 123, 129, 133-
Gaiman, Neil 237, 249, 266, 269, 274-276 134, 187-190, 194, 203, 218, 230-231, 266
Galton, Jim 12, 14, 32, 40, 112, 147, 152, 160 Kane, Gil 50, 54, 138
García-López, José Luis 33, 40, 95, 124 Kesel, Karl 167
Gerber, Steve 66-67, 102, 111, 144, 146, 168, 251 King, Stephen 128, 147
Gibbons, Dave 58, 173-176, 202, 237, 274 Kirby, Jack 43-44, 66-67, 77, 113-114, 124-125, 138,
Giffen, Keith 27, 52-53, 93-94, 121-123, 150-151, 182- 145-146, 148, 188, 191, 205-206, 268
183, 188, 196-197, 215, 241, 266, 271-274 Kremer, Warren 143
G.I. Joe 65 Kubert, Joe 33, 138, 148
Gillis, Peter B. 72, 140, 161 Kupperberg, Paul 34, 50, 55, 123, 200, 266
Giordano, Dick 9, 33, 40, 46, 51-52, 55, 62-63, 84-85,
87-88, 90-93, 95, 123-124, 129, 132-133, 151, 166-168,
173, 176-177, 187-190, 199, 203, 229-230, 233, 274 LaRocque, Greg 142
Gold, Mike 69, 72-73, 85, 166-167, 200, 233-234, 270 Larsen, Erik 85, 234, 253
Golden, Michael 13, 58, 114, 142, 156-157 Layton, Bob 13, 41, 60-61, 161-163, 210, 278
Gold Key Comics (see Whitman Comics) Lee, Jim 213, 228, 253
Goodwin, Archie 13, 59-60, 65, 111, 120, 145, 154, 160, Lee, Stan 12-13, 74, 147, 156, 206-207, 254
213, 248, 251, 254-255 Legion of Super-Heroes 35, 50-53, 62, 93-94, 121-123,
167, 191, 240-241, 271-274
Grant, Steven 13, 60, 86, 164-165, 216
Levitz, Paul 10, 20, 33-34, 36, 38, 40-41, 51-54, 93, 122-
Greenberger, Bob 81, 123, 132-133, 138, 167, 199, 203
124, 129, 167, 170, 203, 230, 265, 273
Grell, Mike 27, 67-68, 76-77, 201, 220
Liefeld, Rob 234-235
Groth, Gary 8-9, 26, 46, 70, 85, 146, 172, 186-187, 216,
257 Lightle, Steve 122, 200
286
 Daredevil TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Lloyd, David 239
Lomax, Don 215

Macchio, Ralph 13, 55, 212, 251

Mackie, Howard 210, 221-222
Maguire, Kevin 188, 196-197, 272
Manga 187
Mantlo, Bill 13, 60-61, 142, 241
Marvel Comics 8, 12-19, 24-33, 54-65, 97-102, 104-
114, 139-147, 151-166, 204-213, 221-229, 247-255, 258
Mayer, Sheldon 123
Mazzucchelli, David 158-159, 192
McCloud, Scott 115-117, 218
McDuffie, Dwayne 252
McFarlane, Todd 193, 213, 218, 224-226, 241, 252
McGregor, Don 67, 122, 137
McKean, Dave 249, 263, 266, 275
McKenzie, Roger 13, 58, 183
McLeod, Bob 13, 64-65
Messner-Loebs, William 41, 85, 117, 138, 278
Michelinie, David 13, 105, 205, 207, 210, 218, 225, 252
Mignola, Mike 143, 241-242, 249, 262
Milgrom, Al 13, 28, 40, 49, 58-60, 140, 142
Miller, Frank 13-14, 29-31, 57-59, 63, 95-97, 103, 128,
146-147, 158-160, 168, 171-173, 188-189-190, 192,
216, 237
Moebius (Jean Giraud) 254-256
Moench, Doug 13, 54-57, 111, 115, 121
Moon Knight 26-27
Moore, Alan 113, 115, 125-126, 137, 146-149, 168-169,
173-176, 180-181, 188, 190, 202-203, 218, 236-240,
249, 274, 276
Morrison, Grant 235-237, 249, 263-264, 266-267
Murray, Doug 156-157, 222, 228

