Larry Shell Announces eBay Auction for Superman creator Joe Shuster ACTION COMICS #16 Original

Longtime eBay seller, Larry Shell, whose seller name is sheltone, and specializes in Original Comic Artwork is offering a most unique piece in his one and only auction this week on eBay!

A full-color original by legendary Superman creator, Joe Shuster — a recreation of the image from the cover of ACTION COMICS #16 (December, 1938).

Beginning with Action Comics #19, Superman appeared on the cover of all future issues of the title. A copy of the original comic, in NM- Condition, is valued at $14,500…….more than this One of a Kind original by his creator is starting at!

Drawn in 1983, this is one of only a very few cover recreations that Shuster did and is 100% his work. The art measures a large 15” x 20” in size and is beautifully rendered in lead and colored pencils, which give the image the soft quality of pastels.

Joseph “Joe” Shuster (July 10, 1914 – July 30, 1992) was a Canadian comic book artist who is best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with writer Jerry Siegel, first published in Action Comics #1 (June 1938). He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. Shuster was involved in a number of legal battles concerning the ownership of the Superman character, eventually gaining recognition for his part in its creation. Shuster died in Los Angeles, California in 1992.

The auction will run on eBay, the online auction website, from Tuesday, May 15th at 9pm EST through Sunday, May 20th at 9pm EST.

The best offer received wins the art. If the only offer at the close of the auction is for minimum bid listed, then that person will get the art. Bids will be accepted from anywhere in the world.

Any interested bidders who would like to be emailed a reminder the day before the auction ends, should email the seller and let him know.

Additional information and photographs of the artwork are available on the auction listing located at the following link:

http://qurls.com?i=51086

For questions email the seller at sheltone55@yahoo.com before the close of the auction.

Avengers by George Perez

The Avengers are Marvel Comics’ premier team of heroes (though the X-Men and Fantastic Four could also meet criteria for this claim, with the idea in mind several from both groups have been members of the Avengers) combining together the best of the society of super-heroes that protect Earth from alien invasions, the folly of man’s science, mystical threats from beyond, and evil given birth upon Earth itself. Threats like the Kree, Skrull, Ultron, Kang, Dr. Doom, Thanos, Count Nefaria, and the Masters of Evil have traded blows with these heroes only for time and again these guardians to come out on top. Listed below are those considered the best of the many heroes to count themselves among the Avengers.

Luke Cage

10. LUKE CAGE

A fairly recent addition to the Avengers (compared to others in the list), Luke Cage is a reformed criminal who founded Heroes for Hire with his friend and martial arts expert Iron Fist. Convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, Carl Lucas volunteered for an experimental cellular regenerative treatment that surprisingly provided him super-strength and nigh-indestructibility. Escaping prison and moving to New York City, Lucas changes his identity to that of Luke Cage, the Power Man. After years of operating as a righteous mercenary forming Heroes for Hire, Cage marries super-powered private investigator Jessica Jones. Following a massive breakout at the Raft superhuman prison, Cage joins the Avengers and, during the Civil War event, the Secret Avengers under Captain America. After the believed assassination of Captain America, Cage takes on the role of leadership of the New Avengers opposing Iron Man and his Superhuman Registration Act. Cage would lead the team through many tumultuous times, including World War Hulk, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, and Heroic Age where he remains as leader today.

Spider-Man

9. SPIDER-MAN

Initially a reserve member of the Avengers when the team was given United Nations approval to operate around the globe which saw the group’s ranks swell, Spider-Man became a full-time member following a massive breakout at the superhuman prison the Raft. During the events of Civil War, Spider-Man is manipulated into revealing his identity to the world by Iron Man (endangering himself and friends and family like his wife Mary Jane Watson) and was the basis for the Scarlet Spiders. Realizing his error, Spider-Man joined Luke Cage’s New Avengers to oppose Iron Man and the Superhuman Registration Act where he has remained to today.

Black Panther

8. BLACK PANTHER

A frequent ally to the Fantastic Four, Prince T’Challa of Wakanda and inheritor of the Black Panther mantle would join the Avengers and remain as one of its most frequent and reliable members. Between his duties as ruler of his nation, Panther would help the team battle the likes of the Masters of Evil, Ultron, Kang, Count Nefaria, Korvac, Thanos, AIM, Squadron Sinister, Zodiac, Lethal Legion, Arkon, Egghead, and the Sons of the Serpent and joined the side of Captain America against Iron Man and the Superhuman Registration Act (along with his newly married wife, the X-Man Storm). At present, T’Challa operates simply as the Panther in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen at the behest of Daredevil.

Hawkeye

7. HAWKEYE

Clint Barton was an orphan who ran away to join the circus where he became the highly-skilled archer Hawkeye. Later becoming a costumed hero, Hawkeye becomes a suspect in a robbery and is compelled to join forces with Russian spy the Black Widow and battle Iron Man. When Widow abandons him, Hawkeye clears his name and joins the Avengers. Spending a long time as a member of the team, including for a time taking on the mantle of Goliath from Hank Pym, the hero would meet and fall in love, and shortly marry, with former SHIELD agent Bobbi Morse (now going by Mockingbird) to form and lead the West Coast Avengers. Hawkeye would later die and be resurrected taking the identity Ronin and joining the New Avengers opposing Iron Man and the Superhuman Registration Act. Today, Hawkeye trains the next generation of heroes at Avengers Academy.

Wasp

6. WASP

A founding member of the Avengers (and responsible for naming the group), Janet Van Dyne acted as the Ant-Man’s partner Wasp where the two eventually fell in love and married. However, much of their relationship involved petty fighting and after her husband had a psychotic break (which led to divorce), Wasp went on to lead the team for some time (conceding her seat briefly to the Vision who went through his own break in reasoning) against the likes of Egghead’s Masters of Evil, Taskmaster, Annihilus, Morgan le Fay, Terminus, Nebula, the Beyonder, Kang, Attuma, and, one of the gravest threats the team ever faced, Baron Zemo’s veritable army of villains in the Masters of Evil for the prolific storyline Under Siege. The Wasp joins who she believes to be her ex-husband (in reality a Skrull infiltrator) alongside Iron Man in support of the Superhuman Registration Act and would join Stark’s Mighty Avengers. The Skrull Hank Pym impersonator gave her a serum that turned her into a bio-bomb which resulted in Thor being forced to kill her to prevent her detonation.

Thor

5. THOR

The Norse God of Thunder and son of the King of the Aesir Odin, Thor was exiled to Midgard (Earth) where he was forced to share a body with lame medical physician Donald Blake to quell his inflated ego. Thor’s adopted villainous brother Loki would use the Hulk in a plot to destroy the hero which led to the formation of the Avengers. Thor would be one of the longest standing members of the team facing enemies like Graviton, Ultron, Count Nefaria, and Korvac (as well as making a brief appearance to turn the tide against Baron Zemo’s Masters of Evil in the storyline Under Siege) between his responsibilities to Asgard and its varied threats. Thor would eventually take his father’s throne upon his death battling Surtur and ruled Asgard and Earth, defeating his former teammates. However, this reality would be undone in a battle Thor had in the future and the timeline would be changed with Thor in hibernation during many of the events that troubled Earth in recent history (though, Iron Man along with the Skrull Hank Pym impersonator and Mister Fantastic used Thor’s DNA to make a clone to battle Captain America’s anti-Superhuman Registration Act forces which resulted in the death of Hank Pym’s protege, Bill Foster the Goliath). Thor would return as Asgard became a part of Earth and rejoined to the Avengers after the Superhuman Registration Act was dissolved where he remains today.

Vision

4. VISION

A synthezoid built from a copy of the Golden Age Human Torch android and the brain waves of Simon Williams the Wonder Man, the Vision was created by Hank Pym’s villainous robotic creation Ultron to infiltrate the Avengers and bring them into a trap that would spell their doom. However, Vision turned on his master and joined the team where he has remained one of the group’s longest active members. As a member, he fell in love with and married fellow teammate Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch and had two children (though, they would in fact contain shards of Mephisto’s soul, which he reclaimed at a loss of their lives, and Wanda’s memory was altered to forget they ever existed until the events of Avengers: Disassembled). The Vision would lead the Avengers for a time when recovering from being shutdown in a battle with Annihilus but this would lead to his attempt to conquer Earth by controlling its computers. He would recover only to later be disassembled during the storyline Vision Quest and be put back together by Hank Pym using the brainwaves of deceased scientist Alex Lipton so that he could experience emotions again after the trauma. When the memory of Wanda’s children was restored, she manipulates She-Hulk into tearing the Vision apart and it wouldn’t be until the recent event Fear Itself that he was rebuilt and rejoined the Avengers.

Iron Man

3. IRON MAN

Founding member and financial backer to the Avengers, Tony Stark is a genius few on Earth (perhaps in the known universe) can compete with. Building his first suit of armor from scrap munitions in a cave with simple tools, Stark juggled an ongoing heart condition caused by the explosion that brought him to that aforementioned cave, running his father’s empire Stark Industries, and his own ego and undermining behavior that pushed away friends (and greeted the loveliest of strangers). Stark has tackled many demons in his time, such as when he discovered his armor designs were stolen and shared with some of his greatest foes (per Armor Wars) but most dire in falling over the edge in his addiction to alcohol (per Demon in a Bottle). While Stark has been a constant ally to the Avengers, be it as a member, as their leader at times, as their main source of income, or lending his armor to his friend Jim Rhodes to act in his stead (or alongside him), he has also threatened to tear the team apart be it from his addiction to more recently in supporting the controversial Superhuman Registration Act (leading most of the Avengers to then be his enemy under Captain America), becoming the figurehead of the measure. Time would pass, Stark would realize the mistakes he made in the routes he took in exercising the Superhuman Registration Act ultimately helping to see it dissolved (and helping destroy the government records, and his own mental record, of superhero identities, threatened by the likes of the Skrulls and Norman Osborn of being exposed). Iron Man now serves together with Captain America in the Avengers again.

Captain America

2. CAPTAIN AMERICA

When the twenty-something Steve Rogers proved to be too scrawny to enter the armed forces during World War II, he opted into an experimental program to turn him into a super-soldier. With the scientist who developed the process slain, Rogers remained the sole product of the program to become the United States’ hero Captain America (an earlier subject was retconned named Isaiah Bradley, which led to Josiah X and Patriot). Rogers would take on a sidekick in Bucky Barnes and lead a team of emerging heroes called the Invaders (whose core was composed of the All-Winners Squad of the android Human Torch, Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner, Whizzer, Miss America, and associated sidekicks like Bucky and Toro) before being frozen in an iceberg and recovered in modern times. Though a man out-of-time in a now unfamiliar world, Rogers again picked up his shield as a member of the Avengers (oft times their leader, even more commonly looked upon as a leader though another chairs the group). Cap would also train many of today’s heroes into fighting machines for justice, taking on proteges like the Falcon, Nomad, and D-Man and partnering with Diamondback and Vagabond (while inspiring the creation of Red Guardian, Hauptmann Deutschland, Guardian, and USAgent and the Project: Rebirth program partly evolved into Weapon X). The hero would also have a longstanding friendship with Nick Fury, the pair fighting side-by-side when Fury led the Howling Commandos to today where Fury generally heads up the agency S.H.I.E.L.D. Captain America would oppose the institution of a Superhuman Registration Act that forced heroes to reveal their identities to the US government or be labeled outlaws leading most of the Avengers in an underground movement of heroes against supporters of the law including Iron Man, the Skrull Hank Pym impersonator, and Mr. Fantastic. It was after the conflict when Cap’s troops failed that he would be believed to have been assassinated and his long lost sidekick Bucky took on his mantle. Rogers would return and now heads up the United States’ security agencies, rejoin the Avengers, and operate his own Secret Avengers team.

Hank Pym

1. HANK PYM

A founding member of the Avengers alongside his partner Wasp (oft times lover, at times husband and wife), Hank Pym has taken the guise of almost as many heroes as Wasp has altered her costume (a gross exaggeration) beginning as Ant-Man and becoming Giant-Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, Wasp (in honor of his ex-wife after she was killed), and at times simply by his own name. His career has spawned several heroes including two Ant-Men, four Goliaths (one being Hawkeye and another being a villain turned hero in Atlas), and a female Yellowjacket. Pym has had a long and perilous relationship with the Avengers, where despite his genius (perhaps the world’s leading biochemist and one of the top developers in robotics) and abilities granted through his discovery of Pym Particles (allowing him to grow and shrink in size), as well as developing technology like bio-stings and a wingless flight suit without jet propulsion, he’s long felt inadequate in the presence of heroes like Hulk, Iron Man, and Thor, his history rife with bouts of depression occasionally being suicidal and prone to mental breakdowns. This has been reflected in his love affair with partner Wasp, falling in love and being married only for Hank to verbally and physically abuse her. Despite parting ways, they time and again found each other as Hank has worked hard to overcome his fears and become the hero others see him to be. It’s likely for all these reasons Pym has reinvented himself so often but he’s always been a critical member of the Avengers whenever possible, serving under many several incarnations including a critical role in the Avengers West Coast (during his fan-referred Doctor Who days when he adventured without a heroic identity and took on an appearance and modus operandi similar to the Fourth Doctor, with Rover in place of the TARDIS and his female companion La Espirita, that began in the time travel arc Lost in Space-Time). Pym has offered power with his size growth, versatility with shrinking, flight, energy blasts, and microscopic arsenal and tools, and his intelligence as one of the most brilliant minds on Earth (and beyond). Recently, Pym founded Avengers Academy to help foster and train at risk youth into the next generation of Earth’s heroes while operating as a member of Captain America’s Secret Avengers again taking up the name Giant-Man.

See the news story here:
http://flipgeeks.com/pinoy-komiks-dc-marvel-etc/filipino-comics-legend-tony-dezuniga-has-passed-away/

Condolences going out from our entire Comic Art Community.
When I was a kid, Tony’s style as one I’d always “follow.” Anything with his name on it was heaven for me.
Recently, when I learned he was in the hospital, I purchased this pin-up from Tina to help with expenses. I was so sadly happy to see it come to me today in the mail:

Jonah Hex

Check back with FlipGeeks for updates. I see they have posted about a Wake.

T

Heroes Con 2012 Variant

For Immediate Release
Atlanta, GA, USA May 10, 2012

Arena Comics is launching their first exciting new title Splitsville at HeroesCon 2012 which is being held on June 21-23 2012 in the Charlotte Convention Center in Charlotte, NC.

Written by Ben Fisher and penciled by Kevin Stokes, the first issue of Splitsville will be released in a beautiful special edition hardcover packed with extras, including sketches, pin-ups, and script samples. Don’t miss out on the book Broken Frontier calls “startlingly unique,” “razor-sharp” and “delightfully wicked!”

Splitsville is a 3 issue mini-series, which will sport a HeroesCon 30th Anniversary Variant cover, limited to 200 copies. Splitsville will be solicited via Diamond in months to come.

Splitsville
Words: Ben Fisher
Art: Kevin Stokes
Inks: Adam Markiewicz
Colors: Tony Washington

Splitsville Spread page

Synopsis:
Stalwart is the world’s only superhero and his arch-nemesis, Master Mayhem, the only super-villain. What neither knows, however, is that they are the same man- two halves of a split personality. But their devious sidekicks know the truth – and have made millions exploiting the situation.

The system appears flawless… until a brash new super heroine unexpectedly arrives on the scene and publicly challenges the arrogant Stalwart to a not-so-friendly wager regarding Master Mayhem’s defeat. With the sidekicks’ elaborate con on the brink of total collapse, will anyone survive?

Splitsville is the first book to the released by Arena Comics.
Splitsville will be published in three issues, with each installment being a high-end hard cover filled with behind the scenes extras and concept sketches.

Other titles which will be solicited, will be Tiger Style (by Chris Walker, Kevin Stokes, John McGuire), Wellkeeper (by Derrick Fish), Hidden Worlds (by Ben Fisher and Kevin Stokes), Yazmin Khan’s Midsummer Night’s Bedtime Tales, Raptor (by Ayana “Jett” Blakk, John McGuire, Chris Walker). Story Previews can be found here http://www.arena-comics.com/story-previews.html

Advanced Reviews have already proven Arena Comics are certainly starting out strong!

“A delightfully wicked, slickly produced surprise from a brand new indie publisher, Arena Comics’ Splitsville is for aficionados of quality superhero comics everywhere and sets the bar high for this intriguing new company.” ~ Broken Frontier http://www.brokenfrontier.com/reviews/p/detail/splitsville-1

Find us on Twitter (@arena_comics) and on Facebook (@officialarenacomics) and (@officialsplitsvillecomic) and of course on our official website: http://www.arena-comics.com/

Splitsville Issue 01 Wraparound Cover

ABOUT ARENA COMICS

Arena Comics is an American publisher of genre-spanning comic books, magazines and novels.
The company was founded in 2012 and distances itself from its peers by adopting a European packaging style and aesthetic.
Most titles are printed in hardcover, often using non-traditional formats and sizes.
http://www.arena-comics.com/

ABOUT HEROESCON
HEROES CONVENTION was founded in 1982 by Shelton Drum, owner of Charlotte’s Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find comics shop. Since then the convention has become famous for its comics-first and family-friendly atmosphere, where fans can mingle directly with professionals and exhibitors. Boasting an incredible guest list built mainly on reputation and goodwill, HeroesCon is known nationwide as a “must” on the summer schedule, drawing fans, exhibitors, and creators from every region of the country to the Charlotte Convention Center.
http://www.heroesonline.com/heroescon/

Wonder Woman

Christopher Nolan’s critically acclaimed Batman film trilogy will come to an end in July and Bryan Singer’s love letter to Richard Donner’s Superman films is being rebooted to make way for a new vision from Zack Snyder (famous for adapting comics like 300 and Watchmen to film). Comic book movies are big business and has been a wild success for Marvel Studios culminating into May’s release of the Avengers so it would make sense for DC Comics to complete the trinity and bring Wonder Woman to film (though, instead we got Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern). With the hit-or-miss nature of the film industry today and the losses studios have eaten from a decline in people watching their product in theaters, Hollywood has developed a fear of certain conventions that teeter on superstitious. One such fear is having an action film with a female lead. However, if the success of the Hunger Games is any indication, people will go to a movie as long as they have some investment or interest in the material. And Wonder Woman’s no stranger to live action, starring in a popular television series in the 1970s with Miss World USA Lynda Carter as the titular character (a recent treatment by David E. Kelley tried to resurrect the character on television before his concept was panned). So, lets take a look at what is a must for a live action Wonder Woman.

