Back Issue #36

MORBIUS • VAMPIRELLA ! FRANKENSTEIN " SWAMP THING # ARCANE & UN-MENGOLEM ! IT, THE LIVING COLOSSUS " MAN-BAT # PATCHWORK MAN ! DR. THIRTEEN

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This issue: WRIGHTSON • DeZUNIGA • ISABELLA & AYERSThis issue: WRIGHTSON • DeZUNIGA • ISABELLA & AYERS

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Volume 1,Number 36October 2009

Celebratingthe Best Comicsof the '70s,'80s, '90s,and Today!

EDITORMichael Eury

PUBLISHERJohn Morrow

DESIGNERRich J. Fowlks

COVER ARTISTEarl Norem

COVER DESIGNERMichael Kronenberg

PROOFREADERSJohn Morrowand Eric Nolen-Weathington

SPECIAL THANKSArthur AdamsMichael AushenkerDick AyersFrank BalasAlex BoneyJerry BoydMichael BrowningBruce BuchananJose CabreraPiers CasimirDewey CassellErnie ColónGerry ConwayNicola CutiDarren DavisTony and

Tina DeZunigaMark DiFruscioJoshua DysartRay FalcoaShane FoleyGary FriedrichMike FriedrichGrand Comic-Book

DatabaseLarry GuidryAllan HarveyMike HawthorneOla HellstenHeritage Comics

AuctionsTony IsabellaMichael Wm. KalutaLen Kaminski

David Anthony KraftKirk LangstromPaul LevitzAlan LightDave LouapreMichael MantloMarvel ComicsMark McKennaDavid MichelinieMike MignolaIan MillstedNightscreamWilliam F. NolanEamon O’DonoghueJimmy PalmiottiMartin PaskoMike PloogHoward PostJohn Romita, Sr.Bob RozakisAlex SaviukBill SchellyPhilip SchweierSteve SkeatesAnthony SnyderRoy ThomasRick VeitchLen WeinJohn WellsJohn WhalenMel WhitlowAlex WrightBernie Wrightson

BACK ISSUE™ is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh,NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor,118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. E-mail: [email protected]. Six-issue subscriptions:$40 Standard US, $54 First Class US, $66 Canada, $90 Surface International, $108 AirmailInternational. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office.Cover art by Earl Norem. Morbius and Werewolf by Night TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All RightsReserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwisenoted. All editorial matter © 2009 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM ofTwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

The Retro Comics Experience!

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BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

INTERVIEW: Bernie Wrightson: Perfectly Frank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3The master of the macabre discusses his obsession with Mary Shelley’s tale, and more

FLASHBACK: The Monster of Frankenstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10Mike Ploog, Roy Thomas, and Gary Friedrich recall the Marvelizing of the Monster

TIMELINE: Frankenstein in Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15No pitchfork or torch is needed to hunt down these comics appearances of ol’ Flattop

FLASHBACK: Taste the Blood of Vampirella . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20Lordy, Lordy, Vampi’s 40, and BI eyes the vivacious vixen’s history

BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: Morbius, the Living Vampire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28How Morbius went from Spider-Man supervillain to Marvel monster-hero

FLASHBACK: Mud, Moss, and Mayhem: The Original Swamp Thing’s Latter Days . . .35Nestor Redondo and the men who brought life to Swampy after Bernie Wrightson

FLASHBACK: Monsters (Almost) Unleashed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41Revisit 1975, the year the Patchwork Man and Man-Bat briefly became solo stars

ART GALLERY: Monster Rally Gallery! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46A cool and creepy collection of creature features by Starlin, Kaluta, Wrightson, and others

BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: Major Arcana: The Life (and Death) Story of Anton Arcaneand the Un-Men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50Exhuming the legend of the Swamp Thing foe who won’t stay dead

BEYOND CAPES: Follow You … For I Am Dr. Thirteen! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60The real star of The Phantom Stranger steps into BACK ISSUE’s spotlight

INTERVIEW: Dining with the DeZunigas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67Pull up a chair with superstar artist Tony DeZuniga and his delightful wife, Tina

PRO2PRO: Tony Isabella and Dick Ayers’ It! The Living Colossus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69The writer/artist team and their recollections of the short-lived Colossus comeback

FLASHBACK: Golem, Golem … Gone! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72Marvel’s take on an old Hebrew legend

WHAT THE--?!: Power Records’ Monster Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80Peter Pan Records’ not-so-kid-friendly Marvel Monster book-and-record sets

GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: The Secret History of All-American Comics, Inc. . . . .82“In and Out of Darkness,” concluding Bob Rozakis’ fantasy comics history

BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88Reader feedback on “New World Order” issue #34

M o n s t e r s I s s u e • B A C K I S S U E • 1

“There’s nothing worse than an unhappy horrorartist,” says Bernie Wrightson.

Fortunately, Wrightson is pretty satisfied with hiscareer which spans 40 years. “It’s all rewarding as longas there are monsters in it and it’s a horror story,because those are the things I love,” he told an audienceat the 2008 Dragon-Con in Atlanta, Georgia.

His passion for the genre resulted in his mostpersonal project to date, an illustrated version of MaryShelley’s Frankenstein. Over the course of seven oreight years, he assembled a collection of about 60–65illustrations for the novel.

“This was my labor of love,” Wrightson beamsproudly during a later interview. “I think the seed wasplanted when I was very young, and it kind of grewand grew. By the mid-’70s, to carry the metaphor,it blossomed.”

INFLUENCESAccording to Wrightson, he has been a Frankenstein fansince the age of seven, while growing up in Baltimore,Maryland. “I just fell in love the movies. Universal had awhole package of old monster movies that they releasedto TV. It was the time of the horror host on Shock Theater.There was Zacherly in New York, and our version ofZacherly was a guy named Dr. Lucifer. He had a lot of thesame schtick. He had a coffin where his dead wife sleptand … the usual stuff, the tombstones and the cobwebs.Very jokey things, and he would occasionally break intothe movie with some kind of schtick related to whatwas happening in the movie. It was kid’s stuff.”

He also became a big fan of the EC’s horrorcomics and its stable of artists. “I liked Jack Davis,Johnny Craig, and George Evans, Reed Crandall.Everybody who worked for EC was just top-notch.They were the best people in the business.”

One artist stood out. “For me … the creepiest storywas always drawn by Graham Ingels. Ghastly GrahamIngels. And to this day, if you pick up Vault of Horror,Crypt of Terror, or Haunt of Fear, and you look at anyof those, and I guarantee, the Graham Ingels story,


That’s My Boy!Blacks, hatching, and intricate linework—BernieWrightson hallmarks—make the artist the perfectcandidate to adapt the Mary Shelley classic.Page 37 from the Frankenstein graphic novel.© 2009 Bernie Wrightson and Darkwoods Productions.

by P h i l i p S c h w e i e r

just looking at it—you don’t even have to read it,just look at the pictures—and it’s the creepiest stuffin the book.”

Such artists as Ingels and Frank Frazetta inspired theyoung Wrightson to pursue art on his own. His earliestlessons came from a Saturday morning televisionprogram featuring artist Jon Gnagy. “It was a half-hourshow and he would, in the course of the show, draw apicture starting with basic shapes—circle, square,triangle. He would show you how to turn the triangleinto a cone and turn a rectangle into a cylinder,and, by finding a light source and making a shadow,turn the circle into a globe. He said, ‘If you can drawthese three basic shapes, you can draw anything.This is what all drawing is based on.’”

ART SCHOOLHowever, it wasn’t until his teen years that, despite afew hurdles, Wrightson began thinking of a career inart. “There were no art classes in Baltimore at the time,in the 1960s, when I got out of high school. I tried tofind a college that taught commercial art and therewas nothing. I think the University of Maryland taughtfine art, but I wasn’t interested in that. I wanted tolearn how to draw, you know, commercially. There wasnothing at the time. This was years and yearsbefore anybody thought of teaching comics or justillustration in schools. But I found a correspondencecourse in Connecticut, the Famous Artists’ School, so Isigned up for that.”

Today, taking art courses by mail may sound rathersuspect, but at the time, it was the only option forWrightson. “It was the only place at the time that hadwhat I was looking for and I still have the coursebooks. I look at them from time to time and it’s still thebest art training that I’ve ever seen. There are a lotof imitators, or there used to be. There were a lot ofcorrespondence schools but I never looked into any ofthose. I just got lucky and found the best one.”

While the Famous Artists’ School didn’t offer adegree, that was never a concern for the buddingillustrator. “This was just a personal best kind ofthing and I wasn’t interested in a degree anyway,”says Wrightson. “I always felt that for an artist, the bestthing you can show is your portfolio. An artist isjudged by his work, not by how much he studied orwhat grades he got.”

Embarking on his art career after high school,Wrightson took a job with the Baltimore Sun, which lastedless than a year. “It was kind of sobering. I thought I’d begetting a job where I’d be drawing all the time, but mostof it was re-touching photos or doing paste-ups. But theexperience was valuable. It was not what I particularlywanted to do, but I learned a lot from it.”

Beginnings:First sale: “Nightmaster” in Showcase #83 (1969)First published art: House of Mystery #179 (1969)

Milestones:Comics: House of Mystery / Swamp Thing / Frankenstein /Creepshow / Batman: The Cult / The Weird / Captain Sternn /Batman/Aliens / City of Others / Dead, She Said /many memorable coversFilm: character designs for Creepshow / Ghostbusters / Spider-Man /Serenity / Ghost Rider / The Mist

Works in Progress:Frankenstein (25th anniversary editionhardcover, Dark Horse, 2008) /DC Comics Classics Library: Roots of theSwamp Thing

Cyberspace:www.wrightsonart.com

Photo courtesy of Bernie Wrightson.

BernieWrightson

Peeking Through the Scream DoorBernie Wrightson’s cover art for the 1971fanzine Scream Door #1 shows his affinitytoward Mary Shelley’s patchwork man.According to Heritage Comics Auctions(www.ha.com), who kindly provided this scan,the bottom panel of this art was also used inthe publication Berni Wrightson: A Look Back.Art © 2009 Bernie Wrightson.