Nexus 42-43
Nocenti, Ann 141, 147, 159-160, 227
Shooter, Jim 8, 11-14, 18, 25-29, 31-32, 38-41, 54-57, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents 45, 81, 120-121, 150-151, 182-
O’Barr, James 257 59-66, 74, 85, 91-93, 98-100, 102, 104-106, 108, 110- 183, 214-215
O’Neil, Denny 13-14, 28, 40, 56, 95, 140, 158, 192, 196, 112, 121, 139-140, 142, 144-147, 152-158, 160-162, Toth, Alex 78, 93
201, 233, 243-245, 259-261, 265 168, 188, 204-207, 210, 212, 221-223, 247-248, 278
Trimpe, Herb 47, 65, 154
Ordway, Jerry 36, 121-122, 132, 138, 158, 167, 169, Sienkiewicz, Bill 13, 19, 109, 160, 237, 254
Truman, Tim 114, 149, 270
183, 191, 233, 240, 265, 269 Silvestri, Marc 211, 253
Orlando, Joe 33, 35-36, 47, 51-52, 268 Sim, Dave 11, 85, 117, 217, 237
Valentino, Jim 117, 251
Ostrander, John 114, 167, 199-200, 266-267 Simonson, Louise 13, 27, 62, 64, 109, 142, 156, 163,
211, 254 Veitch, Rick 176, 180-181, 237, 266
Owsley, Jim 142
Simonson, Walt 13, 28, 33, 59, 62, 101-102, 142, 159,
212, 254 Waid, Mark 234, 262, 273-274
Pacific Comics 10, 27, 43-44, 67-69, 76-77, 114-115, Wagner, Matt 70, 117-118, 256
144, 148-149, 151 Singer, David M. 78, 120-121, 150-151, 182-183, 214-
215 Warren Comics 9, 71
Pasko, Marty 40, 48, 67, 73, 125, 268
Skinn, Dez 113, 148-149 Wein, Len 20-21, 23, 33, 40, 48, 50, 54, 88, 91, 125, 129,
Perelman, Ron 221, 247-248, 253-254 138, 166-167, 204
Smith, Paul 58, 97, 183, 216
Pérez, George 13, 21-22, 38, 52, 54, 89-93, 121-123, Whitman Comics 9, 114
128, 130-133, 137, 148, 166, 169, 182, 194-195, 240, Spider-Man 28, 40, 55, 58, 108-109, 141-142, 188, 206-
269-270 208, 223-225 Willingham, Bill 81-83, 117-118, 256
Pini, Richard & Wendy 11 Spiegelman, Art 146, 172, 178-179, 237 Windsor-Smith, Barry 73, 148
Portacio, Whilce 253 Spiegle, Dan 50, 67, 78 Wolfman, Marv 12, 20-22, 35, 38, 40, 46, 48, 50-51, 62,
Starlin, Jim 27, 49, 52, 56, 58-60, 73, 77, 147-148, 161, 89-90, 93-94, 127-131, 133-135, 146, 148, 166, 168-169,
Potts, Carl 161, 165, 209, 228, 248, 255 189-192, 203, 205, 216, 240, 243, 260-261
241-244, 259, 268
Pozner, Neal 139, 272-273 Wolverine 17, 19, 23, 48, 55, 61, 63-64, 105-106, 164,
Star Trek 27
Punisher, The 30, 164-165, 209, 253 213, 219, 226-228, 251, 253-254
Star Wars 14, 28, 98, 143, 165
Staton, Joe 47, 67, 69, 72-74, 93, 138, 151, 230, 233, 269 Wonder Woman 47, 124, 137, 194-195, 270
Rogers, Marshall 34-35, 249 Wood, Wally 44-45, 52
Stern, Roger 13, 17, 25, 31, 56, 93, 101-102, 158, 161,
Romita, Jr., John 13, 25, 60, 97, 113, 141, 147, 154 211-212, 224, 233-234, 266, 269 Wrightson, Bernie 48, 147-148, 242
Rosa, Don 215 Stevens, Dave 68, 115, 138, 151, 216
Rozakis, Bob 33, 116 Supergirl 50, 124, 132-133, 232-233 X-Men 9, 15-19, 23, 26, 57, 62-64, 73, 97, 140-141, 147,
Rozanski, Chuck 10 Superman 19, 39-40, 88, 124, 137, 168-170, 190-192, 161-164, 211, 226-228, 248
Rude, Steve 42-43, 147 230-233, 269
Swamp Thing 48 Yronwode, Cat 55, 83, 86, 180-181, 216
Saenz, Mike 149, 228 Swan, Curt 128, 169, 230, 234, 240, 273
Sakai, Stan 257 Zeck, Mike 57, 105, 108-109, 164-165, 188, 208
Salicrup, Jim 18, 28, 31, 225 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 118-120, 151, 183-184
Schwartz, Julius 19, 168-169, 230 Teen Titans 20-22, 38, 53, 62, 89-91, 121-122, 126-127,
Sears, Bart 240-241, 271 167-168, 240
Seuling, Phil 10 Thomas, Dann 37, 121, 252
Shaw, Scott 47, 67-68 Thomas, Roy 13, 36-39, 47, 50, 77, 89-90, 92, 121-122,
124, 136, 146, 177-178, 199, 203, 205, 229, 252
She-Hulk 13
Thor 55-56, 101-102
Sherman, James 78-80