Amazons

PARADISE ISLAND

What would Superman be without Krypton or Batman without Alfred? If you’re doing a Wonder Woman movie, you have to have Paradise Island and the Amazons. A warrior race of women seeking a peaceful way of life, the Amazons formed the sovereign nation of Themyscira ruled by their queen Hippolyta under the blessing of the gods on Paradise Island, an island invisible to the rest of the world where man is forbidden to walk upon and its people maintain immortal youth. Therein over the centuries, the Amazons cultivated knowledge in the sciences (a notable achievement being the Purple Healing Ray able to recover patients from most wounds quickly) and the arts. Despite their achievements, the Amazons chose to live naturally, forging their tools by hand, hunting for their food, studying the art of archaic battle, and allowing their gods to dictate their destiny. However, after thousands of years of stagnation (with no men, no woman can bear children), its people yearned to birth a new generation. At first, this was seen as an affront to the gods, as Amazons began making dolls and pretended to raising them as though they were real, Hippolyta herself began to feel a desire to rear a child. Imploring the gods, Hippolyta formed a baby from the clay of the shores of Paradise Island and the gods answered, giving the child life and imbuing it with gifts: Beauty from Aphrodite, Wisdom from Athena, Speed from Hermes, Unity with Beasts from Artemis, and Strength from Demeter. While this child became Princess Diana, daughter to the queen, the babe in many ways became the daughter of the nation, as she filled the gap and all Amazons had a hand in raising her. Likely because of this (and the gifts given by the gods), Diana grew up to because the greatest among her people. Highly skilled in the martial arts and strategy, the child became adept at skills like hunting, smithing, tanning, fletching, fishing, painting, singing, sculpting, linguistics (learning Earth’s languages, past and present, as well as some alien worlds like Mars the Amazons could intercept transmissions from), sciences, and more, she also excelled at some arts uniquely Amazon such as gliding on the winds enabling flight and harnessing the power of the mind for telepathy.

Steve Trevor

STEVE TREVOR

An intelligence agent for the United States Army during World War II, Steve Trevor’s plane crashed near Paradise Island and he was saved by Diana. Bringing him to a nearby island, the princess nursed him back to health (and fell in love with him) as his effects were excavated and examined by the Amazons. Already aware of the atrocities of the Nazis, the Amazons divulged from Trevor’s documents the dire threat the Axis powers posed in their bid for world domination. As someone had to take Trevor back to Patriarch’s World (what the Amazons reference the world beyond their island), Hippolyta also decided that the Nazis had to be stopped and that mankind may finally be ready for the Amazons to rejoin it. A contest was held, one the queen forbade her daughter from competing in, to determine who would return the soldier to his homeland, battle the Axis powers, and become Themyscira’s ambassador. Diana, undaunted, donned a mask and defeated her sisters earning the right, much to her mother’s anger and sadness. Diana would become the Amazon’s champion, Wonder Woman, and infiltrate the US Army as meek secretary Diana Prince working secretly under Trevor gaining the most up-to-date knowledge about uncovered Nazi operations. To transport the pair, the Amazons provided them with a jet they designed that was invisible, to the eye as well as radar, could fly at supersonic speeds, travel through outer space, and respond to telepathy (necessary to find and use it). The relationship between Trevor and Diana would be him uncovering plots against the country, investigating them as Diana follows him, and Trevor oft times becoming endangered in his mission with Wonder Woman coming to his rescue (Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor had a daughter named Hippolyta, or Lyta for short).

Wonder Woman by Terry Dodson

THE COSTUME

To demonstrate the Amazons alliance against the Nazi threat, they chose a color scheme for the uniform of Wonder Woman to incorporate red, white, blue, and gold with stars and stripes in honor of the Allied Forces. The costume was also form fitting for maximum dexterity and to show off their people’s great beauty. It includes a girdle, a symbol of the leather girdle Hippolyta wears given to her by Aphrodite as sign of being greatest among the Amazons and their ruler before its theft by Hercules, and bracelets formed from the remnants of  Zeus’ Aegis by Hephaestus and completely indestructible as a symbol of Hercules’ brief enslavement of the Amazons, who had let down their guard and were chained by deceitful men. To display her authority as the ambassador of Themyscira, Wonder Woman is adorned with a golden tiara that she can employ as a razor-sharp boomerang. She was granted her people’s greatest treasure, the Golden Lasso of Truth. Forged from the magic girdle worn by Hippolyta’s sister Antiope (the sisters’ girdles forged from the Golden Girdle of Gaea), the lasso is indestructible and forces those wrapped in it to speak and tell only the truth (it would also respond to Wonder Woman’s telepathy).

Ares by George Perez

ARES

Wonder Woman has had a lot of great enemies, like Circe, Cheetah, Veronica Cale, and Baroness Paula von Gunther, which are all viable for the big screen, but how can you top the god of war himself? Ares has consistently been a thorn in the side of Wonder Woman for decades, be it from his own plots or from his children and underlings like Deimos, Phobos, Eris, Lycus, Duke of Deception, Lord Conquest, Earl of Greed, Silver Swan, and Decay. When Wonder Woman was first created, the Amazons were created by Aphrodite in direct opposition of Ares in order to battle his initiates. It was for this reason Ares, then calling himself Mars, sent Hercules to steal Hippolyta’s girdle which led to the Amazons moving to Paradise Island. Further, it was Mars’ boasting to Aphrodite of ruling Earth because the whole globe was in conflict during World War II that led to the goddess of love to permit the Amazons to send a single warrior to Patriarch’s World to topple the Axis powers. In the Golden Age, Mars conquered the planet of his name and resurrected the spirits of fallen warriors to battle each other and the strongest were given a new bodies to become the god’s soldiers. From the planet Mars he manipulated the leaders of the Axis in order to continue the conflict with the Allies. The god has gone through various changes over the years, at times possessing a petty criminal to became Ares Buchanan to become an arms dealer, conquering Olympus alongside Athena and Aphrodite, taking over the Underworld of Death, making Wonder Woman’s sidekick Wonder Girl his champion, and taking Wonder Woman’s corpse from the future and bringing it to the present as his obedient zombie killing machine Genocide.

From Krakow to Krypton

The American comic book industry was largely built from anti-Semitism. The United States (the Americas in general) started from one people imposing their will on other people, Europeans came to the Western hemisphere’s prominent continents and claimed the land therein for their native nations, often pushing out or killing natives that opposed them. This continued on throughout its history, with the prevalence of slavery and minority rights that have since legally made those of different skin color equal but the struggle remains today between people and their differences (skin color, religion, sexual-orientation, economic class, etc). A hatred that continues to fester today is that against the Jews, a hatred since ancient times when the Egyptians held them as slaves and later when Europeans saw them as unscrupulous money lenders and Christians and Muslims held their own special contempt for them. The United States of America, founded as an independent nation with the freedom to practice whatever religion you believed in, made it illegal to hate someone for having different beliefs, but that didn’t stop people from discriminating despite this fact. Jews, regardless of their skill or ability, were often the target of being blacklisted from work. It was often the case you would have a Jewish businessman hire almost exclusively Jewish workers, under the idea of looking out for their own people, but likely more prevalent with a knowledge it would mean cheap labor. Jewish publishers like Maxwell Charles Gaines, better known as M.C. Gaines (formerly Max Ginzberg), Martin Goodman, and Harry Donenfeld founded companies like All-American Publications, Timely Comics, and National Periodical Publications, respectively. Donenfeld, a salesman turned printer, founded National with Jack Liebowitz and was compared to a gangster in Gerard Jones’ Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book (2005) for his aggressive approach to business, promising clients the world and bullying his employees to get what he wanted.

Boys of Steel

The burgeoning comic book industry was built on the backs of Jews like Joe Simon (born Hymie Simon), Jack Kirby (or Jacob Kurtzberg), Will Eisner, Bob Kane (Robert Kahn), Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson (Sherrill Robinson), Martin Nodell, Joe Kubert, Harvey Kurtzman, Julius Schwartz, Stan Lee (Stanley Lieber), Mort Weisinger, Gil Kane (Eli Katz), Robert Crumb (better known as R. Crumb), Harvey Pekar, Art Spiegelman, Marv Wolfman, and Chris Claremont gave rise to an industry that today inspires film and television and more than a few American icons, often inspired by pulp magazines, radio serials, Science Fiction magazines, and comic strips (the film industry would undergo a similar birth). The most famous of these Jewish creators would be Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, whose creation Superman started the superhero industry and whose presence inspired the American comic book as it is today. However, the pair largely lived as beggars, despite their contribution, to their deaths. For Superman, the pair were paid $130 by National and lost any claim to their creation. In the 1940s, the pair sued National for their creation near the end of their ten year contract to produce Superman stories only to settle out of court for $94,000 under the provision the initial payment for Superman denoted ownership of the creation to National (their names would then be removed from Superman’s credits). By the 1950s, Shuster had to resort to drawing fetish sadomasochistic comic art to make ends meet while Siegel continued to work in the trenches as a comic writer. It wouldn’t be until the 1970s that, with the support of the legendary Neal Adams and an upcoming film adaptation of Superman, that the estate of Siegel and Shuster be awarded an annual stipend of $20,000, health benefits, and their names reattached to Superman as his creators across all media platforms. After the deaths of Siegel and Shuster, their families would again pick up the fight for the rights to Superman (as well as Superboy) which continues to this day (though it would seem some arrangement has been made regarding Superboy).

Bill the Boy Wonder

A dispute of an entirely different nature arose with Batman. Bob Kane made an agreement with National for his Batman creation that had his name attached with a sole creator credit (even if National provided their own artists) as well as payment for ongoing use of his character. However, debate would later rise as to how much involvement Kane even had in the creation of Batman. Notorious for using ghost writers and artists, Kane employed a young Bill Finger for fleshing out the Batman character and Finger claims to have conceived of most of the Dark Knight’s appearance, his real name, and wrote the script for his first appearance (recently, evidence has arisen Kane traced the art he used for his early Batman work from comic strips like Flash Gordon and modified the plots of pulp stories like the Shadow). Beyond this, creations like Robin and the Joker are credited to Kane, but Finger and artist Jerry Robinson claim to have had a little more than a hand to do with their inception (or in the case of the Joker, Finger and Robinson claim sole creation). Finger and Robinson worked for hire, making payment as ghost writers and signing away any rights under their contract with Kane. And yet, after decades of hearing Kane loudly proclaim being Batman and his mythology’s creator, Kane’s ghosts finally began admitting their involvement (which Kane has generally denied). So, there’s no debate regarding money go to men like Finger and Robinson, both of whom and Kane have since passed on, fans to this day decry Kane’s sole claim of creation.

Jack Kirby

A debate from the Silver Age involves Stan Lee and his development of the Marvel Method of producing comics. When Lee’s co-creations like Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and the Hulk became too much for him to keep up with, a method was devised to make the creative process more expedited. Called the Marvel Method, Lee would offer some plot for an issue (sometimes a fully developed concept, other times a rough idea), his artist would interpret how to make it happen visually, and Lee would come in and add dialogue. However, just offering a plot generally offered little in the interaction of characters, of the growth of characters, or the thoughts and feelings of characters, thus placing most of the effort on the artists with Lee touching up afterward and taking half (or more) of the credit. Frequent Lee artist Jack Kirby, however, chose to largely remain in the shadows as Lee became a celebrity, working out various deals with Marvel (formerly Timely, Lee getting work as the publisher’s wife’s cousin) that have made him extremely wealthy and famous. Kirby would at times be quite angry with Lee (modeling the villainous con man Funky Flashman after his former collaborator) but never felt he could win co-credit for the works he did with Lee and earn residuals like reprints and adaptations as Lee had. Instead, he was supported by Neal Adams to reclaim some of his art from Marvel (a fight Kirby felt he could actually win) and managed to obtain some creator co-credits. Recently, more than a decade after Kirby’s death, his estate has raised a lawsuit against Marvel, who has been making millions over adapting many of Kirby’s co-creations to film and television. At this time, judgment has been in Marvel’s favor but his estate has appealed.

Alan Moore

With the issue of credit and royalties brought up by the likes of Neal Adams and Bill Mantlo, Jenette Kahn, Paul Levitz, and Dick Giordano began a program at DC Comics in the 1980s offering royalties to creators rather than the work-for-hire model from the 1930s they employed up to that point. However, this hasn’t saved the company from controversy. Around this time, Alan Moore went from a critically acclaimed up-and-comer from England coming off of runs on Marvelman and his original series V for Vendetta to work on DC Comics’ Swamp Thing while contributing notable stories to Superman, Batman, and the Green Lantern Corps. DC agreed to release Moore’s V for Vendetta internationally if he agreed to license it to the company with its complete ownership going back to him after being out of print for at least a year. He made a similar deal when he created the series Watchmen with the company using pastiches of DC’s recently acquired Charlton Comics properties. While Moore has since made royalties from these properties, they proved so popular that they have yet to go out of print nearly thirty years later, with film adaptations made of both (and an upcoming series of prequel comic series to Watchmen against Moore’s wishes). The experience left a bad taste in Moore’s mouth and he swore off DC (and Marvel, seeing it as the same kind of animal) but worked quite a bit for Image Comics. So much so, Moore established his own imprint at Image, America’s Best Comics (ABC) under Jim Lee’s WildStorm branch. However, despite the freedom Image awards creators under them, both creatively and permitting all rights to remain with the creator, DC Comics would absorb WildStorm thus placing Moore under their rule again. He would again butt heads with DC, as the company created a live action film adaptation of his book League of Extraordinary Gentlemen against his wishes and pulped already published copies of the same comic series over supposed content issues (leading Moore to take the series to Top Shelf and Knockabout Comics). DC would run into other issues with the supposed freedom WildStorm was suppose to provide such as the adult content of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s The Boys series (which moved to Dynamite Entertainment in response).

Miracleman

An interesting case of creator rights, which also includes Alan Moore, is that of Marvelman. Superman was a huge hit for National when he was created, as has been discussed. Fawcett Comics created a similar character named Captain Marvel (which DC would eventually sue over shutting down Fawcett and buying Marvel for themselves) which became more popular than Superman. When Captain Marvel was discontinued due to DC’s efforts, Len Miller had British comic creator Mick Anglo create Marvelman to fill the vacuum for the hot property for the United Kingdom. In the early 1980s, Marvelman was resurrected in Dez Skinn’s anthology comic Warrior under Alan Moore, Garry Leach, and Alan Davis and was a huge hit. The series would be licensed to be published in America but, under threat of lawsuit from Marvel Comics, was renamed Miracleman and was also a hit in the states (which greased the wheels for the so-called British Invasion of American comics). Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham would later pick up the book. With the success of Miracleman, there was a scramble to reprint issues and generate new content the issue of ownership arose, as there was a mystery on who owned what exactly with virtually everyone involved apparently owning a portion of the character from Anglo to Gaiman and everyone in between. Todd McFarlane of Spawn fame thought he bought the property for $40,000 as part of purchasing American comic publisher Eclipse Comics (who printed the American comic) but apparently only bought a chunk of it (the part Eclipse owned). Neil Gaiman would form a company called Marvels and Miracles LLC to clear up the issue of rights and buy the franchise himself. Ultimately, Marvel Comics would buy Anglo’s portion of the character (reprinting the early work of Anglo’s stories) and has been trying to clear up the quagmire of the Warrior years and on.

Gary Friedrich

The most recent, pressing issue of creator rights has erupted recently in the case of Gary Friedrich. Claiming to have co-created the Marvel Comics property Ghost Rider, Friedrich used the character’s likeness for years on merchandise to sell and sign at conventions to earn a living. It’s a common practice for comic creators to publish prints of their work or sketches of comic characters at conventions in artist’s alley (or, more recently, off websites) to either supplement their income or, in the case of older creators, to simply earn enough money to continue living off an industry that has largely abandoned them. However, with Ghost Rider spawning two live action film adaptations, Friedrich sued for making some piece of the millions of dollars being made off something he co-created. In response, claims have arisen Friedrich wasn’t even involved in creating the character (with Roy Thomas and Mike Ploog purported as sole creators) and Marvel counter-suing  Friedrich for the money he made off printing materials displaying Ghost Rider. Worst still, a trend has started preventing people from selling anything with franchise characters without a license, in essence meaning unless someone owns a character outright or pays some fee can’t produce work like sketches with characters from companies like DC or Marvel. While only a handful of conventions have only recently started doing this, its curious what this trend means for conventions (many fans going to them for sketches) or comic creators’ ability to make a living off their industry (which generates most of its money from licensing such as in merchandise and film and television adaptations).

Tony Isabella

In the case of something like Malibu Comics, which was fairly popular (spawning the animated series Ultraforce) and was bought by Marvel, who hasn’t utilized the purchase according to rumor because royalties would be owned to the Malibu creators, or DC Comics who published a mostly-creator owned imprint like Milestone Media (which spawned the animated series Static Shock) only to later enter a partnership that saw the imprint merged with DC and characters like Icon and Rocket animated into Young Justice (or with the deal Tony Isabella had between DC and his creation Black Lightning where he earns royalties from his use), some middle ground needs to be found. Perhaps companies like Image or Dark Horse, who offers a platform for creators to get their work out there for a fee, can be some model to follow but still, if you consider Image and Dark Horse combined only control some less than ten percent of the comic book industry at any given time while DC and Marvel combined have around eighty percent, the latter seems better for exposure. Something needs to be done, but I’m not sure anyone knows what that is.

While most heroes lack a secret place to hang their hat, those that have headquarters hold the keys to a collection of their triumphs and defeats with a space to improve their derring-do. Of course, as we will discover, heroes don’t hold an exclusive market on secret hideaways. I should note, I chose to ignore cities, planets, and countries like Latveria, Atlantis, Asgard, Attilan, Themyscira, and Oa out of personal preference.

Sanctum Sanctorum

10. SANCTUM SANCTORUM

Home to the Ancient One and his servant Wong, the Sanctum Sanctorum is an unassuming three-story townhouse in Greenwich Village marked by some arcane symbol in its loft window. The building would become headquarters to the Ancient One’s protege Dr. Strange, Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme, and his Defenders. When one walks inside, however, the space is significantly more expansive than the borders seen outside. A veritably labyrinth of hallways and rooms, the structure was built atop a focal point of mystical energies that shifts with certain rooms always in the same place and others change through the passage of time. Some notable features include an expansive living room and adjoining library, a meditation room, Wong’s storage cellar, a room exclusively for the Orb of Agomotto, and a small courtyard.