4 • B A C K I S S U E • M o n s t e r s I s s u e

A TRIP TO ORLANDOWrightson then began looking for work in the comic-book field. “I went to comic-book conventions,basically, and just started showing my stuff aroundto anybody who wanted to look, and some of thepeople eventually who looked at it were editors atDC, and they said, ‘You know, you could work incomics. You’re good enough.’ I had to think aboutthat for a while—maybe a month—and then I movedto New York.”

By now it was the late 1960s, and DC’s horror lineconsisted of House of Mystery and House of Secrets.Both followed the old EC anthology format, “hosted”by a couple of ghoulish type of characters.

“I just happened to be very lucky, in that a year orso before that they had started House of Mystery. And,of course, it was under the Comics Code Authority, so youcouldn’t really deal with stuff like vampires andwerewolves,” Wrighston says. “The Code was very strictabout that the really horrific kind of stuff, like zombies.You couldn’t use the word ‘horror’ in a title; really,really strange, strict rules. Joe Orlando was the editor ofHouse of Mystery, and he was one of the original EC artists.His idea was, ‘Well, if we can’t have really good, grittyhorror stories, you know, if we can’t do it with the content,let’s find artists who can draw stuff that looks creepy,and just make the books look like horror comics.’”

The short-story format helped novice writers andartists learn the ropes before moving on to higher-profilebooks such as DC’s superhero titles.

“I never related much to superheroes,” confessesWrightson. “I read Superman and Batman andFantastic Four and all that stuff when I was younger.It was fun to read but it was nothing that I everreally wanted to draw. Superheroes were somehownot real to me ... compared to werewolves andmummies and stuff. I can buy that, but I can’t buythe X-Men. But that’s just me.”

DC Comics’ horror line expanded slowly, with titlessuch as The Unexpected and The Witching Hour addedby the early 1970s. Each issue would feature a handfulof stories, perhaps eight to 12 pages long. One ofthe most popular of these, illustrated by Wrightsonand written by his “partner in grime” Len Wein,was “Swamp Thing,” which premiered in House ofSecrets #92 (July 1971), then made the leap into a titleof its own. [Swamp Thing vol. 1 #1 was cover-datedOct.–Nov. 1972.]

Wrightson explains, “Part of the fun is following acharacter and watching him develop and seeingwhich direction he’s going to follow. It just seemsthat most of the time people jump in with that initialenthusiasm and after a while the characters begin topull you along as a creator, and the characters beginto tell you what do with them.

“We were pretty much making [Swamp Thing] up aswe went along. It was basically a monster-of-the-monthkind of thing, like the Kolchak/Night Stalker TV show.It was the same hero, but a hero needs someone tofight and it would be another monster. But I’ll takethe blame for that. I was looking for stuff that wasfun to draw, so maybe Len had other ideas aboutdeveloping the character and taking it in anotherdirection, or maybe I held him back because I wantedto have another monster. I never talked with himabout that, but looking back and rereading it, it looksa little suspicious now.”

Swamp Thing eventually stumbled once Wrightsonand Wein departed after the tenth issue, and wascanceled after #24 (Aug.–Sept. 1976). Revived inthe early 1980s, it led to two feature films and asyndicated television series, as well as a Saturdaymorning cartoon show. Since the Swamp Thingwas created under DC Comics’ work-for-hire policy,Wrightson and Wein saw only token appreciationfor their creation.


Swamp Thing, Take OneWhen Wrightson and writer Len Wein

introduced Swamp Thing in House of Secrets#92—the moody title page from which is

seen at right—they had no inkling that theyhad created a horror and pop-culture icon.The issue’s cover is seen in the upper right.

TM & © 2009 DC Comics.

TM & © DC Comics.

1 0 • B A C K I S S U E • M o n s t e r s I s s u e

In the early 1970s, horror comics were experiencing anexplosion in popularity. Not since the days of ECComics had horror been so popular.

At Marvel Comics there were the Ghost Rider,Werewolf by Night, Son of Satan, Satana, the Zombie,the Man-Thing, the Living Mummy, the Scarecrow,Dracula, and the Monster of Frankenstein.

First and foremost of the Marvel horror explosionwas Werewolf by Night, premiering in Marvel Spotlight#2 (Feb. 1972). Then came Dracula in his own series,Tomb of Dracula, which lasted 70 issues. Next came theflaming-skull-headed biker Ghost Rider, who tried outin Marvel Spotlight before blazing into his own title.Then Marvel’s version of Frankenstein burst onto the scene.

IT’S ALIVE!!The Frankenstein Monster isthe creation of Mary Shelley,who wrote her famous novel in1818 and titled it Frankenstein,or The Modern Prometheus.

The Monster was popularizedin the 1931 Universal Picturesmovie starring Boris Karloff asthe creature. Karloff’s Monsteris the image most associatedwith Frankenstein.

But it was almost 42 yearsbetween the first Frankensteinmovie and Marvel’s Frankensteincomics series. [Editor’s note:See this issue’s Frankenstein inComics Timeline for a neck-jolting jaunt through the Monster’s many comic-bookappearances.] Marvel’s Frankenstein Monster actuallyfirst appeared in X-Men #40 (Jan. 1968), but thatcharacter was an android version with superpowers.The “real” Frankenstein Monster appeared in a cameo

“My Lord!” is Right!Mike Ploog’s freakish interpretation of theMarvel-published Monster, in pencil form,

from page 3 of issue #6 (Oct. 1973). Courtesyof Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

(inset) Mary Shelley’s novel.© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

by M i c h a e l B r o w n i n g

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in Silver Surfer #7 (Aug. 1969). Then, in late 1972, the Monster ofFrankenstein got his own, self-titled Marvel Comics series.

Monster of Frankenstein #1 (Jan. 1973), or, as it’s titled in theindicia on the splash page, simply Frankenstein, was written byGary Friedrich, drawn by Mike Ploog, and edited by Roy Thomas.

Series editor Thomas was first invited to write the book,to be teamed with artist Ploog, who was already making a namefor himself with his horror work in the new Werewolf by Nightand Ghost Rider series. “I’d been working with Dick Giordanoadapting Bram Stoker’s Dracula [in the black-and-whitemagazine Vampire Tales], so I wanted to start with the [Mary] ShelleyFrankenstein story, then bring [the Monster of Frankenstein]into the present,” Thomas says. “But eager as I was to work withMike Ploog on Frankenstein, I just didn’t have time.

“So I turned the project over to Gary [Friedrich], who did afine job with it.”

This was the second teaming of Gary Friedrich and MikePloog. With horror comics being hot and Friedrich and Ploogeven hotter after kickstarting Ghost Rider, Marvel turned to itsstar writer/artist combo to produce another fright-filled hit.Instead of delving deep into the occult like Ghost Rider and Sonof Satan, Marvel decided to go with an old favorite.

“I don’t remember whose idea it was to do a Frankensteinbook,” Friedrich says. “But at this time, Marvel was cranking upthe gears on the monster mags, and if you’re doing to do amonster comic, what better character than Franky?”

Ploog says that because horror was popular, Marvel decided totry the Frankenstein Monster in his own title. “Werewolf by Nighthad became a successful title and was selling very well and DC’shorror comic line was doing well,” the artist recalls, “so I thinkStan [Lee] and the boys decided to expand into that market.”

Ploog used a drawing of the Frankenstein Monster by JohnRomita, Sr. as the basis for his own rendition and turned theMonster into a creature so fearful, yet at the same time one sopitiful and in search of his humanity—or eternal rest.

Friedrich wasn’t involved in choosing the appropriate lookfor the Monster, but loved Ploog’s version. “I don’t rememberRomita doing the original drawing, though probably he didsince he was there in the office and could show roughs to Stan[Lee] and Roy as he worked, which would have been a lot fasterthan waiting for Mike to draw them and then bring or mailthem into the office,” Friedrich says. “I don’t recall being greatlyinvolved in the project once it was decided to do an adaptation

M o n s t e r s I s s u e • B A C K I S S U E • 1 1

Beyond KarloffThe challenge ofartist Ploog andMarvel Comicswas to make theirMonster reminiscentof actor Boris Karloff(left) but unique asa Marvel character(as seen in this detailfrom the cover ofMonster of Frankenstein#3.) (below) Marvel’sfirst issue.Karloff Frankenstein© 2009 Universal Pictures.Ploog Frankenstein© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

1940Dick Briefer’s“Frankenstein” startsin Prize Comics.

1945Briefer’s monster-herogoes solo inFrankenstein Comics.

1945Mary Shelley’s taleis adapted in ClassicComics #26.

1948Batman and Robinmeet Frankie inDetective #135.


1961Bizarro meetsFrankenstein inSuperman #142.

1962Black-and-whitemag Castle ofFrankenstein begins.

1964Dell’s Frankenstein #1loosely adapts the1931 movie.

1964Model-building crazespawns this MAD cover.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been adapted,interpreted, borrowed from, parodied, and rippedoff in more comic books than a single edition ofBACK ISSUE can contain. We’ve dug through thecomics morgue for this sampling of covers featur-ing our favorite reanimated monster (and a few ofhis distant cousins)…

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1964Herman Munster andTV family spin off intocomics.

1964Lovable Franken-familybegins long GoldKey run.

1966Stone-age guestappearance inFlintstones #33.

1966Lid-flipping TVcartoon gets a GoldKey tie-in.

1966Dell Comics’ short-livedsuperhero Frankenstein.

1967Frankenstein, Jr. #1stars Hanna-Barbera’sgiant robot.

1967Mutants meetMonster in Marvel’sX-Men #40.

1969Reprinting of Classics(Comics) Illustrated #26.

Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein Monster in an undatedpainting by Gray Morrow. Art scan courtesy ofHeritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).© Universal Pictures.


In the proud history of comic-magazinemonsters, there’s never been a creationquite like Vampirella.