287
 Richard B. Hood Richard Pini
Ronald Hood Robert J. Plass
A M E R I C A N Kristian Horn Steven Prince
Brian Houltham Dustin Prisley
Jason Hussa Nate Pritts
Roderick R. Ingram Shawn Pryor
Paul y cod asyn Jarman Erich Randall
C H R O N I C L E S John Jarrett Brian O. Randolph
Rod Keith Douglas M. Rawald
The following individuals Jerome Chagnon Stephen Vincent Kempton Brian Reaves
have made this new edition Jason Cheney Paul Kienzle Philip Reed
of American Comic Book David Cilley Kevin T. King Robert C. Reichle
Chronicles: The 1980s T. Clemen Ryan W. Kirk Bryan Reynolds
possible, through their Jeffrey Coburn Daniel Klos Charles P. Rhoads
generous pledges during GMark Cole Walt Kneeland Murray Roach
our Kickstarter campaign: Jason Crase David Kobussen Dennis F. Rogers
Jim Craviotto Kevin Kropp Jimmy Rohrich
Jason Abbott Joe Crawford Zack Kruse Rob Rooney
David Acord Matt Crothers Max Kuliev Matthew Rose
Clay Adams Aaron Cullers Nathan Kurtz Sharon Roseberry
David H. Adler John Morgan Curtis Tyler Lafferty Eliseo Ruiz Jr.
Juan Carlos Aillon Robert M. David John Lahr Conall & Emmett Sanders
Hassan Alamdari Storm Davis Mark R. Largent Raymond L. Schaff Jr.
Will Allred Al Decena Jeff Lemire Martin Scherer
Don Alsafi Jameson Devine Jim Lesniak Frederick Schroeder
Kevin Alsop Mark Di Gino David Levine Lars Schumacher
Gregg Anderson David Dierks John Littrel David E. Schwartz
Dean Andre Mark S. Ditko Steve Loiaconi Antonio Serra
Steve Andreski Leland Dugger John Luiso Arianna & Laurence Shapiro
Sergey Anikushin David Allan Duncan Steve Lundy Pete Shevenell
Mark Annabel Michael Dyer Eric Lyden Rick Shurgin
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Gary Arkell Karim Elrafei David Mandel Patrick Simonovits
Blake Arledge Lionel English Lee Markowitz Dave Skaar
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Sean Atkins Randy Etheridge Eric Martel Gary Slatus
Nick Banks Ron Evans Radley Masinelli Douglas D. Smith
Juan Barceló Mario Fabregas Kevin Mathews Steven (South Aussie) Smith
Stephen Bayer Vince Fahey Michael Mazzacane Dr. Scott Smith
Philippe Beauverd Steven Finkelstein James McArdle Stuart Somershoe
Bill Beechler Tony Frye Gerald McCarthy Mark Soper
Brian and Tracy Belanger Barry G. Patrick McCook John Spruhan
Vincent R. Bellizia, Jr. Joel G. Patrick McEvoy Joe Staton
Timothy S. Berger Stephen Gay Travis Meidell Kaleb Swenson
Michael Besser Alan Geldart Keith Mello Raymond Tam
Doug Bissell Yaakov Gerber Captain Phil Merkel Jim Tang
Stephen R. Bissette Jeremiah-Jones Goldstein John Miyasato Daniel Thingvold
James Blackledge Joseph R. Golembiewski Patrick Mohlmann Bob Thomas
Boosterrific.com Gary D. Goodrich Glenn Møane David Thornton
Ray Bottorff Jr. Philip Graves Jack Mulcahy Richard Topp
Brian Bounds Tom Green George Munoz Jon Trainer
Keith Bowden Karen Green Sean Nethery Maxwell C. Traver
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Steven C. Brown Aaron Hale Matt Norton Jeff Troutman
Richard Bruning Deanna Hammond Greg Nyman Steven Tsai
Ezekiel Buchanan David M. Hanson Bob O’Leary Tommy Vernale
Brian Patrick Bunker Richard Harlan Ty Owens Marc “Bones” Vujovich
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Michael A. Burstein Jake Harrison Dante Pacella Ryan Walker
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Aaron Caplan Gregory Hecht Lionel Peillon William Wentworth-Sheilds
Ryan Carstensen Allan Heinberg Matt Phillips Chad Wilson
Don Casey Ryan R. Hendley Mike Pierce Kevin Yong
Ian Casselberry J. Hill Bob Pinaha
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 It was
the
1980s
It was a decade of notable successes and
equally stunning failures for the comic book
industry. It was the decade when Jim Shooter’s
Marvel Comics dominated the marketplace,
with the Uncanny X-Men attaining unpar-
alleled popularity. It was the decade when
a Crisis relaunched DC Comics’ fictional
universe and its readers saw a Dark Knight
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the decade of the Direct Market when the
proliferation of specialty comic book stores
provoked the creation of new publishers like
First, Malibu, Comico, Pacific, and Dark
Horse and new creator-owned properties like
Los Bros. Hernandez’s Love & Rockets and
Eastman and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles. It was one of the most successful
decades the comic book industry would ever
have. It was the 1980s.

American Comic Book Chronicles

documents every decade of comic book
history, from the 1930s to today. Each
volume presents a year-by-year account of
the comic book industry’s most significant
publications, most notable creators, and
most impactful trends.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-046-5
ISBN-10: 1-60549-046-6 TwoMorrows Publishing
54895 Raleigh, North Carolina
Printed in China $48.95 in the US
All characters shown TM &
© their respective owners.
ISBN 978-1-60549-046-5
9 781605 490465