SHIELD Helicarrier

9. S.H.I.E.L.D. HELICARRIER

Built by Stark Industries and designed by Tony Stark, Reed Richards, and Forge, the Helicarrier is the flying fortress base of operations for America’s S.H.I.E.L.D. agency, fighting terrorist and superhuman threats to the country (and oft-times the world against alien invasion). There have actually been many several Helicarriers with most destroyed and others dismantled (sometimes, there’s been several Helicarriers operating simultaneously). In addition to being made to withstand heavy assaults, the Helicarrier can dish out punishment with missiles, machine guns, and anti-armor artillery. Massive with crew quarters, laboratories, war rooms, and a hangar and landing strip hosting several high-tech fighter jets, helicopters, and flying cars, the mobile headquarters can bring an army to any location on Earth within hours. Troops are supported by a large cache of weapons including plasma-beam pistols and rifles and Mandroid armor.

Four Freedoms Plaza

8. FOUR FREEDOMS PLAZA

Headquarters for Reed Richards and his Fantastic Four, the Four Freedoms Plaza is a hundred story Manhattan highrise built on the site of the former Baxter Building after the former’s destruction. The bottom fifty-floors dedicated to the displaced Baxter residents, the building was designed by Richards to stand up to enemy attacks from supervillains, aliens, and more. It was identified by the number four atop the building observed from the outside that can be seen making up the four highest stories. Featuring easy access for the Fantastic Four, the skyscraper has plastic tubes throughout for Mr. Fantastic and an empty elevator shaft for the Human Torch. The other fifty floors are made up of a lobby to greet visitors for the heroic quartet operated by robotic receptionist Roberta, guest quarters (including those designed for Atlanteans), residence for the group’s members, storage, laboratories, recreational and training facilities, hangar, and a two story portal to the Negative Zone. The building would meet its demise at the hands of the Masters of Evil and be replaced by a new Baxter Building.

Brainiac Skull Ship

7. SKULL SHIP

Mobile space-faring command center for Brainiac, the Skull Ship is a massive structure able to raze entire planets. As Brainiac traverses the universe shrinking cities and bottling them for observation, the Skull Ship heralds terror and tragedy across the stars. Menacing in appearance, the vessel is outfitted with massive tentacles able to rip cities apart and is staffed by an army of robot drones modeled after Brainiac’s skeletal appearance with remarkable physical capabilities. What may makes the Skull Ship that much more terrifying is that it is directly interfaced with Brainiac, able to act at the speed of his thoughts and each drone acts as an extension of the villain.

Star Sphere

6. STAR SPHERE

The home for the wielder of the power cosmic Galactus, the Star Sphere is the entity’s staging ground as he consumes lush worlds turning them into barren husks. Perhaps out of guilt, Galactus downloads the entirety of data of the planets he consumes to his Star Sphere, making the vehicle a repository of vast knowledge telling of the art, history, and science of many civilizations since the dawn of existence itself. In addition, Galactus’ ship is home to a menagerie of artifacts and advanced technology including the famed Ultimate Nullifier, a weapon so devastating, it could threaten the very life of Galactus himself. The Star Sphere is massive in size, as it must provide residence to the giant Galactus, and is comparable in size to a moon. While the entity’s heralds are a thing to fear, it doesn’t compare to seeing this massive structure casting its shadow on another doomed world.

Fortress of Solitude

5. FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE

The massive arctic hideaway closed by a gigantic golden door and opened by a giant gold key, Superman’s Fortress of Solitude is his piece of Krypton on Earth featuring enormous statues of his parents holding up a globe replica of his home planet to greet those that pass its entrance. While Superman spends most of his time and living in Metropolis, his Fortress allows an opportunity to escape the demands of being Earth’s greatest hero with accommodations for himself and several guests (various rooms custom for his closest friends including Lois Lane, Batman, Supergirl, and Krypto). The structure is a wondrous place, with a zoo of various alien creatures in vast confinements based on their natural environment serviced by an army of android duplicates of Superman who have all of the hero’s abilities but at a lesser degree (an early model acting solely as a chess playing partner). Likely the universe’s richest depository of Kryptonian technology, Superman has amassed the likes of a Phantom Zone Projector, Phantom Zone-o-Phone (to see and communicate with Phantom Zone prisoners), Kryptonian weaponry including a warsuit, the rocket that brought the hero to Earth, chrysalis able to resuscitate a Kryptonian back from death itself (used for Superman and his clone Superboy), and various other equipment Superman employs in his scientific pursuits. The headquarters would also serve as storage for various trophies and artifacts, such as the Bottle City of Kandor, Duplicator/Bizarro Ray, Brainiac’s mind control headsets, Kryptonite of various colors, and Superman’s Legion of Super-Heroes Flight Ring. Therein, Superman also maintains a colossal memoir of his exploits whose pages are made of steel and a hangar for a space-faring vessel and his Supermobile.

X-Mansion

4. X-MANSION

A sprawling mansion and estate in North Salem, the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters masks the efforts of Professor Charles Xavier to train and network the world’s mutants towards employing their abilities for creating harmony with mankind and to combat mutants that threaten to enslave or eliminate mankind. These efforts have given rise to groups such as the X-Men (Blue and Gold), X-Factor, Generation X, New Mutants, X-Force, Excalibur, X-Club, Lights, X-Corporation, New X-Men, Young X-Men, Hellions, Corsairs, Advocates, Paragons, Alpha Squadron, Chevaliers, Exemplars, Paladins, and Excelsiors. The school offers a high-quality education in traditional means from elementary to college while also hosting classes towards controlling mutant abilities, often culminating into the wondrous Danger Room which employs robots and holograms to offer combat training with a measurable level of danger. Because of the various enemies towards the schools efforts, be it from humans or mutants (and the occasional alien invasion), the walls are reinforced with steel and can take a great deal of punishment (with various hidden weaponry and traps across the grounds to repel various threats). The compound also employs an underground hangar that can open up for the facility’s Blackbird jet (a modified Lockheed SR-71 featuring Shi’ar technology and improvements by Forge) to transport its heroes to anywhere in the world or outer space itself.

Justice League Satellite

3. JUSTICE LEAGUE SATELLITE

Headquartered encircling Earth’s orbit, the Justice League Satellite was the group’s second base employing teleportation technology to beam members from and to various points on the planet. Stationed in space, the massive structure permits the Justice League immediate access to combat various cosmic threats to the Earth. A large structure, the satellite has hosted the largest iteration of the Justice League of America and Justice Society of America simultaneously offering a vast meeting hall, accommodations for the Leaguers and guests, recreational, training, and exercise facilities, hangar for various spacecraft, laboratories, armory, offices, library, and a monitor room that documents the entire Earth, communicates with affiliate planets, and watches the space surrounding Earth. Likely the most notable aspect of their base is the trophy room. Home to artifacts such as the Amazo android, Starro drones, Dr. Light’s arsenal, Despero’s Justice League chess set, Queen Bee’s shrinking wand, Royal Flush Gang giant playing cards, Kanjar Ro’s Gamma Gong, the Key’s blaster, and Brain Storm’s stellar energy helmet. Even items from the heroes like Batarangs and Green Arrow’s trick arrows are displayed. Though this base would eventually be destroyed, a new satellite was built and includes a room called “the Kitchen” which is a training room using advanced robotics and holograms to offer a challenge for the Leaguers to hone their skills.

Batcave

2. BATCAVE

Hidden beneath Wayne Manor, expansive caves serve as the base of operations for Gotham City’s Batman. Originally, the cave was accessible to the manor via hidden passages for the purpose of the underground railroad as the Waynes helped slaves escape their masters to a life of freedom in the Northeast. Today, it has quick, secure access to the cave which is protected with reinforced walls, heat and motion sensors, surveillance cameras, body scanners, the latest in WayneTech encryption technology for computer files, and holographs for exterior entrances (and fog machines that generate artificial clouds for the hangar’s exterior). The Batcave would be the precursor to security systems Batman installs in the homes of fellow superheroes and headquarters including the Justice League’s various bases and Titans Tower. The Batcomputer therein is arguably the most advanced of its kind on Earth allowing Batman to hack into virtually any computer with internet access on the planet, can perform the most advanced of calculations and analytical projections, access to every television station on the planet, and contains files on virtually every hero and villain Earth has ever encountered as well as protocols to defeat them. Having designed and built dozens of Batmobiles, Batman’s current model would be in close proximity to the Batcomputer with a straight line to the exit while a massive garage employs a giant claw that can pluck the mobile for storage and access any of the Dark Knight’s older models (in addition to Batcycles and Robin’s Cycle and Redbird). A nearby mountain serves as the taking off and landing point for Batman aerial units such as the Batplane, Batjet, Batcopter, Batwing, Flying Bat-Cave, Whirly-Bat, and Batsaucer. The cave’s grotto acts as the main staging point for the Batboat but 240 feet beneath the surface is the Batsub and Batosphere that exits the cave 84 feet below that (though, the cave generally only employs the area 174 feet beneath the manor). There is also a rarely used rocket car that travels on a rail to Gotham City’s subway system.

Batcave

As there are residence and recreational facilities in Wayne Manor, the Batcave is all business with laboratories, training and exercise facilities, and a library. Near the Batcomputer, Batman has glass display cases featuring suits of armor for ancient warriors like a knight, samurai, conquistador, spartan, and centurion and the costumes of fallen comrades. But as with other heroes’ bases, the Batcave’s greatest attraction is the trophy room including the Penny Plunderer’s Giant Penny, Dinosaur Island’s robot Tyrannosaurus Rex, a giant pair of six-sided dice, chess pieces and board, joker playing card, billiard eight ball, roulette table, and bowling pins, Thomas Wayne’s Bat-Man costume, Bruce Wayne’s portrait, Dana Drye’s diary, and effects from his enemies like Joker’s Laughing Fish, Ra’s al Ghul’s sword, Two-Face’s coin, Catwoman’s whip, Penguin’s umbrellas and robot penguins, Riddler’s question mark cane, Mr. Freeze’s freeze gun, Scarecrow’s fear gas, Harley Quinn’s popgun, the original Red Hood’s costume, Mad Hatter’s hat, Prometheus’ helmet, Deathstroke’s sword, Bane’s mask and Venom, Scarface, Maxie Zeus’ lightning bolt, Man-Bat’s serum, Tweedledee and Tweedledum’s hats, Joe Chill’s gun, Catman’s catarang, Deadshot’s gun, Black Mask’s mask, Killer Moth’s armor, Cavalier’s sword, the Mad Monk’s hood, and Judge Clay’s gavel.

Hall of Doom

1. HALL OF DOOM

Created for the television series Challenge of the Superfriends for the villainous Legion of Doom and its appearance modeled after Darth Vader’s helmet, the Hall of Doom is a mobile base generally headquartered in Slaughter Swamp just outside of Gotham City. Despite being incredibly massive with quarters for Legionnaires, laboratories, a super-computer, armory, exercise and recreational facilities, and a hangar (where Black Manta’s Manta Ship can often be found), it can fly at supersonic speeds, travel underwater and through outer space, and is even capable of time travel (further, its been shown to be employed remotely). The most notable area of the Hall is the meeting room with a heightened podium for the group’s leader Lex Luthor to address his compatriots and surrounding tables for the other members. Boasting an array of weapons and defenses contributed towards by its genius-level members, the building can keep the likes of the Justice League at bay. The base has been adapted many several times often in various animated series such as Justice League Unlimited, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and Young Justice, in the animated film Justice League: Doom, and for the video game DC Universe Online. The Hall of Doom has additionally made the transition to comics appearing as headquarters for the Legion of Doom (in Justice), Secret Society of Super-Villains (in Justice League of America: Lightning Saga and Final Crisis), Injustice League (in Justice League of America: Injustice League Unlimited), and Justice League (in Superman/Batman: Sorcerer Kings). It also served as the basis of the Gulag in Kingdom Come and Doom Prison in Flashpoint.

Honorable Mentions: Rock of Eternity, Hall of Justice, Justice League Watchtower, Secret Sanctuary, Gotham Clocktower, Sinister Citadel, Shadow Gallery, Karnak, Injustice Gang Satellite, S.W.O.R.D. Peak, Titans Tower, Challenger Mountain, Trylon and Perisphere, Ha-Hacienda, Iron Man Armory, Tower of Fate, Checkmate Castle, Avengers Mansion, House of Secrets, House of Mystery, Oblivion Bar, Warriors, Sentry Tower, Monitor’s Satellite, Triskelion, Asteroid M, the Authority’s Carrier, and Legion of Super-Heroes Clubhouse.

(see Part One , Part Two , and Part Three here if you haven’t already)

MODERN AGE

Flash Wonderland

While Grant Morrison and Alex Ross helped nudge a new direction in the comics industry, they certainly didn’t get there alone. Two men who helped push this new direction to what it is today are Geoff Johns and Dan DiDio. Johns was an up-and-comer in the film industry mentored by legendary director Richard Donner (Superman, Lethal Weapon series) when he met DC Comics editor Eddie Berganza who offered Johns the opportunity to pitch ideas. One of those ideas reached fruition with Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., an update on the DC property Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy. However, his next two projects at the publisher would provide much more fanfare. The Flash, coming off a longtime critically-received run under scribe Mark Waid, needed a fill-in team to cover the book while an ongoing team could be established. Johns came aboard with the storyline Wonderland and fans enjoyed it so much, DC found their new ongoing writer. When James Robinson moved on to work on projects in Hollywood, Johns would replace his position as co-writer on JSA with David S. Goyer and he struck gold again. Meanwhile, Dan DiDio, who was a writer and story editor for Mainframe Entertainment (ReBoot, Beast Wars: Transformers), was hired as an administrator at DC, first as vice president of editorial in 2002 and two years later as executive editor for the DC Universe. It was around this time DC Comics vigorously pursued exclusive contracts for work at the publisher, including luring talent from Marvel.

Green Lantern Rebirth

Some notable talent DC were able to sign included Geoff Johns, Jeph Loeb, Judd Winick, Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, Mark Waid, Darwyn Cooke, the Kubert brothers (sons of the legendary Joe Kubert), Jim Lee, George Perez, Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis, J.G. Jones, and Grant Morrison (who spearheaded a new direction for the X-Men only to receive a much more lucrative contract to return to DC, reportedly leading to being verbally assaulted by then-Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada at San Diego Comic-Con, the nation’s biggest comic convention). Struggling titles Titans and Young Justice were turned into successful titles Teen Titans and Outsiders, World’s Finest Comics was brought back as Superman/Batman, writer/director Kevin Smith brought Green Arrow back to life in the wildly successful story Quiver, Greg Rucka gave Wonder Woman a much-needed shot in the arm, Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee collaborated for a hugely successful run on the Batman family titles called Hush, Gail Simone had praised runs on Birds of Prey and Secret Six, novelist Brad Meltzer and artist Rags Morales crafted a hugely-successful murder mystery featuring the satellite years Justice League in Identity Crisis, Darwyn Cooke penned and drew a critically-acclaimed examination of the Silver Age if it was set in the real world during the years it premiered in DC: The New Frontier, and Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver brought Hal Jordan back to life in the monster-hit Green Lantern: Rebirth.

Justice League

DC also entered new creative ventures like Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers featuring seven separate mini-series interconnected for a larger story by seven of the newest, hottest artists in the industry and 52, a weekly maxi-series set in real time to span a year written television series style by the company’s hottest writers in Johns, Rucka, Morrison, and Waid with layouts by the legendary Keith Giffen. The resolution of 52 reinstated part of the multiverse with the title referencing how many Earths existed as part of this. DC Comics rebooted their line in 1985 with Crisis on Infinite Earths and semi-rebooted in 1994 with Zero Hour and 2005 with Infinite Crisis and completely rebooted again in 2011 with Flashpoint (their latest attempt with some early success). In 2009, Paul Levitz stepped down as DC Comics publisher as the company became DC Entertainment under Diane Nelson (who oversaw Warner Bros’ license of the Harry Potter franchise including the blockbuster film series) with Jim Lee and Dan DiDio as the new co-publishers and Geoff Johns as Chief Creative Officer. The company is in the process of producing a Watchmen series of prequels, against Alan Moore’s wishes.

Marville #1

For Marvel, Bill Jemas was elected publisher of the company in 2000 where he became a controversial figure with his penchant for micromanagement and how he mistreated staff, retailers, and fans. He was also infamous for publicity stunts, such as “leaking” a false page of Astonishing X-Men heralding the return of the Phoenix (to cover up the return of Colossus), falsely claiming new character Sentry was co-created by Stan Lee prior to his creation of the Fantastic Four discovered in the affects of recently deceased Artie Rosen (a made-up artist for the purposes of the con), and U-Decide, where two new series were introduced (Ultimate Adventures and the Jemas-penned Smallville parody Marville) and Peter David’s Captain Marvel series was reset to issue one and fans decided which they wanted to keep with the loser to take a pie to the face for charity. David’s title would survive as the other two titles were canceled while the whole U-Decide stunt was dropped without a resolution. Another infamous story of Jemas’ character included firing Mark Waid off an acclaimed run on Fantastic Four with Mike Wieringo when the writer refused to change his stories to meet a new direction the publisher wanted to force on him. The event led to a huge fan backlash and letter writing campaign that re-instated Waid on the title. Jemas claimed to have wrote for issues of Namor and Wolverine: The Origin only for Gail Simone to later admit at-times ghost writing for him (but did not specify on what save it was not for Marville). Jemas would step down from his position in 2003 (though still had creative involvement up to a year later).

Ultimate Spider-Man #1

Around the time Bill Jemas was brought on as Marvel’s publisher, the company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, fired editor-in-chief Bob Harras, and hired Joe Quesada in his stead, the first time an artist worked as its EIC. Quesada was editor for a new, highly-successful imprint for the company prior to becoming EIC in Marvel Knights, part of an effort by the company to keep Marvel’s general line for preteens and Knights for teens. Marvel would take this one step further with the creation of the imprint MAX, which featured content directed towards adults with notable titles Alias by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos, Punisher by Garth Ennis, Supreme Power (re-imagining of Squadron Supreme) by J. Michael Straczynski and Gary Frank, and Rawhide Kid, written by Ron Zimmerman and re-imagining the character as homosexual. Shortly into the Jemas/Quesada regime, Marvel created another imprint called Ultimate which featured the retelling of origins on Marvel properties in a modern time with creative changes aimed at teenagers. The new line proved to be extremely popular and featured Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley on Ultimate Spider-Man, Mark Millar and the Kubert brothers on Ultimate X-Men, Millar and Bryan Hitch on The Ultimates (variation of the Avengers), and Bendis, Millar, Grant Morrison, and Adam Kubert on Ultimate Fantastic Four (Morrison, who previous to this assignment reinvented the company’s X-Men, was set to write the series but left Marvel for an exclusive contract at DC Comics). The success of the Ultimate line would influence the growing field of live action films Marvel was producing from their properties.