Her timing on the national scene wasnot fortuitous. She followed the slinky andbeautiful host Vampira, who in turn ushered,in a manner of speaking, sitcom scare-queens Lily Munster and Morticia Addams.Hammer Films, over in Great Britain, had alreadypushed the envelope with sexy, seductive vampirebrides played by Barbara Shelley (Dracula: Prince of Darkness, 1966) andMarianne Harcourt (Kiss of the Vampire, 1963).

By the end of the 1960s, Vampirella’s time had come. And publisherJames Warren was glad to have her. His young company had seensome tough times following the initial successes of its illustratedventures, Creepy and Eerie, but financial problems led to morereprints than many of its faithful readers could bear.

By 1969, things had improved slightly, but a shot in thearm was needed. That “shot in the arm” morphed intoa bite in the neck. A full-page house ad drawn byTony Williamsune appeared in the back of Creepy #28(Aug. 1969). Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie, Warren’s twonarrators of the “nauseating novelettes” the companyhad been doing, were trembling in fear! “She wascoming!” Eerie threatened to scream if his uncle let herthrough the door.

In a follow-up ad in the next issue, Vampirella (takenfrom a Frank Frazetta drawing) strutted her stuffbefore her still-rattled “family members.” Vampi wasa knockout—in more ways than one! Her first issueboasted an unforgettable Frazetta cover, which hadto delight longtime readers who’d been clamoringfor the artist’s return to Warren. “Illustrated Tales toBewitch and Bedevil You”—this seductive spielappeared above the cover’s logo, but more to thepoint was the further announcement just inside,“Captivating Comics about Fantastic Females!”

This was this new title’s subtle secret.These new “excursions into evil” were specifically designed

around the enticement of the femme fatale with supernaturalspecialties. This was made to order for awkward pre-teens (myselfincluded). In ’69–’70, my age group was far too unsophisticated forEsquire, a bit too young for Playboy, and generally too unsure ofour rarely tested manhood to read … uh, romance comics(openly, at least). Happily, we now had Vampirella.

“We knew we had a hit in her,” Forrest J. Ackerman,one of her creators, told me as he signed my Vampirella andFamous Monsters mags at the San Diego Comic-Con in thelate ’90s. “She was sexy … and sensational!” he laughinglyadded. She sure was.

NeckingVampirella gets ready to put the bite on an

unlucky (or lucky—depends upon how you lookat it!) victim in this outstanding unpublished

’90s illustration by José “Pepe” González.All artwork and photos in this article were

provided by Dewey Cassell and Jerry Boyd.© 2009 Harris Publications, Inc.

by J e r r y B o y d

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LOVE AT FIRST BITEIn her first appearance, beautifully realized by Tom Suttonand nicely written by Ackerman, the young bloodsuckerwas a carefree flirt/tease. She lived on the planet Draculon(among other permutations). This was a planet of blood-thirsty vampires, but their thirst was easily sated by therivers of blood (!!) that were natural to the landscape. If anyprospective readers had been casual about picking up andthumbing through that historic premiere issue, Sutton’sopening splash with the gorgeous young bat-womantaking a long shower (in blood, yet!) had to be theanswer to their doldrums! Vampi’s partially (but carefullyconcealed) nude body spoke volumes about thrills to come.Other creature queens to follow drawn by Neal Adams,William Barry, Jack Sparling, Billy Graham, Reed Crandall,Sanho Kim, and Dick Piscopo would follow this standard.Their stories of cave girls, futuristic lady space explorers,warrior women, alluring aliens, sea goddesses, and femalewerewolves came in various states of undress withcome-hither smiles that hadn’t been seen in comics ever.

Vampi (as she quickly came to be known) bespokedanger, but she was just out to have fun in her firstadventure. An intrusion on her world by some of thosepesky, gotta-explore-all-of-space Earthmen got theaction going. (Ackerman was always partial to sciencefiction.) The spacemen fire on the curious bat-womanflying above them, but Vampirella’s attack is bettercoordinated and a few fang-tipped bites later—and it’sall over. Or is it? The vamp discovers that the lifeblood ofDraculon is the lifeblood of these space travelers! With alaugh, she readies herself to return in their spaceship tothe planet of their origin. Her first adventure was over,but she stepped into the traditional horror-mag narratormode right after that, posing provocatively on theopening story pages for maximum appeal.

And she had appeal to spare! The artists and writerscertainly did their part, but the competition couldn’tmatch up. DC, Marvel, Gold Key, and Charlton hadhorror-mystery comics in 1969, of course, but the ComicsCode ensured that they couldn’t bring “sex” with acapital “S” with them. Publisher Warren could, and did.

Jim Warren told Comic Book Artist’s readers (in thesuperb fourth issue), “We [Ackerman and Warren] hadboth seen the movie Barberella together and had loved it.I carefully outlined exactly what I wanted: A modern-daysetting but something with a mystique of vampires,Transylvania; something legendary—and Vampirella wasborn. Think about Bram Stoker and what he did withDracula: Horror and sex. I didn’t want Wonder Woman.I didn’t want a superhero type. I wanted a modern setting.Sexy, but not naked or bare-breasted.”

Mr. Warren knew his audience.Readers sensed a turnaround. The reprints were

slowly eased out as veterans like Reed Crandall,


New Ghoul in Town!The delectable Vampirella made her first

appearance in this 1969 house ad in Creepy #29.This knee-knocking illo was done by Tony

Williamsune. (below) Three great impressariosof horror (left to right): Vincent Price,

James Warren, and Forrest J. Ackerman,the latter of whom helped create Vampirella.

© 1969 Warren Publishing. Vampirella © 2009 Harris Publications, Inc.


No one can ever accuse Stan Lee and Steve Ditko ofgetting off to a slow start with The AmazingSpider-Man. Nearly all of the web-slinger’s greatvillains were created during the book’s first three yearsunder its creators.

But Morbius the Living Vampire is one of the fewlater creations who has managed to join the pantheonof great Spider-Man foes, alongside the likes ofthe Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, Mysterio, Electro,the Vulture, and Kraven the Hunter. Created by writerRoy Thomas and artist Gil Kane, Morbius has becomea Marvel mainstay who at one point even held downhis own monthly series.

SCIENTIFIC ORIGINMorbius isn’t a true vampire, at least not in thetraditional sense, although he shares many traits withthe classic vampires of film and fiction.

Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr. Michael Morbiuslearned he was dying from a rare blood disease.He attempted to find a cure, creating a serum derivedfrom vampire bats. The formula did cure his illness,but it also transformed him into a chalk-white,fanged creature of the night. He also developed super-human powers: enhanced strength and the ability to glideon the air currents. In this respect, there was littledifference between Morbius and the traditional vampire.

Although he was still alive, Morbius discovered heneeded to drink human blood to survive. He also sharedthe vampire’s aversion to light,although sunlight did notdestroy him as it would asupernatural vampire. He alsolacked the undead vampire’saversion to garlic and religiousicons. However, artist andco-creator Gil Kane gave theLiving Vampire a moreconventional supervillain’scostume, rather than thegothic garb most typicallyassociated with literary andmovie vampires.

Morbius’ introduction inAmazing Spider-Man #101(Oct. 1971) was noteworthyfor more than just theintroduction of an instantlyclassic supervillain. It also marked the first time in thebook’s storied history that a writer other than Stan Leepenned the script for the web-slinger’s adventures.

Monster SupervillainDetail from the cover art to Spectacular

Spider-Man #7 (June 1977), penciled by DaveCockrum and inked by Al Milgrom. Courtesy of

Anthony Snyder (www.anthonysnyderart.com).© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

by B r u c e B u c h a n a n

®

Lee was working on a screenplay for a science-fiction movie at the time, so he needed to take a breakfrom his heavy workload as a writer for Marvel. For thismonumental passing of the torch, Lee chose hisrighthand man, Roy Thomas, to be the new AmazingSpider-Man scribe.

“Actually, I wanted to do Fantastic Four, but Stanwanted me to do Spider-Man, so I did Spider-Man,”Thomas says. “I got to write Fantastic Four a few years laterand I enjoyed writing Spider-Man, so it all worked out.”

Attributing Morbius’ origin to science, not sorcery,was in part a creative, innovative twist on a classicfictional monster. But it also represented an opportunityto take advantage of recent changes in the ComicsCode Authority, which governed content in comicbooks aimed at a youthful readership. For years,the Comics Code declared, “Scenes dealing with,or instruments associated with walking dead, torture,vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, andwerewolfism are prohibited.” So using vampires—or any undead creatures—in mainstream comics hadbeen out of the question. (A similar concessionwas made in a Marvel Two-in-One story set in Haiti.The mindless, perhaps undead, creatures in the storywere referred to as “zuvembies” rather than “zombies.”)

But the Comics Code’s restrictions were somewhatloosened in the early 1970s and Lee wanted tocapitalize by bringing in a vampire to the pages ofAmazing Spider-Man.

“We were talking about doing Dracula, but Stanwanted a costumed villain. Other than that, he didn’tspecify what we should do,” Thomas says. “I deliberatelywrote that issue a little differently than Stan would have.Maybe better, maybe worse, but different.”

Lee also left Thomas with a compelling plot threadto resolve, as in the landmark Amazing Spider-Man #100,Spidey attempted to find a cure for his spider-powers,only to grow four additional arms!

So Thomas started thinking about a possible vampirevillain for Spider-Man, and how he could weave thatinto the storyline he inherited. He says he remembereda science-fiction film from his youth in which a manwas turned into a vampire by radiation, not magic.That gave him the inspiration that Morbius should bea creature of science.

As for the name “Morbius,” another 1950s science-fiction film provided the inspiration, albeit inadvertently.A character in the film Forbidden Planet was named Dr.Morbius, and the name stuck in Thomas’ subconscious.He didn’t realize from where he had come up with thename until the book already was in print, he says.

ARMED AND DANGEROUSAmazing Spider-Man #101 picks up with Peter Parkertrying to deal with the consequences of his failedattempt to cure his spider-powers. Now, he truly is afreak, unable to move in normal society. Peter respondsto the unexpected turn of events with fear, anger and histrademark self-deprecating humor. “S’funny ... in popfiction, the masked hero's always looking for a gimmickthat'll ‘Strike terror into the hearts of evil-doers,’” he says.“The Shadow, Batman ... there was even a guy called theSpider once. Well, cheer up, web-spinner. You’ve got’em all beat. And the only person you'll scare morethan the crooks will be yourself.”

He realizes that he can’t see Gwen Stacy, Aunt May,or the Daily Bugle staff until when—or if—he is able to ridhimself of his four extra arms. So he calls Dr. Curt Connors,a.k.a. the Lizard, who knows a little something himself

about experiments gone wrong. Dr. Connors offersSpider-Man the use of his beach house in a remotesection of Long Island. There, Spider-Man can hole upand look for a cure away from prying eyes.

Meanwhile, the scene shifts to a ship floating offthe New York coast. Several crew members havedisappeared in recent days and the remaining crewmenplace the blame on a goateed drifter they picked upshortly before the disappearances began. The man,Dr. Michael Morbius, is forced to flee and hide fromthe angry mob. However, when the sun goes down,Morbius assumes a far more dangerous persona—that of a living vampire!

“But now, it is night once more—and the nightbelongs to me—to Morbius! For the darkness is a timefor strange thirsts, and when Morbius thists—it mustbe quenched!,” Morbius says as he pulls in anothervictim. That night, he murders the ship’s entire crewbefore gliding to shore. Thomas says this introductoryscene is a nod to a similar scene in Bram Stoker’sDracula, the definitive and certainly the most famousvampire novel ever written.


Nap TimeMorbius slumbers,just before hisencounter withSpidey, on page14 of the RoyThomas/Gil Kane/Frank Giacoia classicAmazing Spider-Man#101 (Oct. 1971).© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

One of the most critically lauded comics of the 1970swas the ten-issue run of Swamp Thing by writer LenWein and artist Bernie Wrightson. But that’s not whatthis article is about. This is, instead, a look at whatcame after Wein and Wrightson, for, though onemight not realize it today, Swamp Thing ran for afurther 14 issues before finally being canceled in thesummer of 1976.

Swamp Thing debuted in a one-off tale in House ofSecrets #92 (July 1971) and the issue garnered verygood sales. Indeed, as Len Wein himself was laterreported as having said, “House of Secrets outsoldeverything that month.”

Confident in the knowledge they’d spawned a hit,Wein, Wrightson, and editor Joe Orlando had a problem:Success demanded the character’s return, but thestory was complete in itself, with little possibilityfor a sequel. That they succeeded in capturinglightning in a bottle for a second time—and brilliantly—is a matter of record. The resulting ten issues remainso popular that as recently as spring of 2009 theyhave been reprinted in a new, lavish hardcovervolume from DC.

But with Swamp Thing #10 (June 1974), an exhaustedBernie [then Berni] Wrightson took his leave. As newsof his departure leaked out, fans reportedly suggestedJeff Jones as a suitable replacement. According to aneditorial in Swamp Thing #11 (Aug. 1974), however,the powers-that-be felt that Jones’ work would be toosimilar to Wrightson’s, and wanted to take the series,and its mossy star, in a slightly different direction.The artist ultimately chosen was Nestor Redondo.

THE FILIPINO INVASIONRedondo was then best known as a component of the“Filipino Invasion.” Facing falling sales and rising costs,DC had looked to foreign countries such as thePhilippines and South America for artists with cheaperrates. Filipino artist Tony DeZuniga had proven himselfa valuable resource, and, through him, DC began tosecure the services of other talents. Alex Niño,Alfredo Alcala, Gerry Talaoc, as well as Redondo,were just a few of the artists whose work filled pagesin various DC books of the 1970s.

Len Wein stayed on as writer, though his workingmethod had to change. He and Wrightson hadworked “Marvel-style”—plot, art, dialogue—but withRedondo living halfway around the world, Wein nowhad to produce a full script in advance.


Remarkable RedondoFilipino artist Nestor Redondo ably filledBernie Wrightson’s vacated artist’s chair onDC Comics’ original Swamp Thing series. Seenhere is the cover art to issue #18 (Sept.1975), courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions(www.ha.com).TM & © DC Comics.

by A l l a n H a r v e y

®

Swamp Thing #11 begins with the erstwhile AlecHolland gazing at the smoking ruin of what wasonce his laboratory. Having stood staring for so long,however, the Swamp Thing finds he has taken rootand, tearing his foot out of the ground, ambles off intothe swamp, decrying his pathetic lot. Meanwhile,Abigail Arcane and Matt Cable are tracking thecreature, but find themselves kidnapped by huge,mutated “worms.”

In the clutches of one “Professor Zachary Nail,”Matt and Abby discover that atomic radiation fromNail’s equipment has mutated a wide variety of swampfauna, and Nail himself is on a mad crusade to save afew examples of humanity before the world outsidesuccumbs to pollution. The worms are a remnant ofsome ancient race accidentally revived by Nail.

Swamp Thing arrives, and discovers that theworms, unknown to Nail, merely desire to cultivate thehumans as food! During the fight that follows Nailopts to destroy his base, and Swamp Thing helps

everyone escape before the explosion destroys theworms—and Nail.

It’s a solid issue; perhaps a little wild plot-wise,but very readable. Swamp Thing himself is cast as atragic figure, and Abigail Arcane and Matt Cableprovide likable support. Nail’s scheme, as unlikely as it is,plays up the pollution concerns of the day.

Nestor Redondo’s art is nothing less than brilliant.His lush brush work and hatching often produce aphotorealistic feel, but his fluid lines keep the workfrom appearing static. The man knows his anatomy,providing something of a master class in comic-bookfigure work. That Swamp Thing and Rima the JungleGirl were his only regular series is to be regretted.Perhaps the finest example of his work during thisperiod was on the tabloid-sized adaptation of theBible [in Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-36, June–July1975], where Redondo worked over layouts by JoeKubert, producing a result that is simply stunning.He remains one of the most sorely underratedcomics artists ever.

As writer Gerry Conway tells BACK ISSUE, “I agreethat Nestor is one of comicdom’s great unsung talents.His misfortune is that his art is very much part of a‘school,’ and they were all heavily influenced by eachother’s art style. As a result, their work tended to lookalike. Nestor, to my mind, was the best of the bunch;I worked with him on a number of stories, including asan editor, and always found his art to be dynamic andinteresting. I especially enjoyed the work we didtogether on Swamp Thing.”

Swamp Thing #12 (Oct. 1974) is a time-travelstory that finds our muck-encrusted hero draggedunwillingly from era to era by a huge, glowing crystal.Redondo excels himself with some of his strongest artfor the series, depicting dinosaurs, Roman gladiatorialshowdowns, 14th-Century Europe, and the AmericanCivil War with equal verisimilitude. The researchrequired to believably pull this off would have givenmany artists pause, but Redondo never skimps onthe detail; his panels often filled with half a dozencharacters and lush backgrounds.

“The Leviathan Conspiracy” in #13 (Dec. 1974)sees Swamp Thing captured for experimentation by amisguided scientist. And with that, co-creator LenWein bowed out. The editorial in #14 (Feb. 1975)informs the reader that Wein left due to work andhealth pressures (kidney stones are mentioned), but thata diligent search had turned up a “young, interested,and very committed” new writer: David Michelinie.

Michelinie’s debut tale is a beautiful story,which Redondo more than rises to the challenge ofillustrating. “The Tomorrow Children” opens withSwamp Thing coming to the aid of a small mutantchild who is being pursued by angry, axe-wieldingtownsfolk. As we’re told, “[N]ature spawns no animalmore vicious, no creature more vile, than that mindlessflock of humanity called ... a mob!”

As the villagers scatter, and the child flees, we learnsomething of the history of these events. People havebeen dying and huge creatures have been spied inthe swamp. When old Jeb Wheeler found threemysterious children hidden in a box abandoned inthe swamp, the answer was clear to the townsfolk—the children were the cause. They, and Jeb, werehounded out of town.

Attacked by a giant ant, Swamp Thing is stunned tosee more of the creatures controlled by the mind powersof the three kids. The girl, Delta, and her brothers,

Better Call Orkin!Swampy needs

pest control help onthis page 8 splash

from ST #14(Jan.–Feb. 1975).

Courtesy of Heritage.TM & © DC Comics.


Fan out the DC comic books that you bought inthe fall of 1975 and you see the sub-groups within.The superheroes, obviously. War. Horror. The recentlyadded sword-and-sorcery books. And Swamp Thing,Man-Bat, and the Patchwork Man (starring in House ofSecrets)—the Monster line. Oh, wait … there wasn’tany monster line, at least not intentionally.

However comforting the notion of a grand planmay be, the reality is that many publishing decisions owemore to chance or mundane business developments.DC’s highly touted rollout of sword-and-sorcerycomics in the spring of 1975, for instance, “was aburst of activity to fill a sudden increase in the schedule,”DC president Paul Levitz explains. “I think anymove towards monsters as ‘heroes’ was more acase-by-case reaction.”

Up to that point, DC had had a good bit of successwith its line of horror comics since the late 1960s,many of them hosted by comedic figures like Cainand Abel. Marvel Comics had taken a stab at thegenre from 1972 to 1975, but a lack of staffing andthe company’s natural strengths in serial fiction ledto their own development of an entire sub-line ofmonstrous continuing characters that embracedevery major horror icon, sometimes twice over. Bycontrast, DC’s principal venture into the monster-hero genre had been Len Wein and BernieWrightson’s Swamp Thing in 1972, itself based on aone-shot story in the previous year’s House ofSecrets #92.

By 1975, both Wein and Wrightson had leftDC’s Swamp Thing, but the book remained a goingconcern under original editor Joe Orlando, writerDavid Michelinie, and artist Nestor Redondo.Indeed, there’d even been an uptick in sales, albeitone that took place while the original creative teamwas on the book and, as Levitz notes, “onlybecame evident after they left because of the lagtime in newsstand sales reporting.” Nonetheless,this was enough to warrant the announcement inthe Amazing World of DC Comics #6 (May–June 1975)that “Swamp Thing is so hot that its [publicationfrequency is] shifting from seven times a yearto eight!”