One More Day

J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita Jr. re-imagined Spider-Man from his Science Fiction roots to more mystical ones to much success with JMS penning the hero for a seven year run. Though critically-acclaimed, this run was also wrought with controversy including revealing an affair between Gwen Stacy and Norman Osborn, Spider-Man unveiling his secret identity to the world, and Spider-Man making a deal with the devil Mephisto where his marriage to Mary Jane Watson never existed to save the life of his aunt May in the One More Day storyline. Afterward, when One More Day was generally panned by fans, JMS admitted he didn’t support the concept but was forced to run with it by editorial, including Joe Quesada who provided art for the story. Brian Michael Bendis would take on Daredevil for a critically-received four-year run with Alex Maleev having the hero meet and eventually marry Milla Donovan, the Kingpin return, and Daredevil’s identity made public. Mark Waid would take on writing duties for Fantastic Four returning the group to its roots as explorers to much fanfare until being fired by Marvel publisher Bill Jemas only to be rehired after a fan backlash.

New Avengers #1

In 2004, there was a creative shake-up for the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four as part of a movement called Disassembled (a play on Avengers Assemble). For the Avengers, Scarlet Witch was driven insane and staged assaults on her former teammates resulting in the deaths of longtime characters Vision and Hawkeye leading to the company wide event House of M. When the Avengers reformed, Spider-Man and Wolverine were added to provide a more Justice League of America feel to the group capitalizing on the biggest stars in one book (though, writer Brian Michael Bendis opted to drop Thor, as he found difficulty writing his traditional Shakespearean dialogue, and Hank Pym who watched over Wasp, made comatose during the event). This change would be shortlived, however, when the event Civil War pitted America’s heroes against each other as part of a plot point to force all superheroes register with the United States government and lead to two Avengers teams in New Avengers and Mighty Avengers. Civil War would prove to be an event leading into the event Secret Invasion as Skrulls infiltrated and divided the heroes.

Astonishing X-Men #1

During these shake-ups, Joss Whedon (the mind behind the Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise) with John Cassaday began a new, successful ongoing X-Men series named Astonishing X-Men picking up from Grant Morrison’s New X-Men in a critically-acclaimed two-year run that saw Colossus brought back to life and Professor Xavier enslave a sentient artificial intelligence to maintain his Danger Room. This portrayal of Xavier as a villain coincided with a re-imagining of the events of Len Wein and Dave Cockrum’s reinvention of the X-Men in Ed Brubaker’s Deadly Genesis where Xavier was secretly preparing a second group of young people as X-Men when his original students were captured. Sending this second team, which included Cyclops and Havok’s brother Vulcan, the group failed and forced Xavier to make his international group of X-Men for a second rescue mission and erased the memory of Vulcan’s X-Men from the minds of all involved (as they were abandoned for dead). Following the events of House of M, the X-Men were also shook up when Scarlet Witch used her powers to eliminate the mutations of all but some 198 mutants as part of the Decimation storyline. For Civil War, the X-Men opposed the U.S. government as it heralded back to the Mutant Control Act.

Death of Captain America

Ed Brubaker would pen a critical-received run on Captain America, seeing his former sidekick Bucky Barnes brought back to life, the death of Steve Rogers, Bucky taking the Captain’s role, and the return of Steve to life where Brubaker currently continues to write the series going on seven years now. In 2010, Marvel subscribed their line to a branding called the “Heroic Age” repealing the laws enacted during Civil War that forces heroes to register and returned heroes back to their more familiar roles (though, their current event heralds back to Civil War having the Avengers and X-Men franchises battle it out in Avengers vs. X-Men). In 2004, Marvel launched a creator-owned line named Icon that features titles like Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Criminal and Incognito, Mark Millar and John Romita Jr’s Kick-Ass, and Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s Nemesis as well as picking up David Mack’s Kabuki and Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming’s Powers. Marvel would acquire the rights to Mick Anglo’s Marvelman in 2009. That same year, the Walt Disney Company bought Marvel Comics.

Sigil #1

A new publisher emerged in 1998 called CrossGen under entrepreneur Mark Alessi who wanted a varied line of comics representing different genres but were nonetheless connected. Alessi’s style with treating talent has been criticized, alleged to have screamed at artists and had employees stand in the corner if they displeased him. Despite this, he assembled top talent including Mark Waid, Barbara Kesel, Ron Marz, Chuck Dixon, Brandon Peterson, Joshua Middleton, Steve McNiven, Steve Epting, Greg Land, and Tony Bedard to work on titles like Sigil, Mystic, Meridian, Scion, First, Crux, Sojourn, Ruse, Negation, and Way of the Rat. In 2003, CrossGen went bankrupt despite its initial success and was purchased by the Walt Disney Company the following year. In 2011, CrossGen returned as a new imprint at Marvel Comics. Several publishers that arose in recent history include IDW Publishing, Devil’s Due Publishing, Dynamite Entertainment, Oni Press, Archaia Studios, Boom! Studios, Zenescope Entertainment, Viper Comics, Virgin Comics, Radical Comics, Bluewater Productions, Platinum Studios, and Arcana Studio. Some well-known recent indie comics include Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim, David Petersen’s Mouse Guard, Tim Seeley’s Hack/Slash, Craig Thompson’s Blankets, Josh Howard’s Dead@17, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, Mark Waid’s Irredeemable and Incorruptible, Jim Krueger and Alex Ross’ Project Superpowers, Andy Runton’s Owly, Greg Rucka’s Queen & Country, Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith’s 30 Days of Night, Mario Gully’s Ant, Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele’s Surrogates, Platinum Studios’ Cowboys & Aliens, Zenescope’s Grimm Fairy Tales, Avatar Press’ Crossed, Darren G. Davis’ Tenth Muse, D. J. Coffman’s Hero by Night, and Javier Grillo-Marxuach’s Middleman. Despite early examples in the 1980s and 1990s, webcomics have gained prominence in the Modern Age (DC Comics taking advantage with their webcomic imprint Zuda) with some notable series including PvP, 8-Bit Theater, Perry Bible Fellowship, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Cyanide & Happiness, Sinfest, Penny Arcade, Adventures of Dr. McNinja, Axe Cop, Shortpacked!, xkcd, Homestuck, Hero Business, VG Cats, Dinosaur Comics, and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Invincible

When Image Comics first appeared, it threatened to turn the rivalry between DC and Marvel Comics into a three-way struggle. But, while it continued to turn out work that’s both commercially successful and critically-received, they largely fell into a third place category. However, a new face has emerged that has slowly begun to help Image take more of the industry’s notice. Robert Kirkman self-published the series Battle Pope before coming to Image to create works like Tech Jacket, Capes, and Brit. However, his next two works would prove to be wildly-popular: Invincible and Walking Dead. Invincible takes elements of stories like Superman/Superboy, Dragon Ball Z, Spider-Man, and Marvelman/Kid Marvelman mashing the Silver Age together with modern elements in comic book writing for a compelling modern mythology. Walking Dead, on the other hand, is a homage to the re-emerging zombie genre that has proved to be wildly-popular, spawning a television series adaptation that has also been a hit. Moving on to create new works like Astonishing Wolf-Man, Guardians of the Globe, and Super Dinosaur, Kirkman became the first exclusively-writer partner in Image Comics and his own imprint Skybound. Despite this success, Kirkman has been involved in a recent controversy where creative partner Tony Moore has taken him to court for cheating Moore out of his rights for Walking Dead. Some of Image’s other recent popular titles include Jimmie Robinson’s Bomb Queen (under ShadowLine), Jay Faerber’s Noble Causes and Dynamo 5, Bryan J. L. Glass’ Mice Templar, Nick Spencer’s Morning Glories, Tyrese Gibson’s Mayhem!, Mike Bullock’s Lions, Tigers and Bears, Mark Millar and J. G. Jones’ Wanted (under Top Cow), Phil Hester and Andy Kuhn’s Firebreather, the Luna brothers’ Ultra, Girls, and Sword, Milo Ventimiglia’s Berserker (under Top Cow), Paul Grist’s Jack Staff, Garth Ennis and Amanda Conner’s Pro, and Todd Nauck’s WildGuard. In 2012, the founders of Image (minus Jim Lee) and Kirkman have been seen working more closely together and attending conventions together showing a new level of solidarity not seen since their initial formation.

12 noon Friday, May 4 to Sunday, May 6, 2012
John Romita, Jr. Attempts to Break His Guinness World Record of Most Continuous Cartooning
Las Vegas, Nevada

To secure Jordan’s lifetime medical and personal needs and assist other children suffering from cancer and life-threatening diseases, John Romita Jr. has teamed with the Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation of Nevada to raise much needed funds for Jordan and for other children diagnosed with cancer. 10 years after he set the original record, John Romita Jr., will attempt to break his own world record with 50 hours of continuous cartooning.

About John Romita, Jr.

John Romita, Jr

For 35 years, famed Marvel Comics artist, John Romita Jr. has illustrated practically every character in the Marvel Comics Universe. Born in New York City, Romita Jr. got his start under the guidance of his father, comics legend John Romita Sr., co-creator of numerous Marvel Comics characters.
Romita Jr. began his career at Marvel UK and made his American debut doing a short story in 1977’s AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Annual #11. He has since gone on to become one of Marvel’s preeminent artists on everything from IRON MAN with writer David Michelinie to UNCANNY X-MEN with author Chris Claremont to DAREDEVIL. He had his first regular run working on the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN series in the early 1980s and with writer Roger Stern he co-created the character Hobgoblin. In the past two decades, Romita Jr. has worked on countless Marvel Comics titles including The Punisher War Zone, The Hulk, The Mighty Thor, Wolverine, The Black Panther, and many others.
In 2004, Romita Jr.’s creator-owned project The Gray Area was published by Image Comics and in 2008 he collaborated with Mark Millar, for a creator-owned series, KICK-ASS, published by Marvel’s Icon imprint. In 2010, the comic book was turned into a major motion picture distributed by Lionsgate starring Nicholas Cage, Chloe Moretz and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Romita Jr., one of the film’s producers, made his directorial debut by directing an animated flashback sequence in the film. A sequel to the film, which has become a fan favorite, is set to begin filming in mid-2012.
Romita Jr. just recently finished a run on the popular AVENGERS comic book franchise and is currently working on the highly anticipated Marvel Comics epic 12-issue series AVENGERS VS. X-MEN.

About Jordan

Jordan Alyssa Atherton

Jordan Alyssa Atherton was born on Sept 17, 1999. Two months after her second birthday, Jordan started complaining that her head hurt and she was having trouble with her balance. Just a few days after Thanksgiving 2001, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Following surgery she was considered a high risk case because she was younger than three years old and because the cancer had metastasized down her spinal column. At the time, doctors told her parents that this greatly reduced her long term chance of survival and that she had a 30% chance to survive five years, and less than 5% chance of long-term survival.
As a fund-raising event to help offset her medical expenses, Jordan’s uncle, famed Marvel Comics artist John Romita Jr., attempted to set the world’s record for most continuous cartooning. In New York City, on May 11, 2002, recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, John Romita Jr. set the world’s record for most continuous cartooning at 48 hours and raised money for Jordan’s Special Needs Trust to help cover Baby Jordan’s medical expenses.
Jordan is now 12 years-old and a sixth grader, and, although free of cancer, continues to require special attention. As a result of surgery, chemo, and radiation, Jordan has a number of permanent negative side effects. She will require specialized instruction throughout her life as well as constant care. While Jordan’s future, both medically and cognitively, is uncertain, today she is a loving, caring young lady who’s a big sister to a 9 year-old brother and 5 year-old sister. She loves all animals (except bugs!) and she loves to watch the Food Network. She loves fancy cars, dressing up and being pampered. Basically, she’s a wonderful boisterous child who was dealt a very difficult hand and does the best with what she’s been given in life.

About Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation of Nevada

Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation of Nevada

Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation of Nevada (CCCFN) is a non-profit agency that provides support and services for families of children diagnosed with cancer. Children from birth to 21 years of age who have been diagnosed with cancer or who have survived cancer are eligible for services if they are living or being treated in Nevada. CCCFN serves approximately 100 families monthly, and as many as 600 families throughout the year. Candlelighters maintains a full-time office with professional staff available at all times for family support.
CCCFN alleviates the isolation many families feel at the time their child is diagnosed, offers love, care, encouragement, and understanding so that nobody need face alone the uncertain world of childhood cancer. Recognizing the various needs of individuals and families, CCCFN offers support and service to every family, without regard to economics, race, religion, and choice of physician(s) or health care facilities. All programs and services are given at no cost to the families. Donors have the satisfaction of knowing their support and contributions are directly helping Nevada families

The Opportunity

Sponsorships are available for the event. Each sponsor, depending on level of sponsorship, could receive the following:

• World-wide media coverage
• Event support from Marvel Comics
• Brand logo featured on the back drop at the press conference and during the World Record Attempt
• Signage at the event
• Exclusive product category sponsorship
• Brand logo on advertising & promotional materials
• Product sampling and/or giveaways
• Inclusion in press releases about the World Record Attempt
• Meet and Greet & photo op with John Romita Jr. & celebrities
• VIP Gift

Marquee Sponsor – $25,000

Platinum Sponsor – $10,000

Gold Sponsor – $5,000

Silver Sponsor – $2,500

For more information please contact:
Kathy Romita, Event Chair
kathyromita@hotmail.com
Donna Green, Event Assistant
dgreen@secretbonus.com
Joseph Girouard, Sponsorship
jgirouard19@cox.net

(see Part One and Part Two here if you haven’t already)

DARK AGE

X-Men #1

During the Bronze Age, comic books began to make the transition from being sold at newsstands, convenience stores, and supermarkets to a direct market in comic book shops. As people began to stumble upon these stores, they would also discover that comics could be worth quite a profit as some books could be found selling for thousands of dollars. Word would spread and people began seeing comic books as savings bonds, buying and storing them like rare collectibles. Unfortunately, they failed to realize that those books going for thousands got that way because of managing to survive fifty years of being treated as disposable entertainment that was often thrown away or burned (with issues that survived generally being horribly mangled). Still, the industry took advantage, printing issues with multiple covers, sometimes with different cover art, other times with gimmicks like hologram stickers, glow-in-the-dark images, 3-D plastic pop-out items, foldout covers, and more. People were compelled to form “complete sets”, one book notorious for this was Chris Claremont and Jim Lee’s X-Men #1 (1991) which to this day remains the highest grossing single comic of all time making nearly seven million dollars and selling over 8.1 million units (and printed with five unique covers four of which had different versions such as newsstand and direct market editions). The phenomenon was a boon for the industry, with new publishers popping up all over the place and comic companies in many ways couldn’t print enough books. However, as with roller coasters, this success was bound to crash when the people who became collectors realized not only were the conditions not right to make the huge payoff for their investment they believed they would get, but with so much product overproduced, the books they did buy were virtually useless as a collectible because everyone had it. To this day, you can still find comic shops with dozens of copies of X-Men #1 they can’t give away. The comic book industry nearly went out of business again roughly four decades after Wertham and Congress left it crippled.

Preacher

The success of writers like Frank Miller and Alan Moore and the popularity of Wolverine, a Dirty Harry-like member of the X-Men that at times acted more like an animal than a person, gave a message to the industry what their audience desired from them. Costumes became darker, criminals more bloodthirsty, heroes grimmer, and the comic book world became darker. Referring to this period as the Dark Age is accurate in two ways: heroes became anti-heroes (or would skirt it) and the future of comic books were uncertain. And yet, amidst this dark time, it provided new freedom to comic writers with significantly less restrictions not had since the Comics Code Authority (which was generally abandoned by this time). One sign of this was Vertigo, an imprint at DC Comics founded in 1993 where creators were allowed to tell adult stories through comic books. Titles like Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Sandman, Doom Patrol, and Animal Man made the move to Vertigo joined by Matt Wagner’s Sandman Mystery Theatre, Garth Ennis’ Preacher, Grant Morrison’s Invisibles, Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan, Neil Gaiman’s Books of Magic, Mike Carey’s Lucifer, Brian Azzarello’s 100 Bullets, Bill Willingham’s Fables, and Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man. DC also formed the imprint Paradox Press featuring original graphic novels like John Wagner and Vince Locke’s A History of Violence and Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner’s Road to Perdition.

Amazing Spider-Man #300

Over at Marvel Comics, a new breed of artists emerged drawing using a style never seen before. Todd McFarlane on Incredible Hulk and Amazing Spider-Man, Jim Lee on X-Men, Rob Liefeld on New Mutants and X-Force, Marc Silvestri on Wolverine, Erik Larsen on Amazing Spider-Man, Jim Valentino on Guardians of the Galaxy, and Whilce Portacio on Uncanny X-Men added an intensity and energy to comics that were new and vibrant, not necessarily better or worse than what came before but different, and fans loved it. Marvel began taking the art and slapping it on all kinds of merchandise and the company made millions. However, the artists saw this prosperity and felt cheated that they made nothing from these profits, only making money from providing work for the comics they initially drew their art for. When they came together and approached their bosses about their concerns, they were not satisfied with the response they received. So, along with longtime X-Men scribe Chris Claremont, they left the company in what some called the “X-odus” (playing on the fact most worked in the X-Men franchise) and Marvel saw their stock share drop in response. All but Claremont and Portacio came together and formed Image Comics, an umbrella publisher with each creator having their own imprint with complete creative freedom and owned the characters they created completely. Liefeld made Extreme Studios, Larsen created Highbrow Entertainment, Valentino founded ShadowLine, McFarlane was Todd McFarlane Productions, Silvestri formed Top Cow Productions, and Lee produced WildStorm Productions.

Youngblood #1

Image Comics would prove to be quite popular (for a time, even a direct competitor of DC and Marvel). Liefeld’s Extreme Studios produced Youngblood (based on a pitch for a Teen Titans spin-off he worked on with Marv Wolfman) whose first issue was the highest selling independent of the time and the first time an independent title ever became a number one bestseller, beating out Marvel and DC. The imprint’s other books included Bloodstrike, Brigade, Glory, New Men, and Supreme. Alan Moore would take over writing duties on Youngblood, Glory, and a critically-received run on Supreme. Liefeld would also purchase the rights to Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s Fighting American, a similar character to Captain America, and revive it for its own series. Highbrow produced Freak Force, Vanguard, Deadly Duo, Superpatriot, and, its star title, Savage Dragon. Created by Larsen as a child, the Dragon is an amnesiac with super-strength and regenerative abilities that becomes a police officer to battle Chicago’s supervillains. The Savage Dragon is only one of two founding Image series to still be in print today and the only series to still be written and drawn by its creator. The series also has the honor of having been animated into a television series. ShadowLine was named after Valentino’s original character ShadowHawk who was the imprint’s star. Top Cow published Silvestri’s Cyberforce, Codename: Strykeforce, and his extremely-popular Witchblade, Silvestri, Garth Ennis, and David Wohl’s the Darkness, Wohl and Joe Benitez’s Magdalena, Wohl and David Finch’s Aphrodite IX, and Michael Turner’s Fathom. Top Cow provided an imprint for J. Michael Straczynski, known for co-creating the popular Science Fiction television series Babylon 5, called Joe’s Comics publishing Rising Stars and Midnight Nation.

Spawn #1

Todd McFarlane Productions enjoyed a great deal of success, not only in comics, but in providing work towards action figures and animation. McFarlane’s cash cow was Spawn, a wildly popular comic book that is only one of two founding comics for Image still in publication today. The series would have an action figure line, animated television series, and live action film. Renowned creators like Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Dave Sim, and Frank Miller would be brought in to work on the series and its various spin-offs. The short-lived imprint Gorilla Comics produced Mark Waid and Barry Kitson’s Empire and Todd Dezago and Mike Wieringo’s Tellos. Some titles that came out of Image Comics directly were Mike Allred’s Madman, Sam Kieth’s Maxx, Dale Keown’s Pitt, Jae Lee’s Hellshock, Rob Schrab’s Scud: The Disposable Assassin, Dreamwave’s Darkminds, Michael Avon Oeming’s Bulletproof Monk, Jimmie Robinson’s Amanda and Gunn, and Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming’s Powers. Jim Lee’s Image imprint WildStorm would became a juggernaut all its own.

Wildcats #1

Jim Lee helped co-create titles like WildC.A.T.s., Stormwatch, Deathblow, and Gen¹³ while Whilce Portacio and Brandon Choi created Wetworks, Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch created the Authority (spinning out of Stormwatch), Warren Ellis and John Cassaday created Planetary, and J. Scott Campbell, Brandon Choi, Warren Ellis, and Humberto Ramos created DV8. Even more, it was an umbrella for various imprints including Homage, Cliffhanger, and Alan Moore’s America’s Best Comics (ABC). Homage hosted books like James Robinson and Paul Smith’s Leave it to Chance, Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise, Warren Ellis’ Red (made into a feature film), and Kurt Busiek’s long-running Astro City. Cliffhanger hosted such hits as J. Scott Campbell’s Danger Girl, Joe Madureira’s Battle Chasers, Humberto Ramos and Brian Augustyn’s Crimson, and Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco’s Arrowsmith. Alan Moore, always a top-seller and revered scribe, produced the likes of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Promethea, Tomorrow Stories, Tom Strong, and Top 10 for his ABC line. In 1998, DC Comics acquired WildStorm and made it an imprint under the company (integrating the imprint into their universe in 2007). This caused contention with Moore who had a falling out with the company.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

When Moore gave the rights of V for Vendetta and Watchmen to DC, it was under an agreement that when either book goes out of print for a year, they would revert back to him and his partner Dave Gibbons. However, both titles proved to be quite successful and have yet to go out of print even thirty years later (with renewed interest for both properties as they were adapted into feature films). Upon acquiring WildStorm, DC would soon after adapt Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen into a live action film against his wishes (as well as having their legal department begin criticizing the comics Moore was producing). Moore would eventually break ties with WildStorm bringing his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to Top Shelf Productions (who had previously published his works Lost Girls and From Hell). Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ popular series Sleeper and Brian K. Vaughn and Tony Harris’ critically-acclaimed Ex Machina would be printed by WildStorm. Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s The Boys would be published at WildStorm but when Warner Bros (who merged with DC Comics in 1969 and now controls the company) was concerned with the adult nature of the series, the title moved to Dynamite Entertainment.

Secret Identity

The conflict with Alan Moore wouldn’t be DC Comics’ first battle with its creators. When Siegel and Shuster created Superman, the pair gave away their rights to the character for reportedly $130 in 1938, three months before the character appeared. Without any stake in their monstrously successful character, they would go through life barely making ends meet (especially when comic work dried up). Joe Shuster at one point had to resort to drawing fetish art of bondage and torture to pay the bills. After repeatedly approaching the courts, the case would go back and forth. Many times, DC would win judgment. Other times, Siegel and Shuster would earn small victories such as regaining the rights to Superboy only to sell it back to DC. Neal Adams petitioned a stipend be afforded the aging creators around the release of the 1978 Superman film which proved successful (but the money, which was adequate for its time, held no provision for inflation). Today, both men have passed but their estate continues to fight for reparations. Bob Kane, credited with creating Batman, had a history of employing ghost writers and artists for his work (recent evidence emerging he may have traced pulps, strips, and comics to produce the first few Batman stories). An ongoing debate has arisen that writer Bill Finger should receive co-creator credit for Batman when it came to light Finger may have been equally or even more involved in the initial development of the character than Kane. A similar debate emerged with Batman’s nemesis the Joker where Jerry Robinson claims he and Finger created the character with Kane taking credit (Robinson would also claim to have created the Dark Knight’s sidekick Robin). While it was no secret Kane employed ghost workers, due in part to Kane’s contract for Batman and the accompanying franchise, only Kane’s name has been applied as sole creator of its properties even today.

Chaos Comics

Along with Image Comics, other publishers with successful runs emerged (likely due in part to the rise of comic collecting as an investment). One such company would be Malibu Comics and its Ultraverse. Malibu, having printed Image’s titles for its first few years of operation, branched out to produce books like Prime, Ultraforce, Hardcase, Mantra, Night Man, and Prototype. They would prove so successful, Marvel would purchase the company (however, as Marvel needs to pay a royalty to its creators to use them, it’s perceived for this reason the company has yet to take advantage of the acquisition since the initial purchase). Malibu would also have two imprints while it was its own company in Aircel and Eternity. Aircel’s main claim to fame would be producing the series Men in Black, which was adopted into an animated series and very successful film series. Eternity would be home to Brian Pulido’s Evil Ernie and Ben Dunn’s Ninja High School. Pulido would take Evil Ernie and create his own comic company, Chaos! Comics. Along with creators Steven Hughes, Al Rio, and Justiniano, Chaos! Comics published titles, in addition to Evil Ernie, like Lady Death, Purgatori, Chastity, and Jade. Lady Death would move on to emerging publisher CrossGen before ending up at Avatar Press. Chaos’ other properties would be bought up by Dynamite Entertainment. The popularity of Lady Death and characters like her brought about the phenomenon called “Bad Girl comics” offering popularity to properties like London Night Studios’ Razor, Jim Balent and BroadSword Comics’ Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose, Billy Tucci’s Shi, Dark Horse Comics’ Ghost and Barb Wire, Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin’s Tank Girl, Randy Queen’s Darkchylde, Jimmy Palmiotti and Joe Quesada’s Painkiller Jane, Joseph Michael Linsner’s Dawn, Warren Publishing’s Vampirella (then under Harris Comics), Rob Liefeld and Cathy Christian’s Avengelyne, Topps’ Lady Rawhide, Penthouse’s Hericane, David Mack’s Kabuki, and Bill Maus’ Nira-X. Ben Dunn would, like Pulido, take Ninja High School to help form his own company in Antarctic Press generally featuring American comics with a manga-like art style and create Warrior Nun Areala as well as publishing other titles like Genus and Fred Perry’s Gold Digger.

Hellboy

Dark Horse Comics, while found in the 1980s, came into its own in the 1990s and remains today one of the industry’s top publishers. Some of the titles that came out of Dark Horse include Frank Miller’s Sin City, Martha Washington, and 300, Frank Miller and Geof Darrow’s Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, John Arcudi and Doug Mahnke’s Mask, Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, John Byrne’s Next Men, Art Adams’ Monkeyman and O’Brien, Eric Powell’s Goon, Ron Marz and Luke Ross’ Samurai: Heaven and Earth, Todd Dezago and Craig Rousseau’s Perhapanauts, Gerard Way and and Gabriel Ba’s Umbrella Academy, Adam Warren’s Empowered, Michael Chabon’s Escapist, and Peter David and Pop Mhan’s SpyBoy. Another publisher that was popular in the 1990s was Valiant Comics. Founded by Jim Shooter, who began work at DC Comics at age fourteen notably on the Legion of Super-Heroes before becoming editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics (arguably only comparable in this position to Stan Lee for success and innovation despite his reputation for harshly treating staff), Valiant drafted several of Marvel’s elder, legendary talent such as Barry Windsor-Smith, Bob Layton, and Steve Englehart to create franchises like Harbinger, X-O Manowar, Rai, Shadowman, Bloodshot, Eternal Warrior, Ninjak, H.A.R.D. Corps, and Archer & Armstrong. The company would also license the franchises Doctor Solar, Turok, and Magnus, Robot Hunter formerly of Gold Key. Valiant would be bought by the video game developer Acclaim around the time the comic industry’s bubble burst and remained in limbo until recently. In 1993, Bongo Comics was founded by Simpsons creator Matt Groening, Bill Morrison, and Steve and Cindy Vance generally printing comics for Groening’s Simpsons and Futarama franchises, offering early work to talented writer Gail Simone. Some other indie books that emerged during the 1990s include Jeff Smith’s Bone, Evan Dorkin’s Milk and Cheese, Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus, Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti’s Ash, Shannon Wheeler’s Too Much Coffee Man, Drew Hayes’ Poison Elves, Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World, Mark Schultz’s Xenozoic Tales/Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Frank Cho’s Liberty Meadows (originally a comic strip), David Quinn and Tim Vigil’s Faust, Kevin J. Taylor’s Model by Day and Fang, Beau Smith’s Wynonna Earp, Jill Thompson’s Scary Godmother, and David Lapham’s Stray Bullets.

Superman #75

Likely the biggest event of the Dark Age was the Death of Superman. After over fifty years of courting each other, the writers for the Superman group of titles decided to marry the hero with Lois Lane (though this did happen before, but on Earth-Two). However, the television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman on air at the time also had plans to marry the pair but not for another year. Wanting to coordinate the two, the creative forces behind the comics agreed to push their plans back. Now left with a huge hole in the schedule and little time to fill it, an offhand comment to simply kill the Man of Steel become an idea they explored. Creating a Hulk-like character named Doomsday, they had the monster plow through Earth’s heroes and fight Superman until both fell down dead. What the editors didn’t anticipate would be the media getting a hold of the story and running it across airwaves, under the assumption Superman was dead and would never return. People appeared at comic shops around the nation in droves wanting to pay respect to the hero and pick up Superman #75 to read about how he fell. The event brought millions of people to comic shops, with the issue of Superman’s death selling almost three million copies but sales of the story leading up to his demise selling in very high numbers as well. A trend began with superheroes being killed or removed from their position with Batman’s back broken in Knightfall, Hal Jordan turning evil and is replaced in Emerald Twilight, Diana is replaced as Wonder Woman in The Challenge, Aquaman’s hand is eaten by piranha becoming a grizzly berserker, Green Arrow is tragically dies and is replaced by his long lost son, the Atom is de-aged and forms a new Teen Titans, a new Hawkman and Hawkwoman arrive on Earth to fight crime in Chicago, the Legion of Super-Heroes were rebooted as youths again, members of the Justice Society were killed off after recently coming out of retirement, and a new Starman emerged to critical-response by James Robinson (Mark Waid would tease replacing the Flash during his critically-acclaimed eight year run on the title but kept Wally West as the Flash). Marvel would also take part in some fashion with a clone of Spider-Man from a past story emerge as the Scarlet Spider for the Clone Saga in a storyline that spanned four titles monthly for two years.

Kingdom Come

It’s difficult to pinpoint when the Dark Age ended and the Modern Age started. I would say part of what led to this transition was the introduction of illustrator/painter Alex Ross. Able to take the farfetched and fantastic world of comics and lend realistic presentation to it with brush strokes heralding back to classical presentation of heroes in paint on canvas, Ross stylistically approached comics in a new, mythological style. It was likely for this reason the mini-series Marvels Ross collaborated with Kurt Busiek on worked so well. In the story, a photographer captures the emergence of costumed heroes on film so combining realism with this mythological feel made a perfect fit for the necessary effect. The series was a huge success and Alex Ross became a sought after commodity (Busiek would go on for a memorable five-year Avengers run featuring the team take on familiar opponents including Kang and Ultron and penned the successful JLA/Avengers crossover). Ross’ next project in many ways metaphorically tells the story of the end of the Dark Age into the Modern Age of comics. Working with Mark Waid, Kingdom Come from DC Comics tells the story of a world where Earth’s heroes retired as a new breed of hero emerged that was darker, grimmer and cared more about indulging their desire for wanton violence than helping people. Superman was forced to return to duty and save the world again, leading retired heroes back to duty while sorting true heroes from the anti-heroes/villains of the time. Ross admitted modeling the anti-hero Magog who led the new charge of superheroes after characters created by Rob Liefeld with Kingdom Come very much a love letter to the legacy of DC Comics featuring the children of many characters and new characters who carry on the mantle of other heroes. Soon after the success of Kingdom Come, another step towards the Modern Age came with the monster hit in JLA.

JLA

Grant Morrison made his career at DC Comics writing for titles like Animal Man, Doom Patrol, and Invisibles which were undoubtedly well-written, they were often times fairly weird. When the publisher was looking to update their ailing Justice League franchise, Morrison presented a pitch for a change that hadn’t been seen in thirteen years: reuniting the modern versions of its founding members. Further, update and reintroduce several of the threats the group faced in the Silver and Bronze Ages. The result was fans ate it up and showed they wanted to see those familiar images again. During one storyline in JLA, Morrison featured an updated Justice Society that would be picked up for its own series in JSA. This new series would be written by James Robinson, who became known for being able to inject new life into Golden Age concepts in his series Starman, and David S. Goyer, who would be better known as a screenwriter for the Blade film series and the Batman film series beginning with Batman Begins. With another hit in tow, the industry began a new trend.

(see Part One here if you haven’t already)

BRONZE AGE

Amazing Spider-Man #96

Comic publishing continued on, but stories about colorful superheroes swooping down to save the day, which was already considered childish, seemed even more out of place during the end of the Golden Age and on with protests against the government, the growing recreational drug market, the war on segregation, the spread of venereal disease as soldiers from foreign countries return home to “free love,” the country coming to the end of the witch hunt led by the House Un-American Activities Committee to root out Communism, and a general change in what America was up to that point; about the only place this landscape largely went unnoticed was in comic books (due in no small part to the Comics Code Authority). In the early 1970s, companies DC Comics and Marvel Comics tackled the real world at almost virtually the same time (while within the next decade companies like Dell, Harvey, Gold Key, Warren, and Charlton faded away). Stan Lee and Gil Kane dropped CCA approval for several issues of Amazing Spider-Man when the hero’s best friend (and neglected son of the Green Goblin) Harry Osborn becomes addicted to an unnamed drug after Marvel was approached by the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to raise drug awareness. Spider-Man, dealing with his friend’s downward spiral while Green Goblin hunts him like an animal, forces his nemesis back into reality when he has him confront Harry who’s near-death which shocks him into becoming Norman Osborn again (the success of this arc actually inspired change in the CCA). At DC, the creative team Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams collaborated on Green Lantern/Green Arrow which had the heroes tackle virtually all the major controversies that divided the nation, beginning with racism and classism and culminating into the emerald duo discovering Green Arrow’s sidekick Speedy addicted to heroin. These stories reflected a change in approach by both companies to storytelling as their worlds became more real and more dangerous.

New Gods #1

The period proved to be a creative Renaissance for DC Comics due in part as the company began luring many of the young writers from their distinguished competition Marvel, who had drafted young people to give a more legitimate voice to their properties to maintain the momentum created by Stan Lee. In addition to working on Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams took on the Dark Knight, reinvigorating the character in to a gothic champion of the night trotting the world, notably against the emerging threat of the eco-terrorist Ra’s al Ghul. One writer, Steve Englehart, would also tackle Batman, generally with artist Marshall Rogers, during a run on Detective Comics that introduced the fiery Doctor Phosphorus, brought back Hugo Strange and Deadshot, and returned the Joker to his roots as a homicidal killer. Archie Goodwin and Walter Simonson reinvented Manhunter as a globe-trotting agent out to take down the Council. Roy Thomas would realize a childhood dream and take control of Earth-2 working on All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc. A new, youthful hero would be created with a major push in television and an action figure in Firestorm. Paul Levitz came onto Legion of Super-Heroes where he brought the team up from the rather juvenile stories of old into more angst-ridden while more mature themes accompanied the story, culminating into the team’s greatest story in The Great Darkness Saga where Darkseid returned for the 30^th/31^st Century. Duo Marv Wolfman and George Perez reintroduced the Teen Titans, adding to the cast characters Changeling (formerly Beast Boy), Cyborg, Starfire, and Raven, for the much lauded New Teen Titans. The Atom was transformed into a barbarian warrior stuck in a miniature alien environment for the popular series Sword of the Atom. DC Comics secured a license for Fawcett’s Captain Marvel franchise, bringing him back to comics and setting up two separate television series (live action and animated) with Filmation and placing him in the Justice League for the two TV specials for Hanna-Barbera called Legends of the Superheroes. They would also buy up most of the properties owned by Charlton when the publisher went out of business. The legendary Jack Kirby, after a falling out with Stan Lee, came to DC Comics with a multitude of projects, most notably the new franchise in the New Gods. Not everything went well for the publisher during this era, though. In an attempt to regain readers from Marvel who dominated the market’s audience, DC enacted a stunt called the Explosion that added over four dozen new titles to their line. A failure referred by insiders as the Implosion, almost three dozen books were canceled after they flooded the market.