Enter the Patchwork Man. Seen for the first (and last)time in Swamp Thing #3 (Feb.–Mar. 1973), the man onceknown as Gregori Arcane was a quasi-FrankensteinMonster whose body had been all but destroyed whenhe stepped on a land mine. Unfortunately, from Gregori’sperspective, he had a mad-scientist brother namedAnton who decided to “improvise” with his sibling’s body


I Hate Meeces to Pieces!Swamp Thing spin-off the Patchwork Man rumbleswith rodents in this Nestor Redondo-drawn imagefrom the character’s second solo story. Intended forHouse of Secrets #141, this tale went unpublishedin the US but saw print in Sweden’s Gigant #3.TM & © DC Comics.

by J o h n W e l l s

and created a mute creature with only dim memories of his past life. TheSwamp Thing was little better at expressing himself than the PatchworkMan, but they ultimately found a common bond in saving the life of awhite-haired woman named Abigail Arcane. Gregori’s now-growndaughter had no idea that the father she’d long believed dead hadjust saved her life.

The fact that the Patchwork Man had fallen to his apparent deathat the end of the story was immaterial. In comics, as fans often say,if you don’t see the body, they’re not dead. And Gerry Conway, it wasdecided, would resurrect him for editor Joe Orlando in an ongoingseries debuting in House of Secrets #140 (Feb.–Mar. 1976), with art byNestor Redondo.

Enthusiastically welcomed back to DC in 1975 after severalyears as a major player at Marvel, Gerry Conway soon had a fulland varied slate of assignments as both a writer and editor. There wasno doubt which of them was the favored child. A full-page housead in Sept. 1975 cover-dated comics sported a striking illustrationby Steve Ditko (himself newly returned to DC) that proclaimed,“Fantasy’s most bizarre hero now in his own macabre magazine—Man-Bat!” All-Star Comics, Blackhawk, and [1st Issue Special’s]“Codename: Assassin” (“three more from Conway’s Corner”)played second fiddle with a short nod at the bottom of the page.Note that this ad appeared three months before Man-Bat #1 waspublished. “I think we simply needed to fill a page that month,”Gerry believes, “and [publisher] Carmine [Infantino] was eager toshowcase Steve Ditko’s arrival at DC.”

The Man-Bat comic, according to Amazing World of DC Comics#6, was one that “our publisher has wanted to do for a long timenow.” Created by Frank Robbins and Neal Adams in Detective

Comics #400 (June 1970), Man-Bat was a scientist named KirkLangstrom whose efforts to emulate Batman wound up turninghim into a feral creature who began to lose touch with his humanside. Robbins cured his tragic anti-hero in his third appearance(Detective Comics #407), but not before adding another wrinklewhen Langstrom’s new wife Francine become a She-Bat. Both ofthe Langstroms suffered relapses in subsequent tales before Kirkperfected his bat-formula, enabling him to switch back and forthwith no impact on his faculties. Disappearing after Robbins left DCfor Marvel, Man-Bat finally returned opposite Batman in The Braveand the Bold #119 (June 1975) and had his origin reprinted inBatman Family #1 (Sept.–Oct. 1975), renewing his familiarity withreaders as the ongoing series loomed.

“As far as Man-Bat goes,” Gerry Conway recalls, “I think whatinterested me was the opportunity to work with Steve Ditko. It’s beena while, obviously, but I believe we came up with the idea of proposinga series to Ditko first, then picked Man-Bat as a natural fit. Patchwork Manwas another story. I don’t think I felt any particular affinity for thecharacter, but I believe Joe Orlando was looking to put together aregular series figuring to capture some of Swamp Thing’s audiencewith a kind of spin-off.”

Man-Bat #1, released in early September, traded on its Batmanconnection through the expected Batman guest-appearance butallowed Kirk Langstrom his independence. Discovering that hiswife’s latest transformations into the She-Bat were being caused byone Baron Clement Tyme (ahem), Man-Bat pointedly refused theDark Knight’s help in stopping him. Batman had become a crutchto him, he asserted, and it was time to stand (fly?) on his own. It was,all told, a solid first issue whose visuals (inked by Al Milgrom) attimes echoed Steve Ditko’s classic work on Doctor Strange in shotsof the sorcerous Baron Tyme. If there was any awkwardness, it wasin the depiction of Batman himself, who seemed somehow lessimposing here. Wisely, Ditko mostly kept his shots of the hero inshadows or partial silhouette.

Where the jam-packed first Man-Bat deferred the character’sbackground to a text page, the introductory Patchwork Manstory in mid-November’s House of Secrets #140 actually devotedseveral pages to the character’s origin, expanding on the Swamp

Thing backstory.Given a title character who couldn’t

speak or even think coherently, the burdenof plot advancement and dialogue restedon a new cast of characters who operatedout of the Mount Good Hope Instituteunder Doctor Elijah Chomes. Exactly whyChomes wanted to study the captivePatchwork Man was unclear, but we’veread enough comics to know that this sortof thing never ends well. Certainly, that’s whatthe creature must have thought since heescaped at the end of the story with thehelp of a friendly cab driver.

The most provocative detail in theissue stemmed from scientist DarleenGreer’s reaction to Chomes’ descriptionof the Patchwork Man as being notunlike “an infant child.” As the story

closed, she confided to colleague Andy Harty that she was herselfpregnant, something sure to complicate her relationship with herestranged husband and potentially end her career. In short, she

Man-Bat Flies SoloSteve Ditko and Al Milgrom’s rendition of Man-Batgraces this 1975 DC house ad. (inset) The cover toMan-Bat #1, drawn by Jim Aparo.TM & © DC Comics.



(left) Four of Marvel’s mightiestheroic monsters—the Hulk,the Beast, the Thing, andMan-Thing—collide with eachother (!!) and with DC’s SwampThing in this Jim Starlin pencilplate from the 1972 ACBA Portfolio.(above) Awww, dare we call HotStuff and Spooky “monsters”?Sure, why not? The “Tuff LittleGhost” and everyone’s favorite“Devil Kid” wave to us frombehind a tree in the EnchantedForest, courtesy of their longtimeartist, Howie Post, who penciledthis double-portrait in 2004.Hulk, Beast, and Thing © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.Swamp Thing TM & © DC Comics.Spooky and Hot Stuff © 2009 Harvey Entertainment.

Classic film and television monsters, as wellas created-just-for-comics creatures, constitutesome of our beloved industry’s mostfascinating creations!

In this gallery of the gruesome, I’vecollected artwork by a few of comicdom’sfinest talents including some rarely seenand never published pieces for fans whothrill to those “things” that go bump, pow,and crash in the night ... and in the day!

wr i t ten and compi led

by J e r r y B o y d


(top left) Mike Ploogdoes film storyboardsthese days. Here’s anundated etching ofa movie monsterthat hasn’t been“produced” yet (butmaybe one day hewill....). (above right)Ghost Rider doeshis best to smile inthis Ploog markerconvention drawingfrom 2007. (far left)His signature got cutoff the reproductionof this late ’80s illo,but here’s ArtAdams’ rendition ofthe unforgettableUniversal Studios’Bride of Frankenstein.(left) With his bridearound, you knewthat Frankensteincouldn’t be farbehind! This bust ofthe (Karloff-like) manof many parts byMike Mignola wasdone in ’06.Monster art © Mike Ploog.Ghost Rider © 2009Marvel Characters, Inc.Frankenstein and Brideof Frankenstein © 2009Universal Pictures.


As a newly transformed creature lumbers out of theLouisiana bayou in 1972’s Swamp Thing #1, a narrativecaption introduces the emerging swamp monster as “amuck-encrusted, shambling mockery of life—a twistedcaricature of humanity that can only be called … SwampThing!” Although Alec Holland’s transformation intoSwamp Thing was a new horror-fiction conceit at thetime, the fear of bodily mutation and metamorphosis isendemic to the human experience. In her notes to Dante’sInferno (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994), Nicole Pinskyobserves that “the notion of Horror as we know it fromfiction or the movies involves detailed, uncanny transfor-mation of the human body…. The body may be snatchedor bitten, invaded or inverted or duplicated, obscenelyrevived or repellently distorted, but above all it changes.”From Ovid to Dante—from Mary Shelley to Franz Kafkato Romero’s Living Dead—the fear of corporeal metamor-phosis has haunted human storytelling for millennia.

Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson’s best-known creationis no exception. When Alec Holland is transformed intosomething unbearably monstrous, the reader is compelledto both pity and fear him as the monster tries to regain hishumanity. The exact opposite is true of his nemesis, AntonArcane. If Swamp Thing’s story is a tragedy that looselymirrors Frankenstein’s monster, then Anton Arcanerepresents a darker, more sadistic version of the monster’screator: Victor Frankenstein. Swamp Thing spends much ofhis time trying to hold onto and recreate his humanity,while Arcane is willing to trade his humanity for theopportunity to live and rule forever. For almost fourdecades, Arcane has remained not just a commoncomic-book foil to Swamp Thing, but a dark reflectionthat reveals the depths of human (and inhuman) horror.

DEAL WITH THE DEVILAlthough Arcane spoke his first dialogue in the lastpanel of Swamp Thing #1, he didn’t fully appearuntil the second issue of the series. Swamp Thing #2(“The Man Who Wanted Forever”) begins as a hordeof Arcane’s patchwork creations—called Un-Men—surround Swamp Thing, lull him into a trance, andsweep him out of the bayou on board a plane destinedfor eastern Europe. The Un-Men are only loosely men,as they seem to have been assembled from differentparts of humanoid bodies. The Un-Men’s apparentringleader, a creature named Cranius, is essentially abrain with a face sitting on top of a hand. The onlyother Un-Man with a significant role in this issue,Ophidian, is the serpent-like creature who hypnotizes

Mortal EnemiesBy the time he tangled with DC’s resilientmuck-monster in Swamp Thing vol. 2 #98(Aug. 1990), Anton Arcane had become a

grotesquery in appearance and soullessness.Cover painting by John Totleben.