Watchmen

The publisher would make a risky move in 1985, taking their multiverse concept and tearing it down to a single Earth during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, taking properties into new (yet familiar) directions. Some character revisions included John Byrne on Superman, George Perez on Wonder Woman, Frank Miller on Batman, and Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire on Justice League (with writer John Ostrander reinventing the Suicide Squad with a group of super-villains). DC adopted a new darker tone, driven partly by what is called their British Invasion (heralding back the term applied for the emergence of bands like the Beatles and Rolling Stones in America). Popular creators like Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, and Brian Bolland made the trek to America producing innovative, new works like Swamp Thing, Sandman, and Animal Man (with Moore’s dystopian work V for Vendetta republished in the US). America wasn’t without its own writers able to get grim as Frank Miller penned the widely-successful Batman: The Dark Knight Returns featuring a nihilistic future where Batman is a bitter, old man who saw his years of work reduced to a memory and the only remaining superhero, Superman, became a moronic puppet for the US president, forcing the Caped Crusader back into action. Later, comic readers would vote to see the Joker kill the then-Robin Jason Todd slain in Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo’s A Death in the Family. Moore would team with Bolland to produce Batman: The Killing Joke, often regarded as the greatest Batman story, as the Joker escalates his battle with Batman by kidnapping Commissioner Gordon and shooting his daughter Barbara (secretly Batgirl), crippling her. Moore also penned what is often regarded as Superman’s two greatest stories during this period: For the Man Who Has Everything and Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? However, likely the work most identified with Moore would be his collaboration with Dave Gibbons on the mini-series Watchmen (using modified versions of the heroes DC acquired from Charlton). Set in a perilous time in America’s history when Democracy and Communism butted heads, the United States gave birth to the world’s first super-man in Doctor Manhattan, a godlike being capable of altering matter itself. While his presence virtually eliminated war, his growing disinterest in humanity threatened a nuclear backlash from Communist countries. All the while, some secret force appeared to be forming that threatened all of Earth’s nations and the world’s heroes. An after effect of the story is the perspective of what would be involved if real people became costumed heroes, of people with a thirst for adventure, violence, and perversion that their mask becomes a physical manifestation of indulging in their darker desires they likely wouldn’t dare to do otherwise.

Avengers #89

The Avengers, Marvel Comics’ flagship title featuring several of their most prominent properties, would be taken over by Roy Thomas who moved the team to its news headquarters in New York’s Avengers Mansion. In a period where stories were traditionally done in a single issue, Thomas penned the multi-issue arc Kree-Skrull War that saw the Earth caught in an intergalactic conflict that featured the shape-shifting Skrull infiltrate their world and replace those in power and the powerful Kree soldiers beat back the Earth’s heroes. The Avengers, Inhumans, and Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell) would join forces to repel the threat. Proving to be popular, it set the stage for more such stories such as Jim Shooter’s Avengers arc The Korvac Saga that saw a godlike being emerge on Earth and virtually every Avenger in the group’s history fight to the death to stop him. Roger Stern, not to be outdone, penned Under Siege featuring a virtual army of supervillains come together as the new Masters of Evil and came within a hair’s breadth of wiping out the Avengers. Stern would also pen the Hobgoblin Saga which introduced a new nemesis for Spider-Man after the death of Green Goblin that spanned over a year with an engaging mystery as to the identity of the calculating and ruthless Hobgoblin. This time period would prove to be a difficult one for Spider-Man, previously losing his close friend Captain George Stacy by Dr. Octopus and later the love of his life Gwen Stacy by the Green Goblin (leading to a battle between the nemeses that ended with the Green Goblin’s believed demise).

Iron Man #128

The Incredible Hulk would go through a tumultuous time, an arc written by famed Science Fiction author Harlan Ellison called Heart of the Atom saw the green behemoth transported to the sub-atomic world K’ai where he fell in love with and married green-skinned ruler Jarella but their love was shortlived when she died saving a child. Bill Mantlo would take on the Hulk immediately following this where Bruce Banner would finally be able to control the monster inside him. But, the change doesn’t last and the Hulk goes on a rampage battling Earth’s combined heroes and Dr. Strange is forced to send his former friend away. It was also Mantlo who explained Bruce Banner’s father abused his wife and son, which helped foster rage issues in Bruce, and the father experimented on himself which passed on to Bruce that activated when he was caught in a gamma blast, unleashing the Hulk on the world. Mantlo would also take on two licensed comics, Micronauts and Rom: Spaceknight, which become so popular they far exceeded the products the books were based upon. Under David Michelinie and Bob Layton’s pen, Iron Man became an alcoholic in Demon in a Bottle that placed him on a road to recovery fraught with potholes including the emerging Justin Hammer, going one-on-one with Dr. Doom, and his technology stolen during the Armor Wars and given to his enemies (leading Iron Man on a mad quest attacking every armor user bent on reclaiming his stolen property, regardless if he had proof of theft or not). The Squadron Supreme, an analogy to the Justice League of America introduced in the Avengers, received their own mini-series by Mark Gruenwald that took the next step in protecting Earth: conquering it. Virtually every ill to mankind was eliminated, but at the cost of personal freedom, even enemies of the heroes were brainwashed into becoming heroes themselves to help enforce order. A small band of freedom fighters carried on a secret battle with the Squadron, several infiltrating the organization in a bid to oust them and return the world into balance. Gruenwald would die due to a heart attack a decade later, he was cremated and his ashes mixed with the ink for a trade paperback collecting the mini-series. Other popular stories for the period was Jim Starlin building up Marvel’s cosmic mythology with Thanos, Captain Marvel, and Adam Warlock (in addition to his creator-owned Dreadstar), Roy Thomas and Barry Smith adapted Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian, Peter B. Gillis and Brent Anderson created Strikeforce: Morituri giving people the opportunity to have super powers but at a cost of a shorter life, Frank Miller introduced the assassin Elektra which took Daredevil’s heart only to lose her life to the hero’s nemesis Bullseye, Walter Simonson tackled Thor to critical-reception, and Jim Shooter penned the event Secret Wars seeing Earth’s heroes and villains fighting it out for a nigh-god’s amusement with an accompanying toyline.

X-Men #135

The greatest success for Marvel during the Bronze Age was turning the canceled X-Men book into what is today the company’s most revered franchise. Spearheaded by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum, the X-Men were given a shot in the arm when the original team was captured and Professor X assembled a new team from across the globe to rescue them (including today fan favorite Wolverine). The reins were handed off to Chris Claremont and John Byrne who composed what many today still consider the franchise’s greatest story the Dark Phoenix Saga where Jean Grey is possessed by the extremely powerful Phoenix Force entity capable of destroying countless galaxies. Forces on Earth and across space come to either control or destroy the Phoenix as Jean is driven mad from the experience, resulting in her believed demise. Claremont and Byrne continued with the critically acclaimed stories Days of Future Past and Proteus. Byrne would move on and Claremont remained to continue his meteoric run including God Loves, Man Kills, From the Ashes, Night Screams, Mutant Massacre, Fall of the Mutants, and Inferno. Claremont would team with Frank Miller to create a limited series for breakout star Wolverine before starting an ongoing series with John Buscema.

Miracleman

Just as in the Silver Age, while Marvel and DC dominated the industry, there emerged other publishers. New companies included Aardvark-Vanaheim, Antarctic, Atlas/Seaboard, Blackthorne, Comico, Continuity, Dark Horse, Eclipse, Fantagraphics, First, Gladstone, Innovation, Kitchen Sink, Malibu, Mirage, NBM, NOW, Pacific, Paragon/Americomics/AC, Renegade, Slave Labor, Vortex, and WaRP Graphics. Some notable indie series include Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor, Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith’s Arcade, Dave Sim’s Cerebus the Aardvark, Wendy and Richard Pini’s Elfquest, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!, Paul Chadwick’s Concrete, Bob Burden’s Flaming Carrot, Ben Edlund’s Tick, Hernandez Bros’ Love and Rockets, Matt Wagner’s Grendel and Mage, Bill Willingham’s Elementals, Mike Baron and Steve Rude’s Nexus, Mike Grell’s Starslayer and Jon Sable Freelance, Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo, Larry Hama’s Bucky O’Hare, Steven Moncuse’s Fish Police, Colleen Doran’s A Distant Soil, John Ostrander and Timothy Truman’s Grimjack, Ben Dunn’s Ninja High School, Mike Baron’s Badger, AC Comics’ Femforce, Warrior’s Marvelman/Miracleman, Steve Stern and Dan Cote’s Zen the Intergalactic Ninja, Dave Stevens’ Rocketeer, Scott McCloud’s Zot!,and James O’Barr’s the Crow. In 1978, visionary Will Eisner invented the graphic novel with his book A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories.

History for the American comic book has traditionally been broken into eras, known in the industry as ages, that generally denote some change in the approach, representation, and writing of the medium. This isn’t necessarily uncommon in any medium but it’s more discussed for comics because where many works go through progressive, gradual alterations, comic books have often had fairly significant leaps. So, lets take a look at this form of media as it progressed.

Hercules Clubs the Hydra

PRE-HISTORY

The history of juxtaposed, deliberate sequential art (from author Scott McCloud) and super-heroes have existed since early man. Cavemen paintings, hieroglyphics, and picture storybooks are just a few examples of the evolution of the comic book. Further, super-hero comic books have often been compared to modern mythology, which heralds back to cultures like Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hindu, China, Japan, Greek, Norse, and Israel who told stories and legends about miraculous people, often deriving from deities that fought monsters and protected the weak. It’s also been said that science is largely growing to become a replacement for religion (not to say I agree with this), where what we called Science Fiction is now more accepted to be called Speculative Fiction, simply because we went from perceiving Sci-Fi as a fantasy to, in reality, often foretelling areas our science would move towards (consider, space ships, the internet, and portable phones were the stuff of fantasy only some hundred years ago). Some early visionaries in this genre include Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Olaf Stapledon, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, and Isaac Asimov (though, depending on who you ask, someone like Nikola Tesla could be counted in this company). A confluence of several of these ideas, be it mythology, Speculative Fiction, or heroes in the vein of Mowgli, Robin Hood, or the Scarlet Pimpernel, gave rise to literary characters like Allan Quatermain, Nyctalope, Tarzan, and John Carter. These advents would give rise to the heroes of pulp magazines, comic strips, and radio serials.

The Shadow

Pulp magazines were cheap paper literature that featured prose stories with accompanying illustrations. Some of the heroes that came from these stories include Zorro, Doc Savage, Shadow (inspired by Carl Jung’s Shadow archetype), Avenger, Spider, Buck Rogers, Whisperer, Ka-Zar, and Black Bat. While stories differed between writers, characters, and publishers, pulps were generally known for violent, bloody conflict intermingled with horror, crime drama, and sex. It was something quite attractive to young men and the publication often catered to this audience. Comic strips ran the gamut from funny animals to cartoon comedy to science fiction to crime drama to super heroes. In fact, the earliest American comic books were often collections of comic strips in a single book (the Spirit, Mr. Mystic, and Lady Luck were created as part of a tabloid-sized comic book packaged with newspapers). The medium was generally a row of sequential panels printed in a newspaper. Some of the heroes that came out of comic strips were Flash Gordon, Phantom, Dick Tracy, Mandrake the Magician, Jungle Jim, Popeye, and Red Ryder. Before such things as film serials and television series, people often relied on radio serials they could listen to in the comfort of their home. As with television series that came after, serialized radio programs was comprised of various genres including hero stories. Some of the characters to come from radio were the Lone Ranger, Green Hornet, and Sky King (with pulp and comic strip characters making the transition to the audio medium). The progression from these mediums to comic books was a fairly smooth transition, with an early example being Little Nemo in Slumberland which was collected from a series of strips to a book. Everything, however, changed with the introduction of Superman.

GOLDEN AGE

Action Comics #1

Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, their original concept of Superman was a bald superhuman out to conquer the world modeled after Friedrich Nietzsche’s Übermensch (the philosopher’s idea adopted by the Nazi regime). The pair re-branded the concept as a hero with elements of Doc Savage: Man of Bronze and Philip Wylie’s Gladiator but no one was interested. Eventually, they moved on to work on other projects including hard boiled detective Slam Bradley (whose appearance largely mirrored the one used for Superman) introduced in Detective Comics #1 (March 1937). Years of altering the idea, their Superman would see print in National Allied Publications’ Action Comics #1 (June 1938) and created a phenomenon. While comics about funny animals, westerns, war, horror, romance, crime drama, and more would see print during this period, Superman exploded the superhero genre (coming to dominate the industry where nearly every comic book after the Silver Age and on was a superhero comic in America). The alliance between National Allied Publications and All-American Publications gave us the Atom, Sandman, Spectre, Flash, Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Green Lantern, Hourman, Starman, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Doctor Occult, Red Tornado, Mister Terrific, and Ultra-Man. Inspired by the success of Superman and seeking to create the next such hit, Bob Kane and Bill Finger created the Batman, based on ideas like Zorro, Shadow, Green Hornet, and Roland West’s The Bat Whispers (1930). The character would be a likewise success. Completing what is today called the trinity, when noted psychologist William Moulton Marston (who invented the polygraph) questioned the role of women in comic books, he was invited to consult at the home of Superman and Batman where he created the character Wonder Woman as a female analogy of Superman with artist H.G. Peter. However, the National Allied Publications/All-American Publications alliance wasn’t the only game in town.

Whiz Comics #2

The success of Superman gave rise to publishers such as ACG, Archie, Centaur, Charlton, Columbia, Creston, Crestwood, Dell, Fox, Harvey, Hillman, Holyoke, Lev Gleason, Nedor, Novelty, and Western. While few challenged the success of Superman, some companies managed to produce some successful franchises. Timely Comics, which produced a great breadth of characters, would give us Namor the Sub-Mariner, Human Torch, and Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s shield-swinging super-soldier US patriot Captain America. Quality Comics, another fairly popular publisher, gave the world Jack Cole’s surreal stretching slapstick superhero Plastic Man and brought Will Eisner’s revolutionary Spirit to comic books. There did emerge, however, a franchise that actually outsold the Man of Steel. Fawcett Comics in 1940 published a character named Captain Marvel, created by C.C. Beck and Bill Parker, which featured young orphan Billy Batson who, upon saying the name Shazam, would be struck by a bolt of lightning and granted the powers of six gods. The Marvel Family grew, adding Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr, Lieutenant Marvels, Uncle Marvel, and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny becoming a sales juggernaut and the most popular comic on newsstands. Selling an average of 1.3 million copies an issue with an issue released every two weeks during its greatest height and a popular film serial series premiering seven years before Superman made the transition, it was a lawsuit that ended up finishing the Captain Marvel media force. Superman’s publisher claimed Fawcett’s cash cow was in fact a copyright infringement on their property, taking them to court in 1941. After a lengthy back-and-forth legal battle and sales declining significantly for the Captain, Fawcett lost their court battle and agreed to never print their property ever again as part of a reduced settlement paid to National Comics Publications for almost half a million dollars in 1952 (Fawcett would end up going out of business the following year).

Tales from the Crypt

By the time Captain Marvel was taken out of publication, superhero comics were on the way out in general. Green Lantern, who took on a sidekick in Streak the Wonder Dog, would be pushed out of his own title in favor of the canine. Daredevil, leading superhero of Lev Gleason Publications’ comic book line, was pushed out of his book by his supporting cast in the Little Wise Guys. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, known today as the duo that created Captain America, would see their star-spangled champion shuffled out and found new success in producing the romance comic book Young Romance. Though Archie Comics published superheroes like the Shield, Comet, Web, and Black Hood, they found great success in the stories of an average teenager: Archie Andrews and his friends in Riverdale (and beyond in the case of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Josie and the Pussycats). With the end of World War II, there was virtually no interest in superhero comics, Superman about the only character that can largely still support an audience (with Batman’s titles remaining in print by only a thin line). War comics like Our Army at War, Western comics like Wild Western, Horror comics like Tales from the Crypt, and Crime comics like Crime Does Not Pay were the new guard. EC Comics, founded by Maxwell Gaines (who was the co-publisher for All-American Publications for its first six years and whose departure led to its official merger with National Allied Publications to become DC Comics) as Education Comics published funny animal and Bible stories until his death in 1947. When his son William, better known as Bill Gaines, took over the company, he drastically changed the publisher towards raunchy, graphically gory titles like Tales from the Crypt, Mad Magazine, Weird Science, Haunt of Fear, Vault of Horror, Crime SuspenStories, Two-Fisted Tales, and Frontline Combat which proved to be extremely popular with young children. American Comics Group, or ACG, followed suit with titles like Adventures into the Unknown, Forbidden Worlds, and Unknown Worlds. However, this rocket rise of success would largely lead to the death of the American comic book.

Seduction of the Innocent

Fredric Wertham, a psychologist examining deviancy in children, came to the conclusion comic books created a proclivity towards complexes in young minds in favor of crime and anti-social behavior. EC Comics was a clear target, showing near-nude women in suggestive positions, depictions of extreme violence, torture, and murder, and unethical behavior. Superheroes weren’t safe, either. Batman and Robin were seen as a homosexual couple promoting pedophilia, Wonder Woman often depicted bondage (her creator believing in domination/submission, sadomasochism, and concubines) which turned girls into lesbians, and Superman a fascist that reinforced anti-American behavior were some of what Wertham purported. His findings were published in 1954′s Seduction of the Innocent which led to senate hearings decrying comics and parents destroying the material in public book burnings. The industry crafted a self-regulating system for content called the Comics Code Authority (CCA) to try and save itself but the damage was done. About the only publisher that remained relatively unscathed was kid-friendly Harvey Comics with properties like Casper the Friendly Ghost, Baby Huey, Richie Rich, Little Dot, Wendy the Good Little Witch, and Hot Stuff the Little Devil. Otherwise, the comic book was virtually dead, sales plummeted to almost nothing and almost no publishers survived. Only a handful of superhero comics like Superman and Batman managed to eke out a living but they lacked almost any entertainment value for fear of again drawing the ire of parents and the U.S. government. And with this, so it seemed, the American comic book as it was no longer existed.

SILVER AGE

Showcase #4

Julius Schwartz, a Science Fiction agent for the likes of Ray Bradbury and H.P. Lovecraft, would end up coming to work as an editor for All-American Comics in 1944. All-American, of course, would end up merging with National to become DC Comics and published Superman and Batman comics during the attack led by Wertham which almost put the company out of business. In 1956, it was Schwartz’s idea to try and revitalize the superhero comic book. However, he felt this effort would best be supported by reinventing the stories with a Science Fiction twist and new, sleeker designs heavily contributed towards by the now legendary Carmine Infantino. Progress was slow at first (new Sci-Fi characters began popping up in the early 1950s like Captain Comet and Martian Manhunter) but the new approach exploded with Showcase #4 (October 1956) when Carmine Infantino’s redesigned Flash premiered erupting from the cover threatening to barrel into the reader’s face. The new direction was an official hit. Green Lantern, originally based on  Aladdin and the Ring of Nibelung (1813), was blended with elements of the popular E.E. Smith Lensman series. The Atom was reinvented, named Ray Palmer in homage for Raymond A. Palmer of Amazing Stories, could shrink into microscopic worlds. Adam Strange was an amalgamation of John Carter, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers. Hawkman became an alien peacekeeper from a barbaric, but scientifically advanced, planet. Superman was overseen by Schwartz’s friend (and fellow Sci-Fi agent) Mort Weisinger helping introduce elements like Bizarro, the Bottle City of Kandor, Brainiac, Krypto the Super Dog, Legion of Super-Heroes, Metallo, Parasite, the Phantom Zone, and Supergirl. Schwartz had taken over Batman in 1964, placing his mainstays John Broome and Carmine Infantino on the character returning him to his darker roots (dropping elements like Batwoman, Bat-Mite, and Ace the Bat-Hound). The Justice Society of America was reinvented as the Justice League of America, featuring the new cast of heroes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter which proved to be a huge hit. So much so, it’s said to have inspired another company to re-enter the superhero genre.

Fantastic Four #1

In 1961, failed comic publisher Timely reinvented itself as Marvel Comics. Publishing titles like Journey into Mystery (a horror/fantasy anthology) and Patsy Walker (humor comic), Marvel’s publisher Martin Goodman placed his wife’s cousin on trying to write a superhero team book capitalizing on the Justice League of America’s success. This man, then editor-in-chief Stanley Lieber, better known today as Stan Lee, agreed and collaborated with Captain America co-creator Jack Kirby to make the Fantastic Four, which drew inspiration from Kirby’s earlier work for DC Comics Challengers of the Unknown and the four elements (earth, fire, wind, and water). The work proved to be a huge hit, placing Lee in a position to co-create characters like the Hulk, Iron Man, the X-Men, Daredevil, Thor, Dr. Strange, Dr. Doom, Galactus, Silver Surfer, Magneto, Nick Fury, Ant-Man, Wasp, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Black Panther, Captain Mar-Vell, and Adam Warlock. Likely his greatest co-creation, however, would be the amazing Spider-Man. Crafted along with Steve Ditko, the tale of Spider-Man was one of a bullied youth gaining miraculous abilities but in becoming prideful, he lost what was most important to him. His tale spoke to the young people who read his story and his struggles were the same struggles as his readers, dealing with school and work and family and love, though of course Spider-Man also fought all kinds of supervillains. Of course, while DC and Marvel dominated the Silver Age, other publishers emerged during the period.

Fritz the Cat

In direct opposition of the Comics Code Authority, an underground movement emerged of generally self-published comics that flagrantly disregarded its rules, graphically depicting sex, drugs, and violence (though, their precursor in Tijuana bibles were produced underground since the 1920s, often depicting copyrighted characters decades before the internet meme Rule 34). A leading producer of this material was Robert Crumb, more commonly known as R. Crumb, with popular properties including Zap Comix, Angelfood McSpade, Fritz the Cat, and Mr. Natural. This movement, which included future Pulitzer Prize-winning Art Spiegelman, would gain some public attention thanks to Harvey Kurtzman, famous for Mad Magazine, and his magazine Help! Archie, ACG, and Dell continued publishing, with Archie producing new stories about Archie Andrews and his friends, ACG continued to limp along printing horror titles despite the CCA and created the popular character Herbie (though, it would close its doors in 1967), and Dell ended ties with Western Publishing yet continued to primarily publish adaptations of television and motion picture properties. Western Publishing became Gold Key and licensed properties from King Features, Hanna-Barbera, Warner Bros, Disney, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures, Twilight Zone, and Star Trek to produce comic adaptations as well as original characters such as Doctor Solar, Dagar the Invincible, Doctor Spektor, Mighty Samson, Tragg and the Sky Gods, Turok, Son of Stone, and Magnus, Robot Fighter (whose characters competed with those of DC and Marvel in popularity). EC Comics, wildly successful with their horror and crime books was all but dead during the Silver Age, but one book they produced thrived: Mad Magazine continued to sell well, better than comic books in fact (with production at well over a million annually). Warren Publishing managed to circumvent the CCA by printing their comics in a magazine format, producing horror titles like Creepy and Eerie. Today they maybe best remembered for the creation of the character Vampirella. Publisher Charlton Comics produced original content and superhero titles for characters like Captain Atom, Nightshade, Question, Peacemaker, Judomaster, and Thunderbolt, as well as updating the Blue Beetle (who was published at Fox Feature Syndicate and Holyoke Publishing previously). Even more popular were their war, racing, romance, western, horror, and sci-fi books. In time, Charlton would also snatch up several of Western’s licenses. Despite this new age of publishing, sales would never consistently reach their former heights where books were printed in the millions dipped to the hundreds of thousands annually during this period.

STAY TUNED TO COMIC ART COMMUNITY FOR PART TWO.

from Michael “Frick” Weber
Producer/Director
412.391.2900 x380
frick.weber@momlistens.com
MIND OVER MEDIA
Visit us at: http://www.momknows.com  & http://www.vimeo.com/momknows
strategy | video | interactive | print

East vs Western Comics

2D fighting games are big business. In a growing market of highly sophisticated video games with cutting edge graphics, many fans will still buy from traditional franchises like Super Smash Bros, Street Fighter, Tekken, and King of Fighters. Versus franchise games, be it inter-fighters like Tekken X Street Fighter and Capcom vs SNK or mingling external media like Marvel vs Capcom, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, and Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, look to dwarf their predecessors in popularity. While fighting games improve in graphics, they generally use the same engine meaning with some slight tweaks, you can just continuously update content. Pull in extra fans by adding the Versus franchise aspect and offer pay-for downloadable characters (DLC) and it’s like printing your own money. Imagine, now, mashing up two of some of the biggest media franchises on earth: Warner Bros’ DC Comics and Shueisha’s Shonen Jump. Home to some of the most popular characters in fiction, both companies have previously graced the fighting game genre. DC had Justice League Task Force and the aforementioned Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe while SJ has had Jump Super Stars, Jump Ultimate Stars, Battle Stadium D.O.N., and the wildly popular fighting game series of Dragon Ball and Naruto, a fighting game seeing these companies clash would be titanic (not to mention, imagine accompanying comic book, action figure, collectible card game, table top role-playing games, and cartoon series to exploit the monumental smack down). Lets take a look at some of the possibilities.

Superman and Goku

SUPERMAN VS DRAGON BALL

Walk into a comic shop, any comic shop, and innocently ask ‘who would win in a fight, Superman or Goku?’ and see what happens. Screaming, fist fights, rioting; perhaps I’m being overly-dramatic, but I’ve seen complete meltdowns, even among friends, over the answer. Now imagine this argument brought to the video game stage, be it fighting anonymous strangers on-line, friends sitting in the same room, or from an arcade game in a store and you wouldn’t have enough hours in the day for bragging rights. But that doesn’t even begin to touch on the possibilities of the surrounding cast becoming involved. Superman’s allies like Supergirl, Superboy, Steel, and Power Girl and his rogues like Luthor, Darkseid, Doomsday, Cyborg Superman, Bizarro, General Zod, and Brainiac against Dragon Ball’s Piccolo, Vegeta, Frieza, Perfect Cell, Dabura, Kid Buu, Gohan, Future Trunks, Uub, Tien Shinhan, and Krillin. These super-powered, intergalactic, world-shaking fighters can explode across the screen testing hand-eye coordination to its absolute limit for completely broken combos if you can just get the timing down and not shoot past someone’s character or throw an attack too early. Also, as Dragon Ball’s creator Akira Toriyama was a fan of Superman, elements of the Kryptonian’s backstory made it into the series which can be played up for laughs in a confrontation for a story mode. For example, Goku can mistake Superman for Toriyama’s parody character Suppaman or when Piccolo mentions he’s from Namek, Zod could think he’s related to the immortal, monstrous Phantom Zone villain Nam-Ek or Luthor and Dr. Gero can make a brand new Galactic Golem or raid Project Cadmus and make a Superman/Goku clone.

BATMAN VS NARUTO

DC Heroes United

At first, this seems like a rather one-sided fight. The world of Naruto is some complex amalgamation of martial arts, mysticism, and giant, super-powered animals so what chance would Batman’s cast have? Well, after playing Batman in Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, I would argue the Dark Knight has enough tricks up his sleeve to make him a real dark horse in this game. Just think Link from Super Smash Bros. Give Batman his batarangs, grapple gun, explosive gel, smoke pellets, freeze grenades, and stun rifle, and he’ll go toe-to-toe with Chidori or Rasen Shuriken. Many of Batman’s tools are explored and paired with other tools in Arkham City with characters like Robin, Nightwing, and Catwoman as other characters the player can employ in the game. These heroes, plus the heroes and villains of Gotham City such as the Joker, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Clayface, Bane, Deathstroke, Killer Croc, Deadshot, Solomon Grundy, Batgirl, Batwoman, Black Bat, Red Hood, Plastic Man, Black Canary, and Huntress could be viable candidates for the game. Of the massive cast of Naruto from Konohagakure and beyond, you could have the titular character plus Sasuke, Sakura, Orochimaru, Jiraiya, Tsunade, Madara, Pain, Kisame, Zabuza, Itachi, Killer Bee, Gaara, Kakashi, Rock Lee, and Yamato throw down for the game.

FLASH VS ONE PIECE

Shonen Jump Heroes

The Flash is use to dealing with a motley crew of powerful, motivated individuals that work well as a team which means the Straw Hat Pirates and their rival bands on the Grand Line would make a prime opponent for the Scarlet Speedster. In another life, Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Weather Wizard, Trickster, Captain Boomerang, Pied Piper, Mirror Master, and Abra Kadabra could have been a pirate crew to match the likes of Baroque Works, Arlong Pirates, Galley-La Company, Thriller Bark, CP9, Blackbeard Pirates, Whitebeard Pirates, or the Shichibukai. Sharing a similar issue as the Superman/Dragon Ball fighters, the Flashes would require paramount hand-eye coordination and timing but without the benefit of flight, instead running along the borders of the screen. Representing Central City, you have the Flashes, Kid Flash, Impulse, Elongated Man, Gorilla Grodd, Dr. Alchemy, Professor Zoom, and the aforementioned Rogues. For One Piece, you obviously have the show’s protagonists in the Straw Hat crew in Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Sanji, Usopp, Chopper, Nico Robin, Franky, and Brook as well as the Grand Line’s Marine Elites and a bevvy of candidates from the aforementioned pirate crews.

GREEN LANTERN VS BLEACH

DC Superheroes

The Power Ring versus the Zanpakuto. The Green Lantern Corps vs the Shinigami (Soul Reapers). When someone joins the Green Lanterns, they earn a power ring, one of the mightiest weapons in the universe. The Zanpakuto, on the other hand, are unique to each Shinigami, forged from their very soul generally taking the form of a katana. Both peacekeepers and agents of order, the Shinigami walk between the worlds of the living and dead to maintain balance as Green Lanterns fight evil and oppression across the universe. The greatest test to the Green Lanterns came in the so-called Blackest Night when the dead rose to turn the universe into a graveyard. With Nekron, lord of the dead, the door can be open for an alliance with the Arrancar to generate conflict. With Green Lanterns like Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner, Arisia, Sodam Yat, Soranik Natu, Boodikka, and Sinestro and other franchise characters such as Atrocitus, Bleez, Larfleeze, Atrocitus, Saint Walker, Indigo-1, Black Hand, Carol Ferris, Fatality, and Krona, the cast provides a lot of possibilities. With Bleach, characters like Ichigo, Rukia, Chad, Uryu, Renji, Yoruichi, Toshiro, Kenpachi, Rangiku, Hiyori, Ikkaku, Byakuya, Aizen, Nel Tu, Kaname, Gin, Grimmjow, Harribel, and Ulquiorra would be popular and capable fighters.

WONDER WOMAN VS CLAYMORE

DC Super Villains

A powerful female hero known around the world, Wonder Woman has been identified with female empowerment itself. The series Claymore stars an organization of powerful women that defend the weak against monsters. Wonder Woman, hailing from a warrior island of women as their princess, is an obvious opponent to Clare, protagonist for the manga series. The two casts mirror each other with powerful female characters. Wonder Woman’s friends and foes include Hippolyta, Donna Troy, Wonder Girl, Artemis, Phillipus, Ares, Circe, Cheetah, and Giganta. Some of Claymore‘s primary characters include, in addition to Clare, Priscilla, Miria, Deneve, Helen, Cassandra, Roxanne, Hysteria, and Galatea. Both franchises have mythological elements where Wonder Woman has battled monsters like Medusa and the Minotaur while the Claymore battle shape-shifting, flesh-seeking Yoma and monsters born from mixing Yoma and human blood.

And this just scrapes the surface. There are many popular Shonen Jump series to pull playable and cameo characters from: Cobra, Kinnikuman (M.U.S.C.L.E.), Dr. Slump, Fist of the North Star, Sakigake!! Otokojuku (Be a Man! Samurai School), Saint Seiya (Knights of the Zodiac), JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Bastard!!, Yu Yu Hakusho, Ninku, Hell Teacher Nube, Rurouni Kenshin, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Hunter x Hunter, Shaman King, Black Cat, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Buso Renkin, Gin Tama, D.Gray-man, Hitman Reborn!, Nurarihyon no Mago (Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan), Toriko, Beelzebub, Medaka Box, and Rosario + Vampire. Likewise, DC Comics has many teams to cull characters from including the Justice League, Justice Society of America, Teen Titans, Legion of Super-Heroes, Birds of Prey, New Gods, Outsiders, S.H.A.D.E., Secret Six, Zoo Crew, Secret Society of Super-Villains, Injustice Gang, Brotherhood of Evil, Legion of Super-Villains, Watchmen, Stormwatch, WildC.A.T.s, Gen¹³, Shadow Cabinet, and the Blood Syndicate. The possibilities are endless. Imagine the Justice League vs the Noah Clan, Teen Titans taking on the Vongola Famiglia, the Legion of Super-Heroes against the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, the Authority trading blows with Dark Schneider and the Riders of Havoc, or the Secret Society of Super-Villains going toe-to-toe with Behemoth’s 34 Pillar Division. Heck, a mini-series where Rorschach matches wits with Kira and his Death Note wouldn’t have to be connected to anything to get me to read it.

Battle Beasts 1 by Dan Brereton

The 1980s of the United States was a huge time for television animation, giving birth to franchises with toy and comic book tie-ins and whose effect is seen even today with properties like G.I. Joe (with an upcoming live action adaptation G.I. Joe: Retaliation), Thundercats (an updated television series currently on Cartoon Network), Masters of the Universe (a new comic book series recently announced for DC Comics), My Little Pony (a wildly popular new animated series on the Hub network), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (upcoming live action film and a CGI animated series for Nickelodeon). One such series is Transformers, currently airing an updated CGI animated version on the Hub in Transformers: Prime and three blockbuster live action films with a fourth announced in the future.

Transformers started out as a partnership between American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Takara. Wanting to expand to the American market, Takara offered Hasbro figures from their Microman and Diaclone lines to produce stateside and Hasbro created an entirely new franchise from these toys in Transformers. To help sell the line, Hasbro went to Marvel Productions to create a comic book and animated series (having previous success with updating their G.I. Joe toyline in this way). Just as with G.I. Joe, Marvel went to Sunbow Productions who would again go to the legendary Japanese studio Toei to create the animated series (a process repeated with later series including Jem, Inhumanoids, and My Little Pony). Transformers would prove to be a monstrous hit all around in America, but interestingly enough, the animated series would also be broadcast on Japanese airwaves with equal, perhaps even more, success. Unfortunately, the franchise largely died in America with the theater release of Transformers: the Movie where series star Optimus Prime was murdered and replaced, off-putting fans. While a brief third season and three-episode fourth season (setting up the line’s new expansion Transformers: The Headmasters) of the television series aired, it appeared interest had waned and the show was canceled. On the other hand, the series remained strong in Japan and Takara expanded the line with BeastFormers.

Vorin Minimate

As Headmasters featured humanoids using Transformer technology to wear exo-suits and merge with their robotic allies (expanded also into Targetmasters), BeastFormers were feral aliens that appeared as anthropomorphic beasts discovered by the Transformers and incorporated into their war with their own exo-suits. They would be introduced in the Transformers universe in the episode “Rebellion on Planet Beest” as part of the Headmasters series that went unaired in America. Takara approached Hasbro about bringing BeastFormers to America but they were hesitant to invest in the series, inevitably agreeing to produce the toys but distanced it from Transformers under the name Battle Beasts and opted out of any tie-ins to the line. The figures, two-inches tall, were similar in scale to the Kinnikuman toyline (known in America as M.U.S.C.L.E.) but featured suits of technological armor with a heat-sensitive hologram sticker on the front that changed to symbolize either fire, water, or wood making play with the figures similar to rock, paper, scissors. The line never took off in the US but did fairly well in Japan, as did its parent Transformers which lived on in follow-up animated series Super-God Masterforce, Victory, and Zone. The series would be resurrected on different occasions in both America and Japan, the earliest with the former in 1992 with Generation 2 and the latter in 2000 with Car Robots (known in America as Robots in Disguise).

Battle Beasts by Valerio Schiti

BeastFormers would live on in Japan becoming Laser Beasts with its fourth and final line before going into Limbo. Battle Beasts would make cameo appearances in the American comics for Transformers under publishers Dreamwave and Devil’s Due Press and starred in a four-issue comic book series from Blackthorne Publishing in 1988. Hasbro would allow the property’s trademark to lapse and in 2009 the rights were bought up by Diamond Select Toys, known for its Minimates toyline, who have infrequently produced figures since. It was recently announced at the C2E2 convention a new comic series for Battle Beasts will be produced by IDW Publishing written by Bobby Curnow and drawn by Valerio Schiti. For more information, visit the Battle Beasts website below:

http://battlebeasts.infernalmachinery.com/

It’s really tough since Tony doesn’t have insurance here. The medication is very expensive and hospital bill is paid cash 90% Our daily bill is around $1,500 even if we have some money it’s drained out already. I have a house here but the process of getting a loan would take time and I can’t be gone long away from the hospital.
As for Tony’s condition, I will give you a brief history and update – he had a stroke in the morning of Tuesday last week (we’re 16 hours ahead) The stroke damaged the brain. it has bleeding inside and they need to open up the brain but with so much medication they were able to stop the bleeding but the brain was swollen so they need to take the pressure out so they need to insert a tube to release the pressure but since I don’t want them to open up it created an hernia. His condition is so unstable. He got infection that they need to treat, his pneumonia, need to be watched because he’s having problem breathing and blood pressure on top of the heart. With too much medications his stomach bleeds. One on top of the other. Anyway. Any little help will be greatly appreciated.