TM & © DC Comics.

by A l e x B o n e y

Swamp Thing for the journey across the ocean to acastle in the Balkan mountains. Arcane doesn’t appearuntil almost halfway through the issue, but he quicklytakes control of the story.

Arcane stands in stark contrast to the rest of thecreatures in Swamp Thing #2. While he is clearly old andwithered, he is still distinctly human. And whereas herefers to the Un-Men who inhabit his castle with him as“pets” and “experimentations,” he repeatedly callsSwamp Thing “my boy” and “my friend.” He seems atfirst to want to help Swamp Thing regain the humanform he had once had. Arcane has discovered the secretof immorality but, as he tells Swamp Thing, “it is asecret I dare not put to use—while I still inhabit this bentand wizened form.” Through a mystical, alchemicalprocess, Arcane offers to transfer consciousnesses:Arcane will take on the form of Swamp Thing whileSwamp Thing reverts back to the form of Alec Holland.

As with any deal with the devil, Arcane’s offer is toogood to be true. As soon as Alec regains his human form,he learns that Arcane’s plan is little more than a revengefantasy. As Arcane tells his Un-Men, “this malformedbody means far more than immortality, my pets—it means power! Power to exact the vengeance thathas gnawed at my heart for years … vengeance againstthe unthinking cretins who inhabit the village below …the self-centered snobs who shunned me in my youth—who scorned me and my work! In this indestructiblebody, I’m able to do what I’ve longed to do … I can go

down the mountain—and destroy them all!” From thevery beginning, immortality is only really half of Arcane’sdesign. The plan is foiled when Alec reclaims the SwampThing body, sacrificing his humanity to save the lives ofthe villagers below. Arcane falls to his apparent deathfrom a window high in his castle and, unable to copewith the loss of their master, the Un-Men jump from thesame window onto the rocks below.

Despite the elaborate thematic mirrors and inversionsbuilt into the first Swamp Thing/Arcane confrontation,co-creator Len Wein says he was really just trying tocreate a good villain that fit the genre of the book.“We never sat down and specified what sort of evil herepresented,” Wein says. “I never really thought youneeded to compartmentalize evil. I didn’t think itneeded that much dissecting to be that disturbing.You want a mad scientist in a horror book, and I likedthe idea of giving Alec the chance to become humanagain very early on. And Arcane fit right into that.”

ARCANE, FAMILY MANArcane also provided a way to establish a sense ofcontinuity for the series as a whole. Arcane left behindtwo family members who would play prominent roles inSwamp Thing’s life for years to come. Swamp Thing #3,entitled “The Patchwork Man,” reveals that Arcane had“saved” his own brother, Gregori Arcane, after a landmine accident years earlier. In a twisted act of fraternalsalvation, Arcane recreated Gregori as one of his Un-Men


Oh, theHumanity!(left) Anton Arcaneoffers to make aman out of ourbeleaguered bogbeast on page 12 of1972’s Swamp Thing#2. (right) In thenext issue, Aracane’sbrother Gregori’slife is “saved” ashe becomes thePatchwork Man. Artby Bernie Wrightson.TM & © DC Comics.


“Follow me … for I am The Phantom Stranger!”So said the logo of one hep early-’70s DC series. And at least

one character took those words to heart—Dr. Terrence Thirteen,professional Ghost-Breaker.

Yes, when Doc 13 wasn’t shadowing the spookily garbedsupernatural superhero around in the book’s feature stories, he followedhim as the star of his own occultish backup feature.

BACK ISSUE decided to debunk the debunker by hunting downthe only men who could reveal what made Dr. Terry and MarieThirteen tick—Phantom Stranger’s writers.

A DOCTOR OF DATAThe year 1951 was quite a year for entertainment: The King and Ipremiered on Broadway; Bedtime for Bonzo, starring future USPresident Ronald Reagan, hit the silver screen; and CBS presented thefirst color TV broadcast … viewed only by network executives sincecolor TV sets had yet to be introduced to the American public. In theworld of comics, Osamu Tezuka, father of manga, introduced hismost famous creation, Astro Boy.

On a lesser note, it was also the year that saw the haphazard creationof DC Comics’ protagonist Dr. Terrence Thirteen, a parapsychologistand investigator of reported supernatural activity. Thirteen was anorphan of a character, created by artist Leonard Starr and an uncreditedwriter to replace the “Captain Compass” feature. Imagine a lessbumbling, more intense Clark Kent and you get the vibe of thisneurotic paranormal investigator.

The character’s first published appearance arrived in Star SpangledComics #122 (Nov. 1951), where he toplined his own feature through#130 (July 1952). For generations, the Thirteen family’s less-savvyneighbors had hated and feared them, suspecting supernaturalgoings-on—but in reality, the Thirteens were thoroughly devoted toscience and rationality. Thus, when the family patriarch died andappeared to come back in spirit, son Terry Thirteen, with his wife, Marie,set out to dispel the occurrence. That set the tone for the series,in which the married Thirteens investigated ostensibly occult-likesituations, only to arrive at some mundane explanation.

Following his Star Spangled run, Dr. Thirteen’s next appearancedid not arrive until nearly 18 years later when the character turnedup in Showcase #80 (Feb. 1969) as a supporting character in aPhantom Stranger story. When the Stranger received his own seriesthat year, Dr. Thirteen made the leap as the character’s nemesis.

PHANTOM GETS A FOILThe Phantom Stranger was one “weird hero” (see BACK ISSUE #15 forproof!). Dressed like a cross between the Spirit and the Phantom ofthe Opera, the Stranger operated somewhere between the passivityof the Watcher, old radio man-of-mystery the Whistler, and thecrime-busting heroics of The Shadow. More often than not, he wouldmerely materialize and disappear, long enough to forewarn charactersof the consequences of their actions. Like a buttinsky Rod Serling,he might occasionally interfere.

“I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts”……or monsters, or demons, felt DC’s resident Ghost-BreakerDr. Terrence Thirteen, seen in the foreground in this detail frompage 13 of Phantom Stranger #3. The headshot of the Stranger

himself came from the character’s first issue. Art by Bill Draut.TM & © DC Comics.

by M i c h a e l A u s h e n k e r

All of this did much to raise the ire of Dr. Thirteen, a skepticwho did not believe in the supernatural and, least of all, believed thatthe Stranger was truly a phantom. He took to accusing theStranger of perpetrating “cheap parlor tricks!” or ”smokes andmirrors!” to make it appear that he was ghostly. And off they went,bickering like an old married couple (yes, Doc 13 and the Stranger,not Terry and Marie)!

So, whose idea was it to pit Thirteenagainst the Stranger as comic relief?

“It was editor Joe Orlando whogave me this setup,” explains MikeFriedrich, who wrote fresh wrap-around material for the first threeissues, which relied heavily onold reprints written by JohnBroome and others. Friedrichadmits that he was not comfortable

with the premise.“I was handed archive copies

of the early-1950s stories of bothcharacters,” recalls Friedrich. “In theoriginal, Dr. 13 was a serious‘ghost-buster’ and we were

reprinting those stories as well. So to run him up against PhantomStranger meant that Dr. 13 had to be treated as a fool, since wereaders knew that Phantom Stranger really is a supernatural being.I didn’t know how to maintain Dr. 13’s integrity in this situation.In retrospect, it would have been better to have created a new foilfor Phantom Stranger, but I wasn’t mature enough as a writer or asa person to have suggested that.”

The idiosyncratic scribe was barely an adult when he received theassignment, which appears to have been a bone that the DC editorsthrew to a young, hungry writer.

“I had been writing for about a year,” Friedrich tells BACK ISSUE.“I was 19 years old and writing for DC during my college summerbreak. I had a contract with them that guaranteed me a certainamount of work, so editorial director Carmine Infantino spread mearound to the different editors. Joe Orlando had just come into thecompany on staff and Carmine asked Joe to give me something todo. Phantom Stranger is what he came up with. So it was a chance towork on something different. It was challenging to me because I wasa superhero fan at the time and didn’t have the same kind of visceralengagement with other story genres.

“I was writing a lot of different things that summer,” Friedrichreminisces. “I remember a fun issue of Teen Titans, drawn by Gil Kaneand Wally Wood, for Dick Giordano; “Batgirl” (also by Kane) forDetective Comics, for Julie Schwartz; an issue of The Flash, also forSchwartz; an issue of Challengers of the Unknown, for Murray Boltinoff;and a spoof on Gil Kane, drawn unwittingly by Kane himself, for Houseof Mystery, for Joe Orlando.”

Writing on Phantom Stranger often meant working with phantomartists. Friedrich: “I was writing full scripts, so I didn’t collaborate with theartist at all. I saw the artwork for the first time when it appeared in print.”

For some, plumbing new contexts from old scripts might havebeen daunting. Not for Friedrich: “Actually, it was a little easier for meto think about how to connect the old material into the present thanit would have been to think of new stories from scratch, because goinginto it I had so little awareness of both Phantom Stranger and Dr. 13.”

Friedrich made the most of it, adding flare to early stories such as“Defeat the Dragon Curse … or Die.”

“Creatively, I think Phantom Stranger was one of my weakercomic-writing experiences,” says the often self-critical Friedrich.“I was relieved when I returned to college and lost the assignment.”

SCIENCE VS. SUPERSTITIONIt was a familiar scene. A character in crisis. The Phantom Stranger—reminiscent of Steve Ditko’s snappily dressed, straight-laced anti-heroesand perhaps an echo of the Mysterious Traveler—materialized as anissue’s character arrived at the crossroads of making a decision thatcould detour his or her fate for the worse.

Enter the Thirteens to get ensnared in the proceedings.Sometimes Marie was kidnapped. Once Terry was kidnapped. By theend of the story, after the Phantom Stranger has saved the day,Thirteen thanks the mysterious wraith by threatening to expose him,once and for all, as the sham he is! What an ingrate, that Terry Thirteen!

As Phantom Stranger hit its stride, writers BobKanigher, Dennis O’Neil, and GerryConway contributed to this formula.And, for at least one series scribe,this cocktail of cynic vs. spook was a gas!

“I loved writing those stories,”Conway tells BACK ISSUE. “They were,I believe, my first series-characterwork (not counting the ‘bookend’Abel introductions I did for Houseof Secrets), and I had a great dealof fun putting all of those characterstogether.”

Conway is no slouch in thepantheon of Bronze Age writers.

Dr. Thirteen “No. 1”The Ghost-Breaker bumped the Boy Wonder to grabthe cover of Star Spangled Comics #122 (Nov. 1951),his first appearance.TM & © DC Comics.

Mike Friedrich

Gerry Conway


So there we were,somewhere east ofPasadena, breakingbread with the masterartist Tony DeZuniga.

On the table, a home-cooked meal by Tony’s lovelywife, Tina, whom, until recently,worked for many years as a restaurateur. In anothercorner: Tony’s makeshift studio, where stunning paintedcommissions of Vampirella and Supergirl hang.

On April 21, 2008, my pal and fellow humor cartoonist,Crying Macho Man creator Jose Cabrera (top photo, left),and I shared a meal with the artist who, either as apenciler or inker, made fine art out of issues of Conanthe Barbarian, House of Mystery, Ghosts, Dracula Lives!,The Human Fly, Strange Tales featuring the Golem, and,of course, his significant creation with writer JohnAlbano, DC’s twisted Western title Jonah Hex. Name theartist, DeZuniga inked ’im: Gil Kane, Lee Elias, BernieWrightson, Rich Buckler, Carmine Infantino, on and on.

So, how did we get here?It all began last winter. While researching BACK ISSUE

articles, including this issue’s one on Phantom Strangerfoil Dr. Terrence Thirteen, I corresponded with theBronze Age artist, who at the time lived in Stockton,California. In Northern California, Tina ran a restaurantcalled Orchid (no relation to Tony’s Black Orchid).A native of Manila, Tony had long ago moved West fromNew York City, where he spent his ’70s DC/Marvel years.

So binging on issues of Phantom Stranger, I decidedto give my friend Jose, on his February 8th birthday,a copy of Showcase Presents: The Phantom Stranger,which includes DeZuniga’s phantasmagoric Dr. 13backup features. A week later, Jose was hooked.Next thing you know, we’re talking Phantom Strangerand DeZuniga 25/8.

So imagine our excitement when, a month later,Jose and I were doing Wizard Con L.A. and we discoverthat DeZuniga is in the hizzay! Tony was chillin’ witha pair of great “Filipino Invasion” artists he helpedusher to American comics: Alex Niño and Ernie Chan.Jose and I ditched our respective table duties longenough to befriend Tony and Tina.

Two months later, on April 21, 2008, Jose broke awayfrom his lovely wife Naomi long enough to meet me inWest L.A., our point of departure. The night’s magicbegan early as we enjoyed a traffic-free drive east on the10 to the 110 (at the height of L.A.’s rush hour––unheard of!). Once at the DeZunigas’ place, we had a blast.

“The DeZunigas were easy to talk to and couldkeep up with the likes of Michael and myself (we canbe chatterboxes),” Cabrera tells BACK ISSUE.“What stood out for me was the incredible hospitality ofTina, Tony’s wife. There was nothing she wouldn’t getus short of water (Tony doesn’t like drinking water).”

Following Tina’s lead, Jose dug into Tina’s entrees(bottom left).

“The food was warm, home-cooked, and delicious,”Cabrera recalls. “The machada (a Spanish dish of beefflanks and potato, smothered in tomato sauce) meltedin my mouth. The other dish consisted of chicken andshrimp with loads of vegetables that were still simmeringfrom the heat of the pan. I could see Michael’s eyeswater over from the pure ecstasy of the flavors.”



In the early to mid-1970s, while Marvel waslaunching new horror series like Tomb of

Dracula, Werewolf by Night, and Man-Thing,the company also reprinted many short monster

stories from the 1950s and early 1960s in titleslike Monsters on the Prowl and Where Monsters

Dwell. One short-lived series combined the tone ofthose short stories with the ongoing serial format thatMarvel had successfully developed by 1973.

“It! The Living Colossus” ran for only four issues ofAstonishing Tales (#21–24). The series was written byTony Isabella fresh from the just-canceled Doc Savage,with artwork from Dick Ayers who had worked on manyof the original monster stories. Tony and Dick kindlydredged the dark recesses of their memories for us.

– Ian Millsted

IAN MILLSTED: Is it true that the series came aboutbecause Stan Lee liked the idea of a series called “It”?TONY ISABELLA: The series came about becauseSupernatural Thrillers #1, which featured an adaptationof Theodore Sturgeon’s “It!”—the granddaddy of allswamp monster stories—sold very well. So Stan andRoy [Thomas] felt we should do a book called “It!”The problem was that Marvel already had a swampmonster series in Man-Thing. So we had to come up witha different type of monster to star in our new “It” series.MILLSTED: How did each of you become involvedin the series?ISABELLA: Roy wanted to give me a series to write andknew I was a monster-movie fan. He asked for my inputon our new “It,” and that’s when I learned the issues ofMonsters on the Prowl which reprinted the originalColossus stories had sold better than other issues of thetitle. I pitched him on the new “It” being a continuationof those stories, though; in my original pitch, the special-effects man hero of the second Colossus story had marriedhis actress sweetheart and already started a family withher. Any member of the family would have been able toactivate and control the Colossus. Roy steered me to themore dramatic premise of the hero being paralyzed.


Colossus—the Marvel ProjectDick Ayers’ pulse-pounding splash page tothe return of IT!, from Astonishing Tales #21(Dec. 1973). Thanks to Mark DiFruscio for the scan.© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

by I a n M i l l s t e d

®

Beginnings:Funnyman (1947)

Milestones:Ghost Rider (the original Western version) / Wyatt Earp / HumanTorch / Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos / Captain Savageand His Leatherneck Raiders / Combat Kelly and the Dirty Dozen /Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth / Freedom Fighters / “Scalphunter”in Weird Western Tales / Jonah Hex (Dick’s personal choice for hismilestone series) / The Unknown Soldier

Work in Progress:The Dick Ayers Story

Photo by Nightscream, from the New York Comic-Con on April 20, 2008.

dickayers

Beginnings:Chamber of Chills #5 (1973)

Milestones:Tales of the Zombie / Hero for Hire / Deadly Hands of Kung Fu /Ghost Rider / Black Goliath / The Champions / Black Lightning(co-creator) / Shadow War of Hawkman / Justice Machine

Work in Progress:Currently on view as “America’s Most Beloved Comic-Book Writer& Columnist” in his “Tony’s Online Tips” column (see URL below)

Cyberspace:www.worldfamouscomics.com/tony

tonyisabella

DICK AYERS: I dug out my accounting ledgers anddid see that I only did about 30 pages for “It” in ’73.I believe I did only pencils and Marvel printed mypencils. I’d been asked to draw the pencils dark,which I do remember doing. I was only rarely happywith someone else inking my pencils and was alwaystrying to get control of how my drawings would beinked. I was more relaxed and happy with my owninking, for I still was drawing while I inked. I workedfrom synopses when I penciled for Marvel. I didn’t seeor read the story until after I saw the printed copy.MILLSTED: The first issue has a tagline on the splashpage: “Return to the most thrilling days inMonsterdom.” The series is obviously tapping into theAtlas-era monster stories, but you both seem to haveworked in references to the likes of King Kong in bothart and script. Were you enjoying yourselves there?AYERS: My memory does tell me that 1973 was aslow period. If the story was penciled before ’73 Imight’ve been in better spirits. I do remember enjoyingworking on the story.ISABELLA: I’m crazy about giant monsters. I grew upwatching the likes of King Kong, Godzilla, Gorgo, The Beastfrom 20,000 Fathoms, and the rest. Even today, no matterhow cheesy a movie might be, if it’s got a giant monsterin it I’ll watch it. It’s been quite a while since I’ve reread my“It” comics, but in writing them I seldom passed up anychance to reference the monsters and the movies I love.MILLSTED: And, of course, the lead character is anf/x creator called O’Bryan. Referencing Willis O’Brien[the special-effects wizard behind the original KingKong film], presumably?ISABELLA: You assume correctly.MILLSTED: The series seemed to arrive (and disappear)quite suddenly in Astonishing Tales, replacing Ka-Zar.Marvel was expanding titles at the time. How organizedwere things?



In 1974, Marvel Comics Group introduced a bold newmonster-hero to the readers of Strange Tales.Subtitled “The Thing That Walks Like a Man,” thecharacter was a big, brutish, superpowered man ofstone. Sound familiar? But in fact, this “thing” hadbeen around … for about 500 years.

The bloodline of Frankenstein, Superman, CaptainAmerica and the original Human Torch (both lab-created supermen), and iconic Marvel monster-heroessuch as Hulk, Tales of the Zombie’s Simon Garth, and,yes, even the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing, harkensback to the Jewish folk tale about the all-powerfulstone automaton the Golem. The Eastern Europeanlegend had survived via generations of Ashkenazi Jews,right down to their descendants, who included theJewish superhero creators that dominated comics’Golden and Silver Ages.

So it was inevitable that by the ’70s, after decadeschronicling the adventures of popular characters thatmay as well be “crypto-Golems,” Marvel finallyreleased its official take on the medieval legend.

Strange Tales featuring the Golem made its splashydebut in #174 (June 1974). Four issues later, the characterwas Golem, Golem, gone!

So, what happened?Let’s voyage back in time and find out…

BEFORE FRANKENSTEIN, SUPERMAN,THING, AND HULK…“Oh, dreidel, dreidel, dreidel! I made it out of clay…”goes the old Chanukah song. But back in the 16thcentury, one Rabbi Loew topped that by a country milewhen he turned a giant slab of clay into the Golem.