I’ve been in touch with Neal Adams and he’s going to try to pull something together to help Tina and Tony.
I have some books signed by Tony on my website www.fantompress.net.  I’ve been doing Doc Savage related collectibles to help Bob Larkin whose wife is suffering from brain cancer.
Tony signed book plates for the Showcase Doc Savage reprint from DC and I’ll donate 100% of the profits from the sale of the Showcase books to Tony as well as 50% of the profits for anything else on site that you purchase.
Tina also is hoping to be able to send scans of some of Tony’s art that she will sell to help with their bills, so please drop me a line to get on the list to be notified when I get them.
If you have any questions, please send them to me and I’ll provide updates when I get them.

Thanks
Terry Allen docsavagefan@yahoo.com
www.fantompress.net

Jonah Hex #9

Villains

Top 10: Rogues Galleries by Jerry Whitworth

For the American comic book, superheroes reign supreme. It doesn’t matter if it’s DC, Marvel, Image, or any of the indies. Throw a cape or mask on someone and you got a much better shot than virtually anything else. But, superheroes are useless without another key component: supervillains. Alien invasions and gangsters are great padding, but we read comics to see colorful characters knocking down buildings or placing loved ones in perilous death traps. Imagine a comic book without a Dr. Doom, Joker, or Lex Luthor or a superhero without some Rogues Gallery, Sinister Six, or Monster Society of Evil to battle him or her. It’s a rather depressing notion because what’s the point of dashing off of rooftops or barreling out of a exploding building if there’s no one to legitimately challenge our hero when they survive? Lets see what villains stand atop all others. Though, before we begin, a little disclaimer: I’m purposely sticking to superheroes. With villains for heroes like James Bond, Doctor Who, and Dick Tracy, the list would be too challenging for me to cut to ten.

10. IRON MAN

The armor-clad scientist Iron Man is often troubled by likewise science-inclined enemies. Some of these foes included MODOK and AIM, Blizzard, Whiplash, Controller, Crimson Dynamo, Dreadknight, Iron Monger, Firebrand, Firepower, Force, Ghost, Justin Hammer, Killer Shrike, Living Laser, Mauler, Melter, Titanium Man, Unicorn, Ultimo, Iron Man (sentient armor), Sons of Yinsen, and Mallen. Chief among these, and Iron Man’s nemesis, is the Mandarin, who through use of ten alien rings of science beyond the ken of Earth as it is today formed a powerful China-based organization dedicated to bringing the villain more and more power. Another frequent opponent for the hero is the Maggia, an international crime cartel, whose leader Count Nefaria and his daughter Madame Masque menaced Iron Man for years. Other foes include Hawkeye, Black Widow, Grey Gargoyle, Spymaster, Whirlwind, Mandarin’s son Temugin, and Fin Fang Foom (a Makluan alien that looks like a dragon whose race created the Mandarin’s rings).

Iron Man Villians

9. CAPTAIN MARVEL

A so-called Superman clone, Captain Marvel found his origins in magic, closer to the roots of the Strongman hero archetype of old not only heralding back to Gilgamesh, Herakles, Beowulf, Samson, Hanuman, Raijin, and Sha Wujing, but the hero drew power from heroes (for example, deriving his strength from Hercules), like an avatar but from several beings rather than one. The myriad of villains to face the hero often derived their roots from either mystical origins, organized crime, or that of science fiction. From the magic spectrum, some notable foes include Ibac, Sabbac, Oggar, the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man, the Three Faces of Evil, Blaze (daughter of the wizard Shazam), Mad Mummy, Prince Lucifer, Sabina and the Council of Merlin, Captain Nippon, Darkling, the Four Horsemen, Niatpac Levram, Theo Hagge, and, most notably, Black Adam. A villainous version of Captain Marvel, Black Adam wore a similar costume to his nemesis (though, black in place of red) and also drew power from the gods, only for him it was of the Egyptian set. An earlier disciple of Shazam, Black Adam turned on his master and returned in modern times to battle his replacement. The villain would only appear once during the years the franchise was owned by Fawcett Comics, but when DC Comics licensed the characters in the 1970s he would be a reoccurring threat and reinvented today as a misunderstood anti-hero (still at odds with Captain Marvel). Black Adam would find peace by marrying the heroine Isis and mentor her little brother Osiris until the two were murdered. Adam’s wrath drove him to murder over two million people in the nation of Bialya and slaughter several of Earth’s heroes in a battle that spanned the entire Earth.

Among organized crime, Captain Marvel would find a challenge in dealing with Aunt Minerva and Black Beauty. The former was an elderly crackshot, widowed five times over, she sought Marvel’s hand in marriage and the latter a ruthless operator who killed a crime kingpin and took his role, her downfall came when Marvel tricked her into believing he was in love with her. A conman Marvel had to deal with was his own uncle, Ebenezer Batson, who threw him out when his parents died in order to collect his trust fund and tried to become his guardian when he thought he could gain control of Billy’s Shazam Inc from the youth’s faux-uncle Dudley. Captain Marvel would also deal with America’s enemies during World War II, facing the likes of the Axis Powers and agents like Nippo and Mister Banjo (similarly with Red Vulture during the Korean War).

Much of Captain Marvel’s challenges came from Sci-Fi villains, be it aliens, metahumans, or people empowered with super-science. Some include Captain Nazi (who crippled Captain Marvel Jr), Mister Atom, the Crocodile-Men, Mister Mind and his Monster Society of Evil, King Kull, Chain Lightning, Arson Fiend, Goatman, Evil Eye, Jeepers, and Zazzo. Captain Marvel’s nemesis is the mad scientist Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana. Having faced the hero more than any other villain, Sivana deduced his enemy’s secret identity early on and unleashed his science on the universe in his bid for ruling all of existence. Helping him is his beautiful wife Venus, his equally beautiful daughter Beautia (whom was the Empress of the planet Venus and her father used her to try and seduce Captain Marvel but in time became his ally), his Apollo-like and super-strong son Magnificus (who battled Marvel only to become a friend), and his brilliant other son and daughter Junior and Georgia who take after their father. Sivana has been reinvented over the years, at one time as Billy Batson’s stepuncle and a wealthy business tycoon akin to post-Crisis Lex Luthor.

Captain Marvel Villains

When Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles premiered on television, it began a phenomenon that has helped keep it in the American consciousness for almost three decades. Several series would follow shortly after that carried similar themes, be it purposefully or by coincidence, that nonetheless are forever observed as clones.

Click For Larger View

ZEN THE INTERGALACTIC NINJA

Created by Steve Stern and Dan Cote in 1987, Zen the Intergalactic Ninja was self-published under Zen Comics before being licensed to Archie Comics in 1992 for two three-issue mini-series. Archie would license Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of Mirage Studios from 1988 to 1995. The two franchises had similar origins, both fusing science fiction and martial arts (specifically ninjutsu) while published independently, leaving the rights to each property to its creators. As both ended up licensed at Archie, they also shared the legacy of accompanying toylines and video games. What is likely the most glaring difference is that a Zen cartoon was never produced (that and, of course, Zen never took off like TMNT). Zen started out as a genetic experiment on the planet Baltoon deemed to be destroyed but was instead raised by the Masters of Om in the ways of the martial arts. Zen would use these talents as a highly-paid mercenary. Zen’s image was revamped in a similar manner as TMNT, where both were violent but sanitized to be used with a young audience. For Zen’s adaptation for Archie, the toyline, and video game, it borrowed a theme from another popular franchise. Captain Planet and the Planeteers premiered in 1992 reportedly as part of a quest by Ted Turner to raise awareness of the environment and the affect pollution is having on it. Catching on with viewers, Zen received a nemesis in Lord Contaminous and his followers Sulfura, Oil Slick, Garbageman, Smogger, and Zen’s clone Orange Julius. To combat them, Zen, joined by Jeremy Baker the Starchilde, created the Recycled Heroes using the Recyclotron: Lawn Ranger, Pulp, Bottle Bandit, Can-It, and Lights-Out. Though, the concept seems more like the Toxic Crusaders to me.

Bucky O'Hare by dragnmastralex

BUCKY O’HARE

Larry Hama (G.I. Joe) created Bucky O’Hare in 1978 and published him in Continuity Comics in 1984, premiering the same year as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and nine years before Nintendo’s Star Fox. Leading the crew of the “Righteous Indignation,” Bucky battles the malicious Toad Empire out to conquer the United Animals Federation and the known Aniverse. However, the success of TMNT brought attention to Bucky as well, spawning an animated series, toyline, and video game in 1991. While Bucky shared a similar franchise treatment and origin in terms of coming into being to TMNT, they share little else but both being science fiction adventure series. The Ninja Turtles had martial arts and largely operated in New York where Bucky O’Hare operated a starship in space and emulated the likes of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. If anything, I would draw a line to Marvel Comics’ Rocket Raccoon created by Bill Mantlo.

Battletoads vs TMNT by JohnsDead

BATTLETOADS

Created by Tim and Chris Stamper for Rare, Battletoads was developed to rival the popular series of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. Telling the story of Rash, Zitz, and Pimple, Battletoads tasked with protecting Princess Angelica, daughter of the Terran Emperor, their mission becomes one of rescue when the Dark Queen kidnaps her and holds her captive on Ragnarok’s World. While the Ninja Turtles employed weapons and martial arts, the Battletoads were brawlers using cartoon-inspired exaggerated attacks. DIC Entertainment would also produce an animated adaptation, trying to likewise capitalize on the success of the Ninja Turtles animated series (something they would continue to try for later with Street Sharks and Extreme Dinosaurs). And while TMNT would crossover with fellow indie comic heroes like Miyamoto Usagi, Panda Khan, Cerebus the Aardvark, and Flaming Carrot, the Battletoads were part of a crossover video game with Double Dragon.

COW Boys of Moo Mesa

WILD WEST C.O.W.-BOYS OF MOO MESA

Ryan Brown, comic book artist at Mirage Studios that designed several of the character designs for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toyline and spearheaded a revamp of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures with Stephen Murphy (the two would co-create the Mighty Mutanimals), created the Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa television series for ABC in 1992. Set in the late 19^th century of the western United States, a meteor strikes the Earth raising a mesa above the clouds and those therein turned into humanoid cows and adapting a way of life more in keeping with the mid-19^th century. As crime became too much for the emerging Cowtown’s Mayor Bulloney and Sheriff Terrorbull, it fell upon the C.O.W. Boys (Code of the West), Marshal Moo Montana, Dakota Dude, and Cowlorado Kid, to return order (in reality, the mayor and sheriff being behind the rise in crime). In keeping with emulating the Ninja Turtles franchise, the series was supported by toys, comic book, and video game. The comic book, interestingly enough, was licensed to Archie Comics but it wouldn’t be until 2006 when the Ninja Turtles finally teamed with the C.O.W. Boys in Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Conservation Corps

CONSERVATION CORPS

Archie Comics, having the license to publish the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other licenses such as Zen and the C.O.W. Boys, would created their own comic book featuring anthropomorphic characters thanks to Dan Nakrosis and Paul Castiglia in 1993. The Conservation Corps was a three-issue mini-series printed on recycled paper with soy ink starring a quartet of elemental-empowered animals mutated by aliens for the purpose of saving the environment (throwing back to their previous adaptation of Zen which emulated Captain Planet). Stone Hedgehog, Firefly, Water Buffalo, and Greenhorn (and later, Skyshark) teamed with the Ninja Turtles in their first issue as they educated people about green living while battling the likes of aliens, robots, and cyborgs out to mine or pollute the planet.

Biker Mice from Mars

BIKER MICE FROM MARS

When Mars is turned into a warzone by the evil Plutarkians for its resources, three of the planet’s resident mouse-like humanoids escape only to be stranded on the planet Earth. There, they discover Lawrence Limburger, advance scout of the Plutarkians, as he steals the planet’s resources for his race. Unwilling to see their adopted planet turn into their former home, the Biker Mice from Mars take up arms to beat back Limburger. Created by Rick Ungar in 1993, Biker Mice from Mars lasted three seasons on air (not including its brief revival in 2006, perhaps prompted by the success of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles revival in 2003), a toyline, video game, and comic book series by Marvel Comics. Biker Mice may arguably be the most successful “clone” of the TMNT franchise.

Dinosaucers by Lobo Gris

DINOSAUCERS

While it’s up to debate what inspired the creation of Dinosaucers, with arguments made for franchises like Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Thundercats, I think people tended to draw the line upon discovering the rare Glasslite and unproduced Galoob action figures which appeared as some cross between TMNT and Masters of the Universe in design. Regardless, Michael Uslan (key producer for the Batman film franchise and animated series) created Dinosaucers for DIC Entertainment in 1987. The series tells the story of the civil war between the anthropomorphic dinosaur Dinosaucers and Tyrannos of Reptilon as the latter come to Earth to conquer the world and use it as a staging ground for building weapons and vehicles to conquer their home planet. The Dinosaucers, then, come to stop their cousins with the help of teenage Earth people the Secret Scouts. In the TMNT mythos, of course, there’s the Triceratons, and the Dinosaucers have a blue triceratops member named Tricero and the Tyrannos have the orange styracosaurus Styraco.

Click for Larger View

One of the major plot points of the first season of Young Justice has been who on the Team is the traitor. It’s brought to the attention of the audience every few episodes and lengths have been taken to cast doubt on several members of the group. But, who is it? Well, time will reveal the truth, but lets see if we can’t sort through the facts. It should be noted, the addition of members like Zatanna, Sphere/Super-Cycle, Wolf, and Red Arrow largely identify they can’t be the traitors because they came on the Team after the reveal of a traitor.

ARTEMIS: Daughter of super-villains Sportsmaster and Huntress, her father and sister Cheshire are both part of the League of Shadows, assassins working for Ra’s al Ghul of the season’s primary antagonists the Light. Considering her lineage, it’s a given she’s the spy. And yet, for this reason, she can’t be; too obvious. In the episode “Insecurity” it’s all but confirmed she’s not the traitor as her father tries to convince her to work with him. ODDS: 100-1.

RED TORNADO: The cyclonic android of the Justice Society of America and Justice League came on to chaperone the Team. However, Tornado was built by the villainous T.O. Morrow to infiltrate Earth’s heroes as his mole. Tornado would be the third such android from the inventor for this purpose, Red Torpedo and Red Inferno preceding him. While all three turned on their master, Morrow would eventually regain control of his first two androids and, for a time, the Team thought Tornado joined them. However, the hero fought his programming, freed his “siblings” and they won the day against Morrow’s latest android, Red Volcano. While it’s possible Morrow could somehow still be using Tornado as the mole, as the story has been touched upon already, it’s unlikely. ODDS: 50-1.

Young Justice

SUPERBOY: Created by the Light’s Cadmus Project and shares half of his DNA with Lex Luthor, prior to the addition of Artemis, Superboy would be the most likely suspect for being the mole. To make matters worse, Superboy is the only hero on the Team not mentored by his elder (Superman) and he recently accepted a gift from Luthor to increase his powers for an hour at a time knowing it was previously employed to track his location. Further fuel to the fire is that Superboy in the Teen Titans/Outsiders: Insiders arc of his comic book contemporary, Superboy was a sleeper agent for Luthor when, under a code-phrase, became the villain’s obedient slave. While Superboy would overcome this, he almost murdered his teammates before coming to his senses. But, as with Artemis, all of this makes him too likely to be the mole. ODDS: 25-1.

MISS MARTIAN: Touted as Martian Manhunter’s niece, it was revealed Miss Martian is in reality a White Martian. While the race is simply looked down upon in Young Justice‘s universe, in its comic book counterpart, they were the unquestioned antagonist in the Martian civil war. Miss Martian is so willing to retain this secret, she nearly killed Psimon in the episode “Image” when he threatened to reveal it and would then be in talks with the Light’s Queen Bee who knows her secret due to the incident. Further, it’s as yet known what alien races will invade Earth in the second season Invasion. Could the Martians be part of this enemy alliance? Read my article here on CAC “Young Justice: Preparing for an Invasion” and judge for yourself. ODDS: 20-1.

Click For Larger View

AQUALAD: Leader of the Team and son of former Black Manta henchman Calvin Durham (in the comics, son of Black Manta himself), Aqualad maybe the least likely candidate for being the mole. Such is especially the case that he’s been forthright with Batman, the group’s handler, with all information. And yet, its been said it’s always those you least suspect. Could Aqualad, an original character for the series, be working with Black Manta or Ocean Master or could his reports to Batman be co-opted somehow to use against the Team? ODDS: 15-1.

Click For Larger View

ROBIN: The unofficial second-in-command, there was some contention early on that Robin wasn’t made the Team’s leader but since this time, Robin has grown including accepting why he was not chosen (even begrudgingly leading the team at times Aqualad has been unavailable). Being the ward of Batman, who maybe Earth’s most dedicated hero, it seems unlikely of Robin as being the mole. And yet, in the comic book arc JLA: Tower of Babel (which was loosely adapted into the animated film Justice League: Doom), Batman’s protocols for defeating the members of the Justice League should they go rogue were stolen by his enemy Ra’s al Ghul which nearly resulted in the defeat of the group. This betrayal bubbled over into the Young Justice comic, the heroes becoming cautious of Robin at the possibility he could be watching them on the Dark Knight’s behalf. While the Young Justice television series is its own separate entity, it’s nonetheless based on source material. Could Robin be providing intelligence to his mentor that’s then hijacked by the Light, especially considering Ra’s al Ghul as sitting on the group’s ruling council? ODDS: 5-1.

Click For Larger View

KID FLASH: The sweet, innocent, and juvenile Kid Flash is the team’s heart and in some ways, while the program features many characters, the first season has been his journey from the team’s screw-up to becoming one of its most dependable individuals. It is completely inconceivable that Kid Flash can be the mole. And while this doesn’t make him either the best or worst candidate for being the mole, there is a reoccurring theme in the series that could prove to be his downfall. Its become a fairly common practice of trophies to be collected from villains in comics. Batman has them in the Batcave, Superman his Fortress of Solitude, Flash’s trophies in the Flash Museum, and a massive collection in the Justice League’s several headquarters. Kid Flash would carry on the tradition for the Team with a rather plain set of shelves, most adventures providing a new memento to display. With items such as Mister Twister’s eyeball and Cheshire’s mask, could Kid Flash have set up the means for the Light to spy on the Team without even knowing it? If that eyeball grows legs and blows up the Secret Sanctuary, don’t say I didn’t warn you. ODDS: 2-1.