The year is 1580 A.D. The place is Prague. There aremany variations of this old story. One version, from ThePrague Golem: Jewish Stories of the Ghetto, recountshow “a priest called Thaddeus—a fanatical anti-Semite—tried again to … bring about discord and … evokenew superstitious accusations of blood rituals.Rabbi Loew soon learned about it and raised aquestion ‘upwards’ in his dream to find a solutionto the problem how he should fight against the evilenemy. He received the following answer: ‘You shall cre-ate Golem from clay and may the malicious anti-Semitic mob be destroyed.’

“Rabbi Loew interpreted the line of strangewords so that he should create a living body fromclay with the aide of the letters provided from heaven.He called for Jizchak ben Simson, his son-in-law,and for a disciple of his, Jacob ben Chajim Sasson,the Levite, and entrusted them with the mystery ofhow a Golem should be created.

“…Together we shall create Golem from the fourthelement which is the earth.”

To Protect and to ServeA dramatic scene rendered by John Buscemaand inked by Jim Mooney, from Strange Tales

#174’s Golem origin story (June 1974).© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.


Reciting the Zirufim, the trio said: “And the Lordformed the man from the dust of the ground andbreathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and theman became a living being.”

Kazam! Loew had an obedient Golem on his hands.“We have created you from a lump of clay. Your

mission is to protect the Jews from persecutions. Your namewill be Josef and you will live in the Rabbi’s house.Josef, you must obey my commands no matter when andwhere I might send you…’ Josef nodded his head…”

Loew prohibited the people in the house to useGolem for private purposes.

One day, after Loew forgets to give Josef his dailychores, his clay creation (not exactly Gumby) is “foundrampaging around the Jewish town like a madman,he wanted to demolish everything that got in his way.His inactivity had made him both bored and angry.”

Luckily, there’s a failsafe: the Hebrew word emeth(“truth”) etched across the statue’s forehead. Rub outthe first character on his forehead and it spells meth,which spells “death” for the Golem, who becomesrecumbent again.

Michael Chabon, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning2000 novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,drew the connection explicit between the Golem andthe creators of the first costumed superhero Siegel andShuster (who inspired the fictional Joe Kavalier and SamClay, as did Joe Simon and Jack Kirby). Using the PragueGolem as the basis for this novel’s B-plot, Chabon drawsan analogy between the powerful protector and Kavalier& Clay’s creation, the Escapist, a superhero devisedduring the chaos of World War II as the Jewish peoplewere rendered powerless against the Nazis’ wrath.

After all, Superman, Batman, Human Torch, the Spirit,and other Golden Age comic-book characters—as well asscores of Marvel characters (Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer,Hulk, X-Men, and, in part, Spider-Man, Daredevil, andIron Man)—were “Jewish” by virtue of their creators.These cartoonists may not have been religious per se,but they were culturally Jewish. No matter their religiosity,Jews are first and foremost a race, with Judaism thebiological and cultural connector of a nomadic peoplescattered around the world over millennia. Marvel’sarchitects—Stan Lee (nee Stanley Lieber) and Jack Kirby(born Jacob Kurtzberg), as well as publisher MartinGoodman—were the driving engine of the comic-bookrenaissance we now call the Marvel Age. The Americancomic-book industry had always been a magnet forimmigrants—Italian, Irish, Asian—and Jewish creatorshad sizable roles in the birth and rebirth of the superhero,romance, humor, and other genres, from Siegel andShuster to Will Eisner to the MAD bullpen—William Gaines,Harvey Kurtzman, Als Feldstein and Jaffe, Bernie Krigstein.

Chabon in Kavalier & Clay, and Julius Feiffer beforehim in his superhero myth analysis The Great ComicBook Heroes, made the case that it’s no coincidencethat original superhero Superman was portrayed as anoutsider, and forced to assume a new alias to try toblend into the American mainstream … much asJewish immigrants have in their quest to assimilate.

MARVEL MAKES A GOLEMIt had to happen.

Marvel was first among comics publishers tofeature black superheroes—and villains. Marvel wasfirst to recognize the women’s movement in comics withcharacters like the Black Widow. And now, in this issueof ST, we’re proud to introduce the comics’ first Jewishmonster-hero.

– A “Special Bullpen Note” touting this “not-exactly-original … yet highly innovative feature.”

First published in 1951 as a horror comics anthology,Strange Tales, by 1970, had morphed into somethingof a superhero experiment—a launchpad for newcharacters/concepts.

Editor Roy Thomas, writer Len Wein, and artistJohn Buscema debuted Golem following the exit ofanother Thomas-created, Wein-scripted character,Brother Voodoo.

“I have this feeling that it was my idea to do theGolem because I had done it in The Hulk,” says Thomas.


Don’t Call It a ComebackAlso from Strange Tales #174: Mooney inksthis moody passage by Buscema, in which

the Golem is reanimated.© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.


If early comic-book history is broken into the Golden, Silver, andBronze Ages, the period following AA’s Crisis on Infinite Earthsshould be called the Dark Age. “It’s not like we planned it thatway,” says Bob Greenberger, AA’s editorial director. “When werevamped the AA Universe in 1986, we felt that we had a blankslate. The writers and editors went in a direction comics hadnever gone in before.”

“We probably brought it on ourselves,” says former editor Len Wein.“It started with the publicity gimmick of allowing the readers tovote whether Girl Lantern or Flashette would die in the Crisis.Once we established that we could and would kill off a fairlymajor character, there was no stopping us.” Indeed, just months

after Girl Lantern met the Grim Reaper, Flashette was crippled byRag Doll in Flash: The Killing Doll.

Another major influence on the era was Frank Miller’s four-partgraphic novel, Green Lantern: The Darkest Night Returns. Set in a grimand gritty future, the Emerald Warrior is a vengeful, aging character,meting out his own form of justice and coming to blows with hisformer friend the Flash.

The overwhelming success of Miller’s miniseries, as well as that ofAlan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, seemed to set the paththat the books would follow for the next decade-plus. “The heroesgrew angrier, the villains more sadistic, and the entire AA Universebecame a much darker place in the ’90s,” says editor Barbara Randall.

What if … instead of selling his share of All-American Publications to Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz in 1945,Max Charles “Charlie” Gaines had purchased National Comics (DC Comics) from them? That’s the premise of thisfantasy series being divided between the pages of BACK ISSUE and its TwoMorrows big-sister mag Alter Ego and set on“Earth-22,” where things in the comics business happened rather differently than the way they did in the world we know.

Just imagine: a comic-book industry in which the Golden Age Green Lantern and Flash, rather than Superman andBatman, are the premier heroes of comics, media, and merchandising. The author, Bob Rozakis, a longtime writer,editor, and production manager for DC Comics, has imagined just that in…

The Secret History of All-American Comics, Inc.The Story of M. C. Gaines’ Publishing Empire

Book Two – Chapter Eight: In and Out of Darknessby B o b R o z a k i s

The Dark Age BeginsFrank Miller redefined

superheroes for the endof the 20th century with

his four-part GreenLantern: The Darkest

Night Returns. Artcourtesy of Alex Wright.(All images in this article

are © DC Comics.)

KILLING GREEN LANTERN ANDSMASHING THE FLASHIn 1993, AA got front-page newspaper coveragearound the world when it was announced thatGreen Lantern would die in an epic battle with avillain called Doomsday. [“There was a lot of discussionabout what we should name the villain,” recallsMartin Pasko, the editor of the GL books. “At first,he was going to be a reincarnation of Timberano,the giant wooden ape, so we were calling him‘Timmy.’ But that really didn’t sound scary! We considerednames like Green Smasher and Woodbeast before settlingon Doomsday, which now, of course, seems like itshould have been the obvious choice all along.”]The reaction of the general public was unprecedented.The AA offices were picketed by protestors,demanding that the storyline be dropped. “Save GreenLantern” rallies were held in a number of cities anda candlelight vigil was staged in Littletown,Pennsylvania, the real-world town that claimed tobe the home of young GL.

“It was crazy,” says publisher Michael Uslan. “I cameinto work the next day, pushing through a crowd ofprotestors outside the building. One of them recognizedme and started yelling at me. I kept saying, ‘He’s notreal! He’s a fictional character!’ But they kept yellingand finally building security had to come and helpme get inside.”

When Pasko received a death-threat in the mail,the FBI was called in. “It was a little scary at the time,but looking back now, it was just silly,” he says. “It wasall cut-out words from magazines, like in a bad movie:‘If you kill Green Lantern, I will kill you.’ The FBI cameand took a lot of fingerprints—probably half the staffhad picked up that letter—but they never found outwho sent it.”

As had been planned all along, Green Lanterncame back four months later. “He was dead, but he

got better,” jokes Pasko. There are still those peoplewho claim that it was the public reaction thatprompted AA to revive him. “Sure,” says Uslan. “It makesperfect sense that we would kill off our bestsellingcharacter and rely on our secondary characters tostay in business. That would be like McDonald’sannouncing they were only going to sell Fish Filetsfrom now on.”

The dark path that the AA Universe was followingcontinued in 1994 when the Flash’s back was brokenin a battle with Solomon Grundy. “Well, we couldn’tkill him,” says Barbara Randall. “We’d just been downthat road. Of course, we’d already put Flashette intoa wheelchair in The Killing Doll, so we had to dosomething worse to the Flash. I wanted to have virtuallyevery bone in his body broken. Grundy was strongenough to pound him into jelly. We compromised onboth arms, a leg, and his back. Plus a concussion thatleft him in a coma for three issues.”

While the storyline drew some media attention,it did not match that of Green Lantern’s demise,nor did the “battle” between Kid Flash, Johnny Quick,and Max Mercury to determine who would becomethe new Flash. And, of course, as planned, Jay Garrickeventually healed and reclaimed his position as theFastest Man Alive.


BANG! POW!The somewhat-innocuous Rag Dollbecame a majorfigure of the DarkAge when he endedFlashette’s career bycrippling Kelly Kelley.Even more traumaticwas the death ofGreen Lantern at thehands of Doomsdaya few years later.Art courtesy ofLarry Guidry andShane Foley.